Socio-cultural values in education

Malvin Tan

Professor __ ?__

___ ?Subject ?___

23 January

An Indonesian 's Reflection on an

American Cultural Patterns : A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Different strokes for different folks ' so the line goes . But precisely how different ? And which folks ? Having come across the book American Cultural Patterns : A Cross-Cultural Perspective by Edward C Stewart and Milton J . Bennett , this line and these questions have taken on a richer meaning for this student from Indonesia . I realized that differences are meaningful and could be the basis for better relations Culture

, after all , may really be seen as humanity 's different strokes ' towards the common goal of living in a global community . My country of origin , Indonesia , could be characterized as being a world apart from the United States , which is the main subject of this classic work by Stewart and Bennett . By reading this work , an Indonesian may take better note the differences between American and Indonesian (or South East Asian /Maly ) cultures . In noting some of these differences in the following sections , key concepts in the book are elaborated on

First of all , to tackle the notion of culture . Culture (from Latin cultura stemming from colere , meaning "to cultivate ) which is seen by this student as , generally , a people 's way of doing things (our different strokes , is proposed in the book as having two aspects subjective culture and objective culture . Subjective culture is essentially the pattern of meanings that a person holds in his mind . It is a person 's mental or psychological make up . On the other hand objective culture may be seen as the external expression - what is out there ' - of this psychological or subjective reality . Hence values , assumptions or patterns of thinking , e .g , belief in a non-material , divine entity like God , or a value orientation towards money and material things , are seen as elements of subjective culture On the other hand , the development and use of money , i .e , crafting and using bills or coins in particular , like the economic system itself that it props up , are part of the objective culture of a people As a further example , for Indonesians , especially Muslims , there is this view that the political and cultural (or religious ) systems are so closely intertwined as all things flow from the Q 'uran (the Muslim Holy Book . As an objectification of such belief , we find that many Muslim states ' designed or institutionalized following provisions from the Q 'uran . In the particular case of Indonesia , one sees the modern development of the government sponsored ideology knowns as the Pancasila . The Pancasila informs all official development acts in the country . In fact , all those who intend to pursue higher education are required to learn the Pancasila . Here we see clearly how even higher education is directly influenced by government 's ideology unlike in the secular and liberal United States system

To go further , with an understanding of the basic propositions on culture (subjective and objective , plus apprecaition of the contrasting ideas of...