Culture: belief systems, values, and behaviors that support a particular ideology or social arrangement.

Culture guides language use, appropriate forms of dress, and views of the world.

The concept is broad and encompasses many areas of our lives such as the role of the family, individual, educational systems, employment, and gender.

Racial prejudice refers to the practice of holding false or negative beliefs of one racial group for the purpose of making another racial group (usually one’s own) appear superior or normative.

Racial discrimination is the outward manifestation of racial prejudice: it is when people act upon their negative beliefs about other races when
communicating or setting policy.

Racism, combines racial prejudice with social power. It is institutional, rather than individual, meaning it occurs in large institutional contexts such as the representations of particular groups within media or the fact that racial minorities do not have equal access to educational or legal opportunities. It often involves the unequal accessibility to resources and power.

Understanding Race

• Race fall into two camps: a biological versus a sociopolitical construction

• Ethnicity refers to a person’s or people’s heritage and history, and involves shared cultural traditions and beliefs.
  
• Nationality refers to a person’s nation-state of residence or where he/she holds citizenship.
  
• Gender is part of culture in that every society has particular gender roles and expectations for males and females.
  
• Sexual orientation refers to a person’s preference for sexual or romantic relationships; one may prefer a partner of the same sex, the opposite sex, or both.
• Power is the ability to influence others and control our lives.
• The dominant group in the US is white, male, Christian, middle-class, able-bodied, educated, and heterosexual. Those who fall into this category are deemed privilege based on their power
• Nondominant groups are people who do not conform or fit into the dominant group and have less sociopolitical and economic power.
• Ethnocentrism—placing one’s own culture and the corresponding beliefs, values, and behaviors in the center; in a position where it is seen as normal and right, and evaluating all other cultural systems against it.
  

• High Context: the meaning of the communication is in the people, or more specifically, the relationship between the people as opposed to just the words.
  
• Low Context: When we have to rely on the translation of the words to decipher a person’s meaning
  
• Collectivist: When a person or culture places the needs and interests of the group above individual desires or motivations.
  
• Individualistic: The self or one’s own personal goals motivate these cultures. Each person is viewed as responsible for his or her own success or failure in life.
  

Key Terms

• Afrocentricity
  
• Critical race theory
  
• Collectivism/Individualism
• Communication Styles
  
• Culture
  
• Ethnicity
  
• Ethnocentrism
  
• Gender
  
• High and low context
  
• Identity
  
• Popular Culture
  
• Privilege
  
• Race
  
• Representation
  
• Symbolic Annihilation
  
• Whiteness

A PDF of this Intercultural Communication Study Guide can be downloaded here.