The process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values of their own culture, typically beginning in childhood and continuing throughout life. It involves learning to be a competent member of one's cultural group.
From 'en-' (into) plus 'culture' (Latin 'cultura', cultivation) plus '-ation' (process). Coined by anthropologist Melville Herskovits in the 1940s to distinguish learning one's own culture from learning foreign cultures (acculturation), emphasizing that cultural knowledge is acquired, not innate.
Enculturation is so powerful that it makes your own culture invisible to you - like learning to see through your own eyes! You absorb thousands of cultural assumptions so deeply that they feel like natural facts rather than learned behaviors, which is why traveling to different cultures can be so disorienting.
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