Educators, replacing substance with form in their dialogs, argue over symptoms and fail to consider causes. No coherent analysis links practice to social reality, because low-level sloganeering replaces useful analytic language. Particularly offensive, career education, another energy-draining slogan, has clearly reactionary potential. Two developments must be understood: Social problems have been increasingly defined as school problems, keeping educators on the defensive and narrowing the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Accountability, Career Education, Cultural Images, Educational Innovation,...
A national survey of personal interviews with 539 working women and 993 working men, was intended to test the reliability of the following stereotypes about American women who work: (1) American women work just for pin money, (2) Women work only for economic reasons, (3) Women are more concerned with the social aspects of their jobs, (4) Women prefer not to take initiative on their jobs, (5) Women are more concerned with "extrinsic" job characteristics, (6) Women are less concerned...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cultural Images, Employed Women, Employment Statistics, Individual Development,...
The study guide is one of several supplementary materials for a 15-week newspaper course about popular culture in the United States. Course objectives are to help students understand the pervasiveness of popular culture in American society, its historical development, the business aspects of the popular culture industry, the effects of mass media on its nature and quality, the emergence of rock 'n' roll music as a reflection of a growing youth culture, the historical tendency of popular culture...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adult Education, Broadcast Industry, Communications, Concept Teaching, Content Area...
This report presents an analysis of the characters created for prime time and weekend daytime network television drama and viewer conceptions associated with exposure to television. Data was gathered through 10 years of monitoring television programs, analyzing characters, and conducting surveys of child and adult viewers. Trends in representation of women and minorities (nonwhites, Hispanics, young and old people), findings on role characterizations and occupations, a measure of violence as a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Attitudes, Childhood Attitudes, Concept Formation, Cultural Images, Females, Minority...
A survey of children's television programs in San Francisco showed that the programs do not reflect the needs, problems, and interests of local viewers. One-fourth of the city's population is children. Two thirds of those enrolled in the city's public schools are not Anglo. Despite this, 17 of 27 programs monitored one Saturday morning in 1972 contained no minority representation at all, and most minority characterization perpetuated stereotypes. An earlier survey in San Francisco showed that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Audiences, Blacks, Children, Chinese Americans, Commercial Television, Cultural...
The processes by which man creates new literary forms is the focus of this book. Four articles concentrate on literary modes common to many societies, though written in different languages: (1) Robert A. Charles reviews Alaska's oral native folktales and the range of the contemporary writing scene in Alaska from professional authors to documentary journalists; (2) Harley D. Oberhelman compares the cowboy literature of North, Central, and South America; (3) Maurice D. Schmaier analyzes Patrick...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Authors, Cultural Images, Cultural Interrelationships, Folk Culture, Hispanic...
The growing diversity of school populations demands that administrators possess not only an understanding of the role of culture in creating school climate, but also the skills and desire to apply that knowledge. In addition, there is a need to increase the number of American Indian role models in teaching and educational administration. This paper explores the meanings of culture and world view and their role in creating climate, examines the roles of administrators as cultural mediators, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Administrator Education, Administrator Role, American Indian Culture, American...
This primer on multicultural education pedagogy reports on the knowledge base for multicultural education, and challenges and critiques teacher educators. An introduction describes the demographic and intellectual context for multicultural education, outlines the composition of the primer, and argues that the primer is primarily an exercise in "imaging" to develop an intellectual, emotional, and ethical force for teacher educators. Part 1, "Markers in the Multicultural Teacher...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cultural Images, Education Courses, Elementary Secondary Education, Higher Education,...
Elementary school children in Mounds View, Minnesota, were surveyed for their impressions of American Indians. The method used was to individually interview every fifth child on the kindergarten and grade 5 class rosters. The report is presented in two sections--data and conclusions. Each of 12 questions is considered separately in the data section, with the answers of the 238 kindergartners and 239 fifth graders appearing side by side on a chart for purposes of comparison. Sample questions...
Topics: ERIC Archive, American Indian Culture, American Indians, Cultural Images, Data Analysis, Data...
Three studies explored the impact of the controversial television docudrama "Death of a Princess" on viewers' attitudes, comprehension, and desire to continue viewing the film. Sixty students in undergraduate communication classes participated in Study I, which measured attitude change induced by the film, relative to the viewers' prior knowledge base. A different group of 60 communication undergraduates took part in Study II, in which the same procedures were used, but attitude...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Attitude Change, Audience Analysis, Cultural Awareness, Cultural Images, Culture...
