North Seattle Community College
Beginnings 2010
Cultural Interview 2: Due October 27, 2010
Communication skills for Personal Awareness or Empowerment
For this interview, you have two choices.
Using the ADRESSING model below (developed by Pamela A. Hays and expanded upon by
Leticia Nieto), you can choose to complete this interview in two different ways:
Social Rank Category
Age
Disability
Religion (relates to religious
culture)
Ethnicity
Social Class
Sexual Orientation
Indigenous Background
National Origin
Gender
Agent Rank
Adults (18-64)
Able-persons
Cultural Christians, Agnostics
and Atheists
Euro-Americans
Owning and Middle Class
(more than enough and
enough)
Heterosexuals
Non-Native
US Born
Male
Target Rank
Children, adolescents, elders
Persons with disabilities
Jews, Muslims, and all other
non- Christian religions
People of Color
Poor and Working Class (less
than enough)
Gay men, Lesbians, Bisexuals
Native (First Nation)
Immigrants and Refugees
Female, Transgendered, and
Intersexed
Exercise 1: Personal Awareness Interview
For this exercise, you will choose one social membership area where you currently hold Agent
status and want to practice Personal Awareness skills. For example, if you are between 18-64,
you could use Age. If you currently have no disability, you could use Disability. If you were
born in the United States, you could use National Origin.
Your task: to find a person in our class or someone you know pretty well who holds Target social
membership in that category, interview them, and report on your communication experience. For
example, if you are working with Age, you could interview a youth or elder. If working with
Disability, you could interview a person who currently has a disability. If working with National
Origin, you could interview a person who was born outside of the US.
You need to be sure that your interviewee is clear about the nature of this assignment, is willing
to talk to you about their experience in this area of their life, and is aware that you need to tape
your interview. You could ask a classmate, a family member, someone you work with, or
another person in your life. You will need to do an interview with them, using the central
question “What is it like for you as …?”
The purpose for this exercise is to practice applying and integrating the listening skills, in
particular empathy. Your job is to listen deeply to the other person, to give them a chance to
feel fully heard, and to learn about what their reality is like. Review the list of
listening/communication skills (listed below) and the handout on empathy before the interview
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and practice applying as many as seem helpful.
As you listen, practice staying present in your awareness of what the other person is describing
as their reality. Avoid sending messages like “something just like that happened to me once,”
which signals similarity. That is not the goal of this exercise. To practice empathy, you may feel
some discomfort – this can be a signal that you are staying fully present to the other person and
their experiences. It’s okay to acknowledge those feelings, but stay with the process and don’t
shift the focus to yourself. Keep focus on the other person, their voice, and their reality.
Stay with this process for at least 30 minutes (1/2 hour). When you have finished listening,
thank the person for sharing their truth with you.
Exercise 2: Empowerment Interview: If you hold membership in three or more of the Target
groups, you may choose to do Exercise 2.
For this exercise, you will choose one Rank channel, where you currently hold Target social
membership and want to practice empowerment skills. Your task: to find a person who also
holds the same Target social membership, interview them, and report on your communication
experience. For example, if you have a Disability, you could use Disability. If you were born
outside of the U.S., you could use National Origin. If you are a member of a religious culture that
is not Christendom (such as Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism), you could use Religious Culture.
The specific reason the person is a member of the Target group might be different from you.
They could have a disability that is different from the one you have, or be a member of a
religious culture that is different from yours, or come from a different country than you do.
Nonetheless, you share membership in the Target group.
Choose a time and place to meet that you will both be comfortable and have some privacy.
Your task is to interview the other person, using the central question “what is it like for you as
a…” Your job is to listen to the other person, to give them a chance to feel fully heard, and to
learn about what their reality is like. After twenty minutes or so focused on listening, you can
choose to share your own experience if it seems right to do so.
Avoid minimizing the impacts that this Target membership has on you or on your friend. Don’t
try to figure out who is more oppressed. Acknowledge the reality of their experience and your
own. See if common themes, concerns, or problems emerge from your discussion. This exercise
could make you feel angry, or sad, or charged with energy. Acknowledge any feelings that arise
as part of the process.
Review the list of listening/communication skills before the interview and practice as many as
seem helpful.
Stay with this process for at least 30 minutes (1/2 hour). When you have finished, thank the
person for sharing their truth with you.
To Hand In (Both for Exercise #1 and Exercise #2)
The format of your cultural interview is the same as the previous interview with three specific
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areas of development and analysis:
1. Description (context). Describe fully for your reader the context of your cultural interview.
Who did you interview? When and where did the interview take place? Why did you select this
particular person? What Agent/Target memberships were present?
