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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 students
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.
- Handout
the definitions of the term Latin America.
- As a
class, make a list on the blackboard of the countries that are
defined as part of Latin America.
- Discuss
the terms South America, Central America, Caribbean, Latin America.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Review
the section on Oversimplification. Identify the
statements your group wrote which could be misleading oversimplifications.
Write probably not this simple after these statements.
- 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.
- 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
- 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 Statesmans Year Book: World Gazetteer.
New York: St. Martins Press, 1975. P. 336.
- 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 worlds 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 countrys 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.
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