Compare two different cultures or ethnic groups that you are familiar with in terms of the categories to which they refer.
Assigment – answer each with 5 to 6 sentences more where appropriate – Apa references – the reflective questions are also highlighted within the chapters in the book.
Book citation
Cushner, K. H. (2021). Human Diversity in Education (10th ed.). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US).
Chapter 3
Culture and the Culture-Learning Process – submit completely questions 1, 2, 3 and responses
Reflective Questions
1.Look back at Webb and Sherman’s definition of culture on page 82. Compare two different cultures or ethnic groups that you are familiar with in terms of the categories to which they refer. What categories are similar and which ones are different? How would you explain the differences and similarities?
2. Differentiate between objective culture and subjective culture. Can you provide two examples of each from the cultures or ethnic groups you identified in the first question?
3. Consider the 12 sources of knowledge described in the chapter. Complete an inventory on yourself. How might your inventory differ from one of your parents?
Chapter 4
Classrooms and Schools as Cultural Crossroads – submit responses completely to ONLY question 1
Reflective Questions
1. Reflect on the 18-theme culture-general themes introduced in this chapter. These themes are meant to identify issues that people are likely to encounter when interacting with people different from them. Using the following
sentence as a starting point, fill in the blank with each of the 18 themes and answer the questions accordingly. “Can you think of a time when _________ was evident in your life or in interactions with others? How might this have interfered with your ability to function effectively? When might it be an asset to you?”
Chapter 5
Reflective Questions
1. Return to the case study introduced at the beginning of the chapter. Where on the continuum of the DMIS would you place each of the individuals: Sue Murray, John Jameson, Rebecca Reynolds, and Joyce Maples? Justify your decisions.
2. Where on the DMIS would you place yourself? What criteria are you using to make your judgment?
Chapter 3
Culture and the Culture-Learning Process
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Hill Street Studios/Blend Images LLC
Focus Questions
How is it that you became the cultural being that you are today?
How have different individuals and institutions you have come into contact with influenced you?
How has the media influenced your cultural identity? Your religion? Your community? What other forces operate to influence your cultural identity?
What do you know about your own culture that you can use to better understand another culture, or that will enable you to talk intelligently about cultural differences with someone who is different from you?
“ No culture has ever developed all human potentialities; it has always selected certain capacities, mental and emotional and moral, and shifted others. Each culture is a system of values which may well complement the values in another. ”
RUTH BENEDICT
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Case Study
A Semester at Sea?
“4 months – 4 continents – 14 ports in 11 countries – multiple seasons – studying – traveling – touring. Biggest challenge? Pack into two suitcases! And we’re off!”
“So began my friend Carla’s Facebook post on September 4,” Susan shared with the class about halfway into the semester.
“Remember, a few weeks ago, I’d mentioned that I had a friend who was studying abroad? She, too, is studying to be a teacher at another university and decided to take the semester to learn about the world. She’s on this really unique study abroad program called Semester at Sea (www.semesteratsea.org) that allows her to take a semester’s worth of classes while living on a ship and traveling around the world. She’s in India right now. I asked her if she’d be willing to Skype with a few of us one night to tell us about her experience and what she’s learned so far. Anyone want to join this Skype call tomorrow night? It’s about a 12-hour time difference between us so she’d connect during her morning hours. I’ll order pizza if you’d like to come over.”
Sam, Joanne, and David all expressed interest and planned to join the conversation.
The next night, the four gathered at Susan’s apartment, and after quickly devouring pizza and salad, sat down by her computer to begin their Skype session. Carla logged on as planned—Skyping in at 7:00 a.m. her time from the port terminal close to where their ship was docked. Joining her for the conversation were Esther, Alice, and Alan, three other students on the program.
Susan began the conversation. “So, tell us what you’re doing, and why.”
