Cultural Awareness: Importance, Management, and Understanding

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of cultural awareness, defining it as the understanding of people's behaviors, values, and perceptions. It explores various degrees of cultural awareness, from parochial to participatory stages, and discusses strategies for managing cultural diversity, such as embedding it into the workplace culture, systematically checking assumptions, and building cultural knowledge. The essay emphasizes the importance of cultural awareness in creating cross-sectional understanding and acceptance, highlighting its significance in both workplaces and homes. It also covers understanding cultural differences in food habits, dress codes, language, body language, religion, and family structures. Furthermore, the essay emphasizes the importance of building cultural awareness by understanding one's own culture, traveling, and maintaining a humble and friendly approach. The conclusion underscores the need to increase cultural awareness for cultural growth, suggesting the use of books and the internet to build knowledge.

Cultural awareness

Introduction
 Cultural awareness can be defined as the process of
understanding people’s behavior
 Cultural awareness is a communicating medium that
involves the awareness of the cultural values, beliefs and
perceptions
 Misinterpretations occur primarily due to the lack of
awareness

Degree of cultural awareness
There are various degrees of cultural awareness of
which the important points are discussed below:-
 My way is the only way and it is also called Parochial
stage where people do things in their own way.
 I know their way, but my way is better and it is also
called Ethnocentric stage where people considered
their own way as the best way.

continued…
 My way and their way and it is also called
Synergistic stage where they thought that
this differences can be both problematic and
beneficial too.
 Our way and it is also called Participatory
Third culture stage where people gives
solution about the differences (Ang, & Van
Dyne, 2015).

How do we manage cultural
diversity?
 Embedding into the culture of your own work
and not viewing it as an add-on
 The first step of managing function is to
recognize it not to fear it
 Systematically checking your assumptions
 Become comfortable with the situation

Group activity
 Benefits- the awareness of cultural differences
makes a great success in the environment. Cultural
competence is also an important factor for the
growth of cultural differences (Yamada, 2015)
 Build your cultural knowledge- Information about
the different culture has been easily available on
the internet.

continued…
 Treat people as individuals- Be aware of the
situation and try to deal with people as an
individual.
 Proper knowledge about the history of the
individual cultures are well studied.

Why is cultural awareness
important?
 Cultural awareness includes the livelihood of
different parts of the people such as food, dress,
music, building, language and so many
(Mahmud, & Wong, 2016)
 It is an important factor for creating a cross-
sectional understanding and acceptance.

continued…
 Cultural awareness is important in both
workplaces and also in the home
(Kourgiantakis, & Bogo, 2017)
 By traveling to different countries and to
different places the cultural discriminatory
should be reduced

Understanding cultural differences
 Food habit:
 In the Asian country, chopsticks are used
 In Europe, knife and fork are used
 Beef, pork, fish has been eaten by the different
group of people in different countries (Hayes,
2015)

continued…
 Dress code: Depends on culture, traditions,
custom and climatic condition
 Language: It is culture-specific
 Body language: Everybody language has different
meanings (Rice, & Mathews, 2015)
 Religion: Religion is the main factor for every
society

continued…
 Family and Gender:
 Depending on culture individual family has
individual thought
 Gender discrimination is not present in all
countries (Christopher et al., 2014)
 Time: Different countries have the different
concept of time

Build up cultural awareness
 Understanding the culture of own country
 Knowledge about the history, culture, and
custom of a community (Baker, 2015)
 Willing to travel the whole world
 Must be humble and friendly to the people

Conclusion
 Cultural awareness should be increased for
the better growth of the culture and to do
these people have to build their cultural
knowledge about the society by reading
books or through the internet
 Cultural awareness is the process of
consciousness of the cultural values and
customs of the own community.

References
 Ang, S., & Van Dyne, L. (2015). Handbook of cultural intelligence. Routledge.
 Baker, W. (2015). Research into practice: Cultural and intercultural awareness. Language
Teaching, 48(1), 130-141.
 Christopher, J. C., Wendt, D. C., Marecek, J., & Goodman, D. M. (2014). Critical cultural
awareness: Contributions to a globalizing psychology. American Psychologist, 69(7), 645.
 Hayes, P. (2015). Cultural awareness. Good Practice, (7), 14.
 Kourgiantakis, T., & Bogo, M. (2017). Developing Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity through
Simulation. In Creating Cultural Safety in Couple and Family Therapy (pp. 89-101). Springer,
Cham.
 Mahmud, M. M., & Wong, S. F. (2016). Understanding the repercussions of intercultural
communicative competence: a study on the degree of students’ cultural awareness, social
and communication skills. Journal of Human Sciences, 13(3), 5561-5573.
 Rice, M. F., & Mathews, A. L. (2015). A New Kind of Public Service Professional Possessing
Cultural Competency Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills. Classics of Organization
Theory, 2005, 429.
 Yamada, A. M. (2015). Applications of The Cultural Awareness, Skill, & Knowledge (C-ASK)
Interview Tool: Cultivating Cultural Competence. Hawai'i Journal of Medicine & Public
Health, 74(7 Suppl 1), 19.