What Is Ethnocentrism And How To Deal With It

Categories: Society

Ethnocentrism issues are very rampant in our society nowadays especially in Mindanao where the people are compromises of culturally diverse individual. .According to American sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) ethnocentrism is a basic attitude expressing the belief that one’s own ethnic group or one’s own culture is superior to other ethnic groups or cultures, and that one’s cultural standards can be applied in a universal manner. Sometimes, Ethnocentrism may lead to or create boundaries among various social groups.

T’boli is one of the Indigenous people group that were marginalized in the society.

They have less opportunities due to the perspectives of other people that they were just “t’boli” which is a form of discriminating and depriving their ethnicity. However, without knowing that behind those coined word that they were just T’boli there is something to be proud of that no one has, their culture and tradition that nowadays are gradually extinct due to different factors.

The Santa Cruz Mission School, Inc.

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(SCMSI) is a non-stock, non-profit Catholic institution organized in Lake Sebu, Province of South Cotabato, Mindanao, Philippines in 1961. It was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC-Registration No. 36994) on December 9, 1968 as a Non-Governmental Organization to assist the Indigenous Peoples (T’boli, Manobo, B’laans, Ubo, Kalagans and Maguindanao Muslims) to realize their full human potential as individuals and as peoples.

The researcher is very interest in determining the level of ethnocentric attitude of the minority group. So, he wants to conduct this research to find out how the minority group still manage themselves from the discrimination of others by wearing their cultural attire.

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The researcher wants to contribute information to the indigenous people’s community regarding to the ethnocentric attitude of young generation in terms of wearing their cultural attire as one of the brand of their culture. Also, to show the result of the study that wearing cultural attire at school is one of the greatest influences in promoting and preserving their culture.

Statement of the Problem

  1. What is the Demographic profile of the respondents?
  2. What are the factors that influence the ethnocentric attitude of the T’boli students?
  3. What are the coping mechanism of T’boli students in addressing the external factors and internal factors?

Significance of the study

This study is significant to the following:

To the National Commission on Indigenous People- This study may serve as their basis on preserving and promoting their culture through wearing cultural attire at school.

To the School Administration- the result of the study may help/ taught them how important the role of their cultural attire on preserving their culture.

To the Future Researcher-with this, it will give them an idea for their research or investigation. Also, it will make as their additional guidelines and references in their research.

To the Parents- this study may serve as one of their basis in teaching their children on how important their culture is.

To the Respondents-the result of the study may help them to open up their mind on how their culture influences their selves and show who really they are.

To the Researcher-this study may help him to understand deeply the cultures of other sector and develop his skill on conducting a research.

Scope and Limitation

The study is delimited on the ethnocentric attitude of the T’boli students wearing their cultural attire at school. It will cover the demographic profile which includes the age, gender, parents personal background such as their educational and occupation. Also, it will cover the factors affecting their ethnocentric attitude and their coping mechanism in addressing the effect o0f factors. The respondents should be enrolled at Sta. Cruz mission, Inc. They must be a T’boli.

Conceptual Framework

This section presents the conceptual and operational definition of the variables being used in the study.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism" stems from a more general concept developed by Sumner [1906]. In the beginning, ethnocentrism was a purely sociological construct, describing in group vs. out-group conflicts. Sumner defines ethnocentrism as: "[The] view of things in which one´s group is the center of everything, and others are scaled and rated with reference to it. Each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities and looks with contempt on outsiders." [Sumner,1906].

Ethnocentrism occurs when a specific culture judges all other cultures against their own values, such as in language, customs and religion. Ethnocentrism is believing that they are superior among other ethnicity as well as shows how they are proud/boastful to what cultures they have.

Demographic profile

Demographic profile refers to the statistical data about the characteristics of an individual such as Age, Sex.Parents’ educational background and Parents occupation.

A. Age- refers to the numbers of years of existence.

B. Sex- refers to the primarily attributes of real-world entities – the relevant extra linguistic attributes being, for instance, male, female.

C. Scholastic achievement- refers to the level of acquired education.

D. Occupation- refers to the job as a source of income.

Clothing fashion trend

Clothing refers broadly to any number of fibers and materials worn to cover parts of the human body, including pants, shorts, shirts, dresses, coats and underwear. Clothing is worn by virtually every segment of the human population, although the types of clothing worn by people varies widely around the world. Religious, historical and even geographical influences play a large role in determining the type of clothing worn by people, as do age and socioeconomic status.