Carla began, although there was a bit of a delay in their conversation, “Semester at Sea is a comparative international study abroad program that takes place on board the MV World Odyssey, a ship that sails for a semester, offering a variety of itineraries. The most popular voyage, and one that I am now on, is one that goes around the world. Our trip began at the end of August in Hamburg, Germany. We then set sail for Spain, Ghana, South Africa, Mauritius, and India where we are now for a week. From here we go on to Myanmar, Vietnam, China, and Japan before returning via Hawai’i to San Diego at the end of December. Each day the ship is at sea we attend classes. I’m taking a class called Global Studies that all students must take. This course is designed to teach us a bit about the countries we’ll visit, to prepare us to be better intercultural communicators, and also something about the oceans since we’re spending so much time on the seas. In addition to this course, I’m taking intercultural communication, a course in comparative education, and a course in comparative religions that should all transfer back to my home campus. Why, you ask? Because it’s pretty clear that we’re living in a complex global society that faces lots of problems. If we’re ever going to solve some of these concerns we’d better have good skills communicating across cultures and learn how to solve problems with those different from ourselves. And teachers, I think, are a critical part of this solution, so we’d better inform ourselves first!”
“How many are on the ship?” asked Sam.
“There are about 550 students this semester who come from more than 200 U. S. universities and 35 different countries. There are about 50 faculty and staff as well as a crew of more than 170 who come from more than 20 countries. Students come from all majors; we’re a few of those studying to be teachers.”
“What have you been experiencing so far that you think would help people become better teachers?” Susan asked.
Carla continued, “At the very beginning I was a bit anxious especially because I didn’t know anyone else who was going on the program. I had all kinds of questions. What would it be like to live aboard in a ship for 4 months? Would I get seasick, and if so, how would I manage it? Are there ‘seasickness’ days like snow days when classes are cancelled? What about homesickness? How would I react in all these different countries? What was I getting myself into?”
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“The first few days at sea were quite a challenge. We arrived in Barcelona, Spain, our first destination, half a day late due to rough weather that led quite a few—as many as 15% of the shipboard community—to encounter their first days of seasickness. I was lucky and not bothered too much by that. We stayed in Spain, our first international port, for 4 days—2 days in Barcelona and 2 days in Valencia. It was really exciting—the food was great, the weather perfect, and the people really friendly. I have one class that spent the first day visiting two schools. One was a local secondary school which was in some ways similar and other ways different from ones you’d see at home. The other school was an interesting international school that provided education to children from all over the world whose parents were living and working in Spain. I never knew these kinds of schools existed, but apparently schools like this are springing up all over the world. That’s something I think I might like to look into 1 day!” Monty Rakusen/Image Source
“From Spain, the ship went on to Ghana and then to South Africa – each of these trips took about 8 days to travel by sea. We were delayed once again departing from Capetown due to local storms. But these delays, as we are learning, are all a part of the experience—learning to accept the reality that we are all subject to the natural world, that there are some things that we are unable to control, and that we would simply have to accept and adapt to the uncertainties that lie ahead. I guess this is all good preparation for the uncertainty of living in a globally connected and rapidly changing world!”
David chimed in, asking, “What are some of your most impactful experiences you’ve so far on the voyage?”
Alice, a student from New York city, was the first to respond. “I had some really engaging experiences in Ghana. Back home in New York, people seem much less welcoming and interested in others, more often than not offering little more than a glance, silence, or at best, mumbling little more than a ‘hi.’ However, in Ghana, I was greeted with the complete opposite. Hands reached for mine, arms wrapped around my side, and words were spoken so fast I could not keep up even though they were speaking English. As I stepped out of the bus once we left the port, I was really surprised to encounter a group of people who seemed so happy to see me before they ever even spoke with me! Some of this may be because I represented a potential source of income if I bought something from them. But I also found that many people truly welcomed me to their country; they wanted to call me by my name and help me out by getting a taxi when needed—all the while holding onto my hand, something I’m really not accustomed to. As I walked around the Art Market and the surrounding streets, I was approached by all kinds of people. People would grab my hand, and occasionally kiss it, while welcoming me into their shop. Children would run up to our group and seek high-fives. Men would hold onto my shoulders and tell me I was beautiful and ask to visit me in the States. With each interaction, I became more and more uncomfortable and anxious.”
