Identify your cultural profile

Description of the tool

Warm up - 10 min

Clapping and wheels of comfort for the following categories:

a) When hearing a very positive or very negative one participants clap. Once for very positive, twice for very negative.

b) There are 3 concentrically circles with the centre as maximum point of comfort. Participants take position according to their level of comfort related with the following people:

Terrorists, Lesbians, Jehovas witnesses, Very little children, Old people, Abstract artists, HIV-positive people, Jewish people, French people, Pamela Anderson, Gay men, Catholic priests, Mentally handicapped, Your mother

The three countries - 1h 45min

Absurdistan: a state with an important religious minority
Funnystan: a state with an important ethnic minority
Paradistan: a state with an important linguistic minority

Grouping:

Participants receive green post-its marked as follows:

•Mr (four of these for the majority in Absurdistan)
•Me (four of these for the majority in Funnystan)
•Ml (four of these for the majority in Paradistan)
•mr (four of these for the minority in Absurdistan)
•me (four of these for the minority in Funnystan)
•ml (four of these for the minority in Paradistan)

The trainer indicates group membership on a pre-written “map of the three countries.” Each participant can check where he/she belongs by confronting what it says on his/her post-it with the map on the flipchart.

Problem solving:

Each group must solve the following problem bearing in mind the specificities of their country. Majorities and minorities in each country must agree on some measures to solve the problem together.

The problem: A minority which has become the majority is confronted with a big wave of migration.

Presentation of solutions proposed:

Each group presents and the other groups (“countries”) are asked to give their opinion on the solution presented. Do they agree? Why? Why not?

Debriefing:

The main questions to reflect about are:

•How adequate were the solutions proposed;
•How easy/difficult was it to reach a consensus (if a consensus was reached);
•What did you personally learn out of this activity;

Hofstede’s cultural profile - 30 min

Presentation of Hofstede’s work/ideas. (see bellow)

Participants fill the cultural questionnaire (see below)

Discuss results and relevance to minority issues

It is advised to pose the following questions for reflection:

What did you learn about yourself?
What did you learn about your culture?
Do you think your cultural profile will always remain the same?

Evaluation

Participants receive 2 post-its, one for something positive and one for something negative about the workshop. - 10 min