The culture of a community shapes action, behavior, and values; cultural values, traditions, religion, faith, and other related factors reflect the demands, sentiments, and interests of people living in a community. This emphasizes community development practitioners to consider the importance of culture in a community to improve the well-being of community people. Culture provides a sense of identity for communities and residents. This identity facilitates common understandings, traditions, and values and develops close-knitted communities. It influences communities to come together to address specific needs and problems. A commitment based on culture and common identity has become an important tool in helping a group of people share their ideas and skills to achieve a common goal.
Moreover, collaboration develops a sense of identity and purpose in people and improves productivity, skills, and expertise. When all the members cooperate, they can utilize the experience, knowledge, and skills of people involved in achieving the shared goal. Working together increases networking and creates a bond among people in the community. Consequently, collaboration in the community facilitates the maximization of productivity and creativity in people and improves outcomes.
Collaborating with the community involves parent councils, schools and teachers using resources and services from the community to support the school community and young children with knowledge and learning, facilitating them to grow their aptitude, skills, and passions.
Role of culture in social settings
Our culture shapes how we work in a community; it reflects how we view ourselves and others. It affects our values what we consider right and wrong. This is how the society we live in influences our choices, behavior, and actions. According to psychologist Deborah Tannen, people must see the world in patterns to make sense of it. We learn to deal with people with different behavior, values, actions, and knowledge when we analyze shared ideas, goals, and beliefs. These values are based on the religion or culture that they reflect. Their ideas and visions shape behavior and provide guidelines to people to promote identity and morality among community people.
Moreover, cultural activities bring people together and encourage them to participate in festivals and fairs. Cultural preservation highlights the architectural heritage, traditional craft, and artistic skills. It also comprises culturally-based entertainment, cultural activities, festivals, and exhibitions. All these cultural activities in a social setting create social solidarity, foster social inclusion, community empowerment, and capacity-building. The youth and growing children gain confidence, civic pride, a sense of responsibility, and tolerance. Hence, social inclusion helps to mobilize people and help develop a sense of belonging to a wider community.
Improved learning and valuable skills in children and youth
Children and youth who participate in culture provide the best education outcomes; it helps develop thinking skills, builds self-esteem, and improves resilience in children. Cultural heritage broadens education and lifelong learning opportunities, including a better understanding of history and learning about heritage and cultural landscapes. As trusted community hubs, schools and public libraries play an important role in expanding educational opportunities and supporting lifelong learning. Moreover, prepare people to face challenges in the community, identify their roles and responsibilities, establish clear communication paths, develop decision-making, conflict resolution skills, and learn about participatory leadership.
Enhancing collaborative relationships with parents and families help to improve communication skills between families and children. The use of effective communication skills also facilitates positive working relationships between families and educators. By consciously practicing active listening skills, educators gain valuable information from family members and validate the importance of family participation in the educational process. Moreover, cooperating and training of groups allows them to respond to innovation that involves an ideological and technological change in personal lives, group beliefs, and rituals.
Better health and well-being
Family and cultural background shape your attitudes about mental health and well-being, help you cope with difficult situations, practice self-care, and resolve conflicts. Culture shapes your identity; living in a community that rejects aspects of your culture, such as identity and beliefs, negatively impacts your well-being. Being disconnected from your cultural heritage can lead you to question who you are and where you belong. This may cause you to feel lost and isolated, develop a lack of tolerance, and experience conflict around cultural identity. Connecting with culture has a positive impact on your mental health and overall well-being. Culture is being integrated into health care by fostering creativity and cultural engagement. Cultural activities promote cultural identities and intercultural understanding in people. Such interaction can lead to an improved state of the community and social well-being.
Cultural Influence on religion
Macro cultural factors affect spiritual growth and also adversely affect health and well-being. Cultural well-being comes from being connected and engaged in a web of relationships and interests. People can find meaning in life at various levels, such as having a close relationship with family and friends. Many people today find meaning in pursuing personal goals that include jobs, passion, hobbies, and interests. At the transcendent level, gaining spirituality provides a sense of purpose, enhances belief systems, and develops moral codes. Moral values provide the framework for deciding what is important, true, right and good, and have a central role in defining relationships.
Moreover, reinforcing morals and values in the community allows people to learn social responsibility, become self-disciplined, and discourage antisocial behavior—virtues building strong personal relationships and social affiliations and give inner strength to endure adversity. Thus, cultural influence on religion can relieve tension, lead to conflict resolution and greater tolerance. People also gain a sense of freedom of choice and control over their lives.
Final Word
Our personal and collective and identities are shaped by culture. Culture provides a sense of identity for communities and residents. This identity facilitates common understandings, traditions, and values and develops close-knitted communities. It influences communities to come together to address specific needs and problems. Collaboration in the community helps people come together and contribute their expertise to benefit a shared objective, project, or mission. Cultural activities in social settings create social solidarity, foster social inclusion, community empowerment, and capacity-building in people.
To further know how cultural influence impacts community, read the book, Religious Freedom Forever written by Andy Swarna. The author is an out-of-the-box thinker. He identifies himself as a self-learner. He is always concerned about resolving issues that people face in their daily lives. The author’s journey in politics, faith, and conflict resolution has revealed a historical fact and a universal truth that sums up the whole creation in a thought. The natural truth helps us envision our perceptions, allowing us to understand the power of honest thought. To turn your ideas into reality, whether in the form of a resolution, law, or principle, it has to go through a specific process. This process contains knowledge from different thinkers, philosophers, ideologists, and historians. As suggested by thinkers and ideologists, using knowledge and the universal truth helps to reach one’s goals in faith and politics. Andy’s work has enabled him to devise a plan, a purpose, and a solution to all human problems.
If you aspire to improve personal affairs such as family, career, and business, learn, unlearn, and relearn yourself to transform yourself, this book will let you know about self-improvement in thinking and behavior. You will come to know that every individual’s life has multiple facets that depict your identity, thoughts, beliefs, and behavior. Social benefits of culture enable you to become true to yourself, build human connection, and provide emotionally and intellectually moving experiences. Thus, the culture of collaboration and religious traditions help people seek out positively valued traits, attitudes, and behaviors that build their social identity in the global community.