Module Introduction
We are born into a culture. We are often also born into an ethnic subculture.
Our culture—and subcultures—provides the basis for how we perceive our environment.
We selectively perceive the world based on our individual experiences, our culture background, our education, our religious upbringing, our work experience, and so forth; in sum, we perceive the world from out past experience. We look at the world, not necessarily through “rose-colored” glasses, but through whatever colored glasses our past experience has taught us to look at the world through. It is primarily our enculturation or cultural upbringing that provides the tint for our glasses; that is, for our perceptions.
1. Learning About Our Own Culture
We
are born into a culture. This might be the
Italian culture or the Japanese culture or the American culture or any of nearly 200
national cultures around the world. We
might also be born into a regional subculture. That
might be the Tuscan or Sicilian culture in
We
are often also born into an ethnic subculture. This
might be the French-Canadian culture or the Afro-Cuban culture or the Maori culture of
In
some places different affiliations within the same religion might form part of a person’s
ethnic subculture. Catholics and Protestants
of Northern Ireland see themselves as coming form different ethnic cultures. In many parts of the
Enculturation is the process by which we learn about our first culture—and any subcultures that we are born into. It is how we are socialized and how we learn about the culture where we are born and reared. Our instructors in this enculturation process are our parents and other relatives, care takers like babysitters or nannies, religious teachers—priests, rabbis, imams, or whatever person is appropriate given our religious beliefs—our playmates and their parents, the media; the list goes on and on.
2. Cultural Perception
Our culture
provides the basis for how we perceive our environment.
Perception is the process by which we select, organize, and interpret
the stimuli that are assaulting us from our environment into a meaningful and coherent
representation of the world. Thus, it is
through our five senses—touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell—that we take in
our environment, attempt to make sense our of it, and in turn evaluate and make decisions
about the world.
We selectively perceive the world based on our individual experiences, our culture background, our education, our religious upbringing, our work experience, and so forth; in sum, we perceive the world from out past experience. We look at the world, not necessarily through “rose-colored” glasses, but through whatever colored glasses our past experience has taught us to look at the world through. It is primarily our enculturation or cultural upbringing that provides the tint for our glasses; that is, for our perceptions.
This
tendency to perceive the world through the focus of our past experience—our cultural
background—is in turn influenced by the attitudes, beliefs, and values we have
learned from our parental, religious, and educational upbringing, and the patterns we have
established and the expectations we have acquired as part of the enculturation
process.
In the Maxims, the French author and philosopher, Francois de la Rochefoucauld, put our tendency to perceive based on our cultural background fittingly and succinctly when he stated: “The accent of one’s birthplace persists in the mind and the heard as much as in speech.”
3. Cultural Perception (Continued)
One
of the most important effects that our culture has on our perception is on the
formation of our frame of reference or attitude set. To a very large extent our frame
of reference or attitude set is shaped by our enculturation. It is that unique set of beliefs, attitudes,
values, and past experiences that create a set way of looking and perceiving the world. Our frame of reference forms the basis for
how we interpret messages that we receive.
We often perceive things because of our wishes and desires. Simon and Garfunkle probably put it best in their song, the Boxer: “A man hears what he want to hear and disregards the rest.” Our wants and desires are also influenced to a great extent by our enculturation. Our culture teaches us what is important, what goals and aims are considered acceptable and appropriate, and what kinds of things are legitimate to want.
Because stimuli are
often ambiguous, we interpret the ones we perceive to decide what they mean to us. Interpretation not only helps us make sense of the
world around us, but also to make evaluations about it and to come to conclusions about
how to behave in it.
Perhaps the
most important aspect of interpretation is the notion that we have reference points for
our perceptions. We gauge everything that
we perceive against some sort of internal, mental—perceptual—yardstick. These reference points are based on other aspects
of our perceptual process, especially our cultural background, which helps create our
frames of reference, our motive and our expectations.
The reference points, which are generally fashioned by the enculturation
process, provide important ways for us to evaluate and give meaning to our perceptions.
4. Learning About Another Culture
The culture and any subculture or subcultures we are born into are also not necessarily the only ones we learn about. For any number of reasons, which we will soon see, we may encounter a different culture. Part of that encounter is learning about the other culture.
