Provincia de Buenos Aires

Dirección General de Cultura y Educación

Dirección de Educación Superior
Instituto Superior de Formación Docente Nº19

Estudios Interculturales en Lengua Inglesa I

Tramo: Lengua, Historia e Identidad

Año 2019
Profesora Maia Cotleroff
THE MEANING OF
“CULTURE”
By Joshua Rothman
   December 26, 2014

Photograph by Spencer Platt / Getty

There’s something innately funny about Merriam-Webster’s announcement, earlier this month, that
“culture” is their 2014 Word of the Year. “Culture” is the “Scary Movie” of words of the year, which,
ordinarily, are supposed to reflect culture (“vape,” “selfie”) without actually being “culture.” Merriam-
Webster’s editors are at pains to clarify that they weren’t trying to be meta (which, incidentally, would’ve
made a great word of the year back in 2000). The word “culture,” they explain, was simply the word that
saw the biggest spike in look-ups on their Web site. Confusion about culture was just part of the culture
this year. People were desperate to know what “culture” meant.
It goes without saying that “culture” is a confusing word, this year or any year. Merriam-Webster offers
six definitions for it (including the biological one, as in “bacterial culture”). The problem is that “culture”
is more than the sum of its definitions. If anything, its value as a word depends on the tension between
them. The critic Raymond Williams, in his souped-up dictionary, “Keywords,” writes that “culture” has
three divergent meanings: there’s culture as a process of individual enrichment, as when we say that
someone is “cultured” (in 1605, Francis Bacon wrote about “the culture and manurance of minds”);
culture as a group’s “particular way of life,” as when we talk about French culture, company culture, or
multiculturalism; and culture as an activity, pursued by means of the museums, concerts, books, and
movies that might be encouraged by a Ministry of Culture (or covered on a blog like this one). These three
senses of culture are actually quite different, and, Williams writes, they compete with one another. Each
time we use the word “culture,” we incline toward one or another of its aspects: toward the “culture” that’s
imbibed through osmosis or the “culture” that’s learned at museums, toward the “culture” that makes you
a better a person or the “culture” that just inducts you into a group.
There’s a historical sense, too, in which “culture” is a polemical word. In the nineteenth century, Williams
explains, “culture” was often opposed to “civilization.” Civilization, the thinking went, was a
homogenizing system of efficient, rational rules, designed to encourage discipline and “progress.” Culture
was the opposite: an unpredictable expression of human potential for its own sake. (It’s for this reason
that a term like “the culture industry” has an oxymoronic ring.) Today, we don’t often use the word
“civilization”— we prefer to talk, more democratically, in terms of culture—but we’re still conflicted. We
can’t help but notice how “civilized” life seems both to facilitate culture and to deaden it. Museums make
it easy to see art, but they also weigh it down. Rock and roll sounds better in a club than in a concert hall.
These are solid, perennial reasons to look up “culture” in the dictionary. But why did more people than
usual look it up this year? The editors at Merriam-Webster decline to speculate. They note, merely, that
“the term conveys a kind of academic attention to systematic behavior.” Here’s my theory: more people
looked up “culture” this year because it’s become an unsettling word. “Culture” used to be a good thing.
Now it’s not. That isn’t to say that American culture has gotten worse. (It has gotten worse in some ways,
and better in others.) It’s to say that the word “culture” has taken on a negative cast. The most positive
aspect of “culture”—the idea of personal, humane enrichment—now seems especially remote. In its place,
the idea of culture as unconscious groupthink is ascendent.
In the postwar decades, “culture” was associated with the quest for personal growth: even if you rejected
“establishment” culture, you could turn to “the counterculture.” In the eighties, nineties, and aughts, it
was a source of pride: the multiculturalist ethos had us identitying with our cultures. But today, “culture”
has a furtive, shady, ridiculous aspect. Often, when we attach the word “culture” to something, it’s to
suggest that it has a pervasive, pernicious influence (as in “celebrity culture”). At other times, “culture” is
used in an aspirational way that’s obviously counterfactual: institutions that drone on about their “culture
of transparency” or “culture of accountability” often have neither. On all sides, “culture” is used in a
trivializing way: there’s no real culture in “coffee culture” (although the coffee at Culture, a coffee shop
near my office, is excellent). But, at the same time, it’s hard to imagine applying the word “culture” to even
the most bona-fide “cultural institutions.” We don’t say that MOMA fosters “art culture,” because to describe
art as a “culture” is, subtly, to denigrate it. In 1954, when the magazine Film Culture was founded, its
name made movie lovers sound glamorous. Today, it sounds vaguely condescending.
This year, there was the rise of the powerful term “rape culture.” (It was coined a long time ago, in a 1975
documentary film called “Rape Culture” that focussed, in part, on an organization called Prisoners Against
Rape; Ariel Levy, in a recent piece for this magazine, defines it as “a value system in which women are
currency, and sex is something that men get—or take—from them.”) The spread of the idea of “rape
culture” hasn’t just changed how we think about rape; it’s changed how we think about culture. Among
other things, “rape culture” uses the word “culture” in a way that doesn’t involve, on any level, the idea of
personal enrichment. Instead, the term’s weight is placed, fully and specifically, on Williams’s other two
aspects of culture: on the subterranean, group-defining norms (misogyny, privilege) that encourage
violence against women, and on the cultural institutions (movies, fraternities) that propagate those
norms. The term works, in part, because of its dissonance. You can’t see the word “culture” next to the
word “rape” without revising your ideas about what “culture” means.
No comparable “culture” term has been invoked in relation to the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner,
and the other African-Americans killed, recently, in encounters with the police. But those events have also
pushed us to think about “culture” as an inhumane, malevolent force. And I suspect that many of us have
also been keeping our own inner ledgers, where we track the ways in which “culture” has seemed, more
and more, like the kind of thing you’d want “civilization” to overrule.
That’s not to say, necessarily, that music culture or art culture or book culture has gotten worse—or that
our collective way of life has gone downhill. It’s our sense of the word “culture” that has grown darker,
sharper, more skeptical. But, if words are tools for thinking, then this year “culture” has been used to
think about the parts of our society that function poorly. That may even be a sign, in a way, of an
improvement in our culture. If our increasingly analytical, sociological way of thinking about “culture” is
helping us to improve the culture, that’s a positive development. Confusion over its evolving meaning is a
good reason to look up “culture” in the dictionary, but so is an interest in understanding the world and
making it better.
All this might make you wonder: Does it even make sense to have a single word, “culture,” with such
divergent uses? Maybe not; many people, Williams writes, have called “culture” a “loose or confused”
term. It’s possible to imagine a more rational system, in which one word describes the activities of artistic
and intellectual life, another our group identity, and a third our implicit norms and ways of living. Those
terms, whatever they might be, would be narrower and simpler—but they’d also be less accurate. They
would obscure the overlap between life, art, and politics.
And they’d be less meaningful, too. “Culture” may be pulling itself apart from the inside, but it represents,
in its way, a wish. The wish is that a group of people might discover, together, a good way of life; that their
good way of life might express itself in their habits, institutions, and activities; and that those, in turn,
might help individuals flourish in their own ways. The best culture would be one in which the three
meanings of “culture” weren’t at odds with one another. That’s not the culture we have at the moment;
our culture is fractured, and so our sense of the word “culture” is, too. But it’s possible to imagine a world
in which our collective attitudes and institutions further everyone’s individual growth. Maybe, in such a
world, the meaning of “culture” would be more obvious; we wouldn’t have to look it up.
 CULTURE

SOME DEFINITIONS
 Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values,
attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations,
concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of
people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
 Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.
 Culture is communication, communication is culture.
 Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's
learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior
through social learning.
 A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and
symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed
along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.
 Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills,
knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and
deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
 Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups,
including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of
traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one
hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences
upon further action.
 Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally
considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to
generation.
 Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one
group or category of people from another.

THEORY OF CULTURAL DETERMINISM

 The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as members of
society determines human nature. People are what they learn. Optimistic version of
cultural determinism place no limits on the abilities of human beings to do or to be
whatever they want. Some anthropologists suggest that there is no universal "right way"
of being human. "Right way" is almost always "our way"; that "our way" in one society
almost never corresponds to "our way" in any other society. Proper attitude of an
informed human being could only be that of tolerance.
 The optimistic version of this theory postulates that human nature being infinitely
malleable, human being can choose the ways of life they prefer.
 The pessimistic version maintains that people are what they are conditioned to be; this is
something over which they have no control. Human beings are passive creatures and do
whatever their culture tells them to do. This explanation leads to behaviorism that locates
the causes of human behavior in a realm that is totally beyond human control.
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
 Different cultural groups think, feel, and act differently. There is no scientific standards
for considering one group as intrinsically superior or inferior to another. Studying
differences in culture among groups and societies presupposes a position of cultural
relativism. It does not imply normalcy for oneself, nor for one's society. It, however, calls
for judgment when dealing with groups or societies different from one's own. Information
about the nature of cultural differences between societies, their roots, and their
consequences should precede judgment and action. Negotiation is more likely to succeed
when the parties concerned understand the reasons for the differences in viewpoints.

