Transcript Culture - multiculturalresources

Culture
Julie Esparza Brown
Director, Bilingual Teacher Pathway Program
Portland State University
What is Culture?
• Culture is the sum total of ways of living
(Hoopes & Pusch, 1979).
• Culture is a way of life that is shared by
members of a population (Ogbu, 1988).
• Culture includes rites and rituals, legends
and myths, artifacts and symbols, and
language and history, as well as “sensemaking devices that guide and shape
behavior (Davis, 1984, p. 10).
• Culture is what one thinks is important
(values), what one thinks is true (beliefs),
and how one perceives the way things
are done (norms) (Owens, 1987).
Surface Culture
• Surface culture refers to
tangible things unique
to an ethnic group such
as:
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Arts and crafts
Historic events
Intellectual achievements
Daily living
Food
Holidays
Deep Culture
• Deep culture deals with
feelings and attitudes
one learns by being a
member of that cultural
group:
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Thoughts
Beliefs
Personal values
Interpersonal relations
Spirituality/religion
Details of daily life
Can Culture Be Learned?
What do you think?
Seeing Culture as a
Framework
• Culture can be viewed as a
“framework through which
actions are filtered or checked as
individuals go about daily life”
(Hanson, 1992) and is constantly
evolving.
Five Cultural Factors
• Bennett (1990) identifies five cultural
factors that influence learning:
– Childhood socialization: childrearing
practices
– Sociocultural tightness: high- and lowcontext cultures
– Ecological adaptation: learning styles or the
way in which individuals receive and process
information
– Biological effects: nutrition, physical
development, and brain development
– Language: pronunciation, vocabulary,
rhythm, pacing, inflection; spoken and
unspoken language, direct and indirect
communication styles.
Making Meaning
Read this passage one time only:
Rocky slowly got up from the mat, planning his escape. He
hesitated a moment and thought. Things were not going well.
What bothered him most was being held, especially since the
charge against him had been weak. He considered his present
situation. The lock that held him was strong but he thought he
could break it. He knew, however, that his timing would have to
be perfect. Rocky was aware that it was because of his early
roughness that he had been penalized so severely – much too
severely from his point of view. The situation was becoming
frustrating; the pressure had been grinding on him for too long.
He was being ridden unmercifully. Rocky was getting angry
now. He felt he was ready to make his move. He knew that his
success or failure would depend on what he did in the next few
seconds.
Summarize what you’ve just read in two or three sentences?
Is your summary like your neighbor’s summary?
Generalizations vs.
Stereotypes
• Generalizations
– Categorizing most members of a
group as having similar
characteristics
– Based on research or widespread
observation
– Flexible and open to new information
Generalizations vs.
Stereotypes
• Stereotypes
– Categorizing all members of a group
as having the same characteristics
– May or may not be based on fact
– Tend to be inflexible and closed to
new information
Cultural Variables
• Ten cultural variables
form the foundation
for most of our
behavior and
influence
interpersonal
behavior. Many of
these variables are
common across both
majority and nonmajority groups, but
some of them differ.
These differences
might be quite subtle,
yet very troublesome.
Nature
Time
Action
Communication
Space
Power
Individualism
Competitiveness
Structure
Formality
Where We Learn Culture
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Family
School
Religion
Media
Peers, Colleagues
History & Geography
Art, Literature & Music
Government
Cultural Learning
• Cultural understanding in one’s first culture is
typically established by age 5
• Children learn new cultural patterns more easily
than adults
• Values are determined by one’s first culture and
may have to be revised to be effective in a
second culture
• Understanding one’s first culture intro-duces
errors in interpreting the second
• Long-standing behavior patterns are typically
used to express one’s deepest values
Cultural Differences
• Within-group differences are as
great as across-group differences
• No cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or
racial group is monolithic
• There is a wide variation in
attitudes, beliefs and behaviors
within cultures
U.S.A. Majority Culture
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Nature:
Time:
Action:
Communication:
Space:
Power:
Individualism:
Competitivenes:
Structure:
Formality:
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must be controlled
single-focused,present/future
active, “doing”
low context
private
equality
Individualistic
competitive
high structure
informal
Dominant American Values
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Individuality and privacy are important
Belief in equality of all individuals
Informality in interactions preferred
Emphasis on future, change and progress
Belief in the general goodness of humanity
Emphasis on time and punctuality
High regard for achievement, action, work, and
materials
• Pride in direct and assertive interactional styles
Acculturation
• The process of adapting to a new
cultural environment as students move
from one culture to another
• Often progresses through these phases:
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Honeymoon
Disorientation
Fatigue
Recovery
Reconciliation
Variables Affecting
Acculturation
• Amount of time spent in the process
• Quantity and quality of interactions
(communication)
• Ethnicity or national origin
• Language proficiency
Types of Acculturation
• Type A: High Acculturation, Low Ethnic
Identity
– Lifestyles, values, language and culture are
mainstream
– May integrate almost totally into majority
culture
– Occurs over generations
– Family’s length of time in American and
reason for immigrating are factors
– Assimilation
Types of Acculturation
• Type B: High Acculturation, High
Ethnic Identity
