Integration of Cultural Ideas

The process of identifying with a cultural perspective is not the same for every person.  Spiro (as cited in D’Andrade & Strauss, 1992) defined the internalization of cultural models according to four distinct levels:

·         1^st level: person is acquainted with cultural norms, but may be indifferent or even reject some norms

·         2^nd level: cultural beliefs are acquired as clichés; people wear the banner, but don’t fully integrate the belief

·         3^rd level: the cultural information becomes part of the person’s belief system in a genuine way

·         4^th level: the cultural system is internalized and salient; the individual holds the ideas with both beliefs and emotions

With the opening day of the baseball season just about a week away, it’s easy to imagine these levels of integration.  Baseball fans engage with their favorite teams on a variety of levels.  Many casual fans may listen for the reporting of score on the local news and occasionally attend a game.  The “die hard” fans, however, follow the team closely and sincerely believe that “this will be the year”.  I would put my grandfather in the second group—the “die hard” fan.  I remember him listening to games on his radio and going to games with his score card in hand.  When he wasn’t watching his favorite professional team, he was on the ball fields in his town supporting local youth and teaching them the love of the game. 

Spiro’s model reminds us that just because a person has an association with a group we cannot assume his or her level of internalization of the cultural models of the group.   Teachers and clinicians may find it valuable to learn some of the cultural values and traditions of the students and clients they are serving, but it’s important not to assume that every person with that group shares the same knowledge or integration of that knowledge. 

Culture and the Developing Child

Our beliefs about child development are shaped by our cultural context.  To illustrate this connection in my courses, I will typically start the discussion with provocative questions about things such as spanking, “family bed”, and cell phone use.   Most of these topics stimulate a polarity of responses and engage the students on an emotional level.  For example, the discussion about spanking often yields comments ranging from, “Well, I was spanked and I turned out fine” to “Spanking is never ok.  It teaches children to be aggressive. My parents never spanked me.”  Through class discussions, we explore how the layers of culture influence our beliefs.  Our parent’s practices impact our sense of what is right or wrong.  Shifting public views and community practices also impact our beliefs. 

Beliefs about what children should do and how adults should be involved are related to culture.   I previously wrote about Lareau’s research (Jan 29 blog entry) which explored the relationship between socio-economic status and child reading practices.  Looking at play is another vehicle for examining family practices.  Gaskins (2008) completed a study at a metropolitan children’s museum to look at the differences in play behaviors in families from different cultural groups.  The study extended previous research which suggested that families will engage in either cultivation of play, acceptance of play, or curtailment of play.  The family’s view of the role of play determines how the adult interacts with the child during play.  Gaskins reminds people who operate places such as children’s museum that settings such as that are based on the concept of cultivation of play whereas the family sees play as important for development and parents will likely take on a more active and supportive role.  Not every family, however, views play in the same manner. 

The work of people like Lareau and Gaskins reminds us that there is not “just one way” to parent a child or support child development.  It’s important to be aware of our own perspective and be cautious about judging the beliefs of others.  For many years, I worked with children and families from many different backgrounds.  Therapeutic or educational goals are often based on dominant cultural perspectives, but it may also be important to consider the perspectives of those we are working with.  What may be seen as resistance could be based on different cultural perspectives.   Opening our awareness of different perspectives can help us guide and support our clients and students in a more responsive manner.

Gaskins, S. (Winter,2008). The cultural meaning of play and learning in children’s museums.  Hand to Hand: Association of Children’s Museums. Retrieved from: http://www.childrensmuseums.org/docs/H2HWin08Play.FINAL.pdf

Finding Comfort in our Cultural Context

Culture provides comfort.  Stenhouse (1967) claims, “In a sense man is always alone, but sharing culture one loneliness calls out to another and is heard and understood, for to live within culture is to be able to understand, albeit in a partial way, the experience of those around us” (p. 13).  Through our shared practices and beliefs we can develop a sense of knowing and belonging. 