CULTURAL ETHNOCENTRISM
 Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is superior to that of other cultures. It is
a form of reductionism that reduces the "other way" of life to a distorted version of one's
own. This is particularly important in case of global dealings when a company or an
individual is imbued with the idea that methods, materials, or ideas that worked in the
home country will also work abroad. Environmental differences are, therefore, ignored.
Ethnocentrism, in relation to global dealings, can be categorized as follows:
o Important factors in business are overlooked because of the obsession with certain
cause-effect relationships in one's own country. It is always a good idea to refer to
checklists of human variables in order to be assured that all major factors have
been at least considered while working abroad.
o Even though one may recognize the environmental differences and problems
associated with change, but may focus only on achieving objectives related to the
home-country. This may result in the loss of effectiveness of a company or an
individual in terms of international competitiveness. The objectives set for global
operations should also be global.
o The differences are recognized, but it is assumed that associated changes are so
basic that they can be achieved effortlessly. It is always a good idea to perform a
cost-benefit analysis of the changes proposed.  Sometimes a change may upset
important values and thereby may face resistance from being implemented. The
cost of some changes may exceed the benefits derived from the implementation of
such changes.

MANIFESTATIONS OF CULTURE
Cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels of depth. Symbols
represent the most superficial and values the deepest manifestations of culture, with heroes and
rituals in between.

 Symbols are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning which is
only recognized by those who share a particular culture. New symbols easily develop, old
ones disappear. Symbols from one particular group are regularly copied by others. This is
why symbols represent the outermost layer of a culture.
  Heroes are persons, past or present, real or fictitious, who possess characteristics that are
highly prized in a culture. They also serve as models for behavior.
 Rituals are collective activities, sometimes superfluous in reaching desired objectives, but
are considered as socially essential. They are therefore carried out most of the times for
their own sake (ways of greetings, paying respect to others, religious and social
ceremonies, etc.).
 The core of a culture is formed by values. They are broad tendencies for preferences of
certain state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong, natural-unnatural). Many values
remain unconscious to those who hold them. Therefore they often cannot be discussed,
nor they can be directly observed by others. Values can only be inferred from the way
people act under different circumstances.
 Symbols, heroes, and rituals are the tangible or visual aspects of the practices of a
culture. The true cultural meaning of the practices is intangible; this is revealed only
when the practices are interpreted by the insiders.

Figure 1. Manifestation of Culture at Different Levels of Depth

LAYERS OF CULTURE
People even within the same culture carry several layers of mental programming within
themselves. Different layers of culture exist at the following levels:

 The national level: Associated with the nation as a whole.

 The regional level: Associated with ethnic, linguistic, or religious differences that exist
within a nation.
 The gender level: Associated with gender differences (female vs. male)
 The generation level: Associated with the differences between grandparents and parents,
parents and children.
 The social class level: Associated with educational opportunities and differences in
occupation.
  The corporate level: Associated with the particular culture of an organization. Applicable
to those who are employed.

RECONCILIATION OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Cultural awareness:

 Before venturing on a global assignment, it is probably necessary to identify the cultural

differences that may exist between one's home country and the country of business
operation. Where the differences exist, one must decide whether and to what extent the
home-country practices may be adapted to the foreign environment. Most of the times the
differences are not very apparent or tangible. Certain aspects of a culture may be learned
consciously (e.g. methods of greeting people), some other differences are learned
subconsciously (e.g. methods of problem solving). The building of cultural awareness
may not be an easy task, but once accomplished, it definitely helps a job done efficiently
in a foreign environment.
 Discussions and reading about other cultures definitely helps build cultural awareness,
but opinions presented must be carefully measured. Sometimes they may represent
unwarranted stereotypes, an assessment of only a subgroup of a particular group of
people, or a situation that has since undergone drastic changes. It is always a good idea to
get varied viewpoints about the same culture.

Clustering cultures:

 Some countries may share many attributes that help mold their cultures (the modifiers
may be language, religion, geographical location, etc.). Based on this data obtained from
past cross-cultural studies, countries may be grouped by similarities in values and
attitudes. Fewer differences may be expected when moving within a cluster than when
moving from one cluster to another.

Determining the extent of global involvement:

 All enterprises operating globally need not have the same degree of cultural awareness.
Figure 2 illustrates extent to which a company needs to understand global cultures at
different levels of involvement. The further a company moves out from the sole role of
doing domestic business, the more it needs to understand cultural differences. Moving
outward on more than one axis simultaneously makes the need for building cultural
awareness even more essential.
 Figure 2. Cultural Awareness and Extent of Global Involvement

Reference:

Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw
Hill.
 Perspectives and Achievement of EFL Students
in Teaching Culture via Two Modes: Books vs.
Books plus Films
Robab Khosravi
English Language Department, University of Zanjan, Iran
Mehdi Moharami
English Language Department, University of Zanjan, Iran
Giti Karimkhanlouei
Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Abstract—Cultural education is a fundamental, often overlooked part of learning a language. Teaching culture in the EFL
classroom, however, remains a challenge because culture is a complex and evasive concept. Ideally, maximal exposure of
the learner to the target culture would be interacting directly with the native speakers. In the classroom, however, the
sociocultural context can be re-created. A literature of a nation, one may claim, incorporates a major part of its cultural
heritage. The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the achievements of EFL learners
through exposure to culture via reading the simplified version of a literary text plus (for the experimental group)
watching its filmic adaptation. This goal was met by asking the students to take multiple-choice tests based on the literary
text. The results indicated that using cultural tools enhances learners' achievement in different regards, including reading
comprehension, its durability, and the degree of the student satisfaction.
Index Terms—culture education, reading comprehension, EFL learner, Jane Eyre, learning durability

I. INTRODUCTION
Effective communication is not just exchanging information, but sharing perspectives, experiences, and ways of
thinking. Teaching culture can facilitate a more effective communication, but this requires time and extra effort on
behalf of the teacher. In the past, traditional methods of teaching culture included Grammar Translation Method
(which focused on the target culture's literature) and Communicative Approach. But these methods offered only
limited, sporadic exposures to culture.
To understand a culture, it is essential to understand its components. Mirroring a nation's identity, culture
incorporates its history and geography, art and literature, perspectives, practices and products. Literature, as a
cultural element, encompasses a nation's values, ideas, and morals. Literary works are remarkably rich in cultural
elements. But studying a literary text in order to grasp its cultural aspects requires considerable time. A literary text,
on the other hand, is written by a famous writer who uses sophisticated, sometimes ornamented language – which is
not easily accessible to the learners. Using filmic adaptations from literary classics can be a strategy or technique for
teaching culture in the classroom. Accompanying a literary text (which is often rich in cultural information) with its
filmed adaptation (which can induce memorable reactions for EFL learners) allows the teacher to budget his/her
time and bridge the gap between language and learning.
In this study, Charlotte Bronte's classic romance, Jane Eyre, is chosen as the literary text. The book ranks 10 in the
BBC Big Read list(which was a survey carried out in the UK to find the most popular novels of all time). Many
simplified versions, as well as filmic adaptations of the book are available in the market.

II. PREVIOUS STUDIES

A. Background on Teaching Culture
As Thanasoulas observes, "Effective communication is more than a matter of language proficiency and that, apart
from enhancing and enriching communicative competence, cultural competence can also lead to empathy and
respect toward different cultures as well as promote objectivity and cultural perspicacity" (p. 1). It is difficult to
draw distinct boundaries between foreign language learning and foreign culture learning. Culture and language are
inseparable – which is to say that culture is already being taught implicitly. Larsen-Freeman (2001) regard culture as
a fifth skill in addition to reading, writing, speaking and listening; Kramsch (1993) argues that culture is not just the
fifth skill or even an aspect of communicative competence, but that culture is the fundamental aspect of all one
knows and does:

ISSN 1798-4769
Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 1210-1217, September 2014
© 2014 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.
© 2014 ACADEMY PUBLISHER
"Culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking,
listening, reading, and writing. It is always in the background, right from day one, ready to unsettle the good
language learners when they expect it least, making evident the limitations of their hard-won communicative
competence, challenging their ability to make sense of the world around them" (Kramsch, 1993, p. 1).
Such eminent scholars as Hall (1959), Seelye (1984), Steele (1989), Kramsch (1993), and Lessard-Clouston (1997)
have argued that reaching culture in the classroom is highly important. Culture Bound, (1986) edited by J. M.
Valdes makes an endeavor to highlight the importance of incorporating culture into the classroom. In her influential
book, Context and Culture in Language Teaching Claire Kramsch addressed the educational challenges of teaching
culture, and argued that cultural education is fundamental for communicative competence. In Teaching Culture:
Perspectives in Practice Patrick R. Moran presented authentic, engaging classroom experiences to show how
language and culture are intricately interwoven. Why teach culture, and how to incorporate it into the classroom?
Before answering this question, we need to come up with a definition of culture, however tentative it may be.

B. Definition of Culture
The National Center for Cultural Competence defines culture as an “integrated pattern of human behavior that
includes thoughts, communications, languages, practices, beliefs, values, customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of
interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviors of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the
ability to transmit the above to succeeding generations.” Webster’s Dictionary defines culture as the concepts,
habits, skills, arts, instruments, institutions, etc, of a given people in a given period.
According to Hinkel (2001), culture includes rhetorical structure of texts, socio-cultural behaviors, speech acts, etc.
Hinkel distinguishes between invisible and visible cultures. Visible culture, he argues, is readily apparent;
itmanifests incodes of dressing, cooking, celebrations, customs and ways of life, etc. The more complex invisible
culture, however, can be found in social norms, perspectives, beliefs, convictions and values.
It is essential to make a distinction between Big C Culture and small c culture. While the former refers to music,
literature, and arts in general, the latter marks everyday life habits and behaviors of a certain people. Kramsch refers
to the conviction that "language learners are supposed to teach nothing but language; culture is reserved for the
professors of literature" (2013, p. 58). But it is impossible to draw a distinct line between these two categories. If we
are to confine literature to texts that are meant to be read, interpreted and analyzed by literary scholars, then
literature will approach philosophy and science which are universal. But literature of a distinct people is not void of
their local morals, values, and ways of thinking and behaving. As Peterson and Coltrane have observed,
"Language learners need to be aware, for example, of the culturally appropriate ways to address people, express
gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone. They should know that behaviors and intonation
patterns that are appropriate in their own speech community may be perceived differently by members of the target
language speech community. They have to understand that, in order for communication to be successful, language
use must be associated with other culturally appropriate behavior" (2003, p. 1).
When students watch the filmic adaptation of a literary text, technology makes cultural education a more immediate
and pleasurable objective.

