Prejudice and Stereotypes, part 1

For my Social Studies course (Culture, Gender and Sexuality) I needed to write an essay that I found very interesting and decided to share the ideas behind it! You can just read this, think about it or try to write down some stuff yourself :D

Your own Prejudices and Stereotypes and how they affect your behavior (for me Client Work, but I'm writing this for a broader audience)

The intention of the assignment is to have you face yourself, reflect on your behavior, but also your own culture, and then think how all these things affect you and how to correct your behavior. I will explain it in a different order then it was given to me, as it helped me understand the topic and reflect on myself better. I will not share everything I wrote as this is still a personal topic, but also just 5 pages of words 😅

Before we start let me give a broad definition of culture,
Culture - the beliefs, customs, arts, etc. of a particular social group, place, or time + 
the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization + 
the combined pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends on the transmission of knowledge to succeeding generations 
(as you can see it can mean a lot, but I do find that important when talking about this topic)
 
1. Your cultural background, If someone asked you: “What kind of culture are you from?”.
Here you think about 4 subpoints and mainly how the culture influenced what kind of person you are (also think how they changed over time):

- Your Family culture
Here you reflect on stuff like how were you raised, familiar traditions, values, behaviors that are appreciated by your family. Maybe what kind of people had authority in your family, what countries influenced your family culture? Religion can also be a part of this.

For me my mom is half Bulgarian and she appreciated that culture greatly, so I think the prioritized stuff from that part of the family, this did have a weird effect on me as so many parts are either similar or completely different compared to the country I was raised in. Remember it is not only about nationalities, some stuff were just a mix of different factors. So for example politeness, eye contact, culture of openness towards people, food traditions and sharing meals, the way you would welcome others into your home, the value of education, the language that was used. I asked my mom what she thought of when raising me, so that could be a cool thing you discuss with your close ones.

- Your Regional, Community or Heritage culture
Here think about your country, city, the language that is used by different generations, the religion and how it influences the community.

For me the country I was raised in is known for being vulgar, but also has an emphasis on honorifics. We are open about our beliefs and feelings. Privacy is important but it is normal to put yourself into other peoples business. When writing about all this I found it funny how so man things seemed contradicting but fully work.

-Minority cultures you feel you belong to
What are those cultures, what is valued or emphasized? (I didn't finish writing that part of the essay yet 😗)

-Cultural characteristics that you consider important to your identity
Now you don't only name them, but say what you actually value, how you think this stuff shaped who you are now. Which things you like, or maybe you don't like some of them.

This is gonna be part 1, I found this cool and thought it would be an interesting thing to share, but also just using this to motivate myself. Do share your answers if you want to, or what you find overall interesting, and if you want more, it will prolly influence me posting the next part.

(Imma put this in the Life category as I feel this topic can be later applied to a lot of different stuff)

 ヾ(•.•`)o