What is accomodation ? What are the types of accomodation ?

(a) Accomodation is an associative social process. It does not take place all of sudden or instantly. It emerges through interaction between individuals or groups.

(b) When interaction gives rise to conflict, it may persist for a considerable period of time. After a long period of conflict, individuals feel the urge for mitigating the conflict.

(c) Sometimes, both the parties understand that conflict is useless. It reduces their energy and money. They feel that long-term conflict is harmful to them. They look forward to some sort of co-operation to reduce the magnitude of their conflict more often than not their differences persist. In spite of these differences they try to adjust themselves. In this way, they develop the habit of adjustment.

(d) Moreover, individuals and groups do not exactly engage themselves over a long period of time in the same form and process of conflict. There is always alternation of behaviour and interactions with some adjustment of their relation with each other. This process of adjustment is called accomodation.

(e) R.K. Park and E.W. Burgers (1921) have urged that accommodation is a social process. Through this process individuals and groups make effort to establish harmony in the social environment.

(f) The process of accommodation emerges during the course of conflicting interactions.

(g) In this way, we can say that the process of accommodation is a conscious effort on the part of the individuals and groups to reduce the magnitude of conflict for realising co-operation and co-existence.

II. Types of Accommodation : The process of accommodation is of the following types :

Pressure, compromise, mediation, consensus and tolerance.

1. During the conflicting social relationships and interactions some pressures are exerted by the powerful individuals or groups on the weaker ones.

The weaker individuals or groups accept the pressure and thus adjustment is made.

There may be direct or indirect pressure by the strong or powerful individuals or groups. Under this situation, the weaker individuals or groups try to adjust themselves to aviod long term conflict as they find this conflict harmful to them. For instance, in our day-to-day life sometimes, we find that two neighbours develop conflicting social relations on some problems, which may be economic, social or of any other nature. For practical living both the neighbours try to minimise their conflict through adjustment. This adjustment is accepted by one neighbour since the other neighbour who is more powerful in the locality, may exert pressure on the former with the help of the other neighbouring persons.

The former neighbour, to aviod long-term conflict, accepts some conditions imposed by the other. In this way conflict is weakend and adjustment is made. There may be different processes and way by which adjustment is made and peaceful living continues in a society.

2. Compromise is another form of accommodation in which justice and rationality are seen in the process of interactions.

Persons or groups involved in competition or conflict for a long time may realise the harm of it. Both the parties may think rationally over the issues and both may sacrifice some of their demands. This may happen in our day-to-day life. Both may try to understand each other's arguments, demands, etc. from a rational point of view. They come to compromise on certain issues and try to minimise the conflict. This is what is called compromise - a form of accommodation.

Compromise is, thus, a conscious and rational action of accommodation.

3. Consensus on an issue by both the parties, individuals or groups, leads to accommodation. In social situations, consensus and compromise seem to be the same.

In modern society, accommodation is achieved through consensus. In the industrial sector, conflicts between the management and the workers with their short and long term demands are common. This conflict may sometimes lead to strike in the industry. Under these circumstances, the management and the workers and employees sit together for an agreed decision on their problems, demands and related issues. Usually through table talks, they come to a consensus. Once this consensus is obtained, peaceful interactions are restored and accommodation is possible.

4. Tolerance is third kind of accommodation. One of the best examples of tolerance leading to accommodation is found in Indian society.

Society in our country is heterogeneous. There are a number of caste groups, religious groups, linguistic groups, political groups and tribal groups.

Peaceful existence and living are inherent in the Indian social structure. It is basically based on tolerance.