Culture of English Speaking Countries - Week 8 - Cultural Communities
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 8 of the course Culture of English Speaking Countries for the bachelor's in English teaching at ULACIT. This week we will discuss new topics related to cultural communities, racial and ethnic diversity in the US, and also review Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions framework again to see what other insights we can learn.
Today's Goals:
- Analyze an American folktale to identify products, practices, and perspectives.
- Use Hofstede's Dimensions to compare Costa Rica's values orientations with several English speaking and non-English speaking countries.
- Interpret a culture learning experience of a foreigner living in Costa Rica.
- Discuss the intereactions between different ethnic and racial communities in the US.
Guiding Questions:
- What can an outsider's perspective teach me about my culture?
- How do individual communities within a culture relate to each other?
- How does the consideration of cultural communities add complexity to the analysis of regional or national culture?
Warm Up: A Hero
Click the group link below and follow your teacher's instructions.
- Group Link: CLICK HERE
Task 1: Folktale Analysis Presentation Demo
Now you will participate in a demonstration presentation about a popular folktale from the United States. This will serve as an example of what you are expected to do in your group presentation on July 26th.
- Folk Song: Click your group link below and follow the instructions.
- Group 1: CLICK HERE
- Group 2: CLICK HERE
- Group 3: CLICK HERE
- Group 4: CLICK HERE
- Group 5: CLICK HERE
- Assignment Guidelines: CLICK HERE
- Evaluation Rubric: CLICK HERE and find your group section in the document. Evaluate your teacher's performance using the criteria. This is the same rubric that will be used to evaluate your work.
.png)
Task 2: Group Recall
Let's take a moment together to recall the topics we explored last week.
- Acculturation Institutions: We discussed the role of schools as acculturation centers. What do you remember about what we discussed? In what ways does the institution of schools (preschool-university) contribute to the development of cultural practices and perspectives?
- National Symbols: We also discussed the power of national symbols to transmit cultural perspectives. What examples do you remember from last class? What examples of national culture have you seen represented in the symbols around you this week?
- Hofstede's Dimensions: We finished by looking at Hofestede's Cultural Dimensions model. What do you remember about it? How is it organized? What is its purpose?
- The Dimensions: Which of these dimensions can you explain? Which are you not sure about?
- Short-Term Orientation vs Long-Term Orientation
- Weak Uncertainty Avoidance vs Strong Uncertainty Avoidance
- Collectivism vs Individualism
- Femininity vs Masculinity
- Small Power Distance vs Large Power Distance
- Restraint vs Indulgence
Theory Break: Hofstede's Dimensions
- “Hofstede’s approach [to cultural analysis] is based on the assertion that people carry mental programs, or software of the mind, that are developed during childhood and are reinforced by their culture. These mental programs contain the ideas of a culture and are expressed through its dominant values (Lustig & Koester, p. 113).”
- “In the 1970’s (Hofstede) ... got access to a large survey database about values and related sentiments of people in over 50 countries around the world. These people worked in the local subsidiaries of one large multinational corporation: IBM (Hofstede, p. 6)."
- Hofstede began noticing trends among members of certain countries when he controled for different demographic variables leading him to discover and describe 5 (now 7) cultural dimensions which function like scales. Countries can fall somewhere on each scale between two extreme perspectives. Hofstede is emphatic that this model should only be used to describe cultures at the national level based on statistical trends in large data sets. There are considerable variations at the individual level when it comes to cultural perspectives.
- “Individual members of a culture may vary greatly from the pattern that is typical of that culture. Therefore, as you study these approaches to cultural patterns, we encourage you to make some judgements about how your own culture fits into the pattern. Then, as you place it within the pattern, also try to discern how you, as an individual, fit into the patterns described (Lustig & Koester, p. 108).”
Click the link below and go to your group section of the document. Follow the instructions.
- Group Document: CLICK HERE
Task 4: Etic Perspectives on Costa Rica Culture
For your culture journal this week you read a short chapter from book The Green Season called "The Autobus Diaries". Let's take a moment to explore this text and identify dimensions of culture that we found there. - Group Link: CLICK HERE
Theory Break: Whose Perspective?
