Skip to main content

Cultural Relativism betwixt Cultural Relatives

Cultural relativism is a term often used in social sciences to define the idea that a person’s beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person’s own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another. Although its usage stems from anthropology, the idea framework is something everyone in today’s world should be aware of and make a commitment to follow. 


Referring to the United States as a melting pot dates back to 1908, and although our country is even more diverse today, discrimination and enthocentrism still permeates our society. As I’m raising our emerging bilinguals, I’d like to instill in them a commitment to cultural relativism, and teach them how to have cross-cultural relationships, as they are bicultural beings themselves. 


A cross-cultural relationship is the idea that people from different cultures can have relationships that acknowledge, respect, and begin to understand each other's diverse lives. By fostering cross-cultural relationships, we can learn more about other cultures, beliefs and lifestyles, and knowledge is power. We might not agree with another culture’s traditions or beliefs, but wecan respect them by not judging or disparaging them for being different from ourselves. 

Therefore, cultural relativism is the ability to understand a culture on its own terms and not to make judgments using the standards of one’s own culture. Using the perspective of cultural relativism leads to the view that not one culture is superior to another culture. Fundamental to this approach is the idea that a person’s sense of reality is constructed through their own cultural frameworks and how these are expressed. Therefore, language plays an important role in cultural relativism, since language is the way in which humanity constructs and communicates its experiences, and actively shaping what counts as reality. 

For these reasons, as a language teacher, as a mom, and as a citizen of this world, I find it important to recognize and appreciate our cultural differences, to practice cultural relativism, and to know the number one human right is to be ourselves.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is 5 Little Monkeys Racist?

I’ve seen a lot of Tik Toks debunking children’s nursery rhymes lately. I have two toddlers, so now whenever I hear one of those rhymes, I think about their unsavory origins. But my son loves, loves Five Little Monkeys. He’s just learning to talk, and can almost say it by himself. I’ve thought about telling him to stop singing it since I learned in the original lyrics it’s not monkeys jumping on the bed, but he just gets so much joy from singing it as he jumps up and falls down, I thought... no harm, no foul, right? As long as he thinks the song is about monkeys, it’s ok.  Until my niece came over one day, and the three toddlers were playing on an old mattress we have on the living room floor for them to jump around on. My son asked me to sing 5 Little Monkeys. At first it was cute, because they literally were jumping on the bed, but then I took a good look at the three of them.  My kids are half-Guatemalan but very fair, like I am. Whereas my niece is half-black, and her ski...

Why You Should Travel with Little Kids

I took my first cross-country road trip when I was six-weeks-old. My parents loaded me up in an old Ford Wagoneer and drove me home from my dad's hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, to my hometown of Ojai, CA. After that, we traveled back and forth between the East Coast and the West Coast every summer of my life. A few times we flew, but most years we loaded up the car with the suitcases, the dogs, and the children and drove 3,000 miles across the country. This early exposure to travel instilled within me a joy of seeing the world, and since that first trip I have visited 34 states and 14 countries. And I hope to share that same joy with my own little ones. Traveling with children can be hard--it disrupts their nap schedules, may involve crossing timelines, and definitely pushes everyone beyond their comfort zones. But seeing different countries and different parts of our country as children gives them a greater appreciation for cultural and regional differences, and it widens their exper...

Toddler Morning Schedule in Spanish

Do you struggle to get your toddlers ready and out of the house on time in the morning? The past few morning in the Barrios house have been absolutely terrible. Maya usually wakes up early with me, but I let Mateo sleep until the last possible moment before we need to wake him up to get to school and work on time. This worked for a while, but this week we have left the house in tears.  Since this is the kids' first year apart during the day, they miss each other so much. They want to play with each other in the mornings instead of getting ready, so I tried to think of a way to keep all of us on track.  In order to help build their independence and organizational skills, I came up with a morning schedule for us to follow, with words and images. Then I placed a Maya copy and a Mateo copy in a clear dry-erase pocket and hung it in a central place by the kitchen. Now the kids know exactly what they need to do  in order to get time to play with each other before school each mo...