Understanding Cultural Values and Norms
Understanding Cultural Values and Norms

Summary/Abstract: Teaching cross-cultural issues is, in many cases, a serious source of stress for teachers. It involves substantial reading, judicious selection of materials, working on various examples and case studies found in the literature so as to make them relevant to the students, anticipating reactions and preparing suitable arguments to get out of critical situations. Moreover, our classes bring together students belonging to different cultures (not only different families and gender groups, but also different ethnic groups and countries). This may be an advantage in discussing, analysing and clarifying certain cultural points, but it may often create delicate situations in which teachers are confronted with unexpected problems of multiculturalism that have to be solved promptly and intelligently. Therefore, questions like "Where should I start?" "How should I make it easier for my students and for myself?" "Are my students prepared to understand other cultures?" "Do my students understand what culture is about?" are legitimate and can shed light on some obscure areas of teaching/learning. In what follows, I am trying to give an argument in support of the idea that the answer to the third question above (a central one, in our case) depends on the answer to the last question in the above set. Thus, we can uphold that students will be better prepared to identify and adapt (in real life situations) to the system of values and norms of another culture, if they understand what the essence of culture is. Any attempt in this direction requires some theoretical background referring to cultural diversity, the structure of a culture, definitions of values, norms, rules and regulations, stereotypes. It also means raising the students' awareness of some of the basic values and norms that underlie different cultures.

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