“And then I went to a family’s home where I was going to spend a night on a homestay. When I first met my host mother, she greeted me with a hug and kiss. We had only met 3 seconds earlier and she was already saying, ‘Oh-oh! You are here, and you are welcomed! We’ve been looking forward to you being with us for many weeks now.’”
“From the first we met she did not let go of my hand. She kept shaking my arm and telling me how excited she was and asking if I could spend more than one night so that she could show me her village and introduce me to her extended family and friends. I sat tense; I wanted my arm back; and wanted a protective bubble around my body. The night went on, and with each introduction a hug would follow. Although my body was still tense and uncomfortable, I became more understanding.”
“I stayed the night with this family. As I sat in bed journaling about my experience I focused on the friendliness of the country, as well as my discomfort with this friendliness. As I wrote, I realized how selfish I was being. How can I say I felt anxious in a situation that was meant to express pure happiness and authenticity? I was upset that I let my anxiety and discomfort with one situation shut me down. The family, and, in fact, the entire country welcomed me, yet I was uncomfortable with the way they interacted. But this is what they know. I realized that I needed to begin looking at things from a different perspective. I slowly realized that by no means were these people trying to make me uncomfortable like I may have thought at first. Instead, they were simply welcoming me and excited to show off their country.”
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“I’ve also learned that anxiety goes away the more you expose yourself to the things that make you anxious. The longer I was with the family and the more that was explained to me, the less threatening everything seemed. Anxiety, although not a welcomed feeling at first, is something I’ve found that is inherent not only in travel but in most intercultural encounters. And while I didn’t want to feel it, I also didn’t intend for it to get the best of me or rule my experience. It’s just something I have to learn to overcome, and I think this whole experience is helping me to do so. The longer I expose myself to the things that initially may make me uncomfortable, the more familiar they will become, the more accepting I will be, and the less anxiety I will feel. I think this is really important as we interact with more and more people who are different from us.”
“One thing I’ve learned as a result of experiences like this that I think would be helpful for all teachers,” Carla interjected, “is the fact that most people encounter a certain amount of ambiguity when they are engaged in intercultural experiences. When faced with ambiguous situations—meaning when things are not very clear, most people try to resolve them by applying their own culturally familiar criteria in the situation—which oftentimes is incorrect. A person who has a high tolerance for ambiguity is one who does not get too flustered when they don’t quite understand everything; they feel confident that with time things will become clearer and that they will better understand the situation.”
“Let me share a really confusing experience that I had just a couple of days ago soon after we arrived in India,” Esther chimed in. We were on a tour bus from Delhi to Jaipur watching the passing landscape when something caught my eye—a swastika symbol boldly painted on the top of a tall, pink building. My initial reaction was one of shock and I was really disturbed as I immediately put the symbol into the context that I was most familiar with, the use of the symbol as an emblem for the Nazi Party. We continued to see the symbol a few other times after that; engraved on a brick wall, displayed on a poster, and painted on the back of a truck. I was initially really confused, as well as a bit scared.”
“You see,” she went on, “I grew up Jewish in New Jersey, and this certainly was something I learned to associate with hate and genocide. Our tour guide explained that while much of the Western world has not condoned the use of this symbol since World War II, it remains a key traditional religious symbol in India as well as in a few other countries in Asia. The swastika has been in common use in Indian culture for some 3,000 years and is still used as a symbol today, representing health and good luck, the exact opposite of what most of the rest of the world associates with it.”
“Once I learned this interpretation of the symbol, I relaxed a bit and was better able to understand its purpose and meaning to the Indian people. Rather than feeling offended by the symbol, I found myself eventually accepting the symbol as a part of the Indian culture. It really surprised me how a simple symbol can generate such a reaction in me and yet have such a different meaning in another culture. By clearing up the ambiguity and overcoming my initial reactions, I gained a deeper understanding into the culture of the Hindu people in India. While reflecting on this, I’ve learned the importance of not making snap judgments about something until you have more information available as initial impressions can sometimes be wrong!”