C. Literature and Films as Tools for Teaching Culture

Tools and techniques for teaching culture are various. They include authentic material, convention clusters, role
play, culture capsules, internet technologies, semantic mapping, ethnographic studies, literature, film, reading and
realia, etc. Innovative methods may seek to combine some of these materials to save time and facilitate a deeper
cultural insight for the students. As Lessard-Clouston (1997) notes, there was a period of time in which people
learned a foreign language in order to study its literature. Learning or teaching literature was neglected for a period
of time (Duff and Maley, 1991), before it was it was revived again in the 1980s.
Scott & Huntington (2000) carried out a study to establish the quality and level of recollection of two groups of
students. One group studied a fact sheet about Côte D’Ivoire, while the other group studied a poem on colonialism
in Côte D’Ivoire. The results showed that the second group showed empathy towards the Côte D’Ivoire people and
their history, whereas the first group recollected little information about them.
Films can be ideal tools which make a (potentially challenging) literary text more accessible to EFL students.
Zoreda and Vivaldo-Lima published an article in 2008 on teaching English using a graded literary reader and its
filmic adaptation. Their study showed that, using a simplified novel and its film version helps the students interact
more enthusiastically and critically with the target culture. Students achieved significant gains in cultural
competence after incorporating videos from the target culture in the modules (Herron, Cole, Corrie, & Dubreil,
1999).
The advantage of using films is that they offer students an opportunity to witness behaviors, reactions, and attitudes
that may not be obvious in texts. Films encapsulate they way people feel, think, greet, and react in a culture. Films
also connect students with language and cultural issues simultaneously (Stephens, 2001), such as depicting
"conversational timing or turn-taking in conversation" (Peterson and Coltrane, 2003, p. 2).
Teaching a language is more than teaching its grammar, phonology, and lexis. Teaching cultural norms in a non-
judgmental way is of prime significance. Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be
competent in that language (Krasner, 1999). Filmic adaptations allow students to observe a variety of cultural
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interactions. Teaching culture is not new but incorporating culture into the classroom requires careful organization
and a well-designed frame. Using tools, strategies and technology helps to enrich the students' social insight because
certain day-to-day interactions such as greeting, addressing, thanking, saying farewell, etc require more than just
producing grammatically correct structures. As Thanasoulas argues, "For scholars and laymen alike, cultural
competence, i.e., the knowledge of the conventions, customs, beliefs, and systems of meaning of another country, is
indisputably an integral part of foreign language learning, and many teachers have seen it as their goal to incorporate
the teaching of culture into the foreign language curriculum" (2001, p. 1).

III. THE PRESENT STUDY

This study aims at seeking the relationship between using literary text plus its film adaption (as tools for teaching
culture) and students’ reading comprehension and the learning durability.

A. Research Questions
1) Is there any significant relationship between showing film adaption and students’ comprehension?
2) Is there any significant relationship between teaching by using film and students’ learning durability?
3) Is there any significant relationship between teaching by using film and students’ enthusiasm?

B. Method

Participants and Setting

The subjects of this study included 80 English learners from Zabansara Language School in Iran. Upper-
intermediate and advanced students were selected – as they were believed to be able to speak and write English with
a good command of grammatical structure and vocabulary. These learners were divided in one control group and
one experimental. Of this pool of subjects, 46 were female and 34 male. Their age range was 15 –24.

Instrumentation
The instruments used in this study were similar in both experimental and control groups, except that the
experimental group received a DVD that was a film based on the novel Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte. The
film was directed by Cary Joji Fukuanaga and produced by Focus Feature in association with BBC and RUBY Film
Production. The script for the film has been rewritten (supervised by Sylvia Parker). Other instruments in this
research were same for both groups (this included Oxford Bookworm Library Stage 6: Jane Eyre retold by Clare
West. The book contains 2500 head words).
In order to test students' achievement, for each Chapter of the book (taught in a single session), 10 multiple-choice
questions were prepared. At the end of each session, the students were asked to answer a multiple choice test that
incuded10 items. This would be to say that students answered 100items in total by the end of the course.
In the final session, the researchers administered an interview in order to find out the level of the learners'
satisfaction regarding this mode of instruction. In this vein, a questionnaire with graded answers was handed to
students (which embarked on measuring learners’ level of satisfaction by three factors: group dynamics, tutor
facilitators, and learning material).

Data Collection Procedure

The students were divided into two main groups: an experimental and a control group. The classes were taught by
the researchers.
The course book contained 10 Chapters, and each session the teacher covered only one Chapter. Students were
asked to read a previously designated Chapter before coming to class. Then they were encouraged to discuss the
Chapter with other students and share their understanding of the Chapter.
To check the understanding of the students of the content of each session, a 6-minute Test (which included 10 items)
was administered. However, in the last session a comprehensive test of the ingredients of all sessions was
administered. This also included 10 items. Meanwhile, an interview was also carried out in the last session to
uncover the learners' views on the effectiveness of the course and the level of their satisfaction. This procedure was
descriptive and designed on a Likert scale.

Data Analysis
SPSS version 16 was used to analyze the collected data. The reliability of the tests was estimated via Cronbach
Alpha. Statistical analyses and both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to test the hypothesis:
Ho1: There is a positive relationship between teaching by using films and students’ comprehension level.
Ho2: There is a positive relationship between teaching by using films and students’ learning durabilty.
Ho3: There is a positive relationship between teaching by using films and students’ level of interest.
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IV. RESULTS

A. Test Reliability and Groups' Homogeneity

As students were nominated by different teachers in the Language School, it could be ensured that all participants
were at same level of study and there was no need to take placement test before execution of study and they all were
in upper-intermediate level of study.
We have got 10 tests which each test contain 10 multiple-choice questions. Cronbach's Alpha is used to test
reliability of our tests and it is calculated by this formula: and reliability of 100 items test was 0.701 and it proved
that our tests were reliable.

B. Investigation of Research Question 1

Research question 1 asked whether there is significant relationship between using film and students
learning. To answer this question at first a group statistics carried out. The comparison of the means of
the control and experimental groups indicated that the difference between means of these two groups was
significant.
To further examine the data, T-test was used. T-test is the test of the significance of the difference between two
means. In this study, the learning of the participants in the experimental and control groups were compared to see if
there was a significant difference. The results of the t-test showed that the experimental group outperformed the
control group in all multiple-choice tests.
The t-test (Table 2) illustrates significance value of .056 and ≤ .05, which means that Levene's Test was reliable. It
also indicates that the two groups had different achievement levels (because of using two different modes of
instruction). This is to say that the achievement level was less in the control group as compared to the experimental
group.
Figure 1is an illustration of both experimental and control groups in terms of their level of achievement and
learning. As it is shown, bars scattering for the students' learning in the experimental group is in a higher level as
compared to that of the control group.

C. Investigation of Research Question 2

In order to investigate second research question that there is significant relationship between using film and students
learning durability, all steps for first question was repeated but only for the last session test. Because last session’s
test was a comprehensive test from all Chapters and students had to recall their learning from past to answers the
questions. So another group statistics from students' answers in the final test was run. The comparison of the means
of the control and experimental groups in this test indicated that the difference between means of these two groups
was significant and that the experimental groups had a more durable learning.
To further examination of data another T-test base on students' last session test was run.
The T-test in Table 4 illustrates significance of .027 and ≥ .05.,indicating that Levene's Test is not reliable, so we
used the second line of data and the hypothesis of equity in mean(=0.05) is rejected; it means that the two groups
had different levels in learning durability. Due to the fact that the confidence interval of the difference was negative,
we conclude that learning durability in control group was less than that of the experimental.
Figure 2 is a comparative mirror of both experimental and control groups’ learning durability. As it is shown, bars
scattering for students' learning durability in the experimental group are at higher levels; yet in the control group the
bars are rather low.

D. Investigation of Research Question 3

To find out third research question, there is significant relationship between using film in teaching and students'
interest. At first a group statistics base on students' interview was carried out. The comparison of the means of the
control and experimental groups in this test indicated that the difference between means of these two groups was
significant and that the experimental groups had a more interest in learning in this way.

