Personal Culture And Worldview

Instructions

Overview

Valuing cultural diversity and honoring the cultural stories of the people we come into contact with begins with self-awareness and thoughtfulness. The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to think about, define, and articulate your own cultural story and worldview, with the goal of identifying strengths and areas for growth. Understanding your own cultural beliefs and values can help to make you aware of potential bias and limitations. Culture is race and ethnicity, and also nationality, language, gender, religion and spirituality, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability or ability, and size, to name just a few identities. Belonging to a cultural group influences every aspect of one’s life, including beliefs, values, attitudes, and worldviews. When we understand our own cultural backgrounds, we can better understand how these identities affect others.

Write a 3-5 page paper (not counting the title page and reference page) describing your culture and worldview. You do not need to write an abstract. Follow current APA professional style standards.  Cite and reference our textbook, Cultural Engagement, by Chatraw and Prior (2019), as a source used for support in each main section of your paper. This is the only source required for this paper. You may use Scripture as well. Because you are writing about your personal culture and worldview, it is appropriate to use first person pronouns (I, me, my, for example) for this assignment.  

Begin your paper with a brief introduction (do not use a heading for the introduction). This is typically one paragraph that explains what the paper covers.

Define what is meant by culture in the first main section, Defining Culture.

The next section of your paper should address Faith and Culture. This section is for you to articulate your faith beliefs and culture that you identify with.

The third main section, Contemporary Issues, contains your exploration of your personal culture and worldview beliefs regarding contemporary issues (examples from our reading include sexuality, gender roles, abortion, reproductive technology, immigration, race, climate change, animal welfare, politics, work, arts, war, weapons, capital punishment). Do not use subheadings for this section; use paragraphs to separate main ideas. As you define your culture and worldview, focus on topics that are of the greatest significance to you personally (in our course reading, this concept is referred to as cultural salience). This is an important concept from our reading, that individuals place different priorities on aspects of their culture, and it is up to each person where this significance is placed.

End with a Conclusion where you summarize what the paper covered, and include any closing thoughts.