by Todd Fong
Whether you’re on a journey of thousands of miles or just a few steps, culture is a term that broadly encompasses the differences you’ll discover between yourself and others. I·INQUIRE is about learning as much as possible from these interactions, and doing so in a responsible, ethical way.
But if we are going to talk about this process of cultural inquiry and the associated skills, we need to know a at least a little bit about what it is we are investigating. What exactly is culture? Why do we want to learn about it? Is it the thrill of the exotic and novel that motivates us, or is there something more worthwhile we can gain from the process?
The activities and resources in this section will invite you to explore the idea of culture: what it is, how it impacts your interactions with people at home and abroad, and how a little thought about culture can improve the experience of meeting and learning about other people. In examining the idea of culture, we will find ourselves asking important questions, such as:
- What groups of people do you have particular interest in, and what is it exactly that you want to learn about them?
- What’s motivating your interest in these people?
- What difficulties will you need to overcome in order to learn about them?
- How might your interactions with them be limited by culture? How might they be enriched?
- What can you do to mitigate the challenges and maximize the benefits of engaging with another culture?
To continue, jump to:
Inquiry Activities about Culture.
Section Outline.