This Module is designed for use by guidance personnel in grades K-12 and at the postsecondary level. These include teachers, administrators, counselors, paraprofessionals, pupil personnel workers and any others who provide services to ethnic minority populations. This Module will help each participant to differentiate between behaviors that reinforce stereotypes of ethnic minority persons and behaviors that facilitate greater awareness of people as individuals, to recognize that ethnically...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Career Planning, Cultural Images, Ethnic Stereotypes, Guidance Personnel, Inservice...
One of the most difficult tasks business and professional communication teachers face is teaching students to appreciate cultural differences and their effects on business communication, both domestically and internationally. Students from a homogeneous background may dismiss or disparage cultural differences. Some classroom exercises can help give students a sense of other cultures, including a view of their own culture as "other." One exercise has students speculate aloud about...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Business Administration Education, Business Communication, Classroom Techniques,...
To explore the portrayals of Americans in Japanese television commercials and Japanese in American television commercials, and how those portrayals are perceived by each nationality, a two-part study examined 745 American commercials and 956 Japanese commercials. Researchers first coded the number of American males and females who appeared in the Japanese commercials, and the number of Japanese males and females who appeared in the American commercials. The characters were then coded for major...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Characterization, Content Analysis, Cultural Differences, Cultural Images, Females,...
Designed to allow teachers and students to take a pro-active approach to learning about Cameroon, the guide is a starting point for research and discussion with information that enables students to identify patterns of culture and geography. In the first section, details on Africa and Cameroon provide information that can be personalized for each class depending on ages, other subjects being studied, and students' abilities and interests. The second section utilizes questions to encourage...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Area Studies, Cultural Activities, Cultural Awareness, Cultural Differences, Cultural...
A critical examination of the colonial education of American Indians unearths the roots of many stereotypical beliefs about the culture and capabilities of Native Americans. Deep-seated ideas and practices that were accepted as natural by past colonizers continue to undergird contemporary stereotypes about American Indians. The tenets of colonial education were not based on natural truths but were culturally constructed to serve specific agendas of the colonizing nations. These tenets were that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Acculturation, American Indian Education, American Indians, Boarding Schools,...
Eleven cemeteries in Wyoming are examined for visuals pertaining to life in the West. The purpose is to demonstrate the importance of Western culture tradition evidenced through tombstone symbolism--representations of the activities and environments of the living through the memory provided by the deceased. The visual symbols found on the tombstones are presented in the following categories: environment, artifacts, and people. Environmental features that occurred most frequently were related to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cultural Images, Cultural Traits, Imagery, Pictorial Stimuli, Social Influences,...
This study found indications of high percentages of dropouts among Chicago Puerto Ricans; their educational problems seemed similar to those of other Spanish-speaking pupils in the urban situation. The dropout count carried out revealed a rate of 71.2 percent for Puerto Rican pupils who had received a substantial portion of their education in the North American continent. Eighth graders, freshmen, and seniors still in school who were examined for motivations too, demonstrated that they had...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cultural Images, Dropout Characteristics, Dropout Rate, Dropout Research, Puerto...
Designed as supplementary reading material appropriate for Indian and non-Indian children in the elementary grades, this series of 18 booklets presents 26 stories and legends of Northwest tribes. Stories in this fifth level of the six-level series were developed cooperatively by Indian people from reservations in the Pacific Northwest. Booklets range from 15 to 63 pages in length and contain numerous illustrations by Indian artists. The stories are sequenced and grouped together by type: (1)...
Topics: ERIC Archive, American Indian Culture, American Indian Literature, American Indians, Childrens...
Children Now, with the UCLA Center for Communication Policy and Stanford University, hosted the fifth annual Children and the Media Conference. The conference focused on the intersections among race, class, children, and the media. This report highlights the thinking of participating executives, producers, writers, advocates, academics, and children, and parallels the conference structure. Each of five panels is featured; brief "panel perspectives" precede a sampling of quotes,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adolescent Attitudes, Adolescents, Audience Response, Childhood Attitudes, Children,...
The hillbilly stereotype has created image distortions of Appalachian people and culture in mainstream America, in academia, and among mountain people themselves. This paper examines Appalachian student reactions to the stereotype and ways in which students can explore the concept and image of hillbilly and develop their cultural identity. Appalachian people are a hybridization of various ethnic groups, including Native Americans, Africans, and Scotch-Irish. The culture is carried forward by...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cultural Images, Culture Conflict, Educational Practices, Elementary Secondary...
