Paste your essay in here…We all come from different walks of life and have different backgrounds. The one thing that defines as a person is culture. Culture plays an important role in all of our lives. It is the premise of our values, beliefs and our outlook on life. Culture is passed down from one generation to another, and as the world progresses, the basis of our cultures remain the same. Personally, culture has an impact on everything that I chose to do. It’s very evident that culture has influenced every decision I have taken thus far. Culture influences every aspect of our lives.
Culture affects our learning. In the book Culture and Online Learning : Global Perspectives and Research written by Insung Jung, who is Professor and Chair of Education, Media and Society at the International Christian University in Tokyo and Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena who is the Regents’ Professor of Distance Education and Instructional Technology in the Organizational Learning and Instructional Technology Program at the University of New Mexico states that “people from different cultural backgrounds receive and process information in quite different ways”. This shows that people from different cultures tend to learn and process things in a unique manner. Different cultures have various practices which can help develop skills such spatial recognition in children. Different cultures have different principles which make each one of us so different. For example, in most Asian cultures, knowledge is deemed very powerful and most children are taught to give education utmost importance. This causes children to lack in public speaking, which most white children have no problem in doing as their culture had an importance on social skills.
Culture affects our morals. According to Dr. Eva Tsahuridu, who has a doctorate in Philosophy from Edith Cowan University, in her article “How does culture affect your ethics”, states that “While we all have our cultural and individual differences, can we also accept that each one of us can choose what is morally right and wrong? Of course, there are cultural and individual differences.” Having said this, we all have different point of views because we have have different morals and ethics. What may seem morally correct to me, may seem outrageous to someone else. Different cultures have different principles. An example of cultures affecting morals is how homosexuality is a widely accepted phenomenon in countries such as the United States, where as in western countries such as India, being gay is a sin and goes against all Indian principles. Another such instance is the importance of education in Indian culture. Most Indian parents enforce that education is very important as well getting a decent job later on in life. The parents force their children into getting degrees for subjects that do not even interest their children. Most Indian children are forced to either become an engineer or doctor. Countries such as the United States and Europe tend to have a more lenient outlook when it comes to education. The children are allowed to chose and pursue a career that truly inspires them.
Culture affects the development of our personalities. According to Harry C Triandis and Eunkook M. Suh in their journal article Cultural Influences on Personality, it has been found that individualism is directly related to the structure of cultural differences (140). In a study done by Marc Bornstein, who is the senior investigator and head of child and family research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, he found that the relationship between the a child and its mother as well as the way the child is brought up is related to the individuality of the child (140). In other words, they way a child is brought up and the role culture has in individuality is clearly seen here. Culture is the foundation for individualism. In addition to this, people who grew up in more Western cultures have more of an importance on themselves as an individual. Eastern cultures tend to focus more on their group as a whole. In other words, they give more importance social issues and how that would affect them.
Culture affects the way communicate with one another. According to Forbes writer Carol Kinsey Goman, PhD, culture affects global communication. Different cultures have different ways of communicating. In a world that is rapidly evolving with newer technological advances being made everyday, most people tend to communicate through technology (1). Countries such as The United States and The United Kingdom, have known to heavily rely on technology for communication whereas countries such as Japan, who are very technologically advanced, still rely on face to face communication over technology (2). This goes to show that culture indeed does play an impact on how people communicate with each other. Asian cultures give more importance to respect and creating bonds with different people. This may not be a very important part of other cultures and hence it can be seen through communication.
With this being said, culture can impact the smallest of things in our lives. We are all different and have colorful cultures that bring so much to the table.