Levels of Culture, Part III

Deep Culture

Sep 18, 2024

All brains come with a default setting that acts as its prime directive regardless of race, class, language or culture: “Avoid threats to safety at all costs and seek well-being at every opportunity.”
- Zaretta Hammond

Culture can be described as having three levels, and the metaphor of the “culture tree”1 provides a helpful visual. As a quick review, elements of surface culture (the fruit of the tree) are the observable components of a group such as music, food, holiday celebrations, and clothing. Shallow culture (the tree’s trunk and branches) consists of the actions we take based on unspoken rules we’ve learned to use in social interactions.

Deep culture - the tree’s root system - informs the ways that we interpret the world around us and how we conduct ourselves. It provides a sense of grounding in how we orient ourselves to our surroundings and nourishes what comes above ground as expressions of shallow culture. Elements of deep culture include:

Cosmology (view of good and bad)
Spirituality
Health
Theories of group harmony (dynamics)
Approaches to problem solving
Self-concept
Group identity2

Since deep culture elements are foundational to our understanding of the world, challenges to cultural values can activate our survival mechanism resulting in a fight or flight response.3 The ways in which we’ve been socialized to internalize these deep cultural values guides how our brains both interpret threats and search for a sense of security.

tree roots on rock formation — Photo by Zach Reiner on Unsplash

Understanding elements of deep culture and being able to honor and navigate them is at the root (pun intended) of cultural competence. While surface and shallow elements of culture vary widely, there are a number of universal patterns common to deep culture elements. Zaretta Hammond calls these “cultural archetypes”; she writes, “While cultures might be different at the surface and shallow levels, at the root of different cultures there are common values, worldview, and practices that form these archetypes.”4

Cultural archetypes have been widely studied. One researcher, Professor Geert Hofstede, developed the Hofstede model, or the 6-D Model of National Culture, which identifies six cultural archetypes (he calls them cultural values) each existing along a spectrum. Two of them are:

Individualism <-> Collectivism
- Addresses the degree of interdependence in the culture’s values. More individualistic cultures view the world in terms of “I” and only look after themselves and their immediate families. More collectivist cultures view themselves as “we” and take care of their broader “in-groups.”
Consensus-oriented <-> Decisive
- Examines motivation towards achievement and success. More consensus-oriented cultures see quality of life as the primary determinant of success (and standing out is frowned upon). More decisive cultural values view success as competitive with limited winners/best in the field. The deeper value is what motivates success - liking what you do (consensus-oriented) vs striving to be the best (decisive).5

These cultural archetypes are the driving forces behind how we operate, function, and interpret the world. In education, they also affect the ways we teach, the practices and routines we put into place, and how we interact with students and families. Knowing how to recognize and integrate various cultural archetypes (traveling along each spectrum) is at the heart of culturally proficient teaching.

Consider the following questions:

Individualism <-> collectivism
- How often are students working together vs individually? What “counts” when it comes to how they learn and interact?
Consensus-oriented <-> Decisive
- Who defines “success” for students? Can they define it themselves? Is it defined for them?

The following are two additional cultural archetypes that affect the operations of classrooms and schools every day:

Oral tradition <-> written tradition
- How often are students sharing orally vs showing what they know in writing? What “counts” when it comes to what is graded?
Process <-> product
- Do we provide opportunities for students to reflect and share about the process of learning? Is the primary focus on finished and unfinished products?
- When the focus leans more heavily towards the product, what is not easily measurable is viewed as not having value.

It is important to remember that we each need to begin with awareness of our own cultural archetypes. Not only to remind ourselves that there are different archetypes besides those of our own culture, but because it’s crucial to understand that ours is not the “right” or “superior” archetype. (Often, we just say ours is “normal,” implying other archetypes are “weird” or “abnormal.”)

For educators, it’s important to be aware that our students come to school already “programmed” with their deep cultural values. If we’re not cognizant of our own personal archetypes, we can default to only valuing the archetypes that are “normal” to us, and failing to provide much-needed space for students to experience their deep culture being valued in the classroom. This is essential for students to experience a deeper sense of safety at school, which will then allow them to learn more freely.

It’s always good to be reminded that on the journey of cultural competence (and more specifically, culturally proficient teaching), we never “arrive.” We always continue to learn and grow.

Thanks for reading Cultivating Justice with Amy White! This post is public so feel free to share it.

The following is a poem I wrote about the deep culture element of concepts of achievement and success:

I am from

“Anything worth doing

is worth overdoing.”

Don’t start

unless you’re sure

you’ll not only meet the goal,

you’ll supersede it.

Overachieve

Go above and beyond

Do more than what’s required

Exceed expectations

This is success.

(Is it obvious that I'm from a culture firmly on the “decisive” side of the spectrum? 😉)

What is an element of deep culture that you’re from? Share with us in the format you prefer.

Levels of Culture, Part III

Deep Culture

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