What is culture?

Rememberings: The Roots of Our Voices Spring 2010

Some definitionsCulture as Knowledge• “Culture is the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and

generate behavior.” -- James Spradley,l anthropologist

Edward Hall's ideas and metaphors• Culture is the medium we live in, like the air we breathe.• Culture is innate but learned (i.e. we are born with the physical necessity and

capacity to specialize our bodies, brains, hearts in line with cultural patterns.) • Culture is living, interlocking system(s)--touch one part, the rest moves. • Culture is shared, it is created and maintained through relationship. • Culture is used to differentiate one group from another.

A word that means several different things• National / ethnic culture (meanings and behaviors groups of people develop

and share over time)• Secondary or subgroup culture

Exercise

Using a blank sheet of paper, begin drawing as many circles as you can think where you share meanings and behaviors with a group of people. For example:

Mybook group

My workplace

My faith group

My home country

My ethnic culture

Myfamily

Once you’ve identified some cultural circles, select one that is quite defined and make a list of some of the norms, values, and behaviors that define your cultural group.

Find a partner and share your list of cultural circles.

Spend time describing the one circle you selected to “unpack.”

Decide whether or not you would have an easy or difficult time “entering” each other’s cultural group. Why are some more “difficult” than others?

Nitza Hidalgo’s Concept of Culture as an Iceberg

Surface Culture

Surface level (Concrete)

Unspoken Rules (Behavioral)Deep Culture

Unconscious Rules - Symbolic

Hidalgo, N. 1993. Multicultural teacher introspection. In Perry, T. and Fraser, J. (Eds.) Freedom's Plow: Teaching in the Multicultural Classroom. New York: Routledge.

What sunk the Titanic?

Deep Culture

Surface CultureFood, dress, musicvisual arts, drama, crafts, dance, literature, language, celebrations games

Courtesy, contextual conversational patterns, concept of time, personal space, rules of conduct, facial expressions, nonverbal communication, body language, touching, eye contact, patterns of handling emotions, notions of modesty, concept of beauty, courtship practices, relationships to animals, notions of leadership, tempo of work, concepts of food, ideals of childrearing, theory of disease, social interaction rate, nature of friendshipstone of voice, attitudes toward elders, concept of cleanliness, notions of adolescence, patterns of group decision-making, definition of insanity, preference for competition or cooperation, tolerance of physical pain, concept of “self,” concept of past and future, definition of obscenity, attitudes toward dependents, problem-solving, roles in relation to age, sex, class, occupation, kinship, and so forth

Does our classroom have its own unique culture?

Only if we make it so.

What are the norms, values and practices we want?

To “co-construct” our classroom culture, think about two different classroom experiences you’ve had –

one that “worked” for you and one that didn’t. From these two different experiences, make a list of the

norms, values, practices that you believe are important to support learning?