What is a culture?
Different cultures have different
patterns of behaviours/ways and norms of living. In the
a. What does "we"
refer to?
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b. What does " their" refer to?
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Misunderstandings also happen
between sub-cultures in our own country. Such as between
white and black Americans, or between a small US Italian community and a Jewish
Community. Each sub-culture has new or different sets of behavior or
ways of living that may at times be perceived as wrong. This is where the term
Cultural Issues comes from. Issues arise when groups of people believe another
group is wrong in their behavior; we’re not aware of what healthy behavior is
for that culture.
a. Why do
misunderstandings happen between cultures?
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b. Why do we use stereotypes?
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We use stereotypes in part because
it’s so hard to take in all of the complicated information about other people
in the world. It’s difficult to spend the amount of time necessary to
understand why or in what different ways people behave. So instead, we learn
early in our lives to accept stereotypes of groups, or individuals. We develop
stereotypes not just for large cultures, but smaller ones; such as police
officers, Mexican Americans, women, or executive males.
a. What should we do to
understand other people and their cultures?
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b. How do
stereotypes affect the way we think and feel?
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Stereotypes eliminate the challenges
of understanding people who are different from ourselves; they supposedly give
us a general overview of whole groups of people so we know what to expect and
how to act. Unfortunately, so many stereotypes are inaccurate and are used as a
method of scapegoat, or to separate "their" behavior from "my"
behavior. Remember, we don’t always agree with, or like the way another
cultures behave because it is different, and we therefore perceive it as wrong,
and develop negative/ugly descriptions (stereotypes). When we have problems
with someone of a different group, we tend to identify the problem as having to
do with the group, rather than ourselves or the specific person. So stereotypes
do get in the way of how we think and feel. It makes us very judgmental about
others and unfortunately often erroneously so. Stereotypes prevent us from
identifying the feelings that are really going on inside us. With stereotypes, the
belief will remain that someone did something to us, rather than the problem, fear,
or rigidity/closed thinking being within ourselves. When we’re stereotyping we
get caught up in the issue of that’s what "they do", that’s how "those
people" are, instead of being in touch with our actual feelings of hurt, confusion,
being slighted, left-out, anger, etc.
a. Wouldn’t we feel more
comfortable if we were all the same?
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It’s doubtful. We don’t know that
there’s ever been a situation in which all people were the same. People are
individuals and we are all unique even within cultural bounds. It’s just a fact
of life that different cultures have developed. So people are different from
each other. And yes, if we are different enough, people can be fearful of the
differences. It takes more work to get to know people who are different from us.
a. What
does the writer mean by saying: " People are
individuals……..bounds"?
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b. What can we learn from
other cultures?
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There is so much to learn everywhere
in the universe, there’s no single culture that seems to have had a corner on
all the best ways to be in the world, whether that’s spiritual, dietary, the
way we work or organize our societies. It’s not well known, but the early
b. How
does language affect relationships?
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Different people and different
cultures use different words. Men and women also use words differently; even
when trying to say similar things. Jay Leno on the Tonight Show recently joked
that a study showed men and women interrupt conversations about the same amount,
except women do so to add support and understanding while men do so to add
their own story.
a. How much of that
statement is true?
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Language differences exist within
each culture as well as across cultural boundaries. There is a real problem in
how we communicate. It’s important to always keep a mental note of that, and to
make an effort to help others understand us better, and to ask others for
clarification when we’re listening and understanding their language.
a. How do languages solve
the problem of misunderstanding?
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b. What’s a healthy view
of cultural differences?
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It’s actually just an extension of a
healthy view of human differences. We are very different as individuals. However,
there are issues that create tension between cultures. For
example, the oppression of women in the
a. What does "they"
refer to?
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b. What does " our " refer to ?
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c. Is culture the same as
race?
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