This paper examines the portrayal of minority cultures in children's picture books. In picture books, the illustrations are as important as the text with respect to the meaning of the story. As a result, picture books have the potential to influence a child's view of other cultures. Currently, only three percent of picture books represent minority cultures. This results in two negative consequences: minority children may not see their own image reflected in books, and majority children may...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Childrens Literature, Cultural Enrichment, Cultural Images, Cultural Literacy,...
Reporting on a pilot study of urban junior high students, this report examines the way young people acquire perceptions of their own and other nations and attempts to identify the sources of those ideas. This action research approach used a survey research instrument with a 20-item semantic differential form to measure students' knowledge of and judgments about the United States, Canada, and Russia. In this 1991-92 pilot study, a convenience sample of 163 New York metropolitan area middle and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adolescents, Classroom Research, Comparative Analysis, Cultural Images, Educational...
Photocopy humor is defined as any facsimile, photocopy, or wire-copy line drawing, iconography, or textual material that was drawn or written for distribution to a larger select audience using the available technology to disperse material intended to be humorous. Professional humor is excluded from this consideration. The content of photocopy humor gives insight into the individuals who create and share it and into the society that inspires it. Photocopy humor usually narrows in on...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Age Differences, Cartoons, Coding, Cultural Images, Ethnic Stereotypes, Humor,...
This paper presents suggestions for a 60-hour course in intercultural communication that develops cognition skills needed to understand life in foreign countries. The initial part of the course is intended to heighten the participant's awareness of his or her own "home-culture"; the latter part concentrates on assumptions, values, and behaviors of the "target-culture." Although the course described herein is designed for culturally homogeneous classes in the Middle East, it...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Body Language, Communication Skills, Cultural Awareness, Cultural Background,...
The paper attempts to illustrate the importance of an accurate sociocultural description of a number of unconscious verbal and gestural behaviors which help to distinguish a Frenchman from an American. An accurate description of many of the most elementary signs and gestures is needed to help to dispel the notion that there is a one-for-one equivalent between languages. False interpretation and social blunders may result when individuals transfer their own cultural behavior to the setting of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Body Language, Communication Problems, Cultural Activities, Cultural Differences,...
This practicum was designed to increase the cultural awareness of fourth-grade students of contributions to American society by those of different races and colors. The program consisted of an integrated 12-week curriculum and a variety of materials allowing students to conceptualize the diversity of America. Students were exposed to other cultures through literature, computer programs, research, and class discussion. The "Person or People of the Week" theme allowed discussion of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, American Indian Culture, American Indians, Black Culture, Black Leadership, Blacks,...
This is the seventh of seven resource units for a twelfth grade course on value conflicts and policy decisions. The topic for this unit is: "What is the good life?" The objectives are listed as to generalizations, skills, and values. The double-page format relates objectives to pertinent content, teaching procedures, and instructional materials. The focus of the unit is on the present and on questions which face young Americans today. The unit is designed to show that the social...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Case Studies, Course Content, Cultural Images, Educational Objectives, Ethics, Grade...
Although the cultural stereotypes which the mass media disseminate about the roles of men and women are often discussed in general terms, the actual nature of these stereotypes in the present American culture has not been fully or systematically explored. This study examined part of the system of cultural stereotypes relating to men and women on television--specifically, the operation of male-female knowledge stereotypes that are displayed through the giving and receiving of advice and orders...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Commercial Television, Cultural Images, Media Research, Programing (Broadcast), Sex...
The minority image presented in the majority of children's books is too often a stereotype of a particular minority. Blacks are seen as ludicrous or unnaturally good, as ghetto bound, and--when portrayed in a group of characters--as the only dialect speakers in the group; American Indians are portrayed with depersonalization and ridicule; and Spanish American characters (including Mexicans and Puerto Ricans) suffer from the perpetuation of negative myths and the failure to define them as...
Topics: ERIC Archive, American Indians, Blacks, Books, Childrens Literature, Cultural Awareness, Cultural...
Chinese Americans have been called inscrutable--not open to being understood. More casual, spontaneous, and expressive people find it hard to understand the strict discipline of feelings and highly selective and controlled expressions such as the Chinese American may practice. This paper serves as a social introduction to the Chinese American. For brevity's sake, the term "Chinese American" is used in referring to Americans of Chinese ancestry and the term "Chinese" when...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Asian Americans, Chinese, Chinese Americans, Chinese Culture, Cultural Awareness,...
