I was stting in my last tutorial for Socio-Cultural Politics of Education last week and we were discussing the implications of multiculturalism on our Australian culture and how for the most part, many different cultures live together in relate harmony and acceptance, and how there needs to be a shift in education to really embrace diversity into the curriculum and how this should happen. As the conservation evolved our tutor told us about an experience that she had. She had recently finished reseraching the relations between Muslims and Christians on a small Indonesian island (I can't remember the name) and had finally had the article published in a popular magazine.
She then explained how she recieved emails from readers expressing thanks and their own opinions. However she recieved an email from an man in the United States. He was in total disbelief that Muslims could actually live in harmony with Christians. On the island they had to, and they did so very harmoniously. Her called her research as politcal correctness and proceeded with this in way that was very confronting and sad. Sad in that he had this stereotype that many people have in regards to Muslims, due to the link between Muslims and terrorism (that has been whipped up by governments to develop fear -politics of fear- and communicated through the media), when it is usually extremists that confirm this. It is sad to think that this man could not move past this stereotype to think that this situation may be possible. I know that many Americans don't hold the same view, but it is usually those with the 'loudest' voices, who get heard and therefore have their stereotypical views heard. It goes the same for the terrorists minority. Terrorist acts are loud and get noticed therefore promote ideals about people when it is not true for the majority.
This guy from American has done the same in that he promoted his stereotypical views in a public forum (just as I have) and has therefore formed a stereotype of American people. But because we know better, we know this is only representative of a mnority of American people. A good example of people being presented with true and acturate information contrary to the belief and still the stereotype holds. What is the term for this I have forgotten and don't have my Social Psych notes close enough to check?
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2 comments:
Great post Jules!
I think the term your thinking of is belief perserverance.
This is a good example of the textbooks theme 'bad is stronger than good'.
Sounds like the American needs to take a social psych class.
Interesting example. One of the conclusions of the B&B textbook I think is that the tendency to be prejudice is natural. Some may see this pessimistically, but I think this makes for a different approach, i.e., accepting our underlying tendency towards prejudice and then looking for ways through culture to have positive contact, understand a bit of underlying psych. theory, and develop conscious overriding.
BTW - I've visited the US twice, and lived there for 18 months. I find it to be a notably different place culturally, with a general view of the outside world and other cultures is distinctly American-centric.
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