Ethnocentrism

3 Pages 805 Words

Ethnocentrism and values are like the spine of cultures. It separates culture from culture and how we look at each other. Ethnocentrism and values can bring good and bad, it may manifest itself in attitudes of superiority or hostility toward members of other groups and is sometimes expressed in discrimination or violence. Values are those ideas and things considered important by a given group of people, values are no written laws, it’s what we as a culture find important. For example in the U.S it’s an important value to give or help the poor. This values change from culture to culture; other American values are personal achievement and success, hard work, faith in progress, efficiency, and practically since Americans comes from so many different cultural backgrounds, many people have values that are different from those of the majority. Ethnocentrism is the attitude and/or ideology concerning the relationship between an individual’s own group and other groups. Ethnocentrism occurs when negative value judgments are made about others based on the differences between one’s own culture and a foreign culture. Ethnocentrism occurs when an individual considers his culture/nation to be absolutely superior to other nations or cultures. An AFS book that all AFS students get before they arrive to a their host country explains values and ethnocentrism with an interesting twist. They have a picture of an iceberg where 10% is over the water and 90% that you cant see is under the water. This illustrates the “hidden laws” or values of a culture. Since 90% of the “laws” are under the water it’s basically impossible to learn everything on a year, but it helps a great deal.



There are thousands and thousands of unwritten laws, and they change from culture to culture. For example in Norway there is an unwritten law that says you should come home and eat dinner with your family, or as we saw in a movie clip about Saudi Arabia wher...