Culture Clash: A Book, a Trainer's Manual and a Student Manual on the Subject of Culture for Continuous Professional Development

By Adrian L. Hawkes

Some things do not change, God and kingdom values. There are things in our cultures that do not correspond to that. There are some parts of our culture that we have to let go of, some we can hold onto, things handed down to us, need to be re-evaluated. Thank you Adrian for helping me to learn to cherish things from my culture that God wants to redeem.

Jenny Sinnadurai.
Sri Lanka. Church leader
And Church Planter

In this insightful book Adrian raises the important neglected issue of culture in a thought-provoking way. Culture constantly changes, so must we. A challenging book and, if we allow a broadening of our horizons as we work through it, potentially life-changing! A fantastic and must-use tool for any group wanting to gain an understanding of Culture together.

Ann Clifford
Film Producer/Script Writer
United Kingdom

Each community faces different challenges. If we try and change without the spirit of God that could be death. Culture may stop us from experiencing all that God has for us. We load ourselves with transmitted patterns in thinking and action which makes us artificial products. If you are alive, change is inevitable. Adrian, you have done it again: You have helped me learn different ways of looking at and doing-stuff!

Sammy Nawali
Church leader and Entrepreneur
Nakuru Kenya East Africa

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 13, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595616190

Adrian L. Hawkes

Adrian Hawkes lives in Multi Racial North London and has spent his life travelling to every continent. His entrepreneurial philanthropy has left a trail of schools, orphanages, refugee havens and foster care support, from as far afield as Sri Lanka, Kenya and continental Europe. Icejacked is his first work of fiction.

Book preview

CULTURE CLASH

A book, a trainer’s manual and a student manual on the subject of culture for continuous professional development

Copyright © 2008 by Adrian L. Hawkes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-0-595-50707-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-61619-0 (ebk)

Contents

THANKS

FOREWORD

PREFACE

THE BOOK

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT IS CULTURE

CHAPTER TWO

WHY IS KNOWING ABOUT

CULTURE IMPORTANT?

CHAPTER THREE

HOW CULTURES ARE FORMED

 (AND WHO ARE WE?)

CHAPTER FOUR

DEFINING A CULTURE

CHAPTER FIVE

CULTURAL CHANGE IN OUR WORLD

CHAPTER SIX

CULTURE AND

THE CHANGE FACTOR

CHAPTER SEVEN

CULTURE AND THE ROLE OF WOMEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

HOW URBANIZATION

CHANGES CULTURE

CHAPTER NINE

THE IMPORTANCE OF

META-NARRATIVE

CHAPTER TEN

OUR PRESUPPOSITIONS

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE CLASH OF CULTURES

CHAPTER TWELVE

COMPANY CULTURES

References

TRAINERS

NOTES FILE

Session 1—What is Culture?

Session 2—Definitions

Session 3—The Base Pillars of Culture

Session 4—Why is Knowing About Culture Important?

Session 5—How Cultures are Formed

Session 6—Defining a Culture

Session 7—Language and Culture

Session 8—Culture and the Change Factor

Session 9—Cultural Change in Our World

Session 10—Culture and the Role of Women

Session 11—How Urbanisation Changes Culture

Session12—The Importance of Meta-Narrative

Session 13—Our Presuppositions!!!

Session 14—Observable Change that is Currently Putting Pressure on Our Culture and Changing it

Session 15—Sub Cultures and Special Cultures

Session 16—The Dominating or Dominant Culture

Session 17—What Are the Pressures and Benefits of Culture on Family

Session 18—Special Guest Lecture From ‘Through the Roof’—People with Disabilities and Their Culture

Session 19—The Clash of Cultures

Session 20—Course End/Summary/ Presentation of Completion Certificates

THANKS

To Jan Doidge for all her correction work To Anita Brooks for all her correction work

For Pauline My wife for putting up with me, going on about subjects like culture

FOREWORD

BY

ROSEMARY PAVEY B SC PSYCH MBPS ACC BACP

Culture is so diverse all over the world so who could possibly know how to approach the subject and do it justice?

