HOW TO COPE WITH CULTURAL DILEMMAS IN AN INCREASINGLY GLOBALIZED WORLD?
It’s difficult to describe what the “culture” is, because it includes a lot of things and everyone has her/his own interpretation.
- Culture is not something that you have.
- Culture is created among the people, when they interact; is created all the time.
- Culture is the tacit knowledge, the meaning and values that we share -but we do not know it beforehand-.
- Everyone in a culture does know share the same values.
- Culture may not be seen as fix national cultures (homogeneous cultures).
- There are always different within a culture –there can be certain dominating logics, but not everyone agree about that logic.
- The cultures are constantly moving –and there will always be negotiations-.
- We are moving between several different cultures.
When we tried to describe it in the class, we disagreed in some points. But the result was something like that:
There are a lot of different cultures and as teachers we have to be able to include the differences in our classroom, not ignore these. Moreover we should make the pupils aware, tolerant and respectful with the differences of their classmates; if they learn to respect each other in the classroom, they’ll do it outside.
The point is to see all cultures equal, I mean every culture has positive and negative aspects, so you should see that your own culture isn't perfect. This is not an easy work, but I think it’d be good starting with a critical reflection of our own culture. It’d be a great idea using the text: “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner. Criticizing another culture is easier than do it with our own; the difficult point is to see positive things of the “foreign” cultures.
We learn by questions, comparing, so I think is important asking why: why is it different and what is different.
There are a lot of prejudices and stereotype, so we shouldn’t label people because their origin; just try to know, accept and understand others. It’s a difficult work do it with pupils; but we have to be a rolemodel.
WHY IS IMPORTANT TO BE AWARE OF AND HAVE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF CULTURE WHEN WE WORKING AS A SOCIAL WORKER OR TEACHER?
As a teacher, we should be aware to include all the diversity and don’t forget any pupil -if we forget someone, he/she won’t learn-. We don’t have to consider children as a homogeneous group, because it isn’t: there are many differences between each children; because the culture, personality, situation, etc. so we should be aware and create a good atmosphere to learn with the diversity and about the differences.
WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU SEE IN THE CONCEPT OF CULTURE?
Usually people see diversity or different cultures as a negative thing. But that point of view is wrong. However It’s true that is more difficult working with 20 different things than working with 1; but is richer. If you have 20 different pupils they can learn each other; but if you have 20 identical pupils... is the same to have just 1; they can’t learn anything.
So, this is the challenge: how can you include the diversity and get the positive part.
Moreover when two different cultures meet them, it can be conflicts, but we have to find the way to solve it. This is the second challenge.
IS THE CONCEPT USEFUL WHEN WE TALK ABOUT HUMAN DIFFERENCES? WHY?
It depends of your own understanding of that word; what it means for you. In my opinion culture is almost the same than human differences. Culture is created when a group of people interact and share a lot of values, traditions, language, habits, history… that people become “similar” and is classify, by generalization, in the same group because they created a shared culture. Moreover, there are differences between people who are in the same culture: individual culture, as a whole of a person is; how she/he is.
And when you compare two different cultures, putting together two groups or two people of different “culture groups”, human differences appear. It also can happen with two people of the same culture but with different beliefs, etc. because each person has his/her own individual culture, different of each others.
HOW IS THE CONCEPT USED WITHIN YOUR PROFESSION?
I don’t know why but I feel that in education’s world this concept is associated with a negative meaning. Maybe because it’s difficult working with many cultures or differences. It’s easier finding negative aspects than positive, but as teachers we have to change the point of view; if we want to include every pupil in the group.