While enculturation is the process of learning about our first culture or subcultures, acculturation is the process of learning about a new culture. Acculturation includes taking on the characteristics or attributes of the other culture. It means adopting new ways of doing things, new habits, and probably new frames of reference and attitude sets.
We often learn about a new culture even before we get there, before we encounter that culture directly. This is especially true with the advent of the Internet. It is very easy to do a search on any variety of aspects of the culture we want to find out about. In some ways there is almost too much information for us to absorb about a culture we want to gain knowledge about.
When we do directly encounter a new culture, there are a number of ways we learn about it and become acculturated to it. Here are a few of the most important ones:
5. Learning About
Another Culture (Continued)
The acculturation process is one we go through when we learn about a new culture. We might not make an active effort to get to know the new culture, but we will become acculturated nonetheless. Getting to know a new culture is the product of a number of different factors, including the mass media and mass communication, popular culture, language, family, interaction networks, and propinquity.
Popular culture is one place that people learn about a new culture. What sports—participant and spectator—are popular? Are the arts—music, drama, dance, and so forth supported? Although people find out a great deal about other cultures through movies, what they learn may be distorted.
The language or languages that are spoken in a new culture gives us clues as to what the culture is like. Is there one dominant language? Which languages have official status? What are the idioms and slang that are common in that culture.
One example of how language tells us about culture comes from sports: “What is football.” This may seem like a simple question, but the answer is very different from country to country, even when the language spoken in the country is English. In England football means soccer, in the United States it means gridiron or American football, in Canada it is Canadian football, in New Zealand it is rugby, in Australia it can be either Australian rules football or rugby league (which is different from rugby), depending on which state you are in.
What this example illustrates is that language gives us an indication of what is important in each of these cultures. Each culture uses “football” to name the sport of its type that is the most popular in that culture, even though some of the others type of “football” are also played.
6. Learning About Another Culture (Continued)
Mass media and mass communication include television, radio, newspapers, and now the Internet. When we watch television, listen to the radio, and read newspapers in a new culture, we start to learn what the culture considers important. The news gives us a great deal of information about cultural perspective.
Many people become acculturated through family ties. Families share information about their perceptions concerning the new culture. Different members of the family have different links to cultural and societal institutions. This is especially true of children. If they are in school, they are part of one of the most profound socializing agents of the culture—and they take information back to their families.
Interaction networks, both personal and social, are an important way that people learn about a new culture. We often want to know about the new culture from members of our first culture who came before us. We check with them to see what their experiences have been and how they can help us learn about the new culture.
Such networks, however, can promote or inhibit acculturation. They promote acculturation when others give valuable information about how to negotiate the new culture. They inhibit acculturation when people find the networks so comfortable that they maintain most of their contacts with members of their first culture and interact very little with the new culture.
Propinquity has to do with the opportunity to interact with others. We learn from the people in the house or apartment next to ours, we learn from the grocer where we buy our food—we learn from everyone we interact with. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the quality of these interactions is crucial. If we are interacting with people in our new culture who do not like foreigners, the acculturation process will probably not be very positive.
7. Experiencing
Another Culture
The culture and any subculture or subcultures we are born into are not necessarily the only ones we encounter. There are any variety of ways we might encounter another culture from seeing that culture on television or in the movies, reading about it in a book or a newspaper, or hearing about it from friends and family. Perhaps the most significant way we encounter another culture, though, is by encountering it.
When we encounter another culture, we not only see what it is like, but we also have to interact with the culture as a whole. We see it first hand and we smell it, taste it, touch it, and hear it. We come to have a direct experience with a new culture—and with individual members of that culture.
There are many reasons we encounter another culture. We might want to be just a short-term visitor or we know the encounter will last the rest of our lives because we intend to remain in the new culture. We might even go to a different expecting to make just a brief stay, but remain for months or years.
The sojourner is a visitor to another culture. This visit might be for a short time or for a long time, but the mind set is that of someone who will go back to their own culture. Tourists, students, diplomats, and people doing project/programme purpose in another country are all sojourners. They intend to return to their own country once their goal has been achieved.
Sojourners
might be visiting another country for a very short time.
A tourist going to
8. Experiencing Another Culture
(Continued)
Longer-term sojourners are also visitors to another culture, but they generally have a great deal more interaction than do tourists. They generally live in the local culture and often work in the local environment.
