Adventure Recreation and Human Relations:  RTM 310 & 310L

Cultural Heritage Survey

This project enables you to construct an answer to the ageless question of who am I? But the approach to the questions is a little bit different. This project asks you to reflect on your personal values and their relationship to values of your heritage groups.

There are really six steps to this process. Step six is to write a two to three page answer (typed of course) to the autobiographical question listed under step six.

Steps 1-5 need to be done before writing the essay in step 6. Steps 1 & 2 can be done in at any time. Step 3 ( the reading assignment) needs to be done before step 4 & 5. Confused? Don't worry - you can just start with # 1 and so forth until you reach # 6. Oh yeah, please don't sit down and do it all in one sitting. Break it up a little, please. And, I almost forgot - hand in your questionnaires and stuff along with the essay. If you are worried about confidentiality you can just put your ID number on the extra stuff - I'm just checking for completion and such.  There are additional links in the assignment description below which will give you additional materials you will need for the assignment. 

STEP # 1 - Personal Value Sort

a) List ten words or characteristics that you believe best describe yourself. (e.g. funny, serious, confident, strong, weak, cute, intelligent, cautious, etc., etc.,)  Then review the list to see if you have any words or phrases that seem to be duplications. If so, combine the characteristic and select another characteristic to bring your list to ten items.

b) Use the prioritizing list for ten items  so that you end up with a ranking of your ten characteristics based on the comparison question, "Which is more important to me, that I'm _______ or that I'm _________.

a) List 24 things that you believe about life. It may include beliefs you have about people or principles about life on this planet. For example: life is fair or life is full of injustice or nice guys finish last or always tell the truth or work hard and you'll be rewarded or relax don't worry about tomorrow, etc. . Find your own phrases or word and put them into a list of the 24 things that you think are your most important beliefs about life.

b) Use the prioritizing list for twenty four items  so that you end up with a ranking of your twenty-four belief statements based on the comparison question, "Which one of these beliefs do I believe is most important to me?" Is ____________ more important or is __________more important?

Read the attached article on Cultural Values from the UN and the article on Learning to like your people. 

Read the two page description  of the cultural self and complete the value grid from Kluckhorn & Strodtbeck and the Continuum of Cultural Values from Wright and in each case rate your personal belief about that concept on the 1-5 scale provided.

Reflect back on "voices from the your past" by doing the questions on the attached sheet.

Write an autobiographical description of yourself that would include your awareness of your unique heritage (race, ethnicity, gender, religion). As you describe or label your central self-values identify specific connections with your heritage. Evaluate whether the awareness of your heritage connections comes from your family of origin, specific experiences, or from general social influences.

Submit your final essay (step # 6) and your notes from steps 5, 4, 2, 1 via email to your instructor.