The Sociological Imagination Template

Question

Task: How/why does culture shock often affect people who arrive in Australia from diverse countries, cultures and traditions, and how can they be helped to feel culturally safe?

Answer

The Culture of Australia is considered as Western culture, as it is primarily derived from Britain. But again, the geography of Australia has highly influenced its culture with time. The existence of Democratic government and popularity of sports has also greatly developed the Australian Culture. In such cases, if an individual from different culture and tradition is visiting Australia, then it’s obvious he/she will experience some impacts of Culture Shock.

The Sociological Imagination Template-

What is Culture Shock?Well, to understand the impacts of Culture Shock in Australia, first let’s understand what Culture Shock is. Basically, Culture Shock is an apparent feeling of mind, when an individual move to a cultural environment which is different. You can also term it as Sociological imagination or personal disorientation. Some common problems associated with Culture shock include Boredom, Homesickness, infinite regress, formulation dependency, skill interdependence, Technology gap, Generation gap, language barrier, Information overload, Response-ability, and others. To ease the study of Culture shock, the experts have categorized the phases of Cultural shock into different stages.

Stages of Culture shock –

• Euphoric – In this phase, the individuals are damn excited about the new surroundings. They start exploring the new environment with utmost enthusiasm.
• Negotiation – At this stage, the individuals feel overwhelmed. Feelings of frustration start to arise as they don’t understand the culture of new surrounding and are also not able to communicate properly. Thus, the individuals experience typical feelings like depression, disinterest, irritation, and sleepy.
• Adjustment – In this stage, the individuals start to adjust with the new culture by integrating the new cultural beliefs. Some individuals prefer to replace the old cultural values with new ones while some others try to co-relate both old and new cultures.
• Adaptation – This is the stage where the individuals adapt the new culture. They have now understood that, in order to sustain in this new environment, they have to accept the mainstream culture. Thus, here they learn how to maintain both the cultures in an effective manner.

This is all about Culture shock stages, which the individuals from a different diverse, culture, and tradition, have to experience in Australia.

Common Symptoms of Culture Shock –

• Feeling of being an outsider
• Feeling of unsure along with stupidity
• Realizing that languages skills are not effective
• No interest in entertainment of new culture
• Feeling lonely and missing your home
• Feeling unsettled all the time
• Feeling of irritation and uneasy, which leads to short-tempered attitude.
• Feeling overloaded and numb
• Fear of communicating with others
• Afraid to make mistakes
• Staring at nothing and daydreaming
• Worried and anxious all the time

These are some of symptoms which are observed in the individuals, who have experienced Culture Shock. So, when an individual from a different diversity and culture, will visit Australia, then it’s obvious he/she is going to face some of these above symptoms of Culture Shock.

How to reduce the impacts of Culture Shock?

• Stop remembering your home – You have to restrict your thinkings about your Home and country.
• Make new friends – Try to interact with right kind of people.
• Be active – Join a gym, go for different community based activities and keep yourself busy.
• Speak about your culture – When you are feeling depressed, you need to start sharing your native cultural facts with the community members and friends.
• Travel – Travel and explore the amazing places in new destination

Well, it’s just a mere sociological imagination. There is nothing to worry about that, as you can easily get rid of Culture Shock.