Intercultural Communications Post 3

The readings for this week had to deal with stereotyping, prejudice, othering, and culturism. The example the book mentioned was about a man that stereotyped a family on how they should act because they were Amish. The man never got to know the family, but only made judgements based on their appearance. They were a large family, weren’t exposed to the media, the girl’s had long hair, and the boy’s had long beards. Also, due to their religion and way of living the man had learned and seen through a movie “Witness”, the man was surprised when his wife invited them over to watch the news on t.v. Since the man had this stereotype of the family based on the little knowledge he knew, he made opinions about them before getting to know them. “Many argue that is is natural to form opinions and that they indeed help us to understand ‘foreign cultures’  that they act as a template or as an ideal type, against which we can measure the unknown” (Holliday, 2000; 25).  The book disagrees with this statement and describes this as othering. It is seen as othering because the ‘foreign cultures’ would be seen as the others, what is different. Although I do not agree it is alright to stereotype others, I do agree with the statement that it is natural to form opinions. When something is diverse and not something were used to, it is easy to categorize these aspects into a group with things similar to it. However, like the man did in the example, when one sees someone doing something out of the ordinary from what their “culture” believes or does, they all of a sudden have lost part of their “culture” and are not ‘really” from that culture. Instead of having the perception of them not fitting their culture, we should view them as their own individual and having their own identity. In today’s society people  are adapting to its change and progression. This does not mean that it necessary for them to loose part of their old identity or that they someone is not a “real Amish” or any other stereotype. This simply means that their identity is continuing to change as does everyone's. Our identities are continuously changing due to our experiences and that does not make one any less of anything that they may be.

In my classroom my students are all going to be coming from diverse backgrounds. Due to this they are probably going to be stereotyping each other because they are all different and not used to each others differences. In order for my students to not make these judgements based on first appearances, I will incorporate diverse cultures and ethnicity and do activities to show that we all have a lot in common and its our experiences that make us different, not what someone had categorized as. In that we can learn and talk about each others experiences. In what ways are our experiences related to others?

Intercultural Communications Post 2

The reading for week three was about identity and culture. Throughout the reading the book discussed how people did not necessarily like to categorize things under “culture” due to many wrong misinterpretations of who people really are. Instead the readings focused on the idea of  discourse, schemata, face and framework, social identity, and rhetorical devices. Many of the people did not like to associate with the term “culture” because it meant to describe how people behave in a given society. They preferred to use “cultural scripts” which articulated certain norms that people in a given society are familiar with. After reading I felt a little overwhelmed with all the diverse ways in which people had categorized a person’s identity and the idea of culture. There was so much thought put into the “roles” of people in different situations. Everyone does act differently in certain situations and sees things in ways other people don’t. I liked the example of how one would act at family dinner and act at a formal dinner. Since we understand what is expected of us at each of these and what is appropriate we act in different ways. For instance, in my family when we eat dinner together we wear comfy clothes, drink out of plastic cups, make jokes, laugh obnoxiously loud, and even put our elbows on the table. However, at a formal dinner these actions would be viewed as inappropriate. One would wear formal attire, speak and laugh at an appropriate level of loudness, and the conversation would not be as relaxed. This example provides evidence that sometimes people act the way in which  society wants and says is appropriate. This is normally what others see because it is at a public place. If someone were to be invited to a family dinner who only had seen this person act at a formal dinner, they would most likely be taken back at the actions in which they partake in with their family. Although we all act differently in diverse social settings and know that we ourselves act differently, it confuses me as to why when other people act differently it comes as a shock. I know I am guilty of it at times. However, because we are so used to basing our judgements off of society’s views and what we have learned from text books about others, we fail to see people as their own individuals. The connection I can make with this in my teaching is not categorizing my students and making judgements off of things that I have heard. I will get to know them on a different level other than just how they are supposed to act in a school setting or if they feel they need to act a certain way based on their “culture” due to them thinking they have to because that’s what society says. In order to do this I want to make my classroom a comfortable setting where everyone can feel welcomed and not have to worry about acting a certain way. I feel by doing this I will be able to build good strong relationships with my students and I will have the ability to know them as individuals. . How can you have your own identity if you are already given an “identity” based on your “culture”?