How to bring people of different cultures together
I realised that one sure-fire way of generating traffic to one’s blog is to talk about relationships. Cross-cultural relationships is certainly a hot topic. In fact some random Russian blog picked up my previous post and translated my points into Russian. Pity I can’t read Russian, but using Google translator, I figured this was the case.
Still on the topic of building cross-cultural relationships, some people are of the opinion that social groups that are prejudiced towards each other only need mix together in order to reduce this prejudice. I hear this all the time. And this logic drives a lot of official initiatives to promote opportunities for different cultural groups to mix together.
It would be great if it were that simple, but unfortunately contact is not enough.
It is necessary that both groups have equal status, have personal interaction, engage in cooperative activities to achieve collective goals, and it should be considered the norm for the groups to interact.
Source: Aronson, E., Blaney, N., Stephan, C., Sikes, J., & Snapp, M. (1978). The jigsaw classroom. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
This winter, you can witness the power of the collective vision by simply visiting a local sports bar on a night when the All Blacks plays Australia. When the All Blacks wins the game everyone is congratulating and hugging one another. I’ve witnessed this scene numerous times at different places.
It’s one of those rare occasions where no one cares what your colour, creed or race is. All that matters is that you’re wearing black.
The new premises in parnell is very nice!! wish that i can work there… :<
Hi,
Can you give me some ideas on how to bring people of other cultures together? We have tried translators but they are very expensive and they quite often translate incorrectly and we have little way of knowing. We have tried coffee mornings but only English speaking people came.
Our common link is that our children attend the same school. We come from many different cultures and countries: African countries, Pakistan, India, Middle Eastern countries, Greece, Italy and a several others. I want to connect all of these people as many of the mothers are at home and do not join in due to language barrier and perhaps cultural reasons that I do not know of. I have found it very difficult to find out why people won’t come to functions and I truly want to find the key to bringing people together so that they can be informed about their children and to perhaps meet others and feel part of the school community. I hear from some people that they want to know what is going on at school but they feel un-informed. Newsletters go out in English every fortnight but of course many of our families can’t read english. Translation of the newsletter into every language would be costly and we do not have volunteers who are able to translate – we’ve tried this and failed. I’d love to know what we’re doing wrong and what we might be able to try next.
We are hoping to do a food fair with food from all the cultures being represented.
Help!! Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
@Christine Georgeson
Christine this is not easy. My suggestion is for you to approach a few parents individually. Perhaps start with 2 or 3 so that you have a core group of helpers. Each person can then approach another 2 or 3 in due course.
I understand your desire to see things happen quickly, and have all the parents on board with your idea. But people are conditioned over a period of many years, and it’s not easy to get them to open up quickly. The key is to maintain a personal approach.
The food fair is a great way to have people involved, but make sure you try to establish the personal relationships first – not just communicate with them via newsletters.