I have been working with data from an interview study of first year college students.  All of the students in the study had participated in a summer bridge program.  The students were together for four weeks in the summer before for their freshman year.  They engaged in a variety of workshops, classes, and social events.  Over the four weeks, the students developed a strong sense of closeness and community.  

Across the first year of college, some of the students maintained close relationships with the students they met in the summer program.  Other students moved on to new social groups.  Regardless of day to day friendships, all of the students commented on the feelings that there was a community of people on campus who they knew would always be available to them because of the shared experience.  This appeared to provide a strong sense of comfort for the students as they embarked on all of the transitions of their first year experience. 

I am sure we have all experienced that sense of “coming home” to a group that we feel a sense of knowing.  For many years, I worked as a clinical music therapist.  I was very involved in the professional associations.  I felt very comfortable with the culture of the group. Like many music therapists, I usually worked in settings where I was the only music therapist.  Even when I was in very supportive work environments, no one really knew about music therapy which was so core to defining my sense of self.  I relished opportunities to be with other music therapists at conferences and professional events because I was with people who understood my experience. 

When we come home to a group that has a shared sense of experiences, practices and beliefs we experience the familiarity of a known cultural context. 

 Stenhouse, L. (1967). Culture and education. London: Nelson.

Ecological Influences on Development

As a young clinician, I worked with many children with disabilities in their homes.  Home-based services provided a rich setting for addressing the needs of the child.  One day, I was driving between client visits and listening to an audio lecture given by Dr. Ken Moses.  Dr. Moses is a psychologist who specializes in working with families that have a child with a disability.  My take away message from the lecture was the idea that you’re never working with just the child.  You are working with who that child is as part of a complex family system.  It was a simple message, but one that changed my focus as a clinician and shaped my future research.

My interest in exploring context and culture later led me to the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner.  Bronfenbrenner developed the Ecological Model of Development as a means to examine the multiple systems that influence an individual’s development.  The family is part of the most immediate system that influences the developing child, but that family is further influenced by larger contexts such as community, the parent(s)’ social networks, changes in the family over time, and larger influences of society.  Bronfenbrenner’s work speaks to the idea that all people grow and develop within the influence of many systems and many layers of culture. 

The systems that the family is connected with influence the child.  Is the family connected with a faith community?  The child will be impacted when parents deal with stressors in the work place or unemployment.  As families go through transitions such as divorce, moving or new family members, the child is impacted.  The many layers of influence shape our thinking and responses to new experience.  It is the cultural learning that teachers us how to interact with our current context. 

We are never working with just the child.  We are always working with who that individual is as shaped by her/ his past and current cultural context. 

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental Psychology. 22. 724-742.

Music and Meaning Making

Two weeks ago, I wrote about music as a cultural tool.  Music allows for expression of the self or group.  Music gathers us and captures our identity.  In many years of work as a music therapist, I witnessed the power of music to facilitate transformations, shape attitudes and alter behaviors. 

What is this cultural and therapeutic tool we call music?  Ian Cross (2001), explored the concepts of music as a “universal” phenomenon through the perspectives of cognitive anthropology and evolutionary perspectives.  Cross offered the following definition:

Musics can be defined as those temporally patterned human activities, individual and social, that involve the production and perception of sound and have no evident and immediate efficacy or fixed consensual reference.

This definition emphasizes music as a biological and psychological phenomenon.  The final part of the definition reinforces the importance of making meaning of the stimulus.  Cross contended that music has no efficacy until humans react and respond to it. The universal aspect is our ability to respond and our capacity to have a relationship with music.  The nature of our relationship with music is based on personal factors. 

Our cultural context helps to define how we make understand the music, but the capacity to make meaning is the universal human response. 

Growing up with a Sibling with Autism: Schemas and Motivation

For the past few weeks, I have been writing about culture as the context that shapes human development and learning.  The value of understanding cultural context is to become more aware of the layers that influence the behaviors and attitudes of both us and others.  Culture offers a lens for the larger question, “why do people do the things they do?’ 