Fashion is about the societal and individual styles of clothing and accessories that reflect the current nature of the world. For those who embrace fashion, it is about the latest handbag, the newest style and the sheer joy of personal expression. Fashion is dynamic, changing in subtle or dramatic ways depending on designers' artistic inspirations, and trends are often born based on style choices of public figures. Throughout history, fashion has been a means of identifying an era and making a reasonable determination of individual social status and personality. Although social pressures influence style choices, personal fashion decisions are a matter of self-esteem and individual comfort.

Factors that influence ethnocentric attitude of the respondents

Socio-cultural factors

Sociocultural factors are customs, lifestyles and values that characterize a society. Some examples are religion, attitudes, economic status, class, language, politics and law. These factors can affect quality of life, business and health.

Psychosocial factors

Psychosocial factors is developed by combining the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary (1997) definitions of psychological, “of or relating to the state of mind and behavior of an individual or a group” (p. 592); social “of or relating to human society” (p. 690-691); and factor “an agent” or “something that actively contributes to a result” (p.271). The definition of psychosocial factors is then: an agent of the mind or behavior of an individual or group that actively contributes to a result. For the purpose of this study, psychosocial factors will be represented by two variables. These variables are: life orientation (optimism) and perceived social support.

a. Life Orientation

A person’s life orientation is a characteristic trait that affects the way s/he views life events. It is their generalized outcome expectancy and can be either pessimistic (negative) or optimistic (positive) (Scheier & Carver, 1992).

Optimism will be measured by the Life Orientation Test (Scheier & Carver, 1992). It measures optimism by assessing generalized outcome expectancies of individuals. A higher score indicates greater levels of optimism.

b. Perceived Social Support

According to Procidano and Heller (1983), perceived social support is “the extent to which an individual believes that his/her needs for support, information, and feedback are fulfilled’. It is an individual’s subjective view of how other people, in particular families or peers, are available to meet and/or assist with meeting the individual’s needs for comfort and support.

Coping mechanism of the respondents on addressing the effects of factors

Coping

Per Lazarus and Folkman (1984), coping a psychological process that occurs when a person in struggling to manage psychological stress. It is a person’s assessment and subsequent response to life events and/or changes in their environment

Coping is a way to address the effects of factors in any means.

Assumption of the study

The researcher assumed that the most of the respondents are registered students of Sta. Cruz mission, INc for 3 years. This study assumed that most of them (respondents) are proud/boastful towards their practice on wearing cultural attire at school regardless of the factors that affect their perspectives on the importance and value of their cultural attire.

Review related literature

The construct of ethnocentrism was introduced by Sumner and Keller [1906], who defined it as general predisposition of an individual to base evaluations of external phenomena in relationship to standards of a group an individual belongs. In sociology, ethnocentrism is regarded as universal trait, which implies behaviors that are discriminatory in nature [Chinen 2010]. When ethnocentrism level is high, everything perceived as ‘in- group’ is perceived as normative and superior, while ‘out- group’ or ‘external’ as inferior. Ethnocentrism is associated also with cooperative behaviors within a group and reluctance or rejection of cooperative relationships with out-groups [Bizumic&Duckitt 2008].

Ethnocentrism is a nearly universal syndrome of attitudes and behaviors. The attitudes include seeing one’s own group (the in-group) as virtuous and superior and an out-group as contemptible and inferior. The attitudes also include seeing ones own standards of value as universal. The behaviors associated with ethnocentrism are cooperative relations with the in-group and absence of cooperative relations with the out-group (LeVine and Campbell, 1972).

According to Shimp and Sharma (1987), ethnocentrism represents an understanding for people to take pride in their own norms and virtues by perceiving their own groups (inner-group) as the center of the universe and to evaluate other social groups (outer-group) from their own perspective, and to omit individuals who are culturally dissimilar while biasly accepting people who are culturally like themselves (Arı and Madran, 2011; Torlak and Özçelik, 2011; Turgut, 2010; Hofstede, 1984; Jain and Jain, 2013).

In their work Callingham and Baker (2002) indicated that the combination of demographic factors with other consumer measurements, such as consumer ethnocentrism may lead to better understanding of consumer buying behavior. The used demographic factors as control variables for the purpose of identification of the ethnocentric tendencies in consumers purchase behaviors. The results of these studies have significantly contributed to the creation of the profile of ethnocentric consumers who are mostly identified by standard demographic factors. Older consumers with low incomes, lower education, with women representing a larger proportion, are the factors that generally determine the profile of ethnocentric consumers Hamelin et.al., 2011).