- “Understanding perspectives, in my opinion, represents the most challenging aspect of teaching culture. The task, simply put, is to identify the perceptions, values, beliefs, and attitudes of the culture. However, culture consists of numerous communities, all coexisting under the same umbrella of national culture…some of them are in opposition – sometimes in open conflict… Given shifting points of view, how can language teachers hope to offer accurate explanations of cultural perspectives (p. 83).”
"The working solution I propose is to present alternative vewpoints as part of knowing why, or discovering interpretations. In simple terms, these can be defined respectively as culture as a unified whole culture as distinct communities, and culture as competing communities (p 84)."
Functionalist: Takes the broad view of culture, most often at the national level, using the nation as the focal point.
Interpretive: Does not address the notion of a national culture community. All culture, in the interpretive view, is local.
Conflict: Accepts that each community has its own perspectives but does not assume harmonious relationships among them, rather, they are in competition, struggling for influence, power, or control over the core institutions of society.
Theory Break: Cultural Communities
- Communities: "Communities consist of the specific groups of the culture in which members, through different kinds of interpersonal relationships, carry out practices in specific social and physical settings (Moran, 2000, p. 90)."
- Broad: Communities can be large and general.
- Nation
- Language
- Gender
- Race
- Religion
- Socioeconomic Class
- Region
- Generation
- Narrow: Communities can be much more specific.
- Workplace
- Neighborhood
- School Association
- Local Political Party
- Religious Social Club
- Sports Team
- Charity Organization
- Co-workers
- Family
- Communities and Social Institutions: "At the broadest level, the social institutions of the culture define communities and accompanying practices for everyone within the borders of the national culture. Economic, political, educational, health, and other institutions exist for members of the national culture as a whole. Accordingly, these institutions establish and maintain many practices that members of the culture need to enact in order to go about a large part of their daily lives (p. 91)."
- Community Dominance: "The social institutions of the culture and its systems tend to reflect the dominant cultural communities, that is, those groups that have the most influence (p. 91)."
- Co-Existing Communities: "Co-existing communities, in other words, are in relationship with one another in the national culture. They may be physically isolated from one another, or they may exist next to one another but be separate, with no interaction between them. They may have a harmonious collaborative relationship or they may oppose one another, possibly in open conflict (p. 93)."
- Terminology: The relationship between different cultural communites has been described using these terms:
- Microcultures inside a Macroculture
- Co-Cultures inside a Dominant Culture
- The Macroculture or Dominant Culture can also be referred to as:
- Mainstream Culture
- Umbrella Culture
- Core Culture
- Discourses:"Linguist James Gee calls these communities Discourses as a way of emphasizing the social practices they carry out: ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing. Gee contentds that individuals are members of many Discourses and that each one calls for a distinct set of practices for membership, what he calls an identity kit (p. 93)."
- Interpersonal Relationships: “Communities, therefore, in physical settings and social circumstances, form a basis for relationships in the culture. The kinds of relationships that members of the culture establish and maintain are connected to the kinds of communities in which members participate. Communities exist for a wide variety of purposes and they use certain practices to achieve their respective ends, which in turn affect the kinds of relationships that are possible or expected.”
- "The important point here is that relationships are practiced according to the cultural perspectives that underlie practices in these communities. Strangers, acquaintances, friends, romantic partners, rivals, enemies, family members, and group based relationships are all defined accordingly. In simple terms, you relate to people according to the norms, the unwritten rules, of that particular community (p. 93)."
.png)
Task 5: My Community Memberships
Click the group link below and follow your teacher's instructions to explore some of your community memberships.
- Group Link: CLICK HERE
Task 5: Ethnic and Racial Diversity in the US
For your journal this week you read an article about ethnic and racial diversity in the US. For better or worse, in the US, cultural communities are often connected to one's ethnic or racial background. Click the group link below and follow the instructions.
- Group Link: CLICK HERE
References:
Isenberg, R. (2015). The Green Season. The Tico Times Publication Group.
Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture: Perspectices in Practice. Heinle, Cengage Learning.
No comments:
Post a Comment