Increasing Levels of Cultural Awareness

“In our daily lives, we don’t interact with cultures, we interact with people” (Mackenzie, 2014). Intercultural communication exists in order to improve interactions and to predict the cultural dynamics that impact them. Cross cultural training offers a variety of concepts and skills designed to assist in the process of building and maintaining relationships across cultures. Cultural awareness is not a new concept in the military, initially the Marine Corps did not have a formal program providing cultural awareness training to its forces until recently. For instance, Marines in 2001 through 2003 did not receive formal cultural awareness training. Most units deploying to Afghanistan or Iraq prior to 2004 conducted their own cultural awareness

Thinking about which country and culture to choose for this assignment was a difficult process because there is a plethora to choose from! I decided to choose Spain as I lived there for a short period of time. Spain, is a country located in western Europe and is bordered by Portugal, France, and Gibraltar. It lies between the Mediterranean Sea to its east and the North Atlantic Ocean to its west. When trying to understand a culture from a foreign perspective, it is important to analyze the geography that makes up that country.

For my Cultural Facilitation Project I decided to recreate the Planning the Relief at Mammallapuram activity. On October 14 around 3:20 PM I arranged a small group gathering with my friends Vikas, Jackie, Wen, and Hannah at my house to help me with my project, the activity lasted until 5:00 PM. Before starting the activity, I had my participants read the text we had to read for our class, “Playful Ambiguity and Political Authority at the the Large Relief at Mamallapuram” by Pandma Kaima and view the picture of the relief as we did for our class assignment. My purpose of doing this was so that my participants could get an idea of what they were going to do the activity on rather than just telling them to start going into the activity without

Culture is a way of life inevitably intertwined within all civilizations since the beginning of human history. Handed down from one generation to the next, culture remains as a perpetually endless occurrence. Humanity has been involuntarily defining its regions, civilizations, and each its peoples and the respective geographical locations in which the inhabitants were born. Prosperous and thriving throughout the centuries, all ways of life continue to grow and develop as multiple factors, such as climate change, war, natural disasters, politics, and religion come into play. Beliefs, arts, and customs are primary in defining culture, yet many other major cultural characteristics contribute

Cultural self-awareness is strongly linked to development of a cultural intelligence for a number of reasons. Thus, this essay will critically reflect on what cultural self-awareness is and its importance on how it develops ones cultural intelligence. Before we discuss about cultural self-awareness and cultural intelligence, it is important to understand what culture is and how it impacts on our society. Culture is a complex subject that can be defined in various ways.

I decided to better my understanding and my cultural awareness on the country of Ireland given my family's Irish heritage. The island in the north Atlantic, and the northwestern part of Europe, has a rich history and a vibrant culture. It is important to keep an understanding of their culture because Ireland is not all too different from ourselves. Ranging from politics and social culture, Ireland does have a uniquely authentic identity developed through centuries of struggle. I find it is important to have a deeper understanding of their culture.

Cultural literacy is understanding the culture you are referring to, and therefore essentially understanding the market. For example, there was a successful vehicle produced by GM in the past called the “Chevrolet Nova” When sold in Mexico, the car did horribly. Reason was, GM did not notice the word “nova” in Spanish translates to “no-go” or “does not move” Of course a car named “does not move” will not do well. It is basically the last thing a car buyer would want to hear is a car named after the fact it can’t drive. Needless to say, the vehicle did not do well in the Spanish market. Cultural Literacy is nothing new, and has been a subject of concern for many years. Many doctors and professors have come up with different methods to try to

“Culture is seen as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and any capabilities and habits acquired by a person as a member of society” (Adler 18). Cultural awareness means developing compassion and understanding of another ethnic group. Soldiers must be cognizant of the importance of cultural awareness due to the Army mission of supporting national policies and interests. This means a soldier must be ready to be a part of a globally reactionary force and ready to engage with people of different cultures and customs. This research paper will provide soldiers with an understanding that will allow them to learn about all aspects of culture abroad and how those cultural awareness will play an important role into the tactical application of the operating environment. This paper will focus on the country of Syria and cover the following areas:

Christians should engage in the culture by being there for their community in the most beneficial ways possible. Cultural engagement has an amazing impact on anyone who chooses to participate. God will show up through the individual and their community to make it a better and safer place.

