what fact would you select to support your understanding of customs?

Learn how to understand cultures and build relationships with people from other cultures.

Relationships are powerful. Our 1-to-one connections with each other are the foundation for alter. And building relationships with people from different cultures, ofttimes many dissimilar cultures, is central in edifice diverse communities that are powerful enough to achieve significant goals.

Whether you want to make sure your children become a good education, bring quality health intendance into your communities, or promote economical development, in that location is a expert chance you lot will need to piece of work with people from several different racial, language, ethnic, or economic groups. And in order to work with people from different cultural groups effectively, you volition need to build sturdy and caring relationships based on trust, understanding, and shared goals.

Why? Considering trusting relationships are the gum that hold people together every bit they work on a common problem. As people work on challenging problems, they will have to hang in there together when things get hard. They will have to support each other to stay with an effort, even when it feels discouraging. People will accept to resist the efforts of those who use divide-and-conquer techniques--pitting one cultural group against another.

Regardless of your racial, indigenous, religious, or socioeconomic group, you lot will probably need to institute relationships with people whose group you may know very piddling about.

Each one of us is like a hub of a wheel. Each i of u.s. tin build relationships and friendships around ourselves that provide the states with the necessary strength to achieve community goals. If each person builds a network of diverse and potent relationships, we can come together and solve problems that we have in common.

In this section, we are going to talk nearly:

• Condign enlightened of your own culture as a first step in learning about other people'due south culture.
• Edifice relationships with people from many dissimilar cultures.

But first let'due south talk about what civilization is. Culture is a circuitous concept, with many different definitions. But, simply put, "culture" refers to a group or community with which nosotros share mutual experiences that shape the style we understand the globe. Information technology includes groups that we are born into, such as race, national origin, form, or organized religion. Information technology can also include groups we join or become role of. For example, we can acquire a new civilization past moving to a new region, by a alter in our economic status, or by becoming disabled. When we recollect of culture this broadly we realize we all belong to many cultures at in one case. Exercise you agree? How might this use to you?

How exercise you learn about people's cultures?

Start by becoming aware of your own culture.

It may seem odd that in gild to larn near people in other cultures, we get-go past becoming more enlightened of our own culture. But we believe this is true. Why?

If you lot haven't had a chance to understand how your culture has afflicted yous beginning mitt, it's more hard to sympathise how it could affect anyone else or why it might be important to them. If you are comfortable talking about your own culture, then you volition go ameliorate at listening to others talk nearly theirs. Or, if you understand how discrimination has afflicted you, then you lot may exist more aware of how it has affected others.

Hither are some tips on how to becoming more aware of your own culture:

What is your civilisation?

Do you accept a civilization? Exercise you have more than than ane? What is your cultural groundwork?

Even if you don't know who your ancestors are, you accept a civilisation. Fifty-fifty if you are a mix of many cultures, you lot have one. Civilization evolves and changes all the time. It came from your ancestors from many generations agone, and it comes from your family unit and community today.

In improver to the cultural groups we belong to, we besides each have groups we identify with, such as beingness a parent, an athlete, an immigrant, a pocket-sized business organization possessor, or a wage worker. These kinds of groups, although not exactly the same as a culture, have similarities to cultural groups. For example, existence a parent or and an immigrant may be an identity that influences how you view the earth and how the world views yous. Becoming aware of your unlike identities can help you lot understand what it might exist like to belong to a cultural grouping.

Do: Effort list all the cultures and identities you have: (This is only a listing of suggestions to get you lot started. Add equally many as you think describe you.)
What is your: Religion Nationality Race Sexual identity Ethnicity Occupation Marital status Age Geographic region	Are yous: A female A male Nonbinary or genderqueer Disabled From an urban expanse From a rural surface area A parent A student	Take you ever been: In the military Poor In prison Wealthy In the middle class In the working class

Did this help you think almost your identities and cultures? How have these dissimilar cultures and identities affected your life?

How do you build relationships with people from other cultures?

There are many ways that people tin can learn about other people'due south cultures and build relationships at the same time. Here are some steps you tin take. They are start listed, then elaborated upon one at a time.

• Make a conscious conclusion to establish friendships with people from other cultures.
• Put yourself in situations where you will come across people of other cultures.
• Examine your biases nearly people from other cultures.
• Ask people questions about their cultures, customs, and views.
• Read about other people's civilization'south and histories
• Mind to people tell their stories
• Notice differences in communication styles and values; don't presume that the majority'due south way is the right way
• Risk making mistakes
• Acquire to be an marry.

