THE ADJUSTMENT OF A PEASANT GROUP TO A CAPITALISTIC ECONOMY: THE MANITOBA MENNONITES.

This paper examines the question whether the adjustment of ethnic groups is necessarily through acculturation and increasing conformity, and whether the process will always result in the destruction of the ethnic group as a functioning social subsystem within the larger society. Changes in the behavior of the Mennonite group in Manitoba over a period of seventy years are analyzed as a test case. Ideal types for the parent and host societies are formulated. The early history and recent trends in the Mennonite colonies are described, and Dawson's 1932 conclusions about the acculturation of the Canadian Mennonites are reconsidered. The hypothesis that an ethnic group, particularly a rural group, will necessarily be absorbed by the larger society when forced to adjust itself to the capitalistic economy of the larger society is rejected. It is concluded that adjustment is highly selective, and that, by developing new behavior patterns and institutions unlike those of either the parent or host culture, an ethnic group may be able to prevent assimilation and continue to function as a distinctive social subsystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]