Multicultural activities

1.2

I watched the video provided and read the section of Maritas dissertation.

Culture can be considered as a social, cognitive and symbolic phenomenon. Culture as a social phenomenon can be defined by language, religion, habits etc. It is learned way or acting and communicating in society. Culture as cognitive phenomenon can be considered as a way of thinking and reacting to different stimulus. Culture as a symbolic phenomenon can be referred to language. There are different forms and meanings in different things.

Culture is something that is very hard to explain, its just way of thinking and reacting. We cannot explain our behaviour we are just doing it. It’s not always logical and the origin of believes are hard to trace.

Cultural differences mean that people react differently to cultural things. The form interaction and language depends on cultural background. For example black colour can mean different thing in different cultures.  Black colour can be linked to grief or sorrow, weddings, black magic, celebration etc.

2.1

I interviewed one of my former students who come from Iran. She has done hairdressers degree in Iran but she couldn’t find a job here. She was told to get a Finnish degree so she could have a job here.

She said that the job description is very different compared to the job she had in Iran. The main thing was gender roles. In Iran hairdresser and barber are different professions and the line between those professions is strict. In Finland we’ve been teaching those two profession together for a along time. Gender roles in hair and beauty industry aren’t so strict now.

It’s also very different to treat Nordic hair compered to more central European hair. But the hair care culture is also different Finnish treat their hair differently. Finnish people use hair colors a lot more. Finnish are also willing to pay more for their hair. The buy rather lot and rather expensive products and use them regularly. But they don’t have that much proper hair dos.

The hairdresser I interviewed had took part to reparatory education for immigrants for vocational training.

In Omnia immigrants can participate language training and they have different supportive services.

3.1

Here in Espoo and Omnia we have big plans to conjoin vocational adult education, senior high school for adults and adult education center in 2015. At the moment senior high school for adults offers not only high school education for adults but also general education and even preparatory training for general education. In 2015 all secondary and lower education for adults is available in one place. This is a huge leap forward.

Omnia has its own international affairs department that controls student and expert exchange programs. It also deals with international projects activities. Omnia invests in exchange projects. I’ve also took part a few international projects. I’ve been in student exchange program in the Netherlands and expert exchange program in Estonia. I’ve also taken part in Nordic project to develop sustainable development education in hair and beauty industry. 

In Omnia we don’t have that much training on cultural differences at least concerning hair and beauty department but students participating to exchange programs can took part to language training.

3.2

I think language skills are important when talking about internalization. And by language skills mean also other languages than English. I think everyone should learn at least some languages during their life. Along with languages religions are also important key to understand different cultures. Although you weren’t religious person yourself you still could study basics of different religions.