Adrian Hawkes is the only person I know to tackle the intricate cultural issues with such diplomacy. His expertise comes from extensive travel in which he took the time to become close to the people he met, studying their modes of living, their personalities and spiritual values. Touching lives in every continent, over many years, his knowledge and experience has grown immensely. He has also supported a great many young people from all walks of life and various countries as they have appeared in North London, providing them with housing and necessary amenities.

Adrian has given his time to study deeply the cultural issues of the day. His compilation of thoughts, as he sets them out for us to digest, will enable readers and learners to understand to some degree how to use their knowledge to help, support and counsel many people. With this well explained knowledge we may be enabled to enter another’s world to some degree and so become closer to each other in this most varied place in which we all live.

I cannot recommend these writings enough as I believe Adrian has touched the hearts and lives of so many people throughout the world.

PREFACE

I am glad you have taken the time to read the preface, because that gives me a chance to tell you why I put this book together, and if you know that it already enhances your understanding of what you are reading; at least I think so!

There are a few reasons why I wrote this book. When I write it is because I want to help, or influence, or change something. This book fits into all of those areas.

I first produced the training part of the book as a resource to our Foster Care Agency, and for use with Local Authority training for foster carers.

I live and work in a very multi-racial, multi-cultural part of London, and it seemed to me that we needed to be aware of each others’ cultures, particularly if we were taking on children or teenagers from a different culture. We needed to be aware of differences to start with so that misunderstandings could be minimised.

The second reason was because Barnabas Training International Ltd. asked me to produce the occasional lecture for their Diploma course; this is a course to train counsellors. It seemed to me, therefore that counsellors could often get it wrong if they had not thought of the cultural element that applied to their clients, and so that became the second reason for writing the book and the course.

The third reason is that there is that constant demand on us all in today’s world to be continually learning, so the course and the book were prepared with ‘Continual Personal Development’ training in mind, particularly for those who have already done training in counselling, maybe to degree level, or are already approved foster carers and have never considered this part of life.

The point is we often don’t consider culture if we live and move in areas where there isn’t too much difference between us and our next door neighbours.

The fourth reason relates to the third in that I discovered that people often do not think about culture much at all. Often because of our culture though not exclusively for that reason, we live in boxes; boxes of thinking, tradition, practise and expectations. That applies whether we work in fostering, social services, counselling, the health services or even the business community. We live in our box, and most of the time don’t even think about the fact that we are in a ‘box’ that is until someone, or something, challenges our thinking, attitude or life practise: then its often ‘look out’ as all those defences come into play to defend the borders of the ‘box’.

So what do I want to change? That was, after all, one of my reasons for writing, well actually probably you—your thinking! Hopefully, by going through this book or the course, things may be brought into reality, helping you to see your box and be encouraged to smash down the walls of it, because outside of your own small box is another world; and who knows you might get to enjoy it, experience it, and perhaps even be a change agent to make it better!

Adrian L Hawkes North London 1st December 2006

NB. This book is in three sections. A section of it is training notes. If you are using the book as a trainer of others you should contact Baranabas Training International Ltd., Chichester, West Sussex (BTI) who hold the copyright for the use of the training section of this book. You can also obtain PowerPoint presentations from either Barnabas Training International or the author for your use.

Then there is the book section which is really an enlargement of thinking on the whole subject and finally there is the students’ manual which, if you are a trainer you are welcome to photo copy and pass on to your students as you work through the course once you have obtained the relevant permission from BTI; or you could just persuade them all to buy the book!

The course has been delivered in various parts of the country (UK) via London Training International (LTC), which is a training company of which I am a part. The course, as well as being used and franchised by BTI, is also a Continual Professional Development course approved by ACC, the Association of Christian Counsellors.

Barnabas Training Consortium London Training Consortium BTC LTC/Open doors college

THE BOOK

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT IS CULTURE

The reality is that if we go next door, and our neighbour is very, very much like us there are nevertheless cultural changes. There will be things that they do differently, ways of thinking, expectations, likes and dislikes that they will have absorbed from different areas of life that have made them what they are. However, because these are often small things we hardly know the difference and maybe don’t even think about those things.

Some of the easy things to spot that reflect cultural changes are things like dress and food. Then there are things like music and art that help to define a culture; then of course there are the big things like what is important: what is the value system of the culture we are looking at? Sometimes those things