14
Education and Ethnography
Cultural knowledge is more than just a stock of information people
must know about everyday life. It consists of attitudes, beliefs,
expectations, preferences, and values. While this type of knowledge
may not always be obvious in everyday behavior, transmission of this
information is crucial for cultural continuity (Hansen, 1979). When
groups of people with different cultural knowledge enter the community,
a cultural conflict will exist until the differences are accommodated
or resolved. Hansen (1979) reminds us that ". . the transmission of
cultural knowledge is subject to both conservative forces and to
tendencies toward continual redefinition" (p. 6). Hansen believes that
all social interaction, including cultural transmission, requires inter
personal corranunication and is subject to individual interpretation. Each
individual interpretation is based on that individual's background of
cultural knowledge and personal experience. This interpretative process
affects the understanding of shared meanings and precludes total agree
ment of bodies of knowledge by all participants involved in the inter
action. These individual differences in interpretation provide ". .a
crucial mechanism for the gradual modification of shared understanding
in the course of social life, as people reinterpret their experiences
in light of changing circumstances" (Hansen, 1979, p. 2). Individual
interpretations also are the vehicle for cultural conflict and stereo
typing, or cross-cultural understanding.
Herskovits (1964) distinguishes between two facets of the process
of acculturation by viewing "socialization" as the method of integrating
the individual into the social group and "enculturation" as the means