Independent Samples Test

The T-test Table 6 illustrates significance of .014 and ≥.05. In this regard the values are not reliable, either. The
Table demonstrated that the two groups were different in terms of their interest. In other words, the experimental
group was more interested to learn in its definite mode of instruction as compared to the control group who received
only book-bound instruction.
Figure 3 is a comparison of both experimental and control groups as relates to learning interest. The ways the bars
are scattered shows in a glance the experimental groups’ remarkable level of interest.
V. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSIONS
Findings of the present study were in line with the research carried out by some researchers in the past years. In this
study, taking advantage of a film adaptation of a literary classic in the classroom was found to be highly contributive
to the increase in the performance level of the learners, their interest, and their learning durability.
The findings of the present study suggest that watching films has a high correlation with students' performance on
reading comprehension and multiple tests. Both the results of the T-test and the interview indicate that the
experimental group outperformed the control group which again supports the meaningful and goal-oriented
application of multimedia

JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE TEACHING AND RESEARCH 1215

© 2014 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

and films accompanied by books in the EFL classroom. Films, literature, and multimedia technology are believed to
be effective in cultural transmission. The transmission of social heritage can serve pedagogical purposes. This mode
of instruction and language teaching has gained a worldwide popularity and can be integrated into lessons, since
ideas
mentioned throughout films bear educational and cultural messages in them. Culture is an indispensable part of any
language course due to the fact that language learning entails cultural education. In order to teach foreign culture,
teachers can use a number of techniques and materials, among them are novels and films, which are considered as
comprehensive text and audio-visual means to meet this goal.
The results are in line with Berwald's (1986) research, which suggested that the use of mass media in classroom
environment is useful as it promotes cultural awareness and successful interaction on various topics. The study also
confirms Tanriverdi and Apak's (2008) argument, which states that media sources have an important effect on
students as they encourage a positive attitude towards other cultures. Also, our findings affirm Grant S. Wolf's study
(2006) which suggested that using video materials leads to inventive and fluent writing.
Clearly, without cultural awareness and knowledge of the culture of the target language, it is hardly possible to
communicate accurately and effectively in a foreign context. Incorporating literature and films to the curriculum is
an effective tool which provides the students with some cultural insight to the language they are learning. Well-
organized strategies and appropriate techniques also pave the way for a teaching that results in a long-lasting and
durable learning.

REFERENCES
[1] Backlund, P. (1990). Communication competence and its impact on public education (Report No. CS507279). Geographic
Source: U.S.; Washington. CERIC Document Reproduction.
[2] Berwald, J. (1986). Au courant: Teaching French vocabulary and culture using the mass media (Language in education :
theory and practice). Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics.
[3] Duff, A. &Maley, A. (1991). Literature (Resource book for teachers). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[4] Hall, E.T. (1959). The Silent Language. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.
[5] Herron, C., Cole, S. P., Corrie, C., & Dubreil, S. (1999). The effectiveness of video-based curriculum in teaching culture. The
Modern Language Journal, 83(4), 518-533.
[6] Hinkel, E. (2001). Building awareness and practical skills to facilitate cross-Cultural communication. In Celce-Murcia, M.
(ed.) (2001), Teaching English as Second or Foreign Language (3rd edition). USA: Heinle and Heinle.
[7] Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[8] Kramsch, C. (2013). Culture in foreign language teaching, Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 1, pp. 57-78.
[9] Krasner, I. (1999). The role of culture in language teaching. Dialog on Language Instruction, 13(1-2), 79-88.
[10] Larsen-Freeman, D. (2001). Techniques and principles in language teaching (2 nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[11] Lessard-Clouston, M. (1997). “Towards an understanding of culture in l2/fl education.” Ronko: K.G. Studies in English 25:
131-150. Retrieved from: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Lessard-Clouston-Culture.html on August, 2013.
[12] Peterson, Elizabeth and Coltrane, Bronwyn. "Culture In Second Language Teaching", Eric Digest, December 2003.
Retrieved from: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/digest_pdfs/0309peterson.pdf on December 2012.
[13] Moran, P. R. (2001). Teaching culture: perspectives in practice. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
[14] Scott, V. M., & Huntington, J. A. (2000). Reading culture: Using literature to develop C2 competence. Foreign Language
Annals, 35(6), 622-631.
[15] Seelye, H. (1984). Teaching culture: strategies for inter-cultural communication (Revised edition). Lincolnwood, IL:
National Textbook Company.
[16] Steele, R. (1989). Teaching language and culture: Old problems and new approaches. In J. E. Tanriversi, B, Apak, O (2008),
Culture and language teaching through media. Creating a global culture of peace: strategies for curriculum development and
implementation, 2 -7 September, Antalyia, Turkey. 1- 156-168 Retrieved from Eric database.
[17] Stephens, J. L. (2001). Teaching culture and improving language skills through a cinematic lens: A course on Spanish film
in the undergraduate Spanish curriculum. ADFL Bulletin, 33(1), 22-25.
[18] Tanrıverdi, B., Apak, Ö. (2008). Culture and Language Teaching through Media.WCCI13th World Conference in Education
on “Creating a Global Culture of Peace: Strategies for Curriculum Development and Implementation”.2-7 September. Antalya,
Turkey. 1. 156-168. (Eds. Mirici, İ. H., AksuAtaç, B., Arslan, M.M., Kovalcikova, I.) Retrieved from ERIC database.
[19] Thanasoulas, Dimitrios. (2001). The importance of teaching culture in the foreign language classroom, Radical Pedagogy,
pp. 1-25. Retrieved from: https://media.startalk.umd.edu/workshops/2009/SeattlePS/sites/default/files/files/The%20Importance
%20Of%20Teaching%20Culture%20In%20The%20Foreign%20Language%20Classroom.pdf.
[20] Valdes, J. M. (ed.) 1986. Culture Bound: bridging the cultural gap in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
[21] Wolf, G. S. Using video to develop writing fluency in low-proficiency ESL students, The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XII,
No. 8, August 2006.
[22] Zoreda, L. M. & Vivaldo-Lima, J. (2008). Scaffolding Linguistic and Intercultural Goals in EFL with Simplified Novels and
Their Film Adaptation. English Teaching Forum, 3: 22-29.

Robab Khosravi obtained her PhD in English Literature from Keele University, United Kingdom. She is currently Assistant
Professor and the head of the English Language Department at University of Zanjan, Iran. Her main research interests are
Modernism, the twentieth-century poetry (the work of T. S. Eliot in particular), critical theory, and aspects of postmodern thought
and culture.
Mehdi Moharami is MA student of TEFL in University of Zanajn, Iran. He holds BA Degree from Ershad-Damavand
University (2011). He is teaching general English in different Language Schools. His main areas of interest are CALL, Literature
teaching and News translation.
Giti Karimkhanlouei is an assistant professor of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences with 18 years of experience in teaching
English language courses. Her research interests include: ESP, web-based learning and teaching, and Methodology of teaching.
She has published variety of articles in internationally well-known journal
How do people define their
national identity? By speaking
the language, study says
By Adam Taylor February 1 

Student Maria Ferreira goes over her study book on American history in preparation for a
U.S. citizenship test. (Photo by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post
What does it mean to be an American? For that matter, what does it mean to be
Japanese, Hungarian or Australian? All around the world, how we define our national
identity is complicated and often fluid. However, you may be surprised to find how
different countries often have similar measures of who is "one of us" and who is not.
On Wednesday afternoon, Pew Research Center released a study that looked at how
national identity is defined across 14 different countries using survey data taken at the
start of last year. In light of the ongoing debate about immigration in pretty much every
part of the world, it makes for illustrative reading.
It turns out, for example, that most Americans don't believe that where someone is born
really defines whether they can be American or not. In fact, only a handful of the
countries Pew surveyed thought this was important. And while America is a country
well-known for its talk of values and God, most Americans don't think that customs and
religion are really important to being an American — and neither do most other
countries.
Instead, Pew's study found that in every country its researchers looked at, language was
what really bound its national identity. The highest result was found in the Netherlands,
where more than 84 percent of the population believes it is vital to speak Dutch if you
want to truly be Dutch. But in all countries, a majority said it was "very important" to
speak the national language.
The idea that language binds a nation together isn't surprising. Two people will struggle
to find anything in common if they can't exchange information easily. As British
historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote in a study of language, culture and national identity, as
countries gradually embraced democracy, a shared language became a necessity. "The
original case for a standard language was entirely democratic, not cultural," Hobsbawm
wrote in 1996.
Many modern states developed around linguistic communities — the German language
was one key factor in the eventual unification of Germany, for example. In the modern
age, some languages have become symbols for independence movements, such as the
Basque language in Spain.
Pew's study does not include countries where a multitude of languages are widely
spoken — such as India or Switzerland. Instead, most of the countries listed in the
research are pretty clearly defined by their language, which in many cases is unique to
that country.
The most obvious countries where that is not true are both in North America — Canada
and the United States. Canada is a country where there are two national languages, and
both of them originated not in Canada but back in Europe. This may be why it has one of
the lowest percentages of people who think language is "very important" to national
identity. (It also has the highest percentage for those who think that language is "not at
all important," at 5 percent.)
However, it's worth noting that Italy, a nation with deep ties to its language, has results
somewhat similar to Canada's, so perhaps the relationship is a little more complicated
than that. Also worth considering is the fact that the United States — another country
that imported its de facto national language from Europe — seems to view the
importance of language more strongly than some European nations.
Pew's data shows that beliefs about national identity have a partisan split. Eighty-three
percent of Republicans say that being able to speak English is very important to being
truly American, 22 percentage points higher than Democrats. There are similar splits
regarding the importance of American customs and Christianity, too, though both
Republicans and Democrats attach relatively low importance to being born in the
United States.
This partisan link is also important across Europe, where respondents with positive
views of anti-establishment parties such as the United Kingdom Independence Party
(UKIP) and France's National Front were found to attach a higher level of importance to
national customs in defining identity. There were also similar partisan splits in Canada
and Australia (though information for Japan was not available).
In most of the countries surveyed, there is already some kind of language requirement
for citizenship. In fact, citizenship tests have been becoming harsher over recent years
as increasingly obscure cultural questions have begun appearing — potential British
citizens are even quizzed about Rudyard Kipling. Some academics say the shifting tests
are often a response to right-wing political pressure and serve little practical purpose.
But things may change. For one thing, immigration also influences language: Germany
has developed a colloquial language, "Kiezdeutsch," which is primarily used by German
speakers whose native tongue is Turkish or Arabic. Additionally, Pew's data suggests
that there is a big generational divide on whether language is very important for identity
in most countries. In America, that shift is especially pronounced: While 81 percent of
those age 50 or older say language is very important to national identity, only 58 percent
of those age 18 to 34 agree.
 MAGAZINE
Multiculturalism: What does it mean?
COMMENTS

The multiculturalism debate is guaranteed to whip up a storm

Continue reading the main story

In today's Magazine
Pundits have been reacting to a speech by David Cameron in which the prime minister
argued multiculturalism had "failed". But what do commentators actually mean by the
term?