Make a conscious conclusion to establish friendships with people from other cultures

Making a determination is the first stride. In order to build relationships with people different from yourself, y'all have to make a concerted effort to do then. In that location are societal forces that serve to separate us from each other. People from different economic groups, religions, ethnic groups, and races are often isolated from each other in schools, jobs, and neighborhoods. So, if we want things to be different, we need to take active steps to make them unlike.

You lot tin join a sports team or lodge, become active in an arrangement, choose a job, or movement to a neighborhood that puts y'all in contact with people of cultures different than your ain. Likewise, you may want to take a few minutes to find the diversity that is shortly nearby. If you think most the people yous meet and interact with every solar day, you may become more aware of the cultural differences that are around you.

One time yous have made the determination to make friends with people different from yourself, you can go ahead and make friends with them in much the same way every bit with anyone else. You may need to take more time, and you lot may need to be more persistent. Y'all may demand to accomplish out and take the initiative more than yous are used to. People who accept been mistreated past guild may take more time to trust you than people who haven't. Don't let people discourage you. There are skilful reasons why people have built up defenses, just it is non impossible to overcome them and make a connection. The endeavor is totally worth information technology.

Put yourself in situations where you volition run across people of other cultures; especially if yous haven't had the feel of being a minority, accept the risk.

I of the outset and virtually important steps is to show up in places where you lot will see people of cultures other than your ain. Become to meetings and celebrations of groups whose members you want to get to know. Or hang out in restaurants and other gathering places that different cultural groups become. You may feel embarrassed or shy at first, but your efforts will pay off. People of a cultural grouping will discover if y'all have the risk of coming to 1 of their events. If it is hard for you to be the simply person like yourself attending, you tin can bring a buddy with you and back up each other in making friends. At these events, it is important to participate, only make certain y'all practise not get the center of the upshot in order to lift up the voices and deportment of the people leading the issue.

Examine your biases about people from other cultures.

We all carry misinformation and stereotypes well-nigh people in different cultures. Peculiarly, when we are young, we acquire this information in bits and pieces from TV, from listening to people talk, and from the culture at large. We are not bad people because we acquired this; no one requested to exist misinformed. But in club to build relationships with people of dissimilar cultures, we have to become aware of the misinformation we acquired.

An excellent way to become aware of your ain stereotypes is to selection groups that you generalize about and write down your opinions. Once yous have, examine the thoughts that came to your mind and where y'all caused them.

Another manner to go aware of stereotypes is to talk nearly them with people who accept like cultures to your own. In such settings you can talk near the misinformation you acquired without being offensive to people from a particular group. Yous can get together with a friend or ii and talk about how you caused stereotypes or fears of other different people. You can respond these kinds of questions:

• How did your parents experience about unlike ethnic, racial, or religious groups?
• What did your parents communicate to you with their deportment and words?
• Were your parents friends with people from many different groups?
• What did you acquire in school well-nigh a particular group?
• Was there a lack of information about some people?
• Are there some people you shy abroad from? Why?

Enquire people questions about their cultures, customs, and views

People, for the near part, desire to be asked questions about their lives and their cultures. Many of united states of america were told that asking questions was nosy; merely if we are thoughtful, request questions can aid you learn virtually people of dissimilar cultures and aid build relationships. People are unremarkably pleasantly surprised when others show involvement in their cultures. If y'all are sincere and you tin can heed, people volition tell yous a lot.

Read about other people's cultures and histories

It helps to read about and larn well-nigh people's cultures and histories. If you lot know something well-nigh the reality of someone's life and history, it shows that you lot care enough to accept the fourth dimension to find out most it. It also gives you groundwork information that will brand it easier to ask questions that brand sense.

Nevertheless, you don't have to be an expert on someone's culture to get to know them or to inquire questions. People who are, themselves, from a culture are usually the best experts, anyway.

Don't forget to care and show caring

It is easy to forget that the footing of whatever relationship is caring. Everyone wants to care and exist cared almost. Caring about people is what makes a relationship real. Don't let your awkwardness around cultural differences go in the way of caring about people.

Heed to people tell their stories

If you get an opportunity to hear someone tell y'all her life story commencement hand, you can learn a lot--and build a strong relationship at the same fourth dimension. Every person has an important story to tell. Each person'southward story tells something about their culture.

Listening to people'southward stories, nosotros can go a fuller picture of what people's lives are like--their feelings, their nuances, and the richness of their lives. Listening to people as well helps united states of america become through our numbness-- in that location is a real person before us, not someone who is reduced to stereotypes in the media.

