Ethnocentric or Ethnorelative?
Are we Ethnocentric or Ethnorelative? By “we” I mean Americans, Society in general, people within our cultures, and ourselves. So much focus is put on being global, cultured, worldly, or a number of other catchy words, but are we actually becoming those things? Enthorelative seems to be the goal, but I would argue that Ethnocentrism continues to be the trend.
Being ethnocentric means that individuals judge others based on their own cultural experiences and point of view. There are three stages of ethnocentrism which include Denial, Defense, and Minimization. Although I believe that denial and defense are still very present, minimization seems to be a common stage that could be easily overlooked. Ken Barger professor of Anthropology from Indiana University Indianapolis mentions that many people who think they are open-minded are actually ethnocentric. Minimization is when people think everyone is basically the same. According to our text this is the stage that many teachers are in. It is a dilemma because individuals that are stuck in the minimization stage treat everyone as if they were the same and yet they are different. This particular stage sparked my interest because I think of myself as open-minded and accepting, yet I saw myself a lot in the description of minimization. The next stage is acceptance and it’s the first stage of Ethnorelative. I think myself and many individuals bounce between the minimization stage and acceptance stage, with more time spent in the minimization arena. Jumping into the acceptance stage may be second nature to some individuals, but for many it takes a conscience effort. Maybe the minimization stage is such a plateau because in this stage people think they are being open-minded, yet they are still in their comfort zone. Breaking out of that is a difficult task. After the acceptance stage there is the adaptation stage where individuals begin understanding enough that they can communicate across various cultures, and then the final stage of ethnorelative is the integration stage which “reflects those individuals who have multiple frames of reference and can identify and move freely within more than one cultural group” (Cushner, McClelland, & Safford, 2009)
To learn more about the Ethnocentric and Ethnorelative Stages or to take the Multicultural Experiences Questionaire, please view my links and references.