It is one of the most emotive and sensitive subjects in British politics.

But at times it seems there are as many definitions of multiculturalism as there are columnists,
experts and intellectuals prepared to weigh into the debate.

The subject has become the focus of renewed scrutiny in the wake of a speech by prime
minister David Cameron, in which he told a security conference in Germany that the UK
needed a stronger national identity to prevent extremism.

In his speech, which has provoked a political storm, Mr Cameron defines "the doctrine of
state multiculturalism" as a strategy which has "encouraged different cultures to live separate
lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream".

This characterisation is not new. In 2004 Trevor Phillips, chairman of the the Commission for
Racial Equality - now the Equality and Human Rights Commission - told the Times that
multiculturalism was out of datebecause it "suggests separateness" and should be replaced
with policies which promote integration and "assert a core of Britishness".

But is everyone who uses the term referring to the same phenomenon?

Academics' definitions of multiculturalism refer to anything from people of different communities

living alongside each other to ethnic or religious groups leading completely separate lives.

Likewise, columnists who write about multiculturalism don't often define what they mean by the
term, looking instead at what it is not.

The Oxford English Dictionary offers a broad definition of multiculturalism as the

"characteristics of a multicultural society" and "the policy or process whereby the distinctive
identities of the cultural groups within such a society are maintained or supported".

David Cameron said Britain had encouraged different cultures to live separate lives
Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth says in
the Times that multiculturalism was intended to create a more tolerant society, one in which
everyone, regardless of colour, creed or culture, felt at home. But, he says, multiculturalism's
message is "there is no need to integrate".

He distinguishes between tolerance and multiculturalism - using the Netherlands as an example

of a tolerant, rather than multicultural, society.

Additionally, he says the current meaning of multiculturalism is part of the wider European
phenomenon of moral relativism and talks of multiculturalism as dissolving national identity,
shared values and collective identity which "makes it impossible for groups to integrate because
there is nothing to integrate into".

Others, however, see the term as offering a range of meanings. In the Observer, the editor of
Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, insists the strategy has taken on different forms within the
UK over the years.

He distinguishes between the "live and let live" multiculturalism of the 1950s, which "assumed
that if people could keep significant aspects of their culture they would choose to integrate in
their own way"; the 1980s "'soft' multiculturalism of tolerance and equal rights"; and the more
recent "hard" multiculturalism "of positive promotion of religious and ethnic identities".

Rod Liddle says in the Spectator that multiculturalism is a notion that cultures, no matter how
antithetical to the norm, or anti-social, should be allowed to develop unhindered, without
criticism.

Melanie Phillips takes this argument further in the Daily Mail, arguing that multiculturalism is
a form of reverse-racism and "sickeningly hypocritical".

However, Madeleine Bunting of the Guardian says Mr Cameron has offered "a straw man
version of multiculturalism". Instead of promoting segregation, she says, it is "a matter of
pragmatism" - reaching out to organisations within ethnic communities who can help the
government achieve its goals of maintaining good community relations.

In the same newspaper in March 2010, Antony Lerman, a former director of the Institute for
Jewish Policy Research, pointed to some of the academic work on multiculturalism to show it
is the opposite of a philosophy of separateness. He cited Professor Bhikhu Parekh's definition
which says, far from "putting people into ethnic boxes", multiculturalism is a "fusion in which a
culture borrows bits of others and creatively transforms both itself and them".

Professor Tariq Modood is director of the Centre for Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the
University of Bristol and wrote Still Not Easy Being British: Struggles for a Multicultural
Citizenship. He says in a Runnymede Trust web chat that multiculturalism has many
meanings, but the minimum is the need to politically identify groups, typically by ethnicity, and to
work to remove stigmatisation, exclusion and domination in relation to such groups.

The debate around multiculturalism may be an important one. But while public discussion of the
subject may have become more familiar, there remains little consensus about what the word
actually means.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12381027
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/globalization/

globalization

American fast-food restaurant chains have become a symbol of modern globalization.

Battle in Seattle
The 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held in Seattle,
Washington. This meeting was protested by thousands of people opposed to
globalization. The protests turned violent. Hundreds of people were arrested. Many
were injured in confrontations with police. Many buildings were damaged. The incident
is sometimes called "the Battle in Seattle."

Powerful Peppers
Food has long been an important part of globalization. Today, foods in Korea and many
parts of China are often spicy. They get their spice from chili peppers. This was not the
case before the 1600s. The fiery chili pepper is native to the Western Hemisphere.
Explorer Christopher Columbus first brought chilies to Europe in 1493, and from there
they spread across Asia.
Globalization is the connection of different parts of the world. Globalization results in the
expansion of international cultural, economic, and political activities. As people, ideas,
knowledge, and goods move more easily around the globe, the experiences of people
around the world become more similar.

Globalization in History
Globalization has a long history. Ancient Greek culture, for instance, spread across
much of southwestern Asia, northern Africa, and southern Europe. The globalization of
Greek culture came with the conqueror Alexander the Great. In fact, there are cities
named for Alexander in Iraq (Iskandariya), Egypt (Alexandria), and Turkey (Alexandria
Troas).

The Silk Road, a trade route between China and the Mediterranean Sea, promoted the
exchange of ideas and knowledge, along with trade goods and foods such as silk,
spices, porcelain, and other treasures from the East. 

When Europeans began establishing colonies overseas, globalization grew. Many early

European explorers were eager to bring the Christian religion to the regions they visited.
The globalization of Christianity spread from Europe to Latin America through Christian
missionaries working with the local populations.

Globalization was accelerated in the nineteenth century with the Industrial Revolution,

as mechanical mills and factories became more common. Many companies used raw
materials from distant lands. They also sold their goods in other countries. 

Britain’s colony in India, for instance, supplied cotton to British merchants and

traders. Madras, a light cotton cloth, was made in the city of Madras (now called
Chennai), a major port in India. Eventually, madras cloth was no longer manufactured in
Madras at all—the Indian labor force supplied the raw material, cotton. Factories in the
county of Lancashire, England, created madras cloth. British factories made fabric and
other goods from the cotton. British manufacturers could then sell their finished goods,
such as clothing and blankets, to buyers all over the world—the United States, Brazil,
Australia, even India. 

Globalization sped up dramatically in the twentieth century with the proliferation of air

travel, the expansion of free trade, and the dawn of the Information Age. Miles of fiber-
optic cable now connect the continents, allowing people around the world to
communicate instantly through the borderless World Wide Web.

Communication
Modern communication has played a large role in cultural globalization. Today, news
and information zips instantly around the world on the internet. People can read
information about foreign countries as easily as they read about their local news.
Through globalization, people may become aware of incidents very quickly. In seconds,
people are able to respond to natural disasters that happen thousands of miles away.

About 60 percent of the people in the world now use cell phones. A farmer in Nigeria
can easily talk to his cousin who moved to New York City, New York. The success of
global news networks like CNN have also contributed to globalization. People all over
the world can see the same news 24 hours a day.

Travel
Increased international travel has also helped globalization. Each year, millions of
people move from one country to another in search of work. Sometimes,
these migrant workers travel a short distance, such as between the Mexican state of
Sonora and the U.S. state of California. Sometimes, migrant workers travel many
thousands of miles. Migrant workers from the Philippines, for instance, may travel to
Europe, Australia, or North America to find better-paying jobs.

People do not travel just for work, of course. Millions of people take vacations to foreign
countries. Most of these international tourists are from developed countries. Many are
most comfortable with goods and services that resemble what they have at home. In
this way, globalization encourages countries around the world to provide typical
Western services. The facilities of a Holiday Inn hotel, for instance, are very similar,
whether the location is Bangor, Maine, or Bangkok, Thailand. 

Travel and tourism have made people more familiar with other cultures. Travelers are
exposed to new ideas about food, which may change what they buy at the store at
home. They are exposed to ideas about goods and services, which may increase
demand for a specific product that may not be available at home. They are exposed to
new ideas, which may influence how they vote. In this way, globalization influences
trade, taste, and culture.

Popular Culture
Popular culture has also become more globalized. People in the United States enjoy
listening to South African music and reading Japanese comic books. American soap
operas are popular in Israel. 

India, for instance, has a thriving film industry, nicknamed “Bollywood.” Bollywood
movies are popular both in India and with the huge population of Indians living abroad.
In fact, some Bollywood movies do much better in the United States or the United
Kingdom than they do in India.

Clothing styles have also become more uniform as a result of globalization. National
and regional costumes have become rarer as globalization has increased. In most parts
of the world, professionals such as bankers wear suits, and jeans and T-shirts are
common for young people. 

There has also been an increasing exchange of foods across the globe. People in
England eat Indian curry, while people in Peru enjoy Japanese sushi. Meanwhile,
American fast food chains have become common throughout the world. McDonald's has
more than 31,000 restaurants in 118 countries. And people all across the world are
eating more meat and sugary foods, like those sold in fast food restaurants.

The worldwide expansion of McDonald’s has become a symbol of globalization. Some

menu items, such as the Big Mac, are the same all over the world. Other menu items
are specific to that region. McDonalds in Japan features a green-tea flavored milkshake.
At McDonald’s in Uruguay, a “McHuevo” is a burger topped with a fried egg.
Globalization has brought McDonald’s to billions of consumers worldwide. 

