Teacher Discussion Forums

What does ethnocentrism mean to you? Are you ethnocentric? How do you become non-ethnocentric?

Are you ethnocentric?

Gosh, I hope not! As an American, I'm sick to death of people insisting on dividing us up into "communities". With the world becoming smaller in important respects, we ought to be thinking in the opposite way: We ought to think of ourselves as "Earthlings"!

Larry Latham

Ethocentrism means feeling that one's own culture is more important than others, I would say. (Or adopting a foreign one and getting over excited about it, like Mr.Stalin or Hitler)

While you may opppose this on principle, if you can take a truly even handed approach to the different cultures and traditions of the planet, you must be an omniscient saint.

woodcutter wrote:Ethocentrism means feeling that one's own culture is more important than others, I would say. (Or adopting a foreign one and getting over excited about it, like Mr.Stalin or Hitler)

While you may opppose this on principle, if you can take a truly even handed approach to the different cultures and traditions of the planet, you must be an omniscient saint.

I agree with you Woodcutter. Everyone is, to some extent, ethnocentric. Ethnocentricity is what causes that feeling of comfort we have when we are in our own (cultural) environment. And it need not be a negative thing. Ethnocentricity does not necessarily mean that we believe our own culture to be superior; we just recognise it as being different to others, and so more important to us, because it is our own.