cultural analysis
After having done some research, conducted interviews, and having thought a lot about the subject, I devised some questions that critically analyze the culture of Brazil and its importance in adapting to college.
1. How have Brazilian customs affected the adaptation process to college in the USA? Brazilian customs can both facilitate and hinder the adaptation process to college in the United States. Brazilian children are used to growing up with housemaids, who clean and cook, and with drivers who bring them from place to place. This is a lot different from the United States, where only wealthier families tend to have servants and housemaids. In Brazil, in even poor families have housemaids and children usually do not do chores. This affected me heavily when I moved here, since I had to start cleaning, doing laundry, and accepting several other responsibilities. While conducting the interview with Rebeca, I noticed it also affected her adaptation. Eduardo, on the other hand, who had lived in a boarding school for a few years and away from his parents and Brazil, did not have this problem. He had accepted these responsibilities before moving to the United States for college. Some habits and customs helped me to adapt, however. Brazilians tend to be highly friendly and open to engage in conversation. This helped me make new friends and get to know people quickly. 2. How is education related to culture in both nations? In Brazil, education is about passing the "vestibular" and getting into college. It isn't about learning, or about hard work. I noticed that several of my friend's parents didn't seem to care about how they were doing in school, since it did not seem to relate to the "vestibular" exam. I feel like most Americans tend to be raised in a different way. They tend to learn to associate success to hard work in a different way than Brazilians do. Most American children engage in chores and have various responsibilities early on in life. Of course, it is not right to assume that my friends, who are part of a most fortunate part of the Brazilian population, are an accurate representation of education in Brazil. However, when it comes to socio-economic status, it is even worst for children of poorer families. It is common for them to quit or not attend school in order to take any jobs and help their parents at home. However, in families of both higher and lower socioeconomic statuses, education does not seem to be associated with hard work. When it comes to richer families, children do not associate hard work with success and education. When it comes to poorer families, children work hard however do not have access to education since they have to help feed their families. 3. Brazilian stereotypes seem be exaggerated. How do they keep people throughout the world from understanding the problems Brazil actually faces? Brazil is associated with promiscuous women, parties, drinking, and soccer. It is associated with laidback, relaxed, and friendly people. There is a lot more to Brazil, and this association is usually keeps people from seeing the true problems Brazil faces everyday. To begin with, it is an extremely violent and unsafe country, especially cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In addition, the country faces great inequality in income distribution and several educational problems, since a great part of children to not have access to education. The greatest problem Brazil faces, however, is probably corruption. Corruption is a problem on all levels of government, and it affects all aspects of the daily lives of Brazilians. Since voting is mandatory in Brazil, politicians take advantage of this situation to give the poorest part of the population access to a "basic" standard of living: some food, water, and sometimes education. While the government could do more with its resources, it usually manipulates this poor and uneducated part of the population to believe that it is in fact doing a lot. Since they don't have access to information properly, and since the government is providing them with enough to fulfill some of their basic necessities, they continue to vote for corrupt parties and believe that these parties are doing as much as they can for the country. In addition, the government has also laundered a lot of money. This vicious cycle continues and the government does not properly invest in education for the poor, since an uneducated population leads their party to have more votes. By providing the bare minimum, these parties get reelected and Brazil does not advance. |
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