Economy
The international economy has also become more globalized in recent decades.
International trade is vital to the economies of most countries around the world.
American software companies, such as Microsoft, rely on international trade to make
large profits. The economy of the country of Saudi Arabia is almost entirely dependent
on oil exports.

To increase trade, many countries have created free trade agreements with other
countries. Under free trade agreements, countries agree to remove trade barriers. For
example, they may stop charging tariffs, or taxes, on imports. In 1994, the United
States, Mexico, and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which eventually ended all tariffs on trade goods between the three nations.
This allowed globalization of goods and services, as well as people and ideas, between
these three countries.

Most large corporations operate in many countries around the world. HSBC, the world’s
largest bank, has offices in 88 different countries. Originally, HSBC stood for Hongkong
Shanghai Banking Corporation, which was founded in 1865 to promote trade between
China and the United Kingdom. Today, HSBC has its headquarters in London, England.
Economic globalization has allowed many corporations based in the West to move
factories and jobs to less economically developed countries, a process
called outsourcing. The corporation can pay lower wages, because the standard of
living in less developed countries is much lower. Laws protecting the environment and
workers’ safety are less widespread in developing countries, which also lowers costs for
the corporation. Often, this results in lower costs for consumers, too.

Economic markets are global. People and organizations invest in companies all over the
globe. Because of this, economic downturns in one country are repeated in other
countries. The financial crisis that began in the United States in 2006 quickly spread
around the world. The way globalization allowed this situation to spread led to the nation
of Iceland nearly going bankrupt, for example. 

Politics
Cultural and economic globalization have caused countries to become more connected
politically. Countries frequently cooperate to enact trade agreements. They work
together to open their borders to allow the movement of money and people needed to
keep economic globalization working. 

Because people, money, and computerized information move so easily around the
globe, countries are increasingly working together to fight crime. The idea of maintaining
international law has also grown. In 2002, the International Criminal Court was
established. This court, which handles cases such as war crimes, has a global reach,
although not all countries have accepted it.

Many problems facing the world today cross national borders, so countries must work
together to solve them. Efforts to confront problems such as global climate change must
involve many different countries. In 2009, representatives from 170 countries gathered
at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss climate change. Other
international issues include terrorism, drug trafficking, and immigration.

The process of globalization is very controversial. Many people say globalization will

help people communicate. Aid agencies can respond more quickly to a natural disaster.
Advanced medicines are more easily and widely available to people who may not have
been able to afford them. Jobs available through globalization have lifted many people
out of poverty. Globalization has increased the number of students studying abroad.

Not everyone says that globalization is good, however. Some people worry that
Western culture will destroy local cultures around the world. They fear that everyone will
end up eating hamburgers and watching Hollywood movies. Others point out that
people tend to adopt some aspects of other cultures without giving up their own.
Ironically, modern technology is often used to preserve and spread traditional beliefs
and customs.

Opponents to globalization blame free trade for unfair working conditions. They also say
that outsourcing has caused wealthy countries to lose too many jobs. Supporters of
globalization say that factory workers in poor countries are making much better wages
than they would at other jobs available to them. They also argue that free trade has
lowered prices in wealthier countries and improved the economy of poorer countries.
ROY PORTER
Wednesday 18 May 1994
The world's melting pot: London has
always been a multicultural metropolis
When I was a kid just after the War, there lived along the street a lady called Mrs London. We made a
schoolboy joke out of it - Mrs London living in London, she'd never get lost] She was your typical working-
class south Londoner: chatty, homely, a bit Cockney but respectable, utterly English, and White. Everyone
down the street was like that.
What a change today, what a mosaic of peoples, races, colours, languages, faiths, cultures the capital has
become. Of its inhabitants at the 1981 census, more than one in six were born outside the UK - the
breakdown was over a third of a million born in Europe, about 300,000 in Asia, around 170,000 in Africa
and the Caribbean respectively, and lesser numbers from the other corners of the globe. All these different
peoples have intermarried, with each other and with traditional Londoners.
This internationalisation provokes different responses. The British National Party foments race hatred
and its thugs beat up Bengalis. Statesmen preach tolerance. Others are positively enthusiastic - massive
immigration has given the metropolis just the vital spark it needed, bringing new life styles, foods, music.
However a lot of English-born whites, especially older people, find the cheek-by-jowl mixing of ethnic
groups jarring and hard to accept. It wasn't like that when they were young; isn't such a new development
a recipe for disaster?
The truth is it isn't new at all. London always was a city of foreigners. For much of its history the
percentage of Londoners born outside the capital was actually far higher than today. In a remarkable
book, A City Full of People (Methuen), the historian Peter Earle establishes that around 1700, when
Samuel Pepys was an old man, Daniel Defoe in his prime and William Hogarth but a boy, a clear majority
of Londoners had not been born in the capital. Many had come from overseas: Huguenots from France,
Jews from Spain and Eastern Europe, Scandinavians and Germans, Moors and other Mediterranean
types. And there are flocks of Welsh, Scots, Irish, and people from the ends of England. Cumbrians and
Cornishmen might not seem 'foreigners' to us, but that's how they were perceived at the time, with their
different ways and dialects: one sailor around 1700 told a court he spoke 'English and Devon'.
A hundred and fifty years later, under Queen Victoria, things were much the same. Between 1841 and
1851, a third of a million streamed into the capital, representing a staggering 17 per cent of London's total
population. Similar numbers arrived in the 1850s and 1860s.
The majority of these came from a few ethnic groups. Nearly 50,000 arrived from Ireland in the 1840s
alone, fleeing the famine. By 1850, London's Jewish population had increased to about 20,000, and in the
following fifty years, as refugees deluged in from central Europe, Poland and Russia, it had leapt to
120,000.
The city always had pockets of more exotic sorts. By 1800 there were several thousand Black Africans,
mostly servants and sailors but also a few musicians, prize-fighters, gigolos and writers. Lascar sailors
settled from South East Asia, and from 1800 Limehouse was acquiring its Chinese community; the
notorious opium dens came later.
This ceaseless flow of migration shouldn't surprise us for a second. After all, Londinium was founded by
the Romans, conquered by Saxons and Normans and developed as a commercial centre by Italian,
Flemish and Baltic traders. It was always a honeypot for potential Dick Whittingtons (he came from
Gloucestershire).
If the streets were not paved with gold, the capital always had work, and wages were good. So people
poured into what a rather jaundiced 18th-century commentator called 'that great and famous city, which
may truly be said, like the Sea and the Gallows, to refuse none'. Without migrants London would never
have been famous for silks and watches (made by French craftsmen); it would have lacked ice-cream
(made by Italians living in Finsbury) to say nothing of the music of Handel.
True, by the lifetime of my neighbour, Mrs London, newcomers had grown much less
conspicuous, but that was just a lull; over the centuries the tide of migration has never stopped. And so
today's fears of a multicultural capital are myopic, because that is exactly what London always was, during
the centuries of greatness when it became the top city in the world.
What we need to fear is not the pot-pourri of peoples but the lack of the conditions that have enabled
multiculturalism to thrive: jobs, homes, education, opportunities - all those elements that ensure
integration into the wider community.
Over the centuries London has been pretty successful at avoiding serious racial tension and violence.
There never was a formal Jewish
ghetto. The humiliation of the BNP in recent local government elections shows that old Cockney
traditions of live-and-let-live remain strong. But tolerance will be stretched by continuing poverty and
hopelessness.
Multiculturalism requires a metropolis where prosperity is a prospect for all. And that requires urgent
action.
Roy Porter is professor at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
http://www.thesudburystar.com/2011/02/16/multiculturalism-has-failed-britain-and-canada

OPINION EDITORIAL
Multiculturalism has failed Britain --
and Canada  0

QMI AGENCY

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 8:00:00 EST AM

In the thin-skinned world of multiculturalism-- Utopian dream that has failed like all Utopian dreams -- it is not surprising that
British Prime Minister David Cameron stirred up a large and festering pot. He did so by calling a spade a spade. In a much-
dissected speech to the Munich Security Conference, Cameron spoke of the need for all immigrants to "learn the language of
their new home," and be educated in the "elements of a common culture and curriculum."

He wants his country to be a melting pot and not descend further into a mosaic.

Cultural mosaics create ghettos; melting pots create diverse communities.

Just look at Canada to see what the cultural mosaic envisioned as Utopian by Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau and you will
see a disaster. You will see -- David Cameron is right. Multiculturalism is a failure not only in Great Britain, but a dismal failure
here.

What we have is a multi-ethnic, multiracial society living largely in segregation.

What we have are people who immigrated to this country decades ago yet still can't speak either English or French.

Why? Because they don't have to. They live in their Little Italy, their Chinatown, their Little India or their Little Arabia -- you
name an ethnic group and an ethnic enclave will exist -- and they don't have to venture outside it because the screws have not
been tightened on who we will accept as contributing immigrants.

And what ferments so often in many of these single-cultural, often state dependent ghettos are the religious prejudices and ethnic
hatreds of their homelands. It's bad baggage.

Why should anyone be allowed into Canada who has no facility in either of our official languages, or any commitment to learn
and be tested, and who believe it is acceptable to disrupt this country with the radical ideologies and distasteful mindset of the
countries they fled?

The left will argue various ethnic festivals across Canada are somehow proof of multi-racial peace and harmony.

But when those festivals end, so does that Kumbaya moment.

The social interaction halts, and the ghetto returns to its cocoon.

That's the reality of multiculturalism. It's segregation not assimilation.

