2. In what way should cultural stereotypes be handled?

We use stereotypes in part because it’s so hard to take in all of the complicated information about other people in the world. It’s difficult to spend the amount of time necessary to understand why or in what different ways people behave. So instead, we learn early in our lives to accept stereotypes of groups, or individuals. We develop stereotypes not just for large cultures, but smaller ones.

Stereotypes eliminate the challenges of understanding people who are different from ourselves; they supposedly give us a general overview of whole groups of people so we know what to expect and how to act. Unfortunately, so many stereotypes are inaccurate(неточный) and are used as a method of scapegoating(козел отпущения), or to separate "their" behavior from "my" behavior. We don’t always

agree with, or like the way another cultures behave because it is different, and we therefore perceive it as wrong, and develop negative/ugly descriptions (stereotypes). When we have problems with someone of a different group, we tend to identify the problem as having to do with the group, rather than ourselves or the specific person. So stereotypes do get in the way of how we think and feel. It makes us very judgmental about others and unfortunately often erroneously so. Stereotypes prevent us from identifying the feelings that are really go on inside of us. With stereotypes, the belief will remain that someone did something to us, rather than the problem, fear, or rigidity/closed thinking being within ourselves. When

we’re stereotyping we get caught up in the issue of that’s what "they do", that’s how "those people" are, instead of being in touch with our actual feelings of hurt, confusion, being slighted, left-out, anger, etc.

3. Is there a difference between cultures and subcultures?

Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, norms of behavior such as law and morality, and systems of belief as well as the art.

Various definitions of culture reflect differing theories for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity.

A subculture is a set of people with a set of behaviors and beliefs, culture, which could be distinct or hidden, that differentiate them from the larger culture to which they belong. If the subculture is characterized by a systematic opposition to the dominant culture, then it may be described as a counterculture.

Subcultures can be distinctive because of the age, race, ethnicity, class, and/or gender of the members.

The qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be aesthetic, religious, political, sexual or a combination of factors. Members of a subculture often signal their membership through a distinctive and symbolic use of style, which includes fashions, mannerisms, and argot.

The study of subcultures often consists of the study of symbolism attached to clothing, music and other visible affectations by members of subcultures, and also the ways in which these same symbols are interpreted by members of the dominant culture.

So subculture it is the stream inside the main culture and they are connected with each other in so or that way.