Cultural Diversity (Social Sciences Term Paper)

Cultural Diversity
Your Name
Subject and Section
Professor’s Name
October 8, 2020
1. Explain the key features of “the culture cycle” and how it operates to shape both individuals and groups. Support your discussion with two examples, one from your own experience and a second from course readings in modules 2-5.
A culture cycle involves four “I”s. These are the ideas, institutions, interaction, and the I, or the concept of self. All these elements operate to influence one another, both directly and indirectly. For example, foundational ideas influence institutions; these institutions influence interactions between people, while these interactions ultimately shape the I-concept of self. The concept of the self directly influences both institution and interaction, while also indirectly affecting the foundational ideas. It is a cyclical, multi-level, many-faceted dialogue that ranges from overarching ideas and institutions down to the specific level of the person and his/her self-concept.
For example, the Stanford Prison experiment captures this culture cycle in action. During the investigation, the student “guards” were not told how to treat the student “inmates specifically,” and yet by donning the institutional guard uniform with dark-tinted shades to boot, they felt an underlying sense of power, authority, and a compelling need to dehumanize and disrespect the prisoners through shockingly creative methods and designs. When asked why they acted the way they did, they merely explained that it just had to be done.
2. Explain your understanding of multiculturalism as both a social fact and an ideology? Provide an example from your own experience of multiculturalism in the United States. Why is multiculturalism so controversial? What are some of the key features of this controversy?
Multiculturalism, as an ideology, is the political accommodation of minorities. Thus it is understood as the enactment of programs and policies for the integration of migration settlement and to allow minority communities to maintain and develop cultural beliefs and systems.
As a social fact, multiculturalism is the concentration of different peoples from their respective ethnicities and cultural identities. In 2010, multiculturalism was declared “dead” on the assumption that the minority would naturally learn to blend in an environment without the need for affirmative action from the state-level. This implies that the policies supposedly espousing multiculturalism encouraged minorities to live un-integrated parallel lives from the majority.
Multiculturalism is controversial because of the debate that it acknowledges that there is an “other,” supposedly creating an outlier where there is none, rather than just merely letting those purported minorities be.
3.What did you learn in Module 3 (“Histories of Diversity/Immigration”) both about a) immigration policy in the United States and b) the experiences of selected immigrants or border populations (see McGuire, “Steel Walls,” Holmes frim “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies,” and the LA Times are article.)? In each case, support your discussion with specific examples from the ...