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Preparing for Learning Activities
Preparing for Learning Activities
Welcome to the Faiths and Cultures Awareness Training Hub ! This Hub provides learning activities for you to do before you come to class to help you make the most of your time there.
Introduction to Culture
Introduction to Culture
It is hard to live in London without being aware of culture, and the faiths often connected with them! A schools survey in 2000 reported over 300 languages spoken at home. In the last census, the population of over 8 million had 44.9% White British and 37% born outside the UK, including 24.5% born outside of Europe. This is seen too within our own staff and service user statistics, which means that every day everyone in our Council staff will likely interact with those from cultures outside their own. This is why the training is important!
Why Faiths and Cultures Training?
Why Faiths and Cultures Training?
We may get on well with folks from many different faiths and cultures within the Borough and within our work. So why then is this training needed?
View the presentation to see the challenge and how it affects us ... click the Full Screen button on the Slides Control Panel opposite to view!
Learning to Observe
Learning to Observe
This course helps you not just to work better across cultures but also to learn more about your own. You may wonder what you need to learn about your own culture β isn't it all already obvious? Yet people from a culture are in many ways the least able to see it. Somehow, we need an 'out-of-body' experience from ourselves to help us see who we really are. We won't provide this during training! π But we can next best learn by comparing our own culture with that of others; observing outside of our culture makes us more aware of our own. I used to say to Dutch students: you won't really know what it means to be Dutch until you live outside the Netherlands! So we shall now go to an area of great cultural diversity...
One advantage of living in London is having areas around like that where we can learn how to observe cultures. One such area is Southall, just two stops by train from Heathrow Airport. Southall is primarily a South Asian residential district, sometimes known as "Little India", with the 2011 census having over 55% of Southall's population of 70,000 as Indian / Pakistani. It is also shaped by its faith diversity, with at least fourteen Sikh Gurdwaras , two large Hindu 'Mandir' Temples, four Muslim Mosques 'Masjids' and more than ten Christian Churches. It is rare to find such diversity so close together, which makes it a great place to learn about working across cultures.
Life in Southall
Life in Southall
Sadly we will not be taking you to Southall during training! π Instead, as you watch this video (1:47 mins) of everyday life there, ask yourself:
- Where do you see the influence of faiths and cultures within it?
- How does it compare with your own experience of places you have lived?
Reflect on what strikes you most β we return to this video in the quizzes below.
Understanding the Role of Culture
Understanding the Role of Culture
Why do we do the things we do? Some things are cultural, but not everything. In watching the video, it helps to think of why people do things in terms of three categories: Universal, Personal and Cultural. Knowing particularly what is Cultural helps us understand things that may seem strange to us. But we also need to know the difference between these and the other two:
Universal behaviours are things that people do everywhere, for example wearing clothes! But what they wear, for example wearing trousers, are Cultural behaviours. These behaviours are not arbitrary or spontaneous - for those who share that culture, they will say, "It's just the way we do things round here."
Yet even if you fully know a culture, you cannot understand everything that everyone does within it. People have Personal behaviours that are not typical of their culture but instead, have been influenced by their background; for example whether they grew up in the countryside or city. It is important that we can spot the difference between Personal and Cultural behaviours - this helps us avoid stereotyping, which we consider later.
Questions about Culture for Class
Questions about Culture for Class
Have you ever heard anyone complete the following and do you think it is fair?
"All _______________ are _________________"
It can be all too easy to stereotype people within their culture (often negatively). Think about these questions and be ready to share in class:
- In what ways are you NOT typical of your culture?
- How do you feel when someone stereotypes you?
- How do you prefer people to interact with you so that you are NOT stereotyped?
Observing All of Culture
Observing All of Culture
We have seen visible parts of culture such as words, actions and dress but is there more than that? We consider now the hidden parts of culture. What you watch on the video of Southall is like seeing the visible part of an iceberg, but there are also bigger parts beneath, such as beliefs, assumptions, motives, priorities, expectations, hope and fears, all hidden. in order to understand what we see, we also need to know what is going on underneath.
Culture Quiz 2
Culture Quiz 2
Which part of the iceberg would you put the following on, Visible or Hidden?
- styles of dress
- notions of modesty
- importance of community
Click NEXT on the quiz to see if you know which is which for other parts of culture, and to learn more how to learn about the hidden.
This content was developed by the Kings Centre, a faiths and cultures awareness training centre based in Southall. We hope you've found it helpful in preparing for your next stage of training and we look forward to meeting you in class when we will learn how to become more aware of the many faiths and cultures around us! π
You can learn more about us at the Kings Centre website or Like us on our Facebook page.
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