AMISH IN THE CITY
Maia Bedwell - Introduction to Sociology 202-1202
One term that can be related to the television program Amish in the City would be cultural relativism. Cultural relativism refers to a situation where a different culture is presented to a person of a different culture and is judged. Cultural relativism occurs a lot as people tend to judge things that they do not understand. People use their culture and compare it to a different culture and then decide that the culture is weird or does not make sense simply because it is different. Another issue with cultural relativism is the fact that people choose not to learn about the different cultures because it is different from what they know/are used to. With Amish in the City, cultural
…show more content…
Assimilation is when members of a minority culture change their beliefs and actions in order to fit in with the majority. This happens a lot with minority cultures especially in America as Americans tend to judge minority cultures therefore a lot of people will change their ways in order to fit in and not be criticized. The other side of assimilation would be the majority culture group accepting the minority culture. This can happen in a positive way where people learn about minority cultures and accept them or it can be negative. The negative side would be the majority group only accepting the minority once a change occurs and the minority becomes a part of the majority. This happens in Amish in the City as the city folks did not accept the Amish folks for the way that they were. The only time that the city folks accepted the Amish was when they started to assimilate and change their traditional ways by changing clothes and mannerisms. An example of this would be when Meagan judged the looks at first but then called them “hot” etc. when they began wearing clothes that were aligned with her culture vs. …show more content…
Ethnocentrism is all about people from one culture looking at another culture while only comparing it to their own and causing misunderstanding. This ideal is all about evaluating other cultures in a way where one only evaluates based on their own culture. This situation tends to lead to complete misunderstanding and judging of other cultures. Unfortunately, it appears that many Americans use Ethnocenterism when being presented with different cultures. Ethnocentrism could also be used by those belonging to a minority culture when presented with something like a person born in raised in Los Angeles California (and their culture). Ethnocentrism is used in Amish in the City mainly by the people from the city. The city folks appear to judge the Amish based on their appearance and clothes because they do not take into consideration that their appearances and clothes are traditional to Amish culture. This happens when Meagan and Reese ask the Amish things like if they brought different clothes or even suggest that a “makeover” must occur for the