Alan entered the conversation to offer his thoughts. “So far in this voyage, I think Ghana has been the most impactful country for me in terms of personal growth. The 4 days we spent in Ghana impacted me in ways that I had hoped Semester at Sea would change me. I was forced to confront personal prejudices that I honestly didn’t even realize I had, and that I now realize skewed the way I viewed much of the world.”
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He went on. “I’ve grown up in the United States in a culture and society that tends to teach us that our American lifestyle is the ideal lifestyle and that other people should aspire to live like us, and if they are not living like us, they are somehow ‘less developed’ and we must fix them and teach them how to live the same way that we do. Before arriving in Ghana, I never thought much about how harmful that perspective of other cultures could possibly be. After all, who wouldn’t want the comfort of reliable transportation, free WiFi almost everywhere, air conditioning, and well-maintained plumbing systems? What I didn’t consider was that these are luxury items to most people around the world, and they only seem ordinary or necessary to me because I was lucky enough to be born in a place where they are common, and now, expected. I went into Ghana expecting to see people living lives drastically different from my own. And, I thought I’d leave Ghana inspired to ‘fix the problems’ I saw there. I was correct in thinking that the difference in lifestyles would vary. But what I realized through reflecting on my entire experience so far is that just because a person lives a life different from my own does not mean that there is something wrong with it or that it needs to be altered or ‘fixed’ in some way.”
He continued, “On my second day in Ghana, I participated in a naming ceremony at a village called Torgome. It was hot; more than 90 degrees with about 90% humidity. We were there for a few hours in long sleeves and long pants, all sweating profusely. I was so ready to cool off. When we finally departed and headed off to lunch, we took our air-conditioned bus to an air-conditioned restaurant. I remember thinking, ‘Thank God! Air conditioning!’ And then it hit me! All the people I had just met at the village were still there in the blazing heat and sunlight. They were not here feeling the relief of the air conditioning like I was. I suddenly felt so guilty. Why did I get the privilege of sitting in an air-conditioned room and they did not?”
“It wasn’t until I was back at the ship participating in our first reflection group that I realized how privileged I sounded—feeling bad that these people wouldn’t get to cool down like I would in the refreshing AC. I had to step back and realize that when I visited that village I was not visiting a town in the United States; I was visiting a village in Ghana. I couldn’t possibly have the same expectations for two completely different places. The pity I was feeling at the moment for these people was not the same thing they felt for themselves. They don’t look at themselves and see poor villagers with little electricity, no running water, and no access to AC to escape the heat. They look at themselves and see wealth in each other, water that quenches their thirst regardless of whether it came from a tap or not, and that the heat is simply a part of the Ghanaian experience!”
“Home for me is in the midwestern United States. I don’t live year-round in the blazing heat; I have four seasons. It’s important to remember that when you visit new places, even something as simple as climate can change the way you view peoples’ experiences. I made the assumption that just because I felt that I was dying in the heat that these villagers must be as well. I felt so awful that they had to stay in the heat while I left for a more comfortable temperature. But just because I was comfortable in cooler air does not mean they would be. And I was wrong to think that this was a problem that needed to be fixed.”
