Deculturalization Culture

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Module 1 Reflection: What is culture? What is deculturalization? How does culture/deculturalization function historically and in the present? Culture is a term that is not easily defined because it literally has multiple alternate definitions (Kohls, 1996, p.23). I have learned after completing the readings that culture has many distinctive components and aspects that are developed throughout the course of a lifetime. According to Terry and Irving (2010), culture is learned as one “participates in family and social networks” (p. 110). As family and social networks do not participate in life events in the exact same ways, it is not hard to understand that culture is something that is viewed differently through the eyes of different individuals…show more content…
It is a process that begins with destroying a people’s culture and attempting to replace it with a new culture through educational processes (Spring, 2013, p.9). The new culture is what has often times been described as the better, more civilized culture. This is a process that has been practiced throughout the history of our nation. After the English made their way to America, Native Americans were consistently subjected to attempts at deculturalization through the use of different educational processes. The English had a strong belief that their culture, religion, and way of life was superior to that of others, especially Native Americans, which brought on their attempts to deculturalize them (Spring, 2013, p.…show more content…
Education has been believed to be the greatest tool our nation’s toolbox for completing this override. According to Spring (2013), “the Founding Fathers rejected the idea of a multicultural society and advocated the creation of a unified American culture (p. 11). Various different schools were created to education Native Americans in the ways of the white man. These institutes were created with the goal of deculturalizing the Native Americans to create a more civilized body of people and gain the lands that they occupied in the South. Boarding schools were created to extract young Native Americans from their families before learning the culture and language of their people, and educating them on the culture and ways of the white man, thereby attempting to destroy their native customs and language (Spring, 2013, p. 32-33). Although in present day, there is still some prejudice against different cultures, I do believe that there is also a greater acceptance for the diversity that makes up our nation. We have all heard the metaphor describing the United States as a melting pot, and as I do agree that our nation houses a vast number of different cultures, I do not think that we completely meld those cultures together to create a common unified culture. I believe we have become more accepting of our multicultural society and are learning the proper way of educating
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