2. Analysis. Using the listening skills from the class lectures/handouts, analyze what occurred in
your listening experience making sure to cite specific concepts and skills involved. You should
also reference the different skills sets in the Nieto handouts to evidence your knowledge of the
different anti-oppression skills and which ones you experienced during your interview. It is
really helpful if you can reference them in specific parts of your transcript using the “Comment”
tool. (For example, comment: here’s where I moved back into distancing myself.)
3. Application and Reflection. Reflect on what you learned from this listening/sharing
experience. Are you changed from this experience? If so, how? Be specific. What was hard for
you? What did you do well? What would you do differently?
Your interview must be word-processed, double-spaced, and fully developed. Your paper should
include three headings: 1) context; 2) application and reflection, and 3) analysis. Your paper
should also include a well-developed transcript. (Remember in your first interview that students
who included a major portion of their interview scored better in this category.) Like your first
cultural interview, we will apply a rubric to evaluate your paper (see end of this assignment).
Listening/Communication Skills
Use this list to remind you of strategies for listening and to write your interview.
 Creating a safe experience/environment so the other person can be fully authentic
 Being aware of the other person's feelings (expressed and hinted at)
 Paying attention to the other's person's nonverbal communication (what are they saying to
me nonverbally that is important for me to notice?)
 Using strategic questions to seek deeper meaning (open versus closed questions)
 Using paraphrasing (so what I heard you say) and encouraging skills (nods, supportive
sounds)
 Practicing being fully present through maintaining a centered presence (calm presence,
open mind and heart)
 Cultivating empathy (do I seek to understand or am I just doing this exercise to get the
assignment done?)
 Maintaining self awareness and a quiet mind (watching for "red flag" words and being able
to let go of my own agenda or beliefs)
 Establishing resonance (dropping into my own vulnerability and humanity) through
empathetic listening
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Assessment Rubric for Cultural Interview 2
Element
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Assignment:
Completion
Follows completely the assignment
instructions creating a holistic, well
crafted (with both evidence and
reflection), and grammatically
correct writing on the complex
intersection of culture and
communication from a personal
perspective.
Skills: Empathy Interprets intercultural experience
from the perspectives of own and
more than one worldview and
demonstrates ability to act in a
supportive manner that recognizes
the feelings of another cultural
group.
Knowledge:
Cultural Self
Awareness
Skills:
Verbal and
nonverbal
communication
Articulates insights into own cultural
rules and biases (e.g. aware of how
her/his experiences have shaped
these rules, and how to recognize
and respond to cultural biases,
resulting in a shift in selfdescription.)
Articulates a complex understanding
of cultural differences in verbal and
nonverbal communication (e.g.,
demonstrates understanding of the
degree to which people use physical
contact while communicating in
different cultures or use direct/
indirect and explicit/ implicit
meanings) and is able to skillfully
negotiate a shared understanding
based on those differences.
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Provides the reader with a
well crafted assignment that
follows the assignment
format and develops for the
reader a clear sense of what
the writer did and learned
through this assignment
about culture and
communication
Recognizes intellectual and
emotional dimensions of
more than one worldview
and sometimes uses more
than one worldview in
interactions.
Somewhat follows the
instructions of the
assignment showing the
reader a beginning
understanding of difference,
complexity, sensitivity and
curiosity
The assignment
demonstrates a rudimentary
level of completion and
complexity
Identifies components of
other cultural perspectives
but responds in all situations
with own worldview.
Views the experience of
others but does so through
own cultural worldview.
Recognizes new
perspectives about own
cultural rules and biases
(e.g. not looking for
sameness; comfortable with
the complexities that new
perspectives offer.)
Recognizes and participates
in cultural differences in
verbal and nonverbal
communication and begins
to negotiate a shared
understanding based on
those differences.
Identifies own cultural rules
and biases (e.g. with a
strong preference for those
rules shared with own
cultural group and seeks the
same in others.)
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Shows minimal awareness
of own cultural rules and
biases (even those shared
with own cultural group(s))
(e.g. uncomfortable with
identifying possible cultural
differences with others.)
Identifies some cultural
Has a minimal level of
differences in verbal and
understanding of cultural
nonverbal communication
differences in verbal and
and is aware that
nonverbal communication;
misunderstandings can occur is unable to negotiate a
based on those differences
shared understanding.
but is still unable to
negotiate a shared
understanding.
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