These longer-term sojourners include students who attend school in another country for anywhere from a few weeks to a few years, project/programme purpose people who might spend a few days on any variety of tasks involving their job to several years if they are sent to work in a subsidiary or branch of their organization, and diplomats who are posted to represent government in another country.
Their encounter is with the new culture is much more in-depth than tourists have. Thus, they have more motivation and pressure to acculturate. Because they are more immersed in the local culture, these longer-term sojourners generally learn more and adapt more to the new culture. This is not always the case, however. Sometimes these people still see themselves as casual visitors to another culture, and therefore interact with the new culture as little as they can get away with. They might have staff who do their shopping and run their errands, they go from work or school to home, they associate with people from their own culture; essentially while they live in a different country, they have little contact with the new culture.
However, other longer-term sojourners take the opportunity to immerse themselves in learning a new culture. They learn the language, go to local markets, make friends with members of the local culture, and in many ways learn about and adapt to the new culture. The reality for most longer-term sojourners is that they fall somewhere in the middle between the two extremes of avoiding the local culture altogether and immersing themselves in it totally.
9. Experiencing Another Culture
(Continued)
Sojourners are not the only people who confront a new culture. Refugees also go from one culture to another, but they have left their own culture under duress. They are fleeing from some sort of adversity. That hardship is often political. Such refugees feel that their lives and those of their families are in danger if they do not leave. At times, the privation is economic. They are fleeing from destitution and poverty.
Whatever the cause, refugees often feel that they will someday return to their original culture. That might be when it is politically safe or when they have achieved some economic success that allows them to go back with a more comfortable lifestyle.
This
desire to return is not always realistic, but is frequently a part of the refugee’s
mentality. There are still many Cubans in the
Refugees have greater motivation and pressure to learn about and adapt to their new culture than do sojourners. Even though some refugees feel that they will someday return to their original country and culture, most do understand that they will be in their new culture for quite some time, perhaps even for the rest of their lives.
Immigrants are people who chose to leave their home culture and country to make a new life in another culture and country. They have made a free choice to move from one culture to another. Immigrants have the greatest motivation and pressure to learn about and adapt to their new culture. Although there are some exceptions, they want to become part of their new culture. For them the acculturation process is one that they see as an important part of adapting to their new circumstances.
10. Types of
Acculturation
Whether
as a sojourner, refugee, or immigrant, people who move from their original culture to a
new one go through the acculturation process to a lesser or greater extent.
Assimilation implies that in adapting to a new culture the person takes on the attitudes, values, beliefs, and customs of that culture. When assimilating the person does not maintain ties with the old culture, but rather wants to establish ties with the new culture. The person who assimilates is giving up many of the characteristics of their first culture to take on the characteristics of their new cultures. Assimilation involves unlearning much of the old culture while learning the new culture as a way to better fit in there. The person gives up the old, but takes on the new.
Integration means that the person wants to establish ties to the new culture while still maintaining ties to the old culture. The person adapts to the new culture, yet still keeps a connection with the original culture, often through ethnic associations in the new country. The person keeps the old, but also takes on the new.
Separation occurs when the person does wants to have as few ties as possible to the new culture, but maintains ties with the old culture. People who keep to their ethnic community for as much of their interactions as possible when in a new country would be one example of this type of acculturation—or actually lack of acculturation. The person keeps the old, but does not take on the new.
Marginalization means that the person does not establish ties with the new culture, but does not maintain ties with the old culture. The person gives up the old, but does not take on the new, so generally feels confused and alienated.