Cultural sensitivity refers to the awareness as well as the sensitivity to culture and other practices. Cultural sensitivity can encompass examining different cultures and how they should be accurately approached in the health care. It also includes how to communicate according to within the health care setting. Cultural sensitivity is important area because it can impact the way people work in the health care facilities. It also encompasses valuing differences so as harassment, discrimination, either intended or not. Culture is a fundamental and complex concept which consists of broad aspects of people in the health care setting (Campinha-Bacote, 2003). It includes the concepts of sexual orientation, gender, faith, age, disability, race, ethnicity, profession and socioeconomic status. Cultural sensitivity stems from this understanding in that; it’s inlcude interpersonal skill as well as the knowledge that will allow the providers of health care, appreciate, understand, and work with individuals from different cultures other than theirs. It also consists of acceptance and awareness of the people’s cultural differences, knowledge, self-awareness of the cultures of the patient and adapting to the skills. Many cultural groups, including lesbian and gay people, individuals with disabilities, lower socio-economic groups and ethnic minorities, for

Power/Distance (PD), “refers to the degree of inequality that exists- and is accepted- among people with and without power. A high PD score indicates that society accepts an unequal distribution of power, and that people understand “their place” in the system. Low PD means that power is shared and well dispersed.” (www.mindtools.com) As an example from the article, Myers goes on to say, “there were basically four levels: VP, director, manager, and worker bee. You only talked to people at your level.” SK Telecom boasted that

Life is a very complex thing. Throughout time we have seen the evolution of the human race. During that time people have had to adapt to their environment in order to survive. This eventually gave birth to the many customs and diversities we see today. As the children of these generations we tend to take this for granted. Since some cultures have evolved faster than others, we tend to forget the hardships our predecessors worked so hard to achieve. This is where understanding what culture awareness comes into play. If a person wants to truly honor their culture, they will constantly practice it. Respect should be the number one priority in every culture. People should be able to give their opinion, however it should never be given in an offensive manner. This is why cultural awareness is a huge deal within our world. No matter where one is, generations and sacrifice created the regions we know today. One of those regions that catches my attention is the Philippines.

Culture gets defined as the shared behavior that usually exists within a given group of people, and is known to have learned and develop with time through socialization in the families, social groups, and schools. This group of people has to reach an agreement for that culture to exist. Culture awareness, therefore is the understanding that someone has about the difference between themselves and other groups of people from other countries or even other backgrounds. It could be differences regarding their behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, norms and their values. Different people do things in a particular way; they view the world in various manners and even react to things in a variety of ways (Whittaker, A. 2010 ). Culture awareness in Italy is the focus of this paper.

7.442 billion is the number of people in the world today, but out of all of those people each is uniquely different in many ways such as gender, height, personality, sexuality, and even by their culture. Within culture there lie 4 components that make up a culture which includes values, beliefs, behaviors and norms. Each culture is different in its own way which means there is always something new to learn about other cultures that you have never experienced, and it’s important to have knowledge about other cultures because you will have a better understanding of how people do things differently around the world. Today I will be discussing Germany and many different aspects of its culture and why it’s important including geography, languages, religions etc.

Recently, one of my mother’s colleagues lost her father. The deceased lived in one of the urban areas of Nairobi and the family of the colleague saw it fit to bury their loved one the weekend after he passed. To them, this was an appropriate decision as any delays would rack up higher bills for the family and would be a waste of time. However, the extended paternal family of the deceased, who lived in rural areas, would hear none of it. It was their custom to mourn before burying their dead and would carry out this period as long as necessary. To them, a burial occurring soon after death implied there was something wrong with the deceased and that the family wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible. Cross cultural misunderstanding created complications in the process and the colleagues’ family eventually had to concede to appease the other.