Cultural Awareness


We are living in the fast-changing world in which people have to work in a multicultural environment. With the rapid development of globalization, cultural awareness plays an key role in our living and working life.
For me, as a overseas student, I used to have many problems with adapting to a new environment. This can be considered as Cross Culture. According to Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, this path has six stages with different behaviors and perceptions. Below are explanation and more detail of each phases:
  • Denial: In the first stage, people may feel aggressive and refuse all interaction with other cultures.
  • Defense: In this stage, people consider their own culture as the best and tend to criticize other cultures.
  • Minimization: This stage, people start realizing that other cultures might have something in common with theirs.
  • Acceptance: At this stage, people may become interested about other cultures and want to explore them.
  • Adaptation: When this stage is reached, people tend to change their own behaviors in order to effectively adapt their new environment.
  • Integration: In this stage, people change their communication style and behaviors to match other cultures.
Settling into a new country is not easy since it has many difficulties and problems, but it also brings us a chance to explore new things. Just spending time to read this scale and prepare carefully, it might help getting out of nervous and depression.



Another interesting is Cultural Types Theory by Lewis. According to this model, countries are divided into three main groups:
  • Linear-actives: people who tend to plan, schedule, organize, do one thing at a time.
  • Multi-actives: people who do many things at a time, planning their priority according to its importance.
  • Reactives: people who listen and react carefully to others' perspectives, the majority of country located in Asia.
Cultural Types - Lewis Model


This research helps understanding how to interact with people from other countries with different cultures, especially when working in a multi-culture group.


References: 
http://www.crossculture.com/latest-news/the-lewis-model-dimensions-of-behaviour/
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-lewis-model-2013-9?r=US&IR=T&IR=T

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