D’Andrade (1992) explored how cultural learning translates into action through the concepts of schemas and motivation.  Schemas were described as “a conceptual structure which makes possible the identification of objects and events” (p. 28).   Schemas guide a person’s interpretation of events, past memories, and potential future actions.  Motivation is the desire to act on the future actions or goals.  “Cultural representations about how schemas should serve as goals…can combine together to create cultural schemas that motivate the individual with great power” (p. 38). 

My dissertation research was focused on young adult siblings of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).  I interviewed people between the ages of 18-25 that had a brother or a sister with ASD.  I was interested in exploring how their sibling relationship, a significant part of their context, shaped their transitions into adulthood.  I was also interested in how the siblings experienced any feelings of grief. 

Throughout the interviews, the siblings often commented on not feeling that neither their family nor their sibling experience were normal.  The concept of “normal” appeared to come from comparing their family experience to those they saw around them. One woman claimed, “we don’t do things like other families do.”   The concept of normal extended to their relationships with their brothers or sisters with ASD.  Another participant stated, “I feel like I have a sister, but I don’t feel she’s a traditional sister.”  The participants compared their sibling to their schema of siblings and sibling relationships that came from socially constructed idea of what brothers and sisters do.

All of the siblings in my dissertation spoke lovingly about their siblings.  They also talked about the sense of strength that came from their relationship with their brothers and sisters.  Culture shaped their definitions of sibling and family relationships.  The contrast between their schemas for sibling relationships and their own experience created feelings of loss and guided their future goals.  Growing up with a sibling with ASD shaped their career choices, peer selection, and mate selection. 

The goal of my research was not to suggest any valuation of the experience of growing up with a sibling with a disability.  We are all impacted by the people we grow up with.  Our perceptions of those experiences are also shaped by constructed schemas of what relationships “should” be.  Our behaviors are then guided by these relationships and beliefs.

Music as a Cultural and Therapeutic Tool

Music is widely recognized as a tool of culture.  Music represents the unique behaviors, beliefs, and practices of a group.  We have a relationship with our preferred styles of music which is based on our experiences with that music.  Music is a powerful vessel of ideas. 

When we examine the relationships that other people have with their preferred music, we can only really do our best to guess why people connect with that music.  Imagine the parent who wonders how on earth his or her adolescent child can “listen to that stuff”. 

In a 1996 article, Robert Walker posed the question, “Can We Understand the Music of Another Culture?” (Psychology of Music).  Walker stated that “the medium and content of musical activity become important to our understanding of how minds work in musical behavior” (p. 106).  The way that an individual engages with the music makes a difference.  Additionally, our brains have learned to respond to specific elements of music based on our context.   For example, we become adapted to recognize certain tonal structures.  When we attempt to understand the cultural behavior of behavior of another, we are viewing that behavior through our own contextual lens.  Our lens is informed by our own experiences, but also the physical way we have been taught to respond to music. 

Walker’s article demonstrates the idea of insider vs. outsider knowledge.   An insider will naturally have a different level of meaning of the experience based on experience and context.  As an outsider, we can develop empathy or appreciation, but we may never have the same felt sense of meaning as the insider. 

In music therapy, music becomes an incredible point of access to foster awareness and understanding.  The music allows the experience to move to deep levels of meaning and transformation.  A few years ago, I was treating a client who had a traumatic brain injury.  The client was non-verbal with significant limitations in motor skills.  We explored her preferred music through recordings and videos.  She selected music that reflected the complexities of her emotions, desire for friendships, and wanting to impact the world around her.  This client’s musical experiences were different from mine. We were about the same age, but she had a much greater knowledge of the music that was popular during our early adulthood years. That music was an incredibly powerful tool to represent her beliefs and desired behaviors. 

Although we may never experience another’s music at the same level of meaning as that person or group, there is so much we can learn if we just listen.