Culture Shock And Multiculturalism

It used to be widely accepted amongst anthropologists that when they conducted fieldwork with foreign cultures they experienced something called ‘culture shock.’ This book will argue that ‘culture shock’ is a useful model for understanding an important part of human experience. However, in its most widely-known form, the stage model, ‘culture shock’ has been heavily influenced by the same anti-science, latter-day religiosity that has become so influential more broadly: Multiculturalism. This book will examine culture shock through the model of ‘religion.’ It will show how the most well-known model of culture shock – so popular amongst business consultants, expatriates, international students and travelers – has become a means of promoting and sustaining this replacement religion which includes everything from dogmatism and fervour to conversion experience. By so doing, it will aim both to better understand culture shock and to show how it can still be useful, if divorced from its implicitly religious dimensions, to broadly scientific scholars. It will also suggest how anthropology itself might be stripped of its ideological infiltration and returned to the realm of science.

This book is designed to prepare students for the interactive and increasingly engaged global society. It clearly defines concepts that are central to numerous contemporary issues, all of which explain the difficulties arising from encounters with the unfamiliar. The book acknowledges and addresses many central problems facing students as they navigate through rapidly changing environments that may be familiar to some and very unfamiliar to others. Key concepts introduced and defined include culture shock, future shock, cultural relativity; examples demonstrate how students can develop their cultural literacy by expanding their visual perception. As an introductory guide, this resource alternates between similarities and differences of known and lesser-known cultures, seen from the perspectives of the student. A central theme throughout is the role that art plays as a mirror for our society. Appendices provide a series of exercises and experiments that help students understand the material being presented and, at the same time, challenge them to conduct self-evaluation. Using visual literacy as a guide, the book covers a variety of issues. In the chapters, issues such as immigration, the impact of modern technology, and the impact of postmodern art on contemporary ethics are explored and evaluated.

Incorporates over a decade of new research and material on coping with the causes and consequencs that instigate culture shock, this can occur when a person is transported from a familiar to an alien culture.

Multiculturalism in Canada offers a solid introduction to the history and development of the ideology of multiculturalism in Canada. This ideology, which has become the primary designator of Canadian society, began in the early 1970s when vocal elements in the population who were neither English nor French strongly responded to the investigations of the Committee on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Given Canada's early racist tendencies, the establishment of multiculturalism was a remarkable shift in public thinking. Many issues associated with immigration have arisen in the public debates around multiculturalism. Some people are convinced that it is a pernicious ideology that enforces the ghettoisation of those different from the mainstream. Others see dangers in the way some aspects of multiculturalism are merely tokens of an all-inclusive society. Still others contend that the voices of ethnicities aside from those of the two charter groups -- English and French -- are scarcely heard and, that worse, those marginalised voices are appropriated by mainstream writers. On the whole, however, Canadians -- especially younger Canadians -- welcome a liberal outlook that is inclusive of a wide variety of ethnicities. For them, and for many immigrants, Canada is a society that is multiple and layered, one rich in meaning. They tend to see Canada as a microcosm of the larger world, one that presents a useful model of tolerance for the world at large. Increasingly, marginalised new Canadians are excelling in the arts communities, telling all Canadians what various aspects of the culture shock of transplantation feels like. This book includes a representative sample of their works.

From the author of Why Travel Matters, the tools you need to bridge cultures and countries. Adjusting to a new culture and getting along with the local people challenge everyone who lives and works abroad. Whether in business, diplomacy, education, or as a long-term visitor abroad, anyone can be blind-sided by a lack of international knowledge and experience and be caught at a disadvantage. In this completely revised and expanded edition of the classic The Art of Crossing Cultures, Craig Storti shows what it takes to encounter a new culture head-on and succeed. This one-of-a-kind guidebook to bridging the cultural divide - with more than 50,000 copies sold worldwide - incorporates a stellar sampling of the writings of some of the world's greatest writers, poets and observers of the human condition. Through the vivid perceptions and words of such literary legends as Noel Coward, Graham Greene, Rudyard Kipling, E. M. Forster, Mark Twain, Evelyn Waugh, and others, Storti paints an intimate portrait of the personal challenges of adjusting to another culture: anticipating differences, managing the temptation to withdraw, and gradually adjusting expectations of behaviour to fit reality. This timely new edition focuses special attention on how to deal with country and culture shock and includes many new examples of cross-cultural misunderstandings - particularly in business. Storti breaks new ground with his easy-to-understand model of cultural adjustment and tips on how to master the process and develop adaptive strategies - the heart of the cross-cultural experience.

An intercultural ministry expert demonstrates the necessity of Cultural Intelligence for effectively serving an increasingly diverse church and world.

Until recently the field of psychology has been a monocultural science in a Euro-American envelope. Profound global changes in social, economic, political, and academic development have resulted in a more multicultural perspective for psychology. The field of psychology is now growing more rapidly outside than inside the U.S. As a result of these changes, multiculturalism adds a dimension to psychodynamic, humanistic, and behavioral psychology as much as the fourth dimension of time adds meaning to three dimensional spaces. The contributors to Multiculturalism as a Fourth Force seek to separate what we know from what we do not yet know about the importance of multiculturalism to these changes in the field of psychology. Topics include cultural diversity within and between societies, multiculturalism and psychotherapy, and culture centered interventions. Each contributor describes the need for multiculturalism in psychology, the difficulties in establishing a multicultural perspective and what has to happen before multiculturalism can claim to be a Fourth Force to supplement the other forces for psychology. In addition, the contributors examine the role of culture to the changing field of psychology and provide case examples of this phenomenon. It is the author's hope that by making culture central rather than marginal in the area of psychology, the psychodynamic, behavioral and humanistic theories can become more effective and less culturally biased.