Diversity communication patterns

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Here ya go, this should help you get a good essay started. I have given you responses to each of the four perscriptives, then put some ideas together to help you integrate, you have more than enough information to put 1200 words together. Enjoy!

Ideas - take some of the materials below and ask: how are they similar? What happens in normative cultures? Where does cultural behavior come from and how expressed. What happens in a stratified society? Take those answers, and do an outline like:

1. Introduction - culture is made up of ...... ethnicity is a part.....
2. Dominant and subdominant cultures are expressed by....
3. How do issues like race, gender, class impact communications
4. How does acculturation impact communication?
5. Contrast, compare and conclude

1) The prescriptive norms, rules, roles, and networks of a specific culture.

Culture is defined as; A way of life developed and shared by a group of people and passed down from generation to generation. Culture provides us a framework to organize our activity. Thus also allows us to predict the behavior of others. There are different cultural formations; these formations depend on complex elements. Major ones are language, regional differences, religious beliefs and political systems. Different people from different nations provides a good example, like Turks-from eastern cultures- and British-from western culture-.

Not all cultural groups share all elements of their culture, in larger cultural groups there are smaller cultural groups formed. A very basic example is Alevi, Sunni, Şii muslims. People usually belong more than one cultural group. Different sub-cultures are created between people. These separate themselves under their main belonged culture but they still share a set of common characteristics.

It is possible to build up understandable messages by describing and comparing cultures. Results got from these studies will let us know about the values, beliefs and what is accepted and what is an appropriate behavior in a specific cultural group. Roles applied in the society can be understood form these accepted behaviors as well.

Main cultural differences can be listed as Individualism-Collectivism, High and Low Contexted, Power Distance, Masculinity-Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance.

Culture is a learned - passed down through parents, peers, and reinforced with positive responses, or discouraged with negative responses. Because of this very important reason it is possible for us to communicate with different cultures. Learning a culture for the use of communicative means can be done by using the methods of the following areas; psychological, sociological, anthropological, linguistical, political, economical and historical.

Organizational Communication :

Organizational communication is about the communication methods used in the interdependent groups that are formed in a particular society, to carry out tasks to reach to a commonly organized goal. Organizations are established in a certain time by an individual or a group of people. They run with formally structured relationships in the base of their system.

In a huge part of our life we have an organizational group belonging beginning from school, continuing to our business life. So we are used to the informal system used in these organizations. These informal systems have a hierarchical chain of command. Structural-functionalism is used; the work is divided between the individuals and groups. People charged with the same task has to work together, co-ordinating to accomplish the objectives. Organization is required to manage the physical and human resources. Every organization has to use these resources efficiently to achieve the goal. Effective communication is a must to run all this organizational structure.

As we can show this organizational structure as a pyramid schema, different schemas are possible depending on the way of communicative perspective. For example organization for a school can be shown as a structure which puts the students in the middle of a round schema.

Organizations are groups too. They have their own culture & norms like any other group. When you start to a new job you can see different verbal or nonverbal signs showing you how you must get in the organization. In an organization, except this formal structure, informal relationships can be formed as well. These are out of the hierarchical system.

2) The opportunities/obstacles of being a member of both the dominant culture and an ethnic culture.

Dominant culture issues: The uneven distribution of advantages, material rewards, opportunities and power among groups, is due to stratification within a society. Ethnic stratification is a system of structured inequality in which people receive different amounts of society's resources based on someone's ethnic group. Level of power is determined according to a persons differences from the dominant group. These differences are generally cultural and physical. The ethnic groups most similar to the dominant group are more highly ranked, and those that are considerably different are ranked low. The lower ranked groups generally take a subordinate position to those of the dominant group. This comparison of ethnic groups to ones owns group is called ethnocentrism (Marger 40-1).

Ethnocentrism is one of the building blocks for ethnic stratification. When you add competition for the same scarce resources, and different levels of power, it will lead to the development of ethnic stratification. When the dominant culture has been determined, the wider the gap in distribution of power determines the strength of the stratification system. The more powerful the dominant group is the stronger the system is. The dominant group uses its power to block the development of other groups and to solidify their own superiority (Marger 47-8).

