Cultural literacy

We have ignored cultural literacy in thinking about education . Cultural literacy is the oxygen of social intercourse. (E.D. Hirsch)1

What is culture?

The word 'culture' is from the Latin word cultura, which means 'cultivation.'

Culture is defined by the Geography Glossary (1999)2 as 'the accumulated habits, attitudes, and beliefs of a group of people that define for them their general behavior and way of life; the total set of learned activities of a people.'

The US National Park Service defines culture as an archaeological term: 'Common beliefs and practices of a group of people . the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.'3

Why is cultural literacy important?

Understanding both one's own and other cultures can help a person:

 relate to their surroundings;

 relate to their own culture;

 relate to other cultures;

 gain a broader worldview.

Cultures, while founded upon a set of basic ideas and shared history and heritage, are constantly changing and evolving. To make things more complicated, subcultures arise within main cultures. Keeping up with all the cultures and subcultures in the world is a monumental task, and nearly impossible for an individual to do. It is more realistic to focus on learning the basic traits of large, main cultures and then research for more detail on specific cultures or subcultures as one's worldview broadens.

How does one become culturally literate?

Cognitive scientists use the term 'schemas' to describe the mental units into which humans organize knowledge. According to Hirsch's interpretation of schema theory,4 as humans gain knowledge, they create new schemas and connect them to pre-existing schemas.

Shared knowledge or schemas play an important role in cultural literacy and there are several ways one can increase cultural literacy:

 keep track of current events - local, national, and global;

 be aware of the current trends in technology, entertainment, and literature;

 take the time to read or research about cultures with which one is unfamiliar.

Given the importance of global literacy in a technology-driven world, Robert Rosen, CEO of Healthy Companies International in Washington and the author of Global Literacies: Lessons on Business Leadership and National Cultures (2000),5 recommends the following:

 Use technology in globally literate ways. In a global marketplace, technology is the medium through which people conduct business. While technology accelerates and expands the pace and range of communication, it also increases the chances for miscommunication. Especially with technology through which you can't pick up on physical or emotional cues, you must read between the lines and listen deeply for the emotion, tone, context, and cultural nuances in every communication.

 Learn from the best around the world. Each part of the world excels in a different literacy area. Some Asian cultures, for example, teach us about personal literacy through their ability to understand paradox and ambiguity. Latin American cultures teach us about social literacy by modeling how to build relationships in less organized, constantly changing environments. From European cultures, we learn cultural literacy based on centuries of working and living cross-culturally. In North America, we learn business literacy by building change-ready, technology-savvy, high-performance organizations in a results-oriented culture.

 Use culture as a tool for business success. It's vital to understand how your culture influences how you relate to technology. Americans love new technology; they like quick action and excel at creating new things. They tend to abandon ideas that don't show a rapid return on investment. Other cultures react differently. The Japanese, for example, have been more comfortable with incremental improvements.

According to Rubin, adopting these strategies can start one on a path to global literacy. It is a long-term process, and the choice is up to the individual: one can choose to get started, or choose to be left behind.

How can one increase awareness of one's own history and culture?

Many believe that cultural literacy begins with an awareness of one's own history and culture. For instance, it is useful to know the history and culture related to family ancestry:

 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has an extensive collection of genealogy records from around the world. These records are accessible online through their FamilySearch.org website.

 CensusFinder.com is a web portal to census information in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada as well as Native American sources.

One unique way to discover one's ancestry is to find one's origins through DNA testing:

 The Genographic Project by National Geographic maps individual deep origins through DNA testing. For a fee, a DNA test kit will be sent, the DNA analyzed, and a map tracing a person's ancient origins will be returned. As more people participate in this global project, the human genetic journey will be more fully mapped and understood (https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html).

 Genetic Genealogy also uses DNA testing to trace one's deep ancestral roots (http://www.dnaancestryproject.com/).

 AfricanAncestry.com is a DNA-testing project for those with African roots.

To understand an individual's context within the world, it is useful to be knowledgeable about the geographic places of origin - one's own state, province, region, and country:

 For information about each of the 50 states in the United States, visit the History Channel website, The States (http://www.history.com/states.do).

 The BBC has a useful profile on the United Kingdom as well as other countries (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1038758.stm).

 The CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/countrylisting.html) is a good resource for geographic and statistical information for each country.

After learning about one's own geographic location, it is useful to research other places of interest. According to William Faulkner (1897-1962), 'To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.' To learn some interesting facts about Faulkner's unique but little-known state of Mississippi, visit the site Mississippi . Believe It (http://www.mississippibelieveit.com/). To find out more about Faulkner, visit the Faulkner site at the University of Mississippi (http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html).

Take a real or virtual tour of a museum or cultural exhibit such as those in the WWW Virtual Library site, 'Museums of the World' (http://icom.museum/vlmp/world.html).

Origins of culture: oral tradition

Culture, the shared beliefs and practices of a people, is passed down from generation to generation. How was this information collected, stored, and retrieved before writing? It was collected and stored in the human brain and passed down by oral tradition. Scholars believe that memorization and recitation of human knowledge in pre-literate societies was enhanced by the use of mnemonic devices such as images, knots or beads, song or rhythm.

 Stone Age pictographs/pictures, such as those on the cave walls at Lascaux, France6 (about 40,000 BC), were of animals and/or humans and may be related to storytelling or the passing down of hunting knowledge, tribal legends, or lore.

 The ancient Incas of Peru used a system of different knots in various colored and sized cords to record, store, and transmit information. Quipus7 could only be interpreted by trained 'rememberers' whose knowledge has since been lost.

 The Iliad and the Odyssey are two epic stories about the last days and aftermath of the Greek/Trojan War of about 1,200 BC. The 16,000 lines of the Iliad and the 13,000 lines of the Odyssey, attributed to the blind bard Homer,8 were passed down through oral tradition during centuries of illiteracy and not written down until about 800 BC. These tales were thought to be pure fiction until...