Week 5 Stereotyping and Othering

Sometimes I feel like John, Mr. Smith’s neighbor in Holliday et. al Theme 2.  John recognized that his neighbor’s the Smith’s were culturally different than him.  John was picking up information about his neighbor by observing their lifestyle.  Things that were said and done lead John to believe the Smith’s were Amish.  His judgements did not seem stereotypical, he was simply gathering information and making a conclusion. He wanted to associate with his neighbors, but just didn’t know how.  He didn’t want to be disrespectful.  I get new students and observe them to make conclusions about their culture and personality.  While I don’t mean to stereotype or be disrespectful I do.  What is the fine line between stereotyping and gathering information to make an informed opinion about a person from a particular culture?

Kumaravadivelu talks about Asian stereotypes.  Many of the stereotypes generated about the Asian culture were only for some people some of the time.  I wonder how it came to be that people from so many different cultures are all grouped under the one Asian label?  It seems to me like that is true for every culture.  While it may seem that you are drawing upon knowledge of a student from a particular culture, most of the time you are creating a completely wrong set of ideas.  Like we talked about the first weeks of class; every person has his/her own unique culture.  This individual culture is made up of many life events.  No two people will have the same culture.  So really just learning about a student is what will be most helpful.  It is hard to do, but not forming an opinion ahead of time is actually the best practice.