The United States has a stratification system based primarily on physical appearances. The top levels include white Protestants. The intermediate levels include white Catholics, Jews, and many Asians. The bottom level includes Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and some Asians (Marger 150). The enslavement of African Americans in the United States is one of the most obvious examples of these divisions. It was said that African Americans were heathens, (due to their religious differences) so it was justifiable to enslave them. This argument does not seem to have any substance considering that African Americans who converted to Christianity remained slaves. Instead, it seems to be more closely related to the color of their skin. "Black became a key visible mark for identifying people who were believed to be defective in religion, savage in their behavior, and sexually wanton" (Marger 229). In the U.S., the darker the skin color is of an ethnic group, the lower they are on the stratification system, and the levels of opportunities available to them diminish accordingly.

Marger Martin N. Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives. 4th ed.

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Some say education is a problem of the dominant culture: Institutional racism generally refers to the way that the institutional arrangements and the distribution of resources in our society serve to reinforce the advantages of the white majority. Institutional racism also involves the way many white people abuse the political structure and policies within the public schools. Students of color, along with other ethnic groups are often seen as flawed in some way, which continue to stand in the way of their progress. Therefore, institutional racism within the public school system has been and still is being portrayed through Caucasians privileges and power. This is a reflection of discrimination through prejudice, and power with disadvantages towards the marginal people of color. Institutional racism consists of collective failures of organizations to provide equal and professional service to people mainly because of the color of their skin, culture or ethnic origin. Quality public school education is viewed by parents and professional educators as a vital part for individual students to have access to social, political and economic opportunities. However, during this semester, while in class, I have learned and it has been identified that white privilege is the recipient of special provisions who often remain in a state of denial and repression about their advantages. Such advantages grant a set of benefits and system rewards to one group while at the same time excluding another group from accessing these advantages. "White people often cannot see, and do not question the sources and legitimacy of their privileges and power, whereas people of color experience the consequences daily." (Barndt, 1991) Oppression results when (1) racism is a part of the dominant culture's national consciousness; (2) it is reinforced through its social institutions; and (3) there is an imbalance of social and economic power within the culture. These are just a few of the catalyst that have prohibited students of color along with other ethnic origins from achieving a good education. One of the first steps, then, in dismantling institutional racism and moving toward anti-racism is to examine how power and privilege operate. "Fifty years ago, Brown v. Board of Education was heard in the Supreme Court. Brown's decision held out the hope that by desegregating public schools all children, whether Black or White would be the beneficiaries of a unified system of quality primary and secondary education. While racial prejudice can result in mistreatment, racism results in a special type of mistreatment, oppression." (Foster, 1999)

Barndt, J. (1991). Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America. Minneapolis: Augsburg.

Cox, M. W. (1996). Institutional Racism Oppresses. Montgomery Adviser.

Foster, L. (1989). Breaking Down Racial Isolation. Educational Leadership 47, 2.

3) Issues related to gender, race, and economic class.

Social inequality reflects the belief that deviance is not merely deviant personal behavior, but also, behavior that is committed against other individuals of society. Social inequality involves the belief that some individuals are socially defined as disadvantaged due to their life circumstances. Social inequality can be applied to a number of life circumstances, such as poverty, race, gender, health, and many other phenomena. Status and stereotypes are central to the discussion of social inequality. There are two types of status, achieved and ascribed (Salinger, 2000). Status that is earned, such as a college graduate, is labeled achieved status. Status in which an individual is born with is called ascribed status. Gender and race are two examples of ascribed status. Stereotypes are standardized mental pictures that are held in common by members of a group (Salinger, 2000). They often represent oversimplified opinions, prejudiced attitudes, and derogatory judgments about people in a society. Stereotypes do not require accuracy in order to exist. Social inequality is dependent on the meanings that people attach to status and stereotypes, which ...