ABSTRACT
The related assumptions that sociocultural systems are characterized by an inner coherence and unity that is essential to their nature, and that this integrity is a salutary and valuable property draw on intellectual traditions that are more than two centuries old. Using cultural integration as a structural variable, students began to analyze the limits of the extent to which any culture could be called integrated. This chapter discusses the forms of cultural integration. The forms are: Configurational or thematic integration, connective integration, logical integration, adaptive or functional integration, stylistic integration and regulative integration. To state the normative problem in this fashion is to return to the scientific problem of analyzing and measuring cultural integration. Contemporary approaches are marked by a great diversity with respect to the forms, processes, and consequences of cultural integration. Common to all the approaches that have just been described is a conception of cultural integration in terms of coherence and harmony.
