3.

Not One Best Way

Rogoff argues that isnt one best way or one best culture, though he makes sure to point
out that not all ways are good or should be acceptable, (Rogoff, 2003, p. 12). Rogoff explains it
is important in understanding other societies that people realize they dont have to compromise
their own culture or beliefs in order to do so. He states that people need to try to understand
others cultures rather than judge them or hold them to value against other practices. Earlier in
the text he uses examples like New Zealand putting the numbers in the opposite direction that
Americans do on rotary phones, through his advice we should try to understand this practice
rather than judge it or claim it isnt of value because we are comparing it to the way another
culture does things. Rogoff (2003) also defines ethnocentrism as, impos[ing] a value judgment
from ones own community on the cultural practices of another, (p. 15). He states it is important
to try and remove ethnocentrism as much as possible, from observations of cultures. In mentor
session we read, Who sleeps by whom revisited: A method for extracting the moral goods
implicit in practice, from, Cultural practices as contexts for development, by R.