And it's why our immigration rules must change.

http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/article/melting-pot-or-salad-bowl.html

Melting pot or salad bowl?

Article published on March 6, 2006
COMMUNITY PUBLISHED

Is the melting pot still working?

This article has not been vetted by an editor at Paris HQ

What is the difference between melting pot and
multiculturalism? How can we manage this diversity in
Europe?

How was multiculturalism born?

The melting pot is at the origins of multiculturalism. It is considered to be the historic foundation of
American integration policy, and represents society as a giant pestle and mortar, where cultural origins
and differences were crushed and blended. Many saw the melting pot as the model to follow for all
multi-ethnic societies. But after a time, the blend started to go bad. This is when multiculturalism
imposed itself as the new recipe for western societies, looking for effective and painless solutions to get
out of the cultural impasse represented by the small-minded attitude to culture. The uniform dish has
given way to a colourful mixed salad where ingredients live together, each one keeping its own unique
taste.

How can you define it?

Multiculturalism is a political strategy for managing interethnic relations, based on the value and
respect of differences in customs, culture, religion or ethnicity. Multiculturalism came to the fore in the
1980s, and was progressively implemented in the United States then in Europe, but its roots go back to
the 1960s. At that time, problems of ‘difference’ started to emerge in western societies, further
 propelled by the rejection in the late sixties of traditional culture and consequences of decolonisation.
The escalating phenomena of migration and globalisation put an end to the culture of the unique in
favour of a real culture of differences.

What is the main significance of the concept of multiculturalism in intellectual debate?

For the American historian, Francis Fukuyama, ‘good multiculturalism’ is a kind of “corporate
multiculturalism”. It is based on spreading identical consumer habits across different lifestyles of
various social, ethnic and cultural groups. Italian political scientist, Giovanni Sartori, is not of this
opinion. For him, by definition multiculturalism is ‘bad’ as it builds a society based on separate
identities, creating ghettos. Sartori proposes the ‘European model of pluralism and tolerance’ as an
alternative, presented as the ‘correct management of diversity’.

What is the European Union doing to improve the integration of immigrants?

The EU programme ‘integration of third country nationals’ finances and promotes integration
initiatives targeting those who are not members of the EU25. This project aims to encourage dialogue
in civil society, develop integration models, and spread and highlight the best initiatives regarding
integration. The EU member states have contributed 5 million euros for this project. At the same time,
the EU has collated an ‘integration manual’ which explains government and public authority practices
in Europe, in the areas of training, political participation and inter-religious dialogue. The manual,
presented at the end of 2004, underlines the necessity to include unions, foreigner associations and
employers.

What are the European integration models?

Europe switches between two models, the French ‘assimilation’ model, and the Anglo-Saxon
‘multicultural’ one. Both are going through a crisis. The first one practices integration based on trade;
there is an exchange of citizenship for religious discretion (for example, in France, the Muslim veil is
prohibited in schools). British multicultural policy gives freedom to minorities in the form of ‘collective
rights’ to allow a harmonious coexistence between different ethnic and religious groups inside a liberal
and tolerant political society.

How have they failed? In France, many second and third generation French people refuse the old-style
republican assimilation method. This trend is proven, among other things, by the riots in French
suburbs last November or the protests against the 2004 law banning the Muslim veil. In Britain, many
Muslim groups do not feel represented by state laws, creating hostile and isolated minorities. British
public opinion could be summed up by a phrase from the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality,
Trevor Philips, “multiculturalism does not mean that everyone can do as they want in the name of their
culture.
 Discussing cultural products (stories, cartoons, etc)

Vocabulary

a) Illustrate: to show what something is like, or to show that something is true

The following examples illustrate our approach to customer service.
The case of Mrs King illustrates the importance of consulting your doctor.

b) Portray: to show something by featuring it in a film, book, play etc

The book portrays Caribbean society against a background of the French Revolution.

c) Convey: to communicate ideas or feelings indirectly
The film conveys conflict through the scene where Paul reunites with his brother Andrew.
Another idea conveyed through the film is the insecurity of…

d) Represent: To depict in art; portray

The painting represents a woman wearing a hat.

To describe or present in words; set forth

The article represents the shortcomings of our school system in some detail.

e) “there is an example of ….. in the story….”

f) “another instance of… is portrayed in the scene where…”

g) Show: e.g. Her reluctance to change her clothes shows she has become independent and
confident
 “A Pair of Jeans”

Reading Guide
1. “Yet they were just the type of clothes… hoped that she would not meet anyone she knew”
(p.1). What does this tell you about Miriam’s identity?
2. Make a list of power words used on pp. 1, 2 and 3 to show nervousness and embarrassment.
How do they contribute to the tone of the story?
3. “This was not the Miriam they knew, but a stranger: a western version of Miriam” (p.2). What
theme is represented in this line? Contrast the elements that make up the two versions of
Miriam (e.g. a belly top)
4. “Today, however, she was viewing her daughter’s arrival and appearance through a different
set of lenses. In fact, through the lenses of Miriam’s future in-laws – the view just didn’t look
very good.” (p.3) Explain how this sentence is connected with culture.
5. Page 4. Contrast the role of women in the East and the West as described by the narrator.
Why does Miriam think that these are stereotypes?
6. Page 6 onwards. Find evidence of Ayub and Begum’s cultural identity and contrast it to the
other characters’.
7. Why are they worried? Do you notice any differences in their points of view?
8. “They were seeing her as a young woman who was very much under the sway of western
fashion and by extension its moral values.” (p.4). What are these moral values? What do they
jeans represent in terms of Miriam’s identity?
9. Analyze Miriam‘s varied reactions to the news. Has she changed?

AFTER READING

1. Compare and contrast the author’s use of language (style) to Cisneros’.

2. Find pieces of evidence throughout the story that show the two sides of Miriam’s identity.
3. Does Miriam’s attitude change at any point in the story? Why/why not?
4. Search the text for passages which indicate:
 The way she feels about her Western part
 The way the others see Western Miriam (her mom and her in-laws)
 The way she feels about her Eastern part
 The way the others see Eastern Miriam
5. Contrast Miriam’s mother’s attitude towards western life to her in-laws’
6. Write a list of the themes portrayed in the story and find evidence to support them.
"Interview with Qaisra Shahraz." Interview by Sheeba Rakesh. Pravda. PANKH Women's Rights
Organization, 16 May 2012. Web. <http://english.pravda.ru/history/16-05-2012/121132-qaisra_shahraz-
0/>.

Interview with Qaisra Shahraz

16.05.2012

Qaisra Shahraz was born in Pakistan and grew up in England. She studied English and Classical Civilisaton at the
University of Manchester, later gaining a Masters degree in English and European Literature. She has written plays
for the radio and theatre, also scripting for the television at the same time. Her drama series Dil Hee To Hai has been
televised on the Pakistan television. Her prize winning short stories and magazines have been published widely.

She works as a lecturer, examiner and a college Inspector. She resides in Manchester with her husband and three
sons. Her novelsThe Holy Woman and Typhoon, have been well received and greatly appreciated. The Holy
Woman has been widely translated , and Typhoon is currently under translation into  the Hindi. She is now working
on her third novel. An interview with Dr. Sheba Rakesh.

1) How would Qaisra Shahraz define herself for her readers?

I would define myself as a mother before anything else. The role of motherhood is both fulfilling and of supreme
importance to me. I love my 3 sons, and these days am craving to spend as much time with them as possible as we
don't seem to get enough time together. When the younger two, both of them students, return home from other cities
where they study, I love cooking their favourite dishes and feeding them. I am also a lover of literature; I love reading
books, but am not getting enough time to do so. Of course I write myself; novels, short stories and scripts for TV. As
a writer I have two aims. One, to reach out to my readers, no matter where they are in the world and to provide an
entertaining read.  After all, reading should be a pleasurable activity. Secondly, to engage with my readers by
discussion social issues. In particular I aim devoted to raising awareness about women's issues. I also have another,
very fulfilling and important career as an educationist, in my work as an inspector, trainer and consultant.   Through
this work in the UK and in other countries I am dedicated to promoting the concept of lifelong learning and 'quality'
education for all. In other words, all children and adult learners are entitled as human beings to a good education of
the highest standards.  And one can go on learning; learning for life - no matter if you are 17 or 70! There should be
no limit to learning.

2) Being the famous woman writer who hails from Pakistan and England, how easy has negotiating cultural,
personal and national identities been?

Quite easy actually. I have been very successful in negotiating cultural, personal and national identities. I am proud of
all my identities. For instance I describe myself as a British Muslim woman of Pakistani origin. The multiple identities
have substantially enriched my life. They make me who I am. Fortunately I have not suffered from any cultural
clashes or negative ' cultural' experiences. I have however explored cross cultural issues as major themes in few of
my early stories, including A Pair of Jeans and The elopement both being studied at German and English schools as
well as at universities in other countries. The added bonus of having multiple identities is that I am very much into
celebrating diversity and valuing people's differences. At the end of the day you are a product of the environment in
which you are raised. So I guess after living in Britain since my childhood I am more British than Pakistani, with my
Muslim identity remaining pretty strong.
3) Your fictional characters have all been depicted as caught in the maze of religion and society, who at the
same time do not hesitate to rebel against those norms. And even if they are shown as giving in to those
institutions, how easy or difficult has it been for you as a writer to sketch them?

Not all my characters are depicted as ' caught in the maze of religion' but in society - yes. And yes many of my
women characters rebel, including Zarri Bano the heroine of my first novel The Holy Woman, her mother Shahzada
and her grandmother Zulaikha in Typhoon. They rebel against patriarchal order and tyranny, in particular against their
men folk's efforts to subjugate them. The servants too rebel against the inequalities of life and discrimination facing
them in society. As I feel very strongly about women's lives, the injustices meted out to them dismays me. This anger
has fired my imagination to create some of these characters.