This document is a collection of a list of expressions shared by Vietnamese immigrants who have entered the United States. The expressions concern the following topics: names, formality, cultural influences, touching, tact and diplomacy, shared life, open houses, social standards, manual labor, fatalism, and adaptability. (Author/AM)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Asian Americans, Cultural Background, Cultural Context, Cultural Differences,...
This study deals with selected ethnographic and other methods used in research on Afro-American communities in the United States. After a review of the conclusions of psychologists on Afro-American culture, it is contended that the best method of enquiry is that of ethnography, and that, even though the ethnographic method has been hitherto used, the studies completed have been partial ethnographic studies because the researchers have neither lived in the community studied nor studied a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Anthropology, Biculturalism, Black Community, Black Culture, Cultural Images,...
This Module is designed for use by guidance personnel in grades k-12 and at the postsecondary level. These include teachers, administrators, counselors, paraprofessionals, pupil personnel workers and any others who provide services to ethnic minority populations. This Module will help each participant to differentiate between behaviors that reinforce stereotypes of ethnic minority persons and behaviors that facilitate greater awareness of people as individuals, to recognize that ethnically...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Career Guidance, Career Planning, Cultural Images, Ethnic Stereotypes, Guidance...
Stereotyping is associated with fixed, unchanging points of view based on generalizations and results from the fact that, in his life, a person encounters many different personalities and groups about which he has little information. A stereotype reaction is not based on first-hand information about an individual, but rather on perceived cultural affiliations. It is basically an emotional response that tends to distort message decoding and interfere with understanding of persons and messages....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Attitudes, Cultural Differences, Cultural Images, Cultural Interrelationships,...
Within the framework of "symbolicity" and "nativistic movement" the paper presents a "reasonably balanced and illustrative" examination of selected negative and positive trends in Native American symbolicity. Symbolicity is defined as the state, condition, and tendency of people to organize their perceptions and experience into symbols and symbol systems, while nativistic movement refers to the process and efforts by which an ethnic group returns to a more glorious...
Topics: ERIC Archive, American Indian Culture, American Indians, Cultural Awareness, Cultural Images,...
A proposal is presented for the continuation of ongoing research into the relationships between pervasive cultural trends represented by network television drama and popular conceptions of reality in the areas or health, behavior, and policy. The research leading to the development of the Cultural Indicators (of trends in television dramatic content and their effects) began with the analysis of the most pervasive and comprehensive images of everyday culture found in television drama. The...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Commercial Television, Concept Formation, Content Analysis, Cultural Awareness,...
When a woman is widowed, she automatically becomes a member of a community of isolated women who lack social status, economic power, and visibility in literature and the mass media. Literature by and about widows indicates four major reasons for this situation: there is no general recognition of the distinctive problems widows must face; except in a few large urban centers, widows lack access to social agencies, clubs, and therapy groups that can provide counsel or collective power and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cultural Images, English Instruction, Literary Criticism, Mass Media, Secondary...
This paper presents preliminary explorations of the nature of differences in first-name stereotypes among three ethnic groups. A total of 147 white, black, and Spanish teachers were divided into five subgroups determined by their geographic location (Miami, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia) and ethnic grouping. Each subject was asked to rate his or her impressions of some typical names using a seven-point scale for each of nine semantic differential subscales. Results indicated that there do appear...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Blacks, Cultural Differences, Cultural Images, Cultural Influences, Sex Differences,...
A summative evaluation of a unique television experience for children is presented in this document. Vegetable Soup, a multi-ethnic television series, is designed to reduce the adverse effects of racial prejudice. A major focus of the program is to assist elementary school children in the development of genuine appreciation of members of all ethnic groups. The purpose of this research is to test the objectives of the program in order to determine the effect on attitudes of those children who...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Affective Objectives, Attitude Change, Childhood Attitudes, Children, Childrens...
Henry Cisneros, speaking on the theme, "the colorful past and promising future of Hispanic heroes in Texas," in Amarillo, Texas, on February 7, 1989, was successful in eliciting a positive response from his Anglo/Hispanic audience. An analysis of Cisneros' use of narrative demonstrates its effectiveness in leading to a feeling of "community" by audience members. W. R. Fisher's narrative paradigm can be used to examine similarities and differences in the use of narrative...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Audience Awareness, Cultural Images, Discourse Analysis, Hispanic Americans,...
