Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

This course gives an overview of the cultures and peoples of the world, using major regional categories such as Africa, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Oceania. It considers these from both broader sociocultural and individual levels . The course materials include core cultural and environmental information and related concepts. 

The course uses a variety of assessments. These include person-promotive interactive discussions, brief written statements on given themes, a short project, a midterm and final. These also focus on the student's individual understanding and interpretation of the material. 

The course gives both broader and closer understanding of the global world from the perspectives of culture, ethnicity and ethnography, i.e. identity. The results of the course are valuable assets in a rapidly globalizing world, including the effects of population growth and climate change, and  provides information and perspectives useful in today's life, including economics and business. 

Upon completion of the course students should able to: 

• Identify the major ethnographic areas of the world.
• Describe major cultural features of different societies.
• Discuss the cross-cultural factors involved when communicating with people from other cultures.
• Identify how personal and social values of societies are shaped by culture.
• Describe how ethnocentrism functions in cultural misunderstandings, intolerances and racism at local, regional, national and global levels.

To apply this knowledge to help resolve both enduring and contemporary global problems, with particular attention to the similarity of human needs across cultures, the problems in achieving these needs, and better understanding of cultural  imperatives, ethnocentrism and their related aspects. 

These include text readings, in-class discussions, brief written exercises, a brief field assignment and a midterm and final exam. The course is a linked sequence of weeks promoting a sense of cumulative integration. The text can be obtained online used at very low prices. 

Outcome Assessment Strategies may include any of the following: exams, quizzes, short papers or reports and experiential exercises. These are linked to produce understanding and knowledge of the world's cultures as a holistic system, giving the student information specific to cultures and to their relations with each other. 

Course Content:

         Themes:

• world ethnography
• culture in the global setting
• ethnographic diversity
• cultural contrasts
• impacts of cultural change                                                  
• Concepts
• culture
• ethnography
• cultural relativism
• globalization
• panhuman qualities
•  

• Issues:
• cultural adaptation
• cultural relativism
• ethnocentrism and racism
• globalization
• gender
• environmental change
   
• Competencies and Skills Resulting:​
• know specifics about nations
• understand their linkages 
• understand the holistic global context
• articulate global diversity and cultural contrasts 
• participate in group exercises
• evaluate documentary films
• read and write at the college level