Cultural Report

When we were asked to chose a cultural group to study and report on, we probably all were eager to see how the other side does things.   Thats why I chose to research the cultural group of the urban lifestyle.  With the concepts in Chapter 8, the one that I felt would help me more understand this group is cultural shock.  I chose cultural shock because I wanted to better understand the challenges I would encounter if I was to move to a larger city or urban area.

Cultural shock happens in most transitions and to most people when they relocate, which is the main reason I decided to use this concept or term.  Cultural shock is the phase when people face challenges in their new cultural area.  Understanding the concept of cultural shock helps me realize that there really is many challenges involved when someone relocates to a cultural group or area that they are uncomfortable with.

For someone like me transitioning into a larger city or urban life, there are many challenges that we face.  One of the many and to me the most important challenges in relocating to a larger city is dealing with not having your own space.  I want to better understand what it is like with houses side by side for twenty plus miles.  I also plan on better understanding how they feel they would act if they had to relocate to a smaller town or a rural countryside home.  I want to better understand what it was like attending a high school with the enrollment of 1600 plus, which is more than my town has population.  Or what it was like graduating with a class of over one hundred, which is more than my high school had total.  For me, playing sports was a big thing in a small town, I wonder if it is the same in a larger town.  If you did play sports in a small town for me, it was pretty easy to make the team.  I want to know how difficult it was to make a varsity team in a class A or B school in the state of Nebraska.  I also would like to understand what it was like with the fear of violence in a larger city because in a small town, violence is non existent and if happens is a very, very big deal.

My plan to learn these different situations is to interview someone that lived in an urban area such as Lincoln or Omaha.  My plan is to interview someone on my floor, analyze the information, and present to differences and similarities between the two and look back on the information and see if I would be successful growing up in a large or urban area and help me to have more confidence if my job was to lead me to a larger city.


https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=omaha+central+enrollment&..- Photo

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=..- Rural Photo

Martin, J.N. & Nakayama, T.K. (2012) Intercultural Communication in Contexts (6th ed.) Boston, MA: McGraw Hill