“Humans have lived thousands and thousands of years without the luxury of air conditioning, so clearly, we can get by just fine. At home, we treat luxuries like air-conditioning as though they are completely necessary for our survival. We have forgotten that technologies like these are really new in the entire span of human history and that people did, and can, survive without them. We must remember that there are people in this world who don’t have access to luxuries like that, and that’s perfectly okay. They know how to live without them because they’ve done so their entire lives. And, in fact, their way of life may be much healthier for the planet-at-large. Sure, there are problems in this world, and some of them may need to be fixed. But there are also a lot of ‘problems’ that aren’t real problems at all—some have called them ‘First World Problems,’ and we don’t need to swoop in and ‘save the day.’ Maybe instead of trying to make others live like us that we should learn from what they do and try to live like them and remind ourselves that our way of life is not the only way, nor necessarily the best way of life. I’m grateful to have this realization, but as yet am not sure how I will translate it into new behavior. But I am thinking a lot about this.” Page 78
Carla interrupted the conversation, “Sorry to have to do this, but we’ve got to get back onto the ship to get our breakfast. The dining rooms close in 15 minutes, and then a couple of us have a field class today. We’re on our way to a village site to learn about Hinduism and traditional Ayurvedic medicine. But I’ll ask each to offer any other thoughts they might have as to why they think having an international experience like we are having is important for today’s teachers.”
Alan was the first to respond, “You know, I’m sure you’ve all seen television infomercials asking people to donate money to help starving children in Africa. We’ve all seen posts all across Facebook with pictures of people sitting on dirt roads who are so malnourished that you can see their bones. And we’ve all heard of the tales of people in other countries putting their children to work instead of receiving an education because that was the only way for the family to survive. Those images and sayings were all I’d heard before I arrived in Ghana, so that is what I expected to see. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.”
“My first day in Ghana proved to be so much different from what I had expected and forced me to dismantle all the preconceived notions that I had about the country. Once I set foot in the country, I saw an unusual beauty that the media seems to deem as ugly, I assume because it was different from their usual Western standards. I saw people laughing and enjoying life, as if they didn’t have a worry in the world. Ultimately this helped me understand their country better, challenged many of my preconceptions, and took away a lot of the prejudices I had. It also helped me to look at all the places we’re visiting through different eyes. So, I guess I’d say, having a personal, firsthand experience is really critical to developing good intercultural or international understanding. Step out of your comfort zone and experience the world so you can be an effective teacher.”
Alice followed, “I started this voyage thinking I needed to learn about other cultures. What I am finding out is that I also need to learn about myself within those other cultures.”
Esther went next, “Sometimes I felt like I wasn’t really in India. Then I realized, I just wasn’t in what I thought India was going to be. Once I let my preconceived expectations go, I was able to see India through different eyes that saw beyond what I thought I would see. Like Alan, I’d say it’s really a disservice if you think you’re going to teach children about a culture and people if you have never really experienced them yourself. It’s really much more than what a book can teach you!”
And with that, they all disconnected from Skype.
The word education is derived from the Latin word edu-care, meaning “to lead forth.” If we are to seriously engage in the education of students who will be contributing, collaborative, and proactive citizens in a multicultural, multilingual, and multifaith society, we must lead our students in such a manner that they understand the cultural basis of their own as well as others’ behavior; are cognizant of the conditions, both present and past, that affect people around the world; and are able to take the necessary steps to adjust to change, both in themselves and in the world around them.
Clearly, education is a broader term than schooling. Indeed, one of the difficulties we all encounter in talking about education is that it is pervasive in human life. Not often emphasized, however, are the actual settings, apart from schools, in which education occurs and the precise nature of teaching and learning in those settings. Yet it is in these settings—particularly in the home, the neighborhood, our houses of worship, and increasingly through various forms of media—that we acquire the language, knowledge, attitudes, and values that enable us to engage in the dramatic conversation called “culture.” It is in these settings that people develop the cultural identities they bring to their interactions with others, both within and outside of school. And it is through these settings that we must work to lead our students forward into the future.
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Giroux and Simon (1989) wrote about the importance of teachers understanding their own cultural identities and those of their students:
By ignoring the cultural and social forms that are authorized by youth and simultaneously empower and disempower them, educators risk complicity in silencing and negating their students. This is unwittingly accomplished by refusing to recognize the importance of those sites and social practices outside of the schools that actively shape student experiences and through which students often define and construct their sense of identity, politics, and culture (p. 3).
Exploring the Concept of Culture
One of the greatest difficulties people have when they begin to explore concepts related to cul
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