Cultural Practices

Cultural Practices

A Cultural Practice can be define as an expression or demonstration of a culture or sub-culture especially in regards to the tradition and customary practices of a particular ethnic or other cultural group. When it comes practices, manifestations or even known as rituals, what we built in our mind at once will be a rich picture filled with mystic symbols and the events full of lively, passionate scenario. These acts have played an essential part in the process of human civilization. Over a long period of time, human beings have “reserved” their collective knowledge, memories, and emotions by the manifestation of practices, so they are able to turn their historical memories, collective knowledge and wisdom into repetitious acting in rituals in terms of symbolic units, objects and behavior accordingly.

Some Examples of Cultural Practices:

1.    Religious and Spiritual Practices

2.    Medical Treatment Practices

3.    Forms of Artistic Expression

4.    Dietary Preferences and Culinary Practices

5.    Cultural Institutitons  

6.    Natural Resource Management

7.    Housing and Construction

8.    Childcare Practices

9.    Governance, Leadership, Conflict Resolution

Check out this video to see more Cultural Practices around the world.

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Cultural Products

Cultural Products

In this entry you will see some info according to the cultural products of a culture.

Remember that Cultural Products are tangible (Paintings, Food, Clothing) or intangible (Language, Dances, Education) creations of a particular culture.

Cultural products are very important for a culture because they represent their particular community and race. It is not new, we all know that every culture has its own products. For maintaining culture these types of products are essential. By having these products, every country or society is establishing its own culture.

Cultural products are designs that you can see, feel, touch or hear.

The book show us four categories about the cultural products of any culture.

1.       Artifacts: This is the authentic material of any culture such as, coins, bills, newspapers, etc...

2.       Places: Structure of places in a culture; what integrates and manipulates the environment. For example, villages, agriculture, etc…

3.       Institutions: Formal and organized institutions like Town Halls, directions, etc…

4.       Art Forms: Language, creative manifestations, music, dances, architecture, clothing, etc… 

Religion

Talking about Religion is something I don’t really enjoy because of the simple fact that is something personal and private. I will post some facts according to what the guest speaker told us…

The United States is covered by a big diversity of religious beliefs and practices. Not only in America, worldwide, are religions a very important role in everybody’s lives. Since millions of years ago, the United States has always been marked by religious pluralism and diversity.

Americans classify themselves as Christians. According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, 70.6% of the American Population identified themselves as Christians, 46.5% professing attendance at a variety of churches that could be considered Protestant, 20.8% professing Roman Catholic beliefs, the same research says that other religions such as Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism make up about 6% of the total population. 

10 Facts about Religion in America

1.    Protestants no longer make up a majority of U.S. adults.

2.    Religion switching is a common occurrence in the U.S.

3.    Seventh-Day Adventist, Muslims and Jehovah´s Witnesses are among the most racially and ethnically diverse U.S. religious groups.

4.    U.S. Catholics´ view of climate change mirrored those of Americans overall including major partisan divisions.  

5.    In a typical week, about one in five American share their faith online.

6.    American have continued to become more supportive of same sex marriage.

7.    American are divided on the question of whether wedding related businesses should be allowed of refuse service to same sex couples.

8.    On another hotly debated social issue, abortion, Americans’ views in the last two decades have largely held steady.

9.    Frequency of religious service attendance remains a strong predictor of how people will vote in elections.

      While 23% of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated, only one member of Congress (Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.), or 0.2% of that body, claims no religious affiliation.

Facts retrieved from: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/27/10-facts-about-religion-in-america/

Language

For me, talking about languages is one of the nicest parts of learning about cultures.

It is so interesting to know and learn how other people talk and how they can understand each other’s when we do not do it. As we all know, they are thousands of languages, words, expressions and ideas, and a language is an essential part of every single culture.

In one of the classes we were talking about the concepts: “Big C” and “Little c”. Basically, the Big C is the term with the one you can understand the basic, big and more visible aspects of any culture, for example, the places that you can see in a country, the color of the taxis is the country, etc… In the other hand, the Little c are the invisible aspects of a culture, for example, the language, food, traditions, perceptions, religion. The matter is that for me Language should be part of the components of the Big C. Yes, you cannot touch or see the language but it is one of the most important aspect of a cultures.  A Language opens doors to learn about other cultures. Remember that not only giving speeches, writing or giving gestures or movements are not the only way of communication, Language is part of it too. 

What about this...

Hello! :)

This is my Culture Portfolio.

During the whole quarter I will be posting my ideas, comments, perspectives, videos, quotes, etc; about what I have been learning in the course and other aspects.

And… What about Culture?

For me, culture is what defines you as a human being. Traditions, beliefs, likes, knowledge, characteristics, ideas, language, habits… your way of thinking, values and personality are your culture. Culture is who you are chosen to be.

They are a lot and huge amount of existing cultures all around the word. As humans, and even more important, as educators, we need to know a about everything or at least as much as you can because cultures in the educational environment is a matter of anytime and anywhere. As you learn about culture (Analyzing a particular cultural topic and reflect upon the strategies) you have to teach about it (Putting in practice cultural activities with your language learners).

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Check out this video that I found. You can see and build your own definition and introduce yourself to the main topic of: CULTURE.