Comparing Cultural Identities

In my last blog post I had worked towards a topic that would get students to consider their own cultural identity by collecting class data and analysing their findings. Now to cement this knowledge in place and add global perspective I would want to compare their lifestyle and culture to someone else’s in the world...

I would start this comparison at a broad geographical scale getting the students to mind map what comes in to mind when they think of the culture of Britain and then say America. I would consider differentiating this task by providing some students with a list of words that they could choose to group under either the heading Britain or America, or potentially even providing them with images that they could group.  To consolidate the students understanding of the two cultural regions I would encourage them to write a couple of comparison sentences using a range of connectives from a word mat such as in Figure One:

Figure One The word mat below is one of many useful ones I found online at: http://www.sln.org.uk/geography/spellingmat.htm

Following the above I then wanted to look at comparing cultures at a more localised scale. At first I wasn't sure how I could do this most effectively, but the video link that follows really inspired me:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-cultural-identity

It suggested showing the students some compelling and engaging footage of life in a different region so I began to route around the internet to find something that did just that. It was a teaching resources website provided by Caerphilly Council that struck me the most (http://your.caerphilly.gov.uk/sustainable/content/teacher-resources-secondary-school-resources-identity-culture). It had a really powerful resource on what life was like as a refugee in Darfur, Western Sudan. The website gave a really good background of what was happening in that region during 2003 and an insightful interview of daily life as a child there (Figure Two). I believe that the resource provided a clear and concise comparison of culture in that region of the world to ours in Britain, and formed a platform for several classroom activities that would allow students to put themselves into someone else’s “cultural shoes” e.g. by writing a diary from the perspective of a refugee in Darfur or by the class hot-seating other students who would act as though they are from that region.

 Figure Two shows part of the interview of a child in Dafur, Western Sudan (Available at: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/~/media/Files/Education/Resources/Darfur/darfur_intro_stories_oxfam_taking_action.ashx )

Do none of you go to school?

‘Yes! We all go to school! But the schools are closed at the moment. When school’s open we go from 8 until 2.’

Do you like school?

‘Yes…because we like to learn and we want to get an education.’

What do you want to be when you grow up?

“I would like to be a teacher” (girl)…”a doctor” (boy)…”an engineer” (girl)…”a captain”…”a pilot” (boy)…”a nurse” (girl)…”a teacher” (girl)…”a doctor” (boy)…”a doctor” (girl)…”a teacher” (boy)…”a driver” (boy)…”a doctor”… “a teacher” (boy)…”an engineer “(boy)

What do you think life is like in the UK?

‘Life there is very different because there is peace. Not like here, where there is a lot of conflict and fighting, and we are very scared. They’re really wealthy and they have a high income, and have good living conditions there, unlike here.’