CULTURE COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT
Introduction
Cultural conflicts are said to be conflicts that occur between individuals or social groups that are divided by cultural boundaries; also people living in the same society but come from different cultural backgrounds this practicing and believing in different cultural practices are affected by cultural conflicts. Dr. Banks indicates that education is a major contributor to cultural conflicts between immigrants and citizens in the United States (Banks, 1995).
Cultural conflicts experienced
Having come from a country with different tribes and people speaking in different languages, cultural conflicts are common. I experienced ethnicity and education cultural conflicts while working in an organization in the United States and the experience taught me how different cultural assumptions affect people in the society and within their workplaces. Ethnicity and education cultural conflict affects people of minority groups. Having been employed in an organization that was governed and dominated by the whites and that had very few black working in it, I realized that the blacks in this company faced high level of discrimination because of their nationality and education level. Dr. Banks believes that cultural assumptions on education based on individual nationality have fueled the heat of cultural conflict (Banks, 1995). True to Banks words me and my black colleagues were treated with little respect in the organization and assigned to do informal jobs because it was believed that we had a lower education level compared to the white citizens working in the same company. According to my own experience racisms and lack of equality in the education sector had contributed to cultural differences in the organization. Citizens whom we graduated with from college were believed to be more competent than me because of my nationality and education foundation background and therefore they were assigned to managerial positions.
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How were these conflicts resolved?
There are different approaches that can be applied while resolving cultural conflicts depending on the type of conflict. Dr. Banks believes that cultural conflicts based on education can be resolved using a multicultural education approach where people focused on the process of knowledge construction that would accommodate people from different nationalities; this world help deal with the cultural assumption that some cultures do not have solid education backgrounds (Banks, 1995).
The kind of treatment the blacks got in my organization resulted to poor working relationship and reduced productivity; as a result the executive members thought of possible ways to resolve these problems. Training sessions and workshops were organized for all employees so that they could be equipped with equal skills that would enable them work in different departments based on their education level and not their nationality. Because of communication style difference between people of different nationalities, communication skill training was organized for non-citizens so that they were able to communicate effectively with other employees and be able to lead different departments. The executive board members made arrangements for some of the employees who needed to upgrade their education level so that they could be able to take part time classes and become more productive.
This approach proved successful while after the training sessions all employees were assigned duties according to their level of education and given a chance to become productive. The organization structure also adapted a multicultural setting that embraced different cultures; this increased the performance level of the employees and the organizations productivity and returns. Based on this experience it can be concluded that Dr. Banks concerns for having a multicultural education setting are valid because they will help in reducing cultural conflicts in the society and workplaces.
References
Banks, J. A. (1995). Multicultural education and curriculum transformation. Retrieved from https://campusportal.ndnu.edu/ICS/icsfs/Banks_1995_Multicult_Ed_with_5_dimensions.pdf?target=a950e77e-5d6e-4ada-bd53-6eddb347f4f0 .