– Individual is essentially bicultural
– Comfortable and knowledgeable
about both cultures
– Has friends and belongs to
organizations in each culture
– Integration
Types of Acculturation
• Type C: Low Acculturation, High
Ethnic Identity
– Individual retains high degree of
ethnic practices
– Expresses little desire or fear of
cross-cultural adaptation
– Rejection
Types of Acculturation
• Type D: Low Acculturation, Low
Ethnic Identity
– Includes “dropouts”
– Alienated from both the ethnic and
majority cultural communities
– May be drawn into an alternative
culture (i.e., gangs)
– Deculturation
Steps to Cross-cultural
Competence
• (Affective) Awareness of:
– One’s own cultural values
– Cultural differences
• (Cognitive) Knowledge about:
– Other cultures
– Impact of ethnicity on behavior
• (Behavioral) Skills in:
– Cross-cultural communication and interaction strategies
– Adapting strategies to fit cultural context
of a situation
Communicating with Diverse
Families
• Use understandable language
• Provide ample opportunity for
parents to respond
• Listen with empathy and
understand feelings can change as
parent’s understanding of programs
increase
• Use appropriate reading level
The New Three R’s
NOT Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic,
but:
• Respect
• Reciprocity
• Responsiveness
Respect
• Acknowledge differing perceptions
and worldviews
• Resist the urge to immediately
change either person’s
perspectives to match the others’
perspective
Reciprocity
• Builds on respect
• Seeks to balance the power between the
two cultures
• Acknowledges that the experiences and
perceptions of every person is of equal
value
• Recognizes that not one view point
needs to dominate or exclude a different
point of view
• Ensuring that every interaction is about
giving and receiving
Responsiveness
• Be open to allowing others to uncover
and display who they are rather than
shaping them into who we want them to
be
• Reframe assumptions and stereotypes
into hypothesis
• Test the hypothesis and ask questions,
begin dialogues; communicate
• Be willing to not know how to act or what
to say
White Privilege in Schools:
Is This Your Reality?
• Whatever topics my children choose to
study, they are confident that they will find
materials that link people of their race to
the accomplishments in those areas.
• My children know that they will always see
faces like their own liberally represented
in the textbooks, posters, films, and other
materials in the hallways, classrooms and
media centers of their schools.
White Privilege in Schools:
Is This Your Reality?
• The color of my children’s skin causes
most adults in school offices, classrooms
and hallways to have neutral or positive
assumptions about them.
• My children know that the vast majority
of adults in their schools will be of their
same racial background, even in
classrooms where many or most of their
fellow students are of races different
from their own.
White Privilege in Schools:
Is This Your Reality?
• When I visit their schools, my children
know that school staff members will
reserve judgment about my economic
class, my level of education and my
reason for being in the school until I make
them known.
• I take for granted that the tests used to
judge my children’s achievement and to
determine placement in special classes
have been developed with groups that
included significant numbers of students
who share our racial history and culture.
Pineapple
The following is an excerpt from Jonathan Kozol’s book, The
Shame of the Nation. Pineapple is a third grade AfricanAmerican girl from the South Bronx.
So it surprised me…when Pineapple asked me something
that no other child of her age in the South Bronx had
ever asked of me before.
“What’s it like,” she asked me,”over there where you live?”
“Over where?” I asked.
“Over – you know…,” she said with another bit of
awkwardness and hesitation in her eyes.
I asked her, “Do you mean in Massachusetts?”
“You know…,” she said.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Over there – where other people are,” she finally said.
Cultural Groups
What cultural groups are you a part of?
Remember:
• Within-group differences are as great
as across-group differences
• No cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or racial
group is monolithic
• There is a wide variation in attitudes,
beliefs and behaviors within cultures
A Hidden Culture:
The Culture of Poverty
• Oregon ranks 28th among states in the
percent of children who are poor.
• More than 1 in 10 children is poor in
Oregon.
• 14.7% of children under the age of 18 in
Oregon are poor.
Do you know how to effectively
communicate to a person who shares
your racial background lives in
poverty??
Cultural Survival Skills
Do you have these skills?
I know which churches and sections of
town have the best rummage sales.
I know which rummage sales have “bag
sales” and when.
I know how to get someone out of jail.
I know how to physically fight and
defend myself physically.
Cultural Survival Skills
Do you have these skills?
I know how to keep my clothes from
being stolen at the laundromat.
I know how to live without a checking
account.
I know how to live without electricity and
a phone.
I can entertain a group of friends with my
personality and my stories.
Source: Ruby Payne
The Benefits of Culturally
Congruent Education
• The school climate is open,
receptive, and reflective of students’
positive cultural values, norms and
home language.
• Difference is not seen as a deficit
and no students are placed “at-risk”
but are rather “at-promise”
The Benefits of Diversity
“(C)ognitive diversity is essential to good
decision making. The positive case
for diversity is that it expands a
group’s set of possible solutions and
allows the group to conceptualize
problems in novel ways…
Homogenous groups are often victims
of what the psychologist Irvin Janis
called “groupthink.”
Surowiecki (2004)
Closing Thoughts
“Culture is akin to being the
observer through the one-way
mirror; everything we see is from
our own perspective. It is only
when we join the observed on the
other side that it is possible to see
ourselves and
others
clearly…”
Lynch and Hanson