Older people are generally more conservative, more patriotic and more likely to have experienced conflicts with foreign countries (Sharma et.al., 1995). The arguments supporting a positive relation between the age and consumer ethnocentric tendencies are based on increased cosmopolitan lifestyle over the recent years, as well as socio-cultural influences on behavior patterns of the younger population. Cheng (2011); showed stronger ethnocentric tendencies amongst older consumers than within the younger population. The research results have indicated that older consumers have the stronger ethnocentric tendency and that ethnocentric tendencies proportionally increase in line with the age variable.

Balabanis and Diamantopoulos [2011] and Sharma, Shimp, & Shin [1995] suggest that men are less ethnocentric than women. However, similarly to relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and age, some studies found no significant differences between genders [Hamelin, Ellouzi, & Canterbury 2011; Al Ganideh& Al Taee 2012], and some indicate that men tend to be more ethnocentric [Bannister & Saunders 1978]. Mittal and Tsiros found that female consumer’s rate imported products more favorably, but this could be affected by other factors [Josiassen, Assaf, &Karpen 2011].

According to Han (1988) and Maheswaran (1994), consumers have a negative attitude towards foreign origin products when they are in a positive attitude towards the products of the countries they belong to. The main reason for this behavior pattern is the feeling of patriotism or nationalism. Ethnocentrism tends to increase when there is any threat to the inner group (Lantz and Loeb, 1996). The same phenomenon also arises in the presence of a threat to the economic and sociological well-being of the country (Ha, 1998). Lusk et al. (2006) also pointed out that the demand for ethnocentric trends and local products has increased during periods of national security or economic crisis. Ethnocentrism is a universal phenomenon rooted in many areas of intergroup relations (Kaynak and Kara, 2001).

Methodology

This chapter presents the methodology that will be used in the research which are the following: Research design, Variables of the Study, Instrumentation, methods of gathering data and methods of data analysis.

Research design

The study will be utilizing a descriptive method using a survey method. The method will be employ in the study to determine the level of the ethnocentric attitude of the respondents in wearing cultural attire at school. A survey method is a method of collecting information about human population. In a survey, a direct or indirect contact is made with the units of the study by using systematic methods of measurement such as questionnaires. Purposive sampling technique will be used to gather data. This method will be applied to determine the level of ethnocentric attitude of the respondents.

Variables of the study

The variables of the study on Factors affecting ethnocentric attitude T’boli student in wearing cultural attire consist of the which are the following: demographic profile of the respondents, Factors that influence the ethnocentric attitude of the respondents and the coping mechanism of the respondents in addressing the effects of factors.

Sampling Procedure

This study will use a non-probability sampling technique in determining the sample of the paper. Purposive sampling technique will be employed to gather data from Tboli Student. There will be 60 respondents from the School.

Instrumentation

The instrument use to gathering data needed for the research is questionnaires that consist of three parts. The first part is deal with the demographic profile of the re4spondents. The second part is pertaining to the effects of the factors affecting ethnocentric attitude of t’boli student wearing cultural attire. The last part is dealing with the coping mechanism of the respondents in dealing with the effects of factors to their ethnocentric attitude.

Methods of gathering the data

The primary data will be collected from the t’boli students of the sta. Cruz Mission, Inc., lake sebu, South Cotabato. Before gathering, the researcher will ask permission from the NCIP for formality. Afterwards, the researcher will send a letter for conducting a research to the principal and teacher. Moreover, this data will be gathered directly from the respondents through questionnaires.

Methods of Data Analysis

The data analysis of this research will be mostly represented on quantitative manner. It has been mention earlier that the data will be gathered by questionnaire. In order to analyze the data on demographic profile profile, the researcher will use frequency and percentage distribution to interpret the data on age of the respondents, sex, parents’ occupation, and parent’s scholastic achievement. Also, the researcher will use likert scale to interpret the effect of factors to the ethnocentric attitude of the T’boli student as well as on the coping mechanism in addressing this effects.

Updated: Feb 02, 2024
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What Is Ethnocentrism And How To Deal With It. (2024, Feb 05). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/what-is-ethnocentrism-and-how-to-deal-with-it-essay

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