Cultural Reporter Introduction Blog

Culture has many definitions, which can be generalized to "Learned patterns of behavior and attitudes shared by a group of people" (Martin & Nakayama, 2013, p. 88).  In the social science perspective, culture is a set of patterns of perceptions that we have to learn.  In the interpretive approach, culture includes contextual symbolic meanings-a behavior or attitude is only truly cultural if it holds symbolic meaning to those who practice it.  In the critical perspective, culture can be a source of contested meanings.

Catholic baptisms, for example, are very different
from Baptist baptisms.

While analyzing my own various cultural identities, I kept thinking of my identity as a Baptist and how rare it is to find another Baptist as I move around UNL.  With the above definitions of culture in mind, I have chosen Catholic UNL students as my cultural group of study.  The Catholic belief system is almost directly opposite my own belief system, despite both being denominations of Christianity—that alone fits it into the critical definition of culture, as the beliefs between religious definitions have historically caused a lot of tension.  In the interpretive approach, Catholic students form a culture of people who place significant meaning on several rituals, such as attending mass or praying before a meal.  Finally, Catholic students (and Catholics in general) have to learn the belief system from others in order to understand and claim “Catholic” as a cultural identity.

In order to study this cultural group, I plan to approach the HuskerCatholic group that headquarters out of the Newman Center St. Thomas Aquinas Church on campus.  I will attend mass at St. Thomas in order to witness some important Catholic rituals in practice by the group.  If possible, I may attend a community event hosted by HuskerCatholic.  I also intend to interview student Catholics in order to get a one-on-one perspective of how individuals practice this cultural identity.  My goal is to learn more about Catholicism in an effort to expand my understanding of my own religious identity.  I am largely uneducated about the finer details of Catholicism, and I think learning more will prove to be a benefit to me in the long run.

Works Cited

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill. 

Newman Center. HuskerCatholic, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

A Catholic Baptism [Photograph].  Retrieved September 26, 2013, from:
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-7-catholic-sacraments-definition-history-quiz.html