Lesson 4

• According to Franz Boas (1887),

  "Civilization is not something absolute, but is relative, and our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes."
• TWO CATEGORIES IN VIEWING OTHER CULTURE:

  Ethnocentrism

  Xenocentrism
• The word “ethnocentrism” was coined by American social scientist William Sumner in 1906 to provide a technical term for viewing one’s ethnicity (ethno-) in the center of all cultures (-centrism).
• Ethnocentrism

  basically pertains to the belief that one’s native culture is superior to or among other cultures.
• A person who is ethnocentric will reject and look down upon other cultures and the ways they do things also known as ‘cultural bias‘
• They will have a narrow-minded outlook that fails to see things from other people’s perspectives often manifesting itself as cultural blindness
• An ethnocentric person sees and weighs another culture based upon the values and standards of his/her own.
• This approach is known as cultural imperialism ,or the deliberate

  imposition of one’s own cultural belief on another culture.
• However, a highly ethnocentric person, when exposed to new cultures, may experience a culture shock.
• Culture shock happens when a person does not expect or accept cultural differences.
• Ethnocentrism has an opposite relative – xenocentrism ,or the belief that one’s culture is inferior to another.
• The Greek root word xeno, pronounced “ZEE-no,” means “stranger” or “foreign guest”.

  A xenocentric person usually has a high regard for other cultures but disdains his/her own or is

  embarrassed by it.