I enjoyed sketching my characters, living and breathing their world, although so different from my own real world in
England. Rural life in Pakistan is so different from the urban world of Manchester, where some of these characters
were conceived. Some of them grew on me. I fell in love with a quite a few and took them into my next
novel, Typhoon, which has thus become a sequel. Human relationships, between men and women and amongst
women, play a central part in my fictional world.

4) Like some of the other women writers from Pakistan, has it never occurred to you, that a literary
exploitation (If I can use that term in a positive sense) of real life incidents, could be of great help in
"popularising" stories?....and this is to speak of them from a more commercial perspective.

In my novels I have sometimes used real life incidents or ideas picked up from somewhere, but very rarely do I base
my characters on real people. I deliberately keep the real world separate from the world of the imagination. However,
in my short stories some aspects of the stories are indeed based on real incidents. Also some characters are based
on real people. I do not however exploit real incidents gratuitously. These days as I am travelling a lot; touring
different countries I welcome ideas for a story or a setting. My story The Malay Host  written many years ago was
based on a house we visited in a Jungle in Malaysia, inspired by the host we met. The recent story  The Slave
Catcher  was conceived in 10 minutes in Boston, whilst watching a video about the lives of the Black African slaves in
18th century Boston. The Train to Krakow about the holocaust 'had to be written' as I told myself whilst visiting the
concentration camp in Poland where million Jews met their death.

5) Speaking of your women characters (Both in The Holy Woman and Typhoon in particular) do you
consciously see yourself subscribing  to or even negating the ideology of Feminism?

Yes, in both novels I have consciously 'subscribed to the ideology of feminism' as you put it. The lives of women and
their varied life experiences remain central to my work. My dislike of patriarchal tyranny comes through very clearly in
my work, where often women like Zarri Bano and her mother Shahzada are victims, but they are also strong
characters, with strong personalities and they fight back. They rebel in the way Miriam does in A Pair of Jeans.

6) What do you personally feel is the best and the worst part of being a storyteller?

The best part is when a story comes alive and characters loom large in your head. When a mere idea, or a snippet of
a dialogue begins to turn into a fully fledged story and 'fleshed out' to one's satisfaction. And in the case of novels,
when a story begins to grow and grow and the plot and characters begin to take on a will of their own and sometimes
developing in ways you do not predict. That happened with me with one character, kaniz. In the Holy Woman this
woman, a feudal landlady in a village is portrayed as a negative character, disliked by other villagers. Yet by the end
of the novel she transformed into a very different person, demanding both the writer's and the readers empathy alike.
Not only that! She ended up as a young heroine in Typhoon, which traces her early life. Going through this creative
process- this unusual imaginative journey was truly an amazing experience.

The worst part of being a story teller is when you get ideas in bed or elsewhere and you do not write them down or
capture them in any form. It is so annoying when you lose that special detail floating in your mind, the snippets of
dialogue, or a scene. No matter how hard you try - you can never quite capture that detail again. I wish that there was
a word processor in my head which would type up everything as I am thinking! Would not that be a bliss?

7) One last question...what can the readers expect next from Qaisra Shahraz?

My third novel, which still has not got a proper name, although it is provisionally named 'Revolt'.

Also a fourth novel that I am working on at the moment, called Silence, set in Morocco and Pakistan.

There is also a collection of short stories waiting to be published. Obviously I am looking forward to the Hindi version
of Typhoon that you are translating yourself Sheba. This will complement nicely the Hindi version ofThe Holy Woman,
under the title of Zarri Bano.

  

"Qaisra Shahraz Interview, Part Two." Interview. Women Writers, Women's Books. Women Writers,
Women Books, 28 Oct. 2013. Web. <http://booksbywomen.org/qaisra-shahraz-interview-part-two/>.

Qaisra Shahraz Interview, Part Two

October 28, 2013 | By Barbara | Reply
Part two of  Qaisra Shahraz interview.  You can find part one here.

A Pair of Jeans
Apart from you novel Revolt,  ‘A Pair of Jeans & other stories’  was published earlier this year. Can you tell us
something about it? 

I am delighted that this year I have had a collection of short stories published as an e book, entitled ‘A Pair of Jeans &
other stories’ 

This collection of 8 stories contains  ‘A Pair of Jeans’ the very first story I wrote and which has now become
internationally popular.  It contains the first batch of my stories from the 80s dealing with cross cultural issuesas
well as those set in Pakistan and other countries. And a recent one called ‘Escape.’

How do you combine the different roles you have in life?

I am self-employed and enjoy being able to organize my year the way I want it. My two careers in education
(inspecting) and writing (novel and scriptwriting), combined with close knit family life with 3 sons and siblings, keep
me very busy. I find myself forever changing roles on a daily or weekly basis.

 Could you give us an example of an average day in the life of Qaisra?

My life is plotted out on a weekly basis depending on my different roles and commitments. If it is an inspection week
in a college or a university I am normally away from home in other cities. The working day starts early, from 7am until
midnight. I am busy with lots of meetings, observations of activities, reading of various documentations and
gathering, recording of evidence and writing up of inspection reports. If I am leading an inspection then I have to
support and supervise the work of the team members.

If I am at home I try to get a short spell of writing in the morning, followed by lots of admin tasks related to my
inspection work or literary tours or tweeting. In the afternoon, I am busy with household chores, cooking meals,
meetings, reading, or a zumba class and checking of emails. By 6pm I travel to my father’s home 5 miles away to
spend time and have a meal with him. I return home by 9pm and am busy till 1am. It’s my time to catch up on
editing of manuscripts, tweeting, connecting with friends as well as watching TV movie with my family and the
odd Indian drama serial.

Then there are the ‘Tour weeks’ with personalized packed schedules. I do a lot of travelling these days to many
countries, attending literary festivals, book fairs, offering university lectures or launching my novels in different
languages. I have just come back from AP Writers conference in Bangkok. I will be travelling to several
countries in the new year for more writing related tours and activities.

What does multi-cultural mean to you personally, and in writing?  How does the current climate affect you as
a Muslim writer? (example, in Revolt the Boston bombings are mentioned)

The term means a lot to me. It defines me as a person; someone with multiple identities and who is able to
identify with different countries, cultures, customs and languages. I find my multiple identities such an
enriching experience. I am forever promoting and celebrating other cultures and faiths in my work in education, in
writing and role as trustee of a Multi Faith Centre and executive member of the Muslim Jewish Forum of Manchester.
In the current climate where Muslims are facing a lot of animosity towards their faith has made Muslims like me both
defensive and defiant. Defensive about having to defend our faith. Defiant, because I resent the fact that the actions
of deranged minds and criminals are used to tarnish all Muslims as terrorists.  I am now beginning to speak up
quite assertively on this matter, wherever I can, including in Germany where students and teachers are studying my
story ‘A Pair of Jeans’. This is what I say to them, ‘I love my faith. I am proud to be a Muslim but I am not a terrorist’ I
am hoping that this sort of intercultural and interfaith dialogue helps to raise awareness amongst non- Muslims and
enables them to better connect with ordinary, peace abiding millions of Muslims around the world, including in
America and the UK.

 People continue to view Islam as oppressive for women, arranged marriages, wearing the veil etc, do you feel your
writing manages to change these views? What types of responses do you get? (from Muslims themselves as well as
non-Muslims)

I am very much aware of and sensitive to these stereotyped views. Yes, I definitely use my literature, my writing
as a platform to promote a better understanding of Islam and the Muslim world at large. In particular to combat
the negative images that are often hogging western news headlines about Muslims. I hope that through my work the
audience, readers and listeners can gain a better understanding of issues relating to Islam and the Muslim
world at large. My first novel The Holy Woman, set in 4 Muslim countries, was aimed at presenting the everyday
lives of Muslims to non-Muslim readers, so that they can learn about a number of issues including about the veil.

You come from a culture that, from Western perspective, has limited the influence and visibility of women. Are we
mistaken? Is that a generalization? How is it that you’ve done so much and reached so far?

Yes I am aware of this ‘generalized’ western perspective. And yes, women might not appear to be so visible
compared to the western contexts. However that does not mean all Muslim women are ‘invisible’ – that’s a
downright insult, as Muslim women are often very active members of their communities and households
around the world. At times I get fed up of these stereotyped myths. In The Holy Woman I explore the issue of the
‘hijab’, the veil, forever a topic of fascination in the western world and seen as a tool of oppression. In reality
thousands of Muslim women are wearing it as a symbol of freedom – freedom from vanity.

I am very much interested in women’s lives. Over the last few years I have interviewed many
women in other countries; in India, Indonesia, UK, Singapore on a number of topics. What I
learnt is that each woman is unique and is a product of her world; home, generation, class,
education background and social environment, in which she has been raised in. And I can
assure you that after taping 35 hours of recording of interviews I have found -no Muslim
woman fits into any ‘generic box’.

I have worked hard in both my two careers. In particular Iam dedicated to raising

awareness about women’s issues either through my writing or work in Adult education, by promoting the
importance of literacy and education for women. Malala and her plight has recently placed a focus on this
well. I never allow myself to forget however that I owe a lot to my British and Western upbringing and the support of
my family. As a woman I have benefited from the freedom, the education and work opportunities that are widely
available to me living in England as a British woman.
Shahraz, Qaisra. "A Pair of Jeans." A Pair of Jeans and Other Stories. London: HopeRoad, 2013.