Intercultural Interviews friends

For the Intructions

Intercultural Interviews-Friends

This activity illustrates the role of family in intercultural communication, especially the connection between family life and religion.

You will need to interview members of specific families across cultures to understand the strong pull of culture on both perception and communication. When choosing whom to interview, select at least three people of any three different religious groups and/or cultures listed below*:

Atheist

Scientologist

Buddhist

Seventh Day Adventist

Fundamentalist Christian

Shintoist

Hindu

Southern Baptist

Jehovah’s Witness

Unitarian

Mormon

Muslim

Native American

Orthodox Jew

Roman Catholic

Wiccan

Spiritual

Other

Post the religion and age of the person you interviewed and the questions asked and their individual responses. Below is a list of possible questions to ask.

*This list is not exhaustive. It might be easiest to consider groups and cultures that have a significant presence in your own community.

Over the course of the interviews, ask at least 5 or 6 of the following questions:

• Does your family attend religious services together?

• Does your family pray together?

• What role does religion play in your family?

• Specifically, how has religion helped shape your family and the relationship among its members?

• Does your family talk openly about religion often? Have there been conflicts in your family that centered on religion?

• Have your own religious values/practices changed at all since you were a child?

• Does your family eat dinner together?

• Who usually prepares the family’s meal?

• Who usually cleans up after the family’s meal?

• Do all members of your family talk the same amount at the dinner table?

• Who is responsible for discipline in the family?

• Does your family share leisure time together?

• What leisure time activities are part of your family?

• Is there a great deal of “play” and humor in your family?

• Is there a great deal of touching in your family?

• How are boys and girls treated in your family?

• How are chores divided in your family?