1. One of the most important effects that our culture has on our perception is on the formation of our
a. Values
b. Morals
c. Frame
of reference
d. All of the above
2. Perhaps the most important aspect of interpretation is the notion that we have
a. Our own separate thoughts and values
b. Reference
points for our perceptions
c. Free will
d. None of the above
3. We often learn about a new culture
a. Before we get there
b. Through the Internet
c. By doing research on it
d. All
of the above
4. The news gives us a great deal of information about
a. Cultural
perspective
b. Language
c. Family ties
d. None of the above
Matching the Columns (2)
1. Enculturation |
A. That unique set of beliefs, attitudes, values, and past experiences that create a set way of looking and perceiving the world |
|
2. Perception |
B. The process by which we learn about our first culture – and any subcultures that we are born into |
|
3. Frame of reference or attitude set |
C. One place that people learn about a new culture |
|
4. Acculturation |
D. A visitor to another culture |
|
5. Popular culture |
E. The process by which we select, organize, and interpret the stimuli that are assaulting us from our environment into a meaningful and coherent representation of the world |
|
6. Sojourner |
F. The process of learning about a new culture |
Answers:
1.) B
2.) E
3.) A
4.) F
5.) C
6.) D
1. Refugees |
A. People who chose to leave their home culture and country to make a new life in another culture and country |
|
2. Immigrants |
B. The person does want to have as few ties as possible to the new culture, but maintains ties with the old culture |
|
3. Integration |
C. The person does not establish ties with the new culture, but does not maintain ties with the old culture |
|
4. Separation |
D. A person wants to establish ties to the new culture while still maintaining ties to the old culture |
|
5. Assimilation |
E. Go from one culture to another, but they have left their own culture under duress |
|
6. Marginalization |
F. Involves unlearning much of the old culture while learning the new culture as a way to better fit in there |
Answers:
1.) E
2.) A
3.) D
4.) B
5.) F
6.) C
Summary
We are born into a culture. We are often also born into an ethnic subculture.
Our culture—and subcultures—provides the basis for how we perceive our environment.
We selectively perceive the world based on our individual experiences, our culture background, our education, our religious upbringing, our work experience, and so forth; in sum, we perceive the world from out past experience. We look at the world, not necessarily through “rose-colored” glasses, but through whatever colored glasses our past experience has taught us to look at the world through. It is primarily our enculturation or cultural upbringing that provides the tint for our glasses; that is, for our perceptions.
Test
1. ______ Acculturation is the process by which we learn about our first culture.
2. ______ Our culture provides the basis for how we perceive our environment.
3. ______ We often perceive things because of our wishes and desires.
4. ______ Because stimuli are not often ambiguous, we interpret the ones we perceive to decide what they mean to us.
5. ______ The culture and any subcultures we are born into are the only ones we learn about.
6. ______ Although people find out a great deal about other cultures through movies, what they learn may be distorted.
7. ______ Language does not help us find out what is important in different cultures.
8. ______ Many people become acculturated through family ties.
9. ______ Interaction networks, both personal and social, are an important way that people learn about a new culture.
10. ______ When we encounter another culture, we see what it is like, but we don’t have to interact with the culture as a whole.
Answers:
1. F – Enculturation
2. T
3. T
4. F – are often
5. F – not the only ones
6. T
7. F – gives us an indication what
8. T
9. T
10. F – also have to
Bibliography
Brislin, R. (Ed.). (1977). Culture learning: Concepts, applications, and research.
Glenn, E., & Glenn, C. (1981). Man and mankind: Conflict and communication between
cultures.
Harris, P., & Moran, R. (1996). Managing cultural differences.
Glossary
Enculturation - The process by which we learn about our first culture – and any subcultures that we are born into
Acculturation - The process of learning about a new culture
Frame of reference - That unique set of beliefs, attitudes, values, and past experiences that create a set way of looking and perceiving the world
Perception - The process by which we select, organize, and interpret the stimuli that are assaulting us from our environment into a meaningful and coherent representation of the world
Learning Objectives
Q&A
1. What
are some ways we learn about and become acculturated to a new culture we directly
encounter?
The most important ways we learn about and become acculturated to a new culture are through mass media, mass communication, popular culture, language, family, interaction networks, and propinquity.
2. How can interaction networks promote and inhibit acculturation?
Interaction networks promote acculturation when others give valuable information about how to negotiate the new culture. They inhibit acculturation when people find the networks so comfortable that they maintain most of their contacts with members of their first culture and interact very little with the new culture.
3. What are the four types of acculturation, and what do they mean?
Assimilation implies that in adapting to a new culture the person takes on the attitudes, values, beliefs, and customs of that culture. Integration means that the person wants to establish ties to the new culture while still maintaining ties to the old culture. Separation occurs when the person does want to have as few ties as possible to the new culture, but maintains ties with the old culture. Marginalization means that the person does not establish ties with the new culture, but does not maintain ties with the old culture.