As teachers gravitate more and more to the use of literature and strive to include a range of cultural experiences in their classrooms, the use of poetry from various cultural groups should be considered. Poetry is a very real means of having children see themselves and others as being both unique and yet the same. In considering poetry across cultures, African-American, Native American, Hispanic American, and Asian poetry can be selected and shared with children. To successfully share poetry...
Topics: ERIC Archive, American Indian Literature, Black Literature, Cultural Differences, Cultural Images,...
Fifteen newspaper articles about popular culture in the United States are contained in this document. As the basis for a 15-week course by newspaper during the winter and spring of 1978, the articles served as the course "lectures." The articles were written by professors of mass communications, sociology, cinema, journalism, political science, and history; a newspaper columnist; a sports commentator; and a feminist author. They explore the nature of popular culture, popular culture...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adult Education, Communications, Content Area Reading, Cultural Images, Culture,...
This monograph examines the way in which ideas emerged and grew in the rhetorical process of creating an American people, and the ways in which the ideas were transformed into fundamental symbols that have exerted their influence throughout United States history. The first chapter analyzes certain discourses of the American Revolution to show the rhetorical strategy developed by the patriots with the goals of destroying the British ethos and, at the same time, creating a new American ethos. The...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Civil Rights, Cultural Images, Imperialism, Intellectual History, Persuasive...
This thesis focuses on the effects of the language of patriarchy on the power of Native American women, how these women have retained power in their own societies, and how an understanding of Native women's values can aid feminists. An examination of Native American women's literature provides a connecting bridge back to a time before patriarchy and shows how Native languages and oral tradition have nurtured Native culture and values. This literature frequently draws on Native mythology and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, American Indian Culture, American Indian History, American Indian Literature,...
Recent studies on racial self-esteem show a reversal in the tendency for black children to have negative self-concepts. This research explored the causal explanations for such a reversal by investigating the process by which social status, parental attitudes, and socialization practices influence the development of black children's racial preferences and stereotypes. Data were obtained from interviews with 60 black mothers of five or six year old children, and from a race awareness test of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Black Youth, Children, Cultural Images, Mother Attitudes, Racial Attitudes, Research...
This work focuses on the variations in societal responses perceived by male homosexuals in various group settings of interaction and on the relationship of these responses to their social status and related behavioral characteristics. Conclusions were based on the analysis of data collected from a sampling of 148 male homosexuals in and around a large midwestern city. These are as follows: (1) stereotypic responses are more likely to occur under the interactional prescripts characteristic of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Antisocial Behavior, Cultural Images, Homosexuality, Interpersonal Relationship,...
The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of sexist attitudes among male university students. A Situational Attitude Scale of ten personal or social situations with some relevance to a sex related response and 100 bipolar semantic differential word scales was created. Two forms of the instrument, each containing the same situations, bipolar scales and instructions (except that in one form the situation applied to a woman), were administered to 110 males at freshman orientation at the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, College Students, Cultural Images, Employed Women, Feminism, Identification...
Communication between persons of differing cultural backgrounds can be hindered by culturally-conditioned assumptions that they make about each other's cognitions. An exercise was designed to reduce this effect through increased cultural self-awareness. It involves participants in analyzing video recordings of staged "excerpts" from intercultural dialogues that contain subtle manifestations of cultural influence, while noncultural influences are being varied from excerpt to excerpt....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Behavior Patterns, Citations (References), Communication Skills, Comparative...
This document analyzes the construction of a mythical representation through television, focusing on the British Broadcasting Company's (BBC) television coverage of the violence which took place at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels prior to the 1985 European Cup Final between Juventus and Liverpool. As background for this analysis, a concept of Liverpool--variously interpreted and produced to explain local political, economic, social, and sporting events--is examined. The study directs special...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Athletics, Cultural Images, Foreign Countries, Imagination, Local History, Mass Media...
Factors for the academic success of Hispanic American students whose background profiles label them as "at-risk" are explored in this ethnographic study. Areas of focus include demographic and biographical characteristics, everyday life, group identity, and roles of primary and secondary social groups. Observation and discourse analysis of 20 high-achieving Hispanic students (10 female and 10 male) in two inner city high schools focused on their creation of a world view and strategies...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, At Risk Persons, Cultural Images, Disadvantaged Youth,...
