Cultural Bingo

Participants start the session by playing cultural bingo until a winner has completed their sheet.

Objective: To get people appreciating the variety of differences available within even this small group.

It's like peeling an onion

A person’s culture is like the layers of an onion, varying in impact from the outer layers, such as dress style, through to the inner core values.  I would suggest an individual exercise to get people thinking about things which are important to them individually at each layer.

Objective: To get participants to identify the layers which define their own culture.

What is a cultural group?

We automatically assume that culture is based on national identity, but our gender, generation, urbanisation, education, and sexuality are just a handful of the contributing influences.  I would suggest a short activity here to examine the difference between generations (assuming that the group is a mix of ages.)

Objective: To get people to realise the dangers of generalisations based on national/ethnic cultures alone.

The experience of culture shock

We commonly identify this as homesickness but anyone who has lived in a different culture (I am assuming that there will be some participants who are not from the predominantly British culture) will have experienced the effect of culture shock.  This session will explain what it is and why it may cause some strange reactions. 

Objective: To show that behaviour may sometimes be caused by the shock of adapting to a different culture, rather than simply be indicative of a particular culture.

Where have all the doors gone?

This example comes from a British University, where
Korean students remove the doors from their single room accommodation to feel more comfortable with their living environment.  The session examines the cultural background behind this action. Participants are then encouraged to work in groups and identify some of the behaviours they themselves have found puzzling.

Objective: To raise awareness of the background of cultural behaviours.