Cultural Exercises

These are the cultural exercises we were required to consider prior to the trip.  I found both the readings and the exercises quite challenging - not in the difficulty sense, but in the sense of confronting your own views and culture.

The chapter that the exercises were taken from is : What is Culture? from  "Culture and Education" which is now on my list of books to read.

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Exercise 1.1 – You are what you buy.

In a table like the one below, list 10 items that you see as essential to your day-to-day life. Then, for each item, provide the reasons why you bought it and list the effects (as many as you can think of) it has on your identity.

Item	Purpose for buying	How does this shape who you are?
Mobile phone	Communicating – I need it to talk to my friends – they all have one	I’m part of the group and not left out. I’ve got the latest ringtones so I’m pretty up-to-date.

Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 3).

Exercise 1.6 – Evaluating Values

Make a table like the one below and list all the values you think you hold. These might be ethical values, but they also might be ‘things’, such as family or education. Then list where you think you go them from and you you engage in these values on a day-to-day level.

Values	Where you go this from	How you ‘practise’ it
Freedom
Authority
Justice
Equality
Education	Your parents	Go to university

Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 10).

Exercise 1.7 – My Family Culture

In a table like the one below, insert elements from your own family’s activities to get a sense of the culture of your family.

Elements of Culture	My family’s examples
Symbols and signs	My dad wearing a kilt to Sunday lunches at Grandma’s house.
Language
Values
Beliefs
Norms
Rituals	Sunday lunch with Grandma; attendance at school 5 days a week, for around 12 years
Material objects

Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 12).

Exercise 1.10 – The ‘Who am I?’ test

Write down here the first 20 statements you think of about what makes you the person you are. You might want to think about how the context of doing this exercise is shaping your choice of identity markers about yourself.

Who am I? Statements about what makes me, me.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 14).