Cultural Relativism

1. Cultural Relativism DAY ONE

2. Before we begin… • We talked about how CULTURE can be described as the features of EVERYDAY LIFE • We also made sure to be careful with GENERALIZATIONS, or taking general information about a culture and applying it to individuals • Why? • Generalizations (are) and help to reinforce stereotypes. • Stereotypesare simplified, fixed beliefs about a group of people. They are untrue & offensive.

3. Cultural Relevance • It is ALWAYS important to view people from different cultures through a “cultural lens” • A cultural lens accounts for differencesin behaviors, beliefs, values, traditions, and personalities. • A cultural lens allows you to take in to account a person’s culture without ASSUMING anything about them. • It requires you to have knowledge and understanding of different cultures.

4. Cultural Awareness • Cultural Awareness explains that “many differences between people can be attributed to the influence of culture” • Being “culturally aware” is increasingly important as we become a more multicultural society • Why? • Learning about culture is fun and interesting

5. Warm up exercise: • Look at the following picture for about twenty seconds • See how much you can remember

7. So… • How much did you remember? • WHAT types of info did you remember? • Any metaphors? • You are likely to see and interpret different details—just as witnesses to crimes and accidents often differ as to the details of what they saw. • Just as people from different cultures view events, social situations, and behaviors differently.

8. Our picture metaphor shows that: • 1. People from different cultures view events, social situations, and behaviors differently. • 2. No two people see the same thing in exactly the same way. • 3. Culture influences how you see reality.

9. Important to note: • No two people see the same thing in exactly the same way. • All people bring to the situation their own values, beliefs, and life experiences—and powers of observation. • We all believe that we observe reality—things as they are • But what actually happens is that the mind interprets what the eyes see and gives it meaning

10. Thinking further… • In other words, what we see is as much in the mind as it is in reality. • Consider this: the mind of a person from one culture is going to be different in many ways from the mind of a person from another culture. • THIS IS THE explanation for that most fundamental of all cross-cultural issues: the fact that two people looking upon the same reality, the same example of behavior, may see things very differently.

11. CULTURE IS KEY! • Looking at Worksheet 6, let’s give our honest and FIRST reaction for each • What do we think? • NOW let’s take a look at Worksheet 7 with the same situations only WITH a CULTURAL CONTEXT • How have your responses changed?

12. Reflections • How would this information be important while traveling? • When else might it be important? • If you were to go to another culture, you would need to be careful not to make judgments about a particular behavior or custom until you understood the cultural context—and the reasons that behavior was accepted as "normal”.

13. More Reflections… • It's easy to misinterpret things people do in a cross-cultural setting. To keep from misunderstanding the behavior of individuals from another culture, you have to try to see the world from their point of view, not yours. • Why might it be possible for me to misunderstand individuals from another culture? • How can I learn to see things from another culture's point of view? Why is it important?