1. Answer the questions:

• What national culture do you identify yourself with? What other cultures have you been exposed to?

• Have you ever travelled abroad? What did you feel like when you first came to a foreign country?

• Have you ever moved from one part of the world to another? When was it? Where did you move? Did you try to remain within your mother culture or did you try to absorb a host culture? Why was it essential for you?

2. A) Skim through the text and say what the message of the text is.

 (2 min.)

All Cultures Are Not Equal

Let’s say you are an 18-year-old with a really big brain and you want to understand the forces that will be shaping history for decades to come. Go into the field that barely exists: cultural geography. Study why and how people cluster, why certain national traits endure over centuries, why certain cultures embrace technology and economic growth and others resist them.

The economists and scientists fail to explain a crucial feature of our time: while global economies are converging, cultures are diverging, and the widening cultural differences are leading us into a period of conflict, inequality and segmentation.

Not long ago, people said that globalization and the revolution in communications technology would bring us together. But the opposite is true. While people are taking advantage of freedom and technology to create new groups and cultural zones, old national identities and behaviour patterns are proving durable. If you look just around the United States you find amazing cultural segmentation. Americans have been “globalized” for centuries (meaning economically integrated), and yet far from converging into some homogeneous culture. The music, news, magazine and television markets have all segmented, so there are fewer cultural unifiers like Life magazines or nightly news anchors.

If you look around the world you see how often events are driven by groups that reject the globalized culture. From Africa to Seattle, religiously orthodox students reject what they see as the amoral mainstream culture and carve out defiant revival movements: antiglobalization types create subcultures. While Islamic extremists reject the modern cultures of Europe, some American Jews have gone to Hebron and become hyper-Zionists.

Global inequality widens as some nations with certain cultural traits prosper and others with other traits don’t.

If you are 18 and you’ve got that big brain, the whole field of cultural geography is waiting for you.

(After David Brooks, The New York Times, August 2005.)

b) Sum up the text in three sentences.

c) Scan the text for details.

d) Answer the teacher’s questions.

3. A) Open the brackets using the correct forms of the verbs.

nuance [‘njuOns]

Culturally Confused

Can you explain in four words or less where you’re from? Not what it _____________ (1 – to say) on your passport, but where you’re really from. If it _____________ (2 – to take) more time than ____________ (3 – to drink) half a glass of wine, then chances are you’re a TCK – a Third Culture Kid.

TCKs are children with a home and host culture who create their own blend-in – a third culture. They have common traits: often multilingual, they share acute social skills and a keen awareness of the world. They tend _______________ (4 – to have) an ability for _______________ (5 – to adapt) to lifestyles and language nuances, a skill that stays with them throughout life. It makes them very skilled at _________________ (6 – to fit in).

Signe Bruun Jensen is in her mid-twenties and __________________ (7 – to live) abroad for most of her life. __________________ (8 – to move) from Denmark when she was three, she grew up between the US and Europe, went on __________________ (9 – to work) and study in countries from Asia to Latin America, and eventually came to Brussels, where she works for a policy think tank.

“My father is in finance and his career meant a lot of relocation,” she says. “Moving around __________________ (10 – to give) me the skills ________________ (11 – to handle) changing surroundings and the courage ________________ (12 – to take) chances. _________________ (13 – to see) a bit of the world as a child drives me to see even more.”

There are, however, downsides to ______________ (14 – to split) between worlds: confused friendships, lack of identifiable culture and restlessness. For instance, when _______________ (15 – to move) around, children don’t develop much commitment towards people or places and they see their parents ____________ (16 – to do) the same. TCKs seem unwilling to commit because ____________________ (17 – not / to tie down) is part of their personality. For them it’s easier to tune out and focus on meeting new people rather than ____________ (18 – to feel) sad about what they ______________ (19 – to leave behind).

For a TCK, not feeling especially ________________ (20 – to attach) to a country or culture is common. Ninety percent of them end up ________________ (21 – not / to live) in their passport country.

(After Peter Philp, The Bulletin, March 2006.)

b) Answer the teacher’s questions.

VOCABULARY EXTENSION