Sensitivity to Cultural Norms
David Huang
ltalianMan
What is it?
Being aware and accepting of other cultures.
Really? Who Cares?
It is important because what seems
acceptable in some countries can be
derogatory in others.
Cultural sensitivity is essential in a world
where people are becoming more and more
closely interconnected.
How it started
It is more of a philosophical or psychological
subject.
“Social stereotypes, defined as a widespread
image of a particular group in society, have so
far attracted little attention within the
historical profession. In contrast, the concept
of social stereotypes has been intensively
researched and developed within the
discipline of social psychology.”
– Humanities and Social Sciences Online
Early Civilization
In the early midst of civilization, people were
already isolated by race, religion, and culture.
There were not any problems way back, due
to the isolation of each culture. This means
that there was nothing to be culturally
sensitive about, since there were no other
cultures that played a factor in being
considerate to another culture.
Later, However
People began to explore, and surely enough,
cultures started clashing, wars started
happening, and assimilation started occurring.
After Long Fights
Things started to
settle down, and
most people
welcomed each
other over time, no
matter their
background.
Humanity finally
realized that to live
with each other
would mean definite
peace, rather than
trying to kill each
other.
Simply Put
• Cultural norms were created by each
civilization in the early development of our
world.
• Sensitivity to cultural norms only occurs
because of the way society is structured at
certain time periods.
Specifically:
The history of cultural sensitivity is extremely
vague, since no one has direct evidence as to
how it started or how it came to be. This is
because it has to do with the psychology of
people, collectively forming a society.
Therefore,
Unless one would be able to analyze a
person’s reason for action, the human
civilization does not really know why we tend
to follow these moral rules of being polite in
respect to other people’s culture in this day
and age.
Development
Cultural sensitivity has developed in relation
to the evolution of culture itself. Some
cultures are lost, while others still retain their
origin. Some even mutate or whither because
they cannot withstand the test of time. Time
plays a huge role because time dictates the
amount of people that follow a culture. This
number drops as the world starts globalizing,
and people start forgetting their old roots.
Since the world is becoming more
interconnected day by day, people start to
learn more about everyone else around them.
Why Does this Matter?
This causes people to naturally learn about
their surrounding cultures, but how does this
all relate to being culturally sensitive? And
how would this help you specifically?
Your Life
All of this is important because no matter
where you are in the world, if you would like
to lead a healthy, safe, and broad life, with
many friends, you will need to learn to respect
everyone around you, no matter where they
come from.
Business,
Businesses need to take trips to other countries
to establish their goals for expanding or working.
Business people need to know how to be polite
to other cultures when doing business, or else
they may not be able to establish their goals.
For example, in Japan, if you take a fellow
businessman’s business card and stuff it into your
wallet, it is considered derogatory.
Work,
Especially in Canada, a person who respects
cultural norms and diversity, and is
multilingual, is considered more financially
attractive in a company’s eyes. This is because
people who know cultural norms are able to
work in a broader environment, whereas a
worker who does not know about cultural
norms may offend a customer.
Communication,
When a national advertising agency is
launching a new slogan or logo for a company,
they need to respect every culture’s
normalities so that they do not offend anyone
with their designs or words. They also need to
translate everything perfectly, otherwise
something in one language can have a totally
different meaning in another.
Examples,
Panasonic 2004-05-13
Matsushita Electric was promoting a Japanese PC for
internet users. It came with a Japanese Web browser
courtesy of Panasonic. Panasonic had licensed the cartoon
character "Woody Woodpecker" as the "Internet guide."
The day before a huge marketing campaign was to begin,
Panasonic stopped the product launch. The reason: the ads
featured the slogan "Touch Woody - The Internet Pecker."
An American at the internal product launch explained to
the stunned and embarrassed Japanese what "touch
woody" and "pecker" meant in American slang.
Coca-Cola, Ke-ke-ken-la, Ko-kou-ko-le
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Keke-ken-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not
discover until after thousands of signs had been
printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole"
or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the
dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese
characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "kokou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as
"happiness in the mouth."
Latte Anyone? 2004-03-16
Latte means milk in Italy. In English, Latte is a
coffee-drink.
In Germany, Latte is a well known word for an
erection.
Well...
Would you walk into Starbucks in Germany and
ask for a “latte” if you knew it meant “erection”?
What if your business partner in Germany was
with you at the time? Not a good situation to be
in.
Would you launch an ad campaign if it featured
something derogatory in another language?
Too bad ignorance is not an excuse.
WHICH IS WHY
CULTURAL
SENSITIVITY IS
IMPORTANT
You need to respect every single culture’s
viewpoints, languages, and practices. Not doing
so can lead to trouble, and willingly telling society
that you hate a certain culture will cause many
problems.
“I have a dream that my four little children will
one day live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Issues Today:
Commonly referred to as discrimination.
Problems arise only during practical
discrimination. If someone is secretly
discriminatory and no one knows, society has
no way of deeming that person discriminatory.
If one practices it out in the open, then that is
where problems start happening.
Legal Implications,
The punishments for discrimination are very
harsh, but more often than not, not provable.
This makes proving a discriminatory case in court
much harder, since it is up to the plaintiff or
prosecutor to prove the discriminatory act.
This just goes to show how loose the law is on
discrimination, since there is no real way of
proving that someone is racist in court, which is
unfortunate.
What Happens If Proven
However, there are definitive actions that take
place if one is considered discriminatory. This
includes fines, jail time, or compensation. It
really depends on the situation. This is
ultimately up to the judge to decide.
The racist person also gets the look from the
rest of society.
How to Report Racism
Make sure you or someone you know that will
vouch for you has definitive proof that
someone was being discriminatory. After that,
you are one phone call away from reporting
someone for discrimination. Either report it to
a lawyer or report it to a police officer.
What Will Happen?
A court date will be set and both parties must
attend. If a party does not attend, the
opposing party wins the case.
Sometimes, these cases can be as small as
being handled from a small claims court, to
being handled by the supreme court of
Canada, if it is of international importance and
is appealed many times.
Technological Impacts
Technology helps everyone make it through
their day. Specifically in cultural sensitivity, it
has allowed social platforms and online
multimedia to be communicated on a global
scale. This can be very fun at times, but also
very hurtful; technology with regards to
cultural sensitivity is a double edged sword.
Example:
Going on Facebook or Video Games to talk
to people in a different country!!
Counter-Example:
Going online to be racist to cultural
groups!
Going on a video about a country and being
racist!
Primate
Technology makes it easy to communicate to
everyone in the world. However, there are a
few individuals who abuse technology, by
making racist remarks or making other people
unhappy. These people cannot be found
either, since no one has any way of tracking
who wrote what, except in extreme cases.
Example:
Being racist on forums. No one will track it.
Extreme Case:
Hacking into CIBC’s customer information
database and stealing everyone’s money.
Expect a whole police department and all
of those arrested hackers to be on your
case.
Future Predictions
Secularization will keep progressing as time
moves forward. Cultural boundaries will be
broken as globalization moves forward.
However, roots to cultures and geographical
norms may still exist, but this turns into a
different type of sensitivity, one that does not
involve culture as much as it does today.
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