Dinner for 3

Saturday the 25. Of september I had Alexandra from Greece and Marian from Spain at my place for dinner. During the evening we talked about similarities and differences and here are some of them:

How you greet each other as friends is quite different from Denmark and Greece/Spain. Already here you can make a big mistake greeting in the 'wrong' way. In Denmark it's common to give your friends a hug when you meet them for parties or other social arrangements and In Spain and Greece you kiss each other on each cheek.
Before this dinner I were at a surprise party for a Spanish girl called Laura to celebrate her birthday. The first girl I saw I was greeting with a hug. It turned very awkward cause in the same movement I tried to hug her, she tried to kiss my left cheek and I didn't notice this so after my hug I pulled back while she was trying to kiss my second cheek:-)
Then I found out the people were greeting by kissing each other so the others I hugged while I kissed them on both their cheeks. Then I talked to Alexandra (the Greek girl) later that night about this and she told me that hugging while kissing was not the proper way, you just like bumped your heads together and kissed with one hand on the shoulder, or something like that:-)
We talked about this at the dinner and I told the girls it was quite intimate for a Danish person to kiss another person, While alexandra and Marian thought the same about hugging. I told Marian that I didn't kiss some Spanish girls at the party but only shook their hand cause I'd never seen them before and because of this they were giving me a strange look. Marian told me it was because in Spain you kiss a person even if you meet them for the first time, so it was kind of impolite I didn't kiss them:-)

At this surprise party one of the spanish girls brought 3 of her spanish girlfriends to the party. I asked Marian and Alexandra if it was common in their countries to bring friends who weren't invited to parties and they confirmed that is was quite common to bring friends to parties and they were always welcome.
It is different in denmark. It is considered impolite to bring friends to a party without asking beforehand. After hearing this Alexandra said 'aaah that was why Christiane (a Danish girl) asked for permission to bring her sister to the party'.

During the evening alexandra asked me a question about Classroom behaviour. Alexandra and a Greek guy called kostas was talking about how Danish students were behaving in class. They had observed that some of the Danish students were eating during the class and some had their feet on the tables or chairs and others had their computers and mobile phones on the tables visible for the teachers. In their countries it was considered quite impolite or disrespectful while the teacher was teaching to do so.
I said that it was common that Danish students were eating if they were hungry doing the class and it was common to sit in a position which were comfortable, but still putting your feed on the table were a bit too much! Having your computer or mobile phone visible and using them during the class is common as well.

To be Independent is difficult or impossible to be in Spain and Greece where you are depending on your parents financially until you graduate and get a job.
 In Denmark it's possible to be independent when you are 18 years old cause from that time you can get money from the state during your studies or if you can't find a job.

Religion similar to denmark. All the young people are atheists while the elderly are more religious.

With all these small differences it's easy to see how a lot of small misunderstandings can evolve to major problems if you don't talk about it. It's understandable how people from different cultures some times go to war against each other, cause they have different backgrounds, religions, traditions and so on and don't understand why some people react differently then their would.

Rights

After the first and the second world war the framework with human rights started up with EU as a frontier.

A special convention for children was made in 1989.
Convention on the Right of the Child - CRC.

Ratification - national law adapted
• process

Rights holders:
The children hold rights and citizens do.
Claim their rights from the duty bearers.
Duty to other individuals.

Duty bearers:
State parties are duty bearers

Moral duty bearers:
The professionals like teachers, social workers, pedagogues ect that have special assignments towards children are moral duty bearers or have a special moral obligation.

Charity:
Services only for some people.
Goods provided.

Rights:
Services Is equal for all people.
Include empowerment.

There is a comity that is monitoring all the different countries to see if they implement the human and children's rights. Every 5 year the comity make a report about how the countries are fulfilling these rights.

Med Venlig Hilsen

Allan Thomsen

Intercultural competences

Elsebeth plum

Intercultural competences are:
- Understanding the situation, realising that cultural differences are influencing the situation.
- to stand back and analyse how to react to the situation, drawing on two kinds of knowledge.
A) general knowledge about cultural meetings and intercultural communication.
B) specific knowledge about present cultures.

Thomas Hylland Erikson - social anthropologist

A third way:

Etno-centric perspective - a horizon of understanding.
Judging other cultures by the standards of your own, defining the others in how they don't look like you.

Accepting that we do have a ethnocentric perspective.

Cultural relative perspective is the opposite of the ethnocentric perspective. It recognises all cultures as equally good. We shouldn't have any prejudices.

1. Horizon of understanding/ awareness of our prejudice.

2. Try to understand why people from other cultures do what they do. Respect their actions But you still have the right not to agree.

3. Meet people as individuals but not necessarily accepting their actions.

Camp

The class went to camp for three days from the 1.- 3. Of September. We all had a great time and the weather was sunny.
It was nice to socialise with all the different people. Because of the setting we were all 'forced' to talk to each other. We had a interesting talk in our study group (we are divided in to 3 smaller study groups because of the big amount of people. The study group is a place to talk freely about what ever comes to mind). Some of the small nationalities (the nationalities with only two of three attending students) found it difficult to find their place in the big group. I guessed it was because they didn't have the same safety zone as the big nationalities like the Spanish and danish people had. Then Daniel, a Spanish guy, sad that he actually envied people from the small nationalities because they where 'forced' to interact with others from different nationalities then their own. As he sad he haven't been traveling 2-3000 km to talk Spanish with people from his own nationality. But still the big nationalities have a urge to talk with each other in their own language. So the big challenge for us the Danish and the Spanish people is to interact with different nationalities then our own and when we interact with people from our own nationality speak English!

Ethnographic perspective:
Being there. Live with the culture you are studying. More dynamic and more subjective. Looking at cultural practice and what makes sense to the participants.

Cultural studies:
Historically perspective, traditions, values ect. more static and objective, contextually. Looking at differences and similarities between cultures.