涵化(acculturation)指不同民族接触引起原有文化的变迁，涵化研究是研究不同民族的接触而产生的文化变迁过程及其结果的。

Acculturation is the obtainment of culture by an individual or a group of people. The term originally applied only to the process concerning a foreign culture, from the acculturing or accultured recipient point of view, having this foreign culture added and mixed with that of his or her already existing one acquired since birth.

However, the term now has come to mean, in addition, the child-acquisition acculturation of native culture since infancy in the household. A child's learning of its first culture is also called enculturation or merely socialization.

The traditional definition sometimes differentiate between acculturation by an individual (transculturation) and that by a group, usually very large (acculturation).

The old and the new additional definitions have a boundary that blurs in modern multicultural societies, where a child of an immigrant family might be encouraged to acculturate both the dominant also well as the ancestral culture, either of which may be considered "foreign", but in fact, they are both integral parts of the child's development.