Additionally, listening to members of groups that have been discriminated against can give us a better understanding of what that experience is like. Listening gives u.s. a motion-picture show of discrimination that is more existent than what we tin get from reading an article or listening to the radio.

Exercise:

You can informally ask people in your neighborhood or arrangement to tell yous a part of their life stories as a fellow member of a particular group. You can likewise incorporate this activity into a workshop or retreat for your group or system. Have people each accept 5 or ten minutes to talk nearly one piece of their life stories. If the grouping is large, y'all will probably have to divide into small groups, so everyone gets a risk to speak.

Find differences in communication styles and values; don't assume that the bulk's manner is the right fashion.

Nosotros all have a tendency to assume that the style that most people practise things is the acceptable, normal, or correct style. As community workers, we need to larn about cultural differences in values and advice styles, and not assume that the majority fashion is the right manner to think or behave.

Example:

You are in a group discussion. Some group members don't speak up, while others dominate, filling all the silences. The more than vocal members of the grouping become exasperated that others don't talk. It also seems that the more vocal people are those that are members of the more than mainstream civilisation, while those who are less vocal are from minority cultures.

How exercise we sympathise this? How tin this exist resolved?

In some cultures, people feel uncomfortable with silence, so they speak to fill the silences. In other cultures, it is customary to wait for a flow of silence before speaking. If in that location aren't whatsoever silences, people from those cultures may not ever speak. Also, members of some groups (women, people of low income, some racial and ethnic minorities, and others) don't speak upwardly because they have received letters from social club at large that their contribution is not as important as others; they have gotten into the habit of deferring their thinking to the thinking of others.

When some people don't share their thinking, we all lose out. We all need the opinions and voices of those people who have traditionally been discouraged from contributing.

In situations like the one described above, condign impatient with people for non speaking is usually counter-productive. Nonetheless, you can structure a meeting to encourage the quieter people to speak. For example, you lot can:

• Take people pause into pairs earlier discussing a topic in the larger group.
• At sure times have each person in the circumvolve make a comment. (People tin pass if they desire to.)
• Follow a guideline that everyone speaks once, before anyone speaks twice.
• Invite the quieter people to lead part of the meeting.
• Talk well-nigh the trouble openly in a meeting, and invite the more vocal people to try to speak less frequently.
• Between meetings, ask the quieter people what would assist them speak, or ask them for their ideas on how a meeting should be run.

A high school basketball team has to practice and play on many afternoons and evenings. One team member is a recent immigrant whose family requires her to attend the birthday parties of all the relatives in her extended family. The coach is angry with the parents for this requirement, because information technology takes his player away from the team.

How do nosotros understand this? How can this exist resolved?

Families have different values, specially when information technology comes to family unit closeness, loyalty, and responsibility. In many immigrant and indigenous families, young people are required to put their family's needs first, earlier the requirements of actress-curricular activities. Young people from immigrant families who grow up in the U.S. often feel torn between the majority culture and the culture of their families; they feel pressure from each cultures to live according to its values, and they feel they have to cull between the two.

As community workers, we need to support and respect minority and immigrant families and their values. It may already be a huge concession on the part of a family to permit a teenager to participate in extracurricular activities at all. We demand to make allowances for the cultural differences and endeavour to assist young people feel that they can accept both worlds--instead of having to turn down i ready of values for some other.

As community builders, it helps to develop relationships with parents. If a young person sees her parents take relationships with people from the mainstream civilisation, it tin can assistance her feel that their family is accustomed. It supports the teen in being more connected to her family and her community--and as well, both relationships are critical protective factors for drug and alcohol corruption and other dangerous behaviors. In add-on, in building relationships with parents, we develop lines of communication, and so when conflicts arise, they can be more easily resolved.

Take chances making mistakes

As you are building relationships with people who take different cultural backgrounds than your ain, you will probably make mistakes at some point. That happens. Don't permit the fright of making mistakes keep y'all from going ahead and edifice relationships.

If you say or do something that is insensitive, you can larn something from it. Ask the afflicted person what bothered or offended them, apologize, and so go on in building the relationship. Don't let guilt bog yous down.

Acquire to be an ally

1 of the all-time ways to assist you build relationships with people of different cultures is to demonstrate that y'all are willing to have a stand confronting discrimination when information technology occurs. People will be much more than motivated to get to know you lot if they run into that you are willing to take risks on their behalf.

We also take to educate ourselves and keep informed so that we sympathise the issues that each grouping faces and we become involved in their struggles--instead of sitting on the sidelines and watching from a distance. Brainwash yourself about other cultures past doing your ain research, don't ask others to do it for you. There are many resources in this chapter to help you learn.

In Summary

Friendship is powerful. Information technology is our connection to each other that gives meaning to our lives. Our caring for each other is often what motivates usa to brand change. And establishing connections with people from diverse backgrounds tin can be central in making significant changes in our communities.

As individuals, and in groups, nosotros can change our communities. We can prepare neighborhoods and institutions in which people commit themselves to working to form stiff relationships and alliances with people of diverse cultures and backgrounds. We tin institute networks and coalitions in which people are knowledgeable about each other's struggles, and are willing to lend a hand. Together, we tin can exercise it.

Online Resources

Chocolate-brown University Training Materials:Cultural Competence and Community Studies: Concepts and Practices for Cultural Competence The Northeast Pedagogy Partnership provides online access to PowerPoint training slides on topics in research ethics and cultural competence in environmental research. These have been created for professionals/students in environmental sciences, health, and policy; and community-based research. If you lot are interested in receiving an electronic re-create of one the presentations, just download their Materials Request Form (found on the main Preparation Presentations folio nether "related files"), complete the form, and email information technology to NEEPethics@yahoo.com.

The Center for Culturally and Linguistically Advisable Services collects and describes early childhood/early on intervention resource and serves as point of exchange for users.

Chapter 8: Respect for Diversity in the "Introduction to Community Psychology" explains cultural humility as an approach to variety, the dimensions of diversity, the complexity of identity, and of import cultural considerations.

Culture Matters is a cross-cultural training workbook developed by the Peace Corps to aid new volunteers acquire the knowledge and skills to work successfully and respectfully in other cultures.

The International & Cross-Cultural Evaluation Topical Interest Group, an arrangement that is affiliated with the American Evaluation Association, provides evaluators who are interested in cross-cultural bug with opportunities for professional development.

The Multicultural Pavilion offers resources and dialogue for educators, students and activists on all aspects of multicultural education.

The National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University increases the capacity of health intendance and mental health programs to blueprint, implement and evaluate culturally and linguistically competent service commitment systems. Publications and web links available.

National Public Radio's Life Kit project discusses the importance of having parents talk about social identities with their children.

SIL International makes bachelor "The Stranger's Eyes," an article that speaks to cultural sensitivity with questions that can be strong tools for discussion.

Study, Discussion and Action on Issues of Race, Racism and Inclusion: a fractional list of resource utilized and prepared past Yusef Mgeni.

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: Reflect on how your privilege allows you to walk through the world in order to ameliorate connect with others in this essay by Peggy McIntosh.

Organizations:

Center for Living Democracy
289 Pull a fast one on Subcontract Rd
PO Box 8187
Brattleboro, VT 05304-8187
(802) 254-1234

National Coalition Building Plant (NCBI)
1835 K Street, North.Westward., Suite 715
Washington, D.C. 20006
(202) 785-9400

Re-evaluation Counseling
719 Second Avenue Due north
Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 284-0113

Southern Poverty Police force Eye
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104

Print Resource

Axner, D. (1993).The Customs leadership project curriculum. Pomfret, CT: Topsfield Foundation.

Banks, J. (1997).Educating citizens in a multicultural gild. New York, NY: Teachers College Printing.

Brown, C.,& Mazza, G. (1997).Healing into action. Washington, DC: National Coalition Edifice Institute.

DuPraw, M.,& Axner, One thousand. (1997).Working on common cross-cultural communication challenges. In Martha McCoy, et. al., Toward a More Perfect Union in an Age of Multifariousness. Pomfret, CT: Topsfield Foundation, 12-xvi.

Ford, C. (1994).We tin can all go along: 50 steps you can accept to finish racism. New York, NY: Dell Publishing.

Kaye, Yard., & Wolff, T. (1995).From the ground up: A workbook on coalition building and community development. Amherst, MA: AHEC/Community Partners. (Available from Tom Wolff and Associates.)

McCoy, Thousand.,&  et al. (1997).Toward a more perfect wedlock in an age of diversity: A guide for edifice stronger communities through public dialogue. Pomfret, CT: Topsfield Foundation.

McIntosh, P. (1988).White privilege and male privilege: A personal business relationship of coming to see correspondences through work in women'southward studies. Wellesley, MA: Center for Inquiry on Women, Wellesley College.

Okihiro, Grand. (1994).Margins and mainstreams: Asians in American history and civilization. Seattle, WA: The University of Washington Press.

Takaki, R. (1993).A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Boston: Trivial, Brown and Company.

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Source: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/building-relationships/main

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