Culture and education
Culture is one of the basic units that dictate a person’s way of living and approach to certain situations in life. It usually incorporates norms and taboos which outline the way the people of a certain community live as a unit and as an individual. This makes culture to have great influence on education of people from a community (Ralph, 1969). Therefore, we are to explore the influence of culture on education in one African tribe, the Zulus from South Africa.
The Zulus is a tribe from South Africa which can be further classified as a Bantu tribe. The tribe has some cultural aspects that still persist even to today. One of the persistent aspects is polygamy and female circumcision. The traditions of this community generally make females appear less important compared to their male counterparts (www.everyculture.com/wc/Rwanda-to-Syria/Zulu.html).
On the traditions and customs of the community, the people of Zulu are farmers by nature who believe in making sure that all ladies are married and the marriage arrangements are made without consideration of the female’s opinion. The males are supposed to kill a lion so as to pass from childhood to adulthood. The king or leader of the tribe who is assisted by a council of elders who serve as advisers is the law of the tribe and has the power to be with any lady regardless to whether she is married or not. This kind of treatment on leaders is still present in the tribe (www.everyculture.com/wc/Rwanda-to-Syria/Zulu.html). This is the reason why the South African president has of late married another wife presumed to be younger than the first born of the president.
One of the taboos in the tribe is involvement of a woman with many men. The cultural law considers this a very serious crime that may call for a lethal sentence. This makes the females even more fearful than men (www.everyculture.com/wc/Rwanda-to-Syria/Zulu.html).
This male chauvinism has greatly influenced education in the tribe. The males are given a prior consideration compared to their female counterparts. This has led to lower numbers of female experts in any field resulting in male dominated institutions. The boys schools are also more compared to girls schools within the tribe‘s area of residence (Shell, 2009).
The educational perspectives in the tribe allow males to dominate the lead positions in many educational institutions. This is due to the fact that males are given a higher priority in education by denying the girl child higher education. This is done by inconsiderate selection without looking at the difference in psychology between the males and females (Shell, 2009).
United States is one of the countries that have diversified cultural backgrounds. T has cultural influence from United Kingdom, Sweden,
France and Germany. This is due to the fact that the US was a home for the Immigrants. This makes the different cultures to have different influences on the education of USA (Kroeber, 1939).
One of the predominant cultural influences on education in the US is the difference in school for the whites and the blacks. Though the educational content is similar, the different schools stress on different contents. This makes the education in US to be inadequate on some issues and overstressed on others (Kroeber, 2009).
Though the education is influenced by culture, the federal government tries to harmonize it. The different cultures cause children to attend public schools, private schools or home schools. Some cultures prefer home schools while others prefer public schools. In most cases, the black Americans attend public schools while the white counterparts attend private and home schools. In class performance, there is no great disparity though most African learners tend to have an upper hand (peter, 2011).
In conclusion, cultural influence on education is felt mainly due to the preconceived perceptions that the people hold in their minds. Therefore, so as to reduce cultural influence on education, it would be advisable for the government to create a virtual uniform culture which addresses all the cultures in the country. By this, the government would have increased the control on education. It would also lead to reduced rejection of education by some culture due to neglect of some cultural aspects. The government should also enlighten the population on the need from equal education rights of children from both sexes.
References
http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Rwanda-to-Syria/Zulu.html.
Kroeber, L. 1939. Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America. University of California Press.
Ralph L. 1969. Current Anthropology "Culture: A Human domain” Princeton Press Inc.
Shell, E. 2009. Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. Penguin Press.
Peter, S. 2011. American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History. Princeton Inc.
