Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Outliers & Cultural Legacies

In chapter 6 of Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell provides a discussion about cultural legacies. He opens with disturbing descriptions of how longstanding cultural patterns and beliefs influenced violent conflicts among generations of families in Kentucky during the 19th century.

The compelling research findings concerning long-term and deeply held values led Gladwell to the conclusion that
Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.
He goes on to note the possibilities of “taking cultural legacies seriously” in order to learn “why people succeed and how to make people better.”

It’s worth noting that highlighting cultural legacies can easily give way to problematic racial and gendered generalizations—generalizations we have necessarily been inclined to critique or avoid.

Having said that, how might taking cultural legacies seriously hurt or improve our understanding of high academic achievement at SIUE? That is to say, how would a concentrated focus on cultural legacies limit or enhance our view of those who succeed in college?

17 comments:

Bryan M. said...

I think it would be a benefit if people are able to have a good understanding of these legacies that cause racial and gendered generalizations. They would be able to see how it has affected those people and hopefully put an end to those generalizations. I believe that focusing on cultural legacies enhances our view on academic success. If you look at a graduating class now, you will notice that it is very diverse racially and genderly.

Natalie B. said...

I don't think there is a way to make a generalization about the "culture" of siue. Frankly, we way too many people from very different cultures and mindsets. It is impossible to say that we can make any generalization, because culture is individualistic.

Alex H. said...

I think it would highly benefit not only students at SIUE but all of society if we took the time to become more knowledgeable about different cultural legacies other than our own. Our world is full of different views and opinions along with cultural legacies. Embracing another person's perspective instead of rejecting it can only enhance our success in college and in the rest of our lives. Our society highly values education. I believe that a part of our education should be about increasing our knowledge of other cultural legacies. Doing so can only increase our understanding of the people we share our world with.

robert dammer said...

Looking cultural legacies could be an integral step to creating effective beneficial programs, such as financial aid, designed to put people from different cultural backgrounds on the same footing. However, if one were to attempt to do this, it could easily devolve into simply another way to categorize people and made assumptions on them based on impersonal questions. People of a certain race or ethnicity could carry the stigma of being "less prepared" for college life, and be treated as such regardless of their actual abilities and resources.

Maame said...

I happent to agree with Bryan M in that taking cultural legancies seriously will benefit people rather than limit our views of those who succeed in college. i also beilieve that a deeper understanding of cultural legancies may be able to bring the different cultures of SIUe together instead of apart. Once people from one culture see that they are not as different as someone that is of a different race or culture, they may begine to start a friendship and the seperation between colors on this campus would not be as divided as it is now.

Christian Harrelson said...

I feel like taking culture legacies seriously would show a negative impact on understanding this campuses high academic achievement. For the first three sections of the chapter it talked about the culture of honor. The culture of honor meant willing to fight in response to even the slightest of challenge to his reputation. For that reason, I feel like it would have a negative impact.

Renee Johns-Goodenough said...

I believe that focusing on different cultural legacies at SIUE, various cultures on campus would eventually come together rather than be separate. I believe this because once we understand each other, we are more likely to become less judgmental and more understanding.

Alexis Cortes said...

Learning about other cultural legacies would expand our knowledge and understanding of the people around us. It could only be beneficial. Students at SIUE, and people in general, would be more open-minded and accepting if they had this understanding. With such diversity in the world, and all of the racisim that unfortunately comes with that, people could use a little more knowledge and definitely some understanding.

Clarissa B. said...

I think that most people unknowingly take cultural legacy seriously. There are a lot of people today that think African Americans will not succeed in college or take it seriously. On the flip-side, they will see an Asian American and think that they are extremely smart and only care about their studies. I think that we should, not ignore, but look beyond culture aspects and instead pay more attention to the individual.

Terrence Harris said...

I think that it would benefit students to understand the cultural legacies of others at SIUE. Many people stereotype others because they don't fully understand their background. If people took the time to understand others' cultures they would be able to take something from them and use it to better themselves in their education and lifestyle.

Jennifer Johnson said...

I feel that when people generally focus on cultural legasies it can hinder them from making more of themselves. It basically seems to me that by doing this, you are only trying to become what is expected of you because of your culture, therefore closing your mind to all of the many other possibilities.

Gwen Grogan said...

I agree with several students that SIUE has such a broad variety of cultural differences, that there really isn't a way to classify it. However, I think that educating ourselves on cultural legacies will give us a better understanding on why we are such a diverse nation. I strongly agree with Alex H., we should embrace another person's perspective instead of rejecting it.

Moriah Lupardus said...

I think it would have both negative and positive influences. On the one hand looking at cultural legacies could enable the University to understand it's students better and help them succeed. On the other hand I don't think it's fair to individuals to lump them into a certain a type that they might not fit in just because of the culture they come from.

Ronald Banks said...

I feel that it's alot more positive aspects that can come from cultural legacies. This will bring more unity on SIUE campus because different culture's will come together in there academics. I agree wit Alex C we would learn more about other people cultures. We will still have racism around us. This can definely help us become a better society.

Greg Lee said...

Cultural legacies could potentially bias the opinions of the college to accept more students of the same cultural legacies because of the work put in by past students. Others students might get pushed by the wayside because students before them didnt work as hard as they should.

AustinB said...

Cultural legacies can be double edged swords in my opinion. On one hand, looking at things such as ethnicity and social-economic background can help organizations in targeting those who are in need of financial help in order to attend University. On the other hand, I strongly believe that paying so much attention to them can also cause individuals and their personal traits and achievements to be overshadowed by stereotypes related to their elasticities and social-economic backgrounds and thus limit those individuals. For example, if every professor were to be handed an attendance chart on the first day of class with a symbol by every name to indicate if that student is attending college on the bases of financial aid and how much financial aid was awarded to them, then right off the bat they would see the patterns for aid awarded. If individuals were to fall into similar categories even if aid was not awarded, the way that the professor would treat one of the students with aid would be the same way they would treat the others who also had financial aid given. The way that projects would be graded and participation awarded would be skewed because that student's financial status would be brought to mind. "Maybe they're going through a tough time" the teacher might think "since their family is in such desperate financial need, I'll let assignment XYZ slide, and give them some extra time." The same consideration most likely would not be given to other students who did not have the same status. Thus a bias can develop from putting an excessive amount of importance on cultural legacies.

Ricky Mahajan said...

Taking cultural legacies could hurt the overall acaademic achievement at SIUE because those generalizations are going to become stronger. Then not only do you cause a divide between people at SIUE but you can use the generalizations as a crutch at a time when you need to be put down.