The document discusses culture shock, describing its characteristic symptoms like anxiety, frustration, and withdrawal. It outlines the phases of culture shock from initial wonder to acceptance of a new culture. Tips are provided for helping families move through culture shock, such as making one parent available, creating structure and stability, and controlling technology use.
3. In your table groups
discuss:
• What cultural similarities do you find
between Filipino culture and what you
consider to be your culture?
• What do you find are the cultural
differences?
• Is there anything that conflicts?
4. What are we
talking about
when we talk
about “Culture”?
5. • a: the integrated pattern of human behavior
that includes thought, speech, action, artifacts
and depends upon the human capacity for
learning and transmitting knowledge to
succeeding generations.
• b: the customary beliefs, social forms, and
material traits of a racial, religious, or social
group.
(Merriam-Webster)
6. Culture is:
• Symbolic: a learned system of meanings
attached to objects and actions—and we react
to the meanings as much as to the things
themselves—it is the meaning that we read
into them that matters.
• Integrated: system of meanings that fit
together coherently and are extended in ways
that make sense to people in the culture.
• Arbitrary and learned.
10. • If you asked people from different cultures to tell you
what these symbols mean, they may each have very
different answers.
• Meanings are layered onto the symbols by
people, not somehow inherent in them.
• The meanings would seem random or crazy to
someone not familiar with the culture.
• Culture is socially constructed, a set of cultural
constructs.
• We learn to recognize something for what it is and
what it is not.
• Cultures may exist as subdivisions of larger cultures.
• Culture changes: it is constructed and re-constructed
in different ways, for a variety of reasons.
12. “We seldom realize, for example
that our most private thoughts and
emotions are not actually our own.
For we think in terms of languages
and images which we did not
invent, but which were given to us
by our society.”
Alan Watts
13. Cultural Universals
1. communicating with a verbal language consisting of a limited
set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences
2. using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior
citizen, woman, man)
3. classifying people based on marriage and descent
relationships and having kinship terms to refer to them
(e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin)
4. raising children in some sort of family setting
5. having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work versus
women's work)
6. having a concept of privacy
7. having rules to regulate sexual behavior
14. 8. distinguishing between good and bad behavior
9. having some sort of body ornamentation
10. making jokes and playing games
11. having art
12. having some sort of leadership roles for the implementation
of community decisions
15. “People are all exactly alike. There's no such thing as a race
and barely such a thing as an ethnic group. If we were
dogs, we'd be the same breed. George Bush and an
Australian Aborigine have fewer differences than a Lhasa
Apso and a Toy Fox Terrier. A Japanese raised in Riyadh
would be an Arab. A Zulu raised in New Rochelle would be
an orthodontist. People are all the same, though their
circumstances differ terribly.” ― P.J. O’Rourke
17. • Disorientation experienced when suddenly
subjected to an unfamiliar culture or way of
life.
• A characteristic set of specific psychological
symptoms caused by the stress of being
immersed in a foreign culture.
18. The characteristic symptoms
include:
• - anxiety, frustration, irritability, anger, hostility, depression
- from unease, to bursting into tears, to unjustifiable rages
• - constant complaining about the people, food, customs, etc.
- and an idealized memory of the home culture
• - paranoia
- excessive fear of being cheated, robbed, taken advantage of
because we often don’t really understand what is going on
• - withdrawal from social contact
- spending lots of time hiding in your room, avoiding contact
• - seeking the familiar
-seeking compatriots
• - seeking familiar foods - even ones we don’t normally want
• - focusing on returning home
- making, rechecking, confirming travel arrangements, etc.
19. Phases of Culture Shock
• Wonder (Honeymoon) New, exciting, curious
• Frustration (Crisis, Distress) Confused, isolated
• Depression (Flight, Re-integration)
Superior/inferior, angry, frustrated, hostile
• Acceptance (Autonomy) Beginning to feel like
ourselves again, more confident, coping easier
• Independence
21. Universal Stressors that
can trigger Culture Shock:
• Loss of the familiar
• Loss of friends
• Language barriers and unfamiliar
customs
• New school or work situation
• Household help and status issues
22. • If you and/or your children ever
experienced culture shock, how did
you know it?
• How did you deal with it?
• What was helpful?
23. HOW DO I KNOW IF MY
CHILD IS EXPERIENCING
CULTURE SHOCK?
24. • Physical symptoms are the most
obvious.
--Poor sleep, nightmares, change in eating
habits, headaches, stomach aches
--Frequent visits to the clinic
• Emotional sensitivity (crying, anger)
• Clinginess (separation anxiety)
• Behavior regression (acts younger than
his or her age)
25. WHICH CHILDREN ARE
MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO
CULTURE SHOCK?
• First-timers
• Children of working parents
• Sensitive children
• Children of cross-cultural marriages
26. In what ways does living in
the digital world contribute
to prolonging culture shock?
27. HELPING THE FAMILY
MOVE THROUGH CULTURE
SHOCK
• Make one parent available at the
beginning
• Create structure and stability
• Don’t let your own prejudices show
• Control the use of technology
29. “One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by
taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay
attention to those details of life which differentiate them
from you.” ―Edward T. Hall
30. "Culture is a matrix of infinite possibilities and choices.
From within the same culture matrix we can extract
arguments and strategies for the degradation and
ennoblement of our species, for its enslavement or
liberation, for the suppression of its productive potential or
its enhancement.” —Wole Sovinka
31. “Cultural survival is not about preservation, sequestering
indigenous peoples in enclaves like some sort of zoological
specimens. Change itself does note destroy a culture. All
societies are constantly evolving. Indeed a culture survives
when it has enough confidence in its past and enough say in
its future to maintain its spirit and essence through all the
changes it will inevitably undergo. ” ―Wade Davis
32. "People of different religions and cultures live side by side
in almost every part of the world, and most of us have
overlapping identities which unite us with very different
groups. We can love what we are, without hating what –
and who – we are not. We can thrive in our own
tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to
respect their teachings.” —Kofi Annan
33. “The world in which you were born is just one model of
reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being YOU:
they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.”
―Wade David
34. Additional events for parents:
• PTA Bearcat Welcome (September
4th, 2012, 7:30-9:00am)
• Understanding Third Culture Kids (October
16, 2012, 9:00-11:00am)
• Third Culture Kids: The Lived Experience
(January 22, 2013, 9:00-11:00am)
• Moving On and Saying Goodbye (April
16, 2013, 9:00-11:00am)
35. References:
• Owen, B. (2011). Culture as meaning and
culture shock: Constructs that affect us
profoundly.
• Pascoe, R. (2006). Raising Global Nomads:
Parenting abroad in an on-demand world.