Exploring National Images

Subject Area

This activity has been designed for the History (HWT 4A1, HWT 4G1) curriculum. It forms the part of the “Specific Studies in The Global Village” unit which explores various national images.

Learning Outcomes

Teaching, learning and evaluation will focus on the student’s ability to:

• Discover what the term Latin America means;
  
• Suggest reasons for the difficulty in forming valid images of other countries and cultures;
  
• Discuss critically the specific problems (stereotyping, inaccurate information, oversimplification, cultural bias) that make it difficult to form realistic images of other countries and cultures.
  

Classroom Development

This lesson is an introductory motivational activity to draw on the students’ prior knowledge of South America, and to recognize the relative nature and value of sources of information.

1. Handout the definitions of the term “Latin America.”
   
2. As a class, make a list on the blackboard of the countries that are defined as part of Latin America.
   
3. Discuss the terms South America, Central America, Caribbean, Latin America.
   
4. Divide the class into groups of three. Assign each group 3 of the 22 Latin American countries. Have each group write five statements (complete sentences) describing their image of that country. If knowledge about the country is minimal, the group should try to explain why it is so difficult to complete this task. At this point, students should be discouraged from “looking up” facts on the countries.
   
5. Ask each group to read some of the descriptive statements they wrote for each of the nations. The teacher should focus attention on the process by which these images of other countries are formed by asking the following questions:
   • Where did you get that image of the country?
   • Is that a good source?
   
6. When all groups have finished, ask students to generalize:
   • What factors seem to have most influenced our images of the countries?”
   • How important have television, movies, newspapers, and magazines, hearsay, school textbooks, foreign travel, and personal acquaintances with people from the country been in influencing decision making?”
   
7. Provide students with the opportunity to learn more about Latin America through a research period in the resource centre. You may want to have the students read and discuss as a class the problems based on a text you have provided, giving additional examples. Then each group should analyze the descriptive statements they wrote, looking for stereotyping, cultural bias, oversimplification, and insufficient evidence.
   
8. Now have each group review their original five descriptive statements that they wrote for each of the Latin American countries. Have each group come up with a plan for reducing their erroneous information, problems with accuracy, and lack of information.
   
9. Have each group report on and share information about their plan to the class.
   

Timing

Allow 1-2 periods for the completion of this activity.

Classroom Extension

Try repeating this activity using other geographic locations.

Student Activities

Consider the following questions.

1. Review the section on stereotyping on the accompanying page. Which of the statements that your group wrote reveal stereotyping? Write “stereotype” after those statements. Revise your statements.
   
2. Review the section on “Inaccurate Information.” Which of the statements your group wrote could be based on inaccurate information? Write “need more information” after those statements. Make a note of where you can get the information you need.
   
3. Review the section on “Oversimplification.” Identify the statements your group wrote which could be misleading oversimplifications. Write “probably not this simple” after these statements.
   
4. Review the section on “Cultural Bias.” Identify the statements your group wrote which show judgments that may be culturally biased. Write “possible cultural bias” after these statements.
   
5. Conclude this section of the activity by asking if it is ever possible to have an entirely accurate and completely unbiased understanding of another country or culture. Why or why not?
   

Definitions of Latin America

1. Latin America.
   Those countries of South America where French, Portuguese, or Spanish is the spoken language, including roughly all countries south of the U.S.A. border with Mexico, excluding parts of the West Indies where English is the national language. Spanish is the dominant language throughout Latin America, although the language of the largest country, Brazil, is Portuguese.
   Paxton, John. The Statesman’s Year Book: World Gazetteer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975. P. 336.
   
2. Latin America
   South of the U.S.A. are the twenty-two nations which form Latin America. Most of the republics have a great deal in common. All were once the colonies of European powers such as Spain and Portugal. Most Latin Americans speak either Spanish or Portuguese and nearly all are Roman Catholics. Because of these common factors, there has been in the West a tendency to regard the different peoples and countries of Latin America as alike and to emphasize their similarities.
   Catchpole, Brian. A Map History of the Modern World. Toronto: Irwin, 1983. P. 106.

Problems To Avoid

Stereotyping
In the terminology of printing, a stereotype is a metal plate used to reproduce the same picture over and over. In thinking, a stereotype is a mental picture applied over and over to all members of a particular group regardless of individual differences. A person who stereotypes thinks all individuals in a group fit one pattern. Stereotypes distort our thinking because they do not take into account information about each individual person in the world. Some generalizations are necessary to help you to understand the world around you. However, it should be remembered that all nations contain different types of people. Care must be taken never to judge all any racial or cultural group (including your own) as stupid or intelligent, lazy, hardworking, honest or dishonest. One of the most common stereotypes is to lump a number of different ethnic, linguistic, or racial groups together based on superficial similarities.

Inaccurate Information
Often we form our images of other peoples and countries before we have carefully studied the facts. And sometimes the facts we do use are out-of-date. Thus, in many cases our images of other nations are not close to reality. It is impossible to have correct up-to-date information on all the world’s nations. But it is possible to be aware of the fact that the information on which our images are based may be wrong, and to be ready to modify our ideas when additional information comes to light. Usually that information can best be obtained from people living in your community who come from the particular nation for which you need information.

Oversimplification
Understanding another country’s culture or people is seldom as simple as it may first seem. In forming an accurate image of another country it is necessary not just to have up-to-date facts, but also to be sure that all the important facts have been taken into account. Since we do not usually know all the important facts about other nations, often our perceptions of these nations are wrong or misleading. As more information is gathered, our perception of another country or culture should become more complicated, but also more accurate.

Cultural Bias
When we look at another nation, we are looking from our own cultural perspective. What we see reflects our own attitudes and values. This makes it difficult to judge another country or culture objectively, and leads to misjudgments and misunderstandings in forming our perceptions of other nations. It is important to be aware of cultural bias and not let our own attitudes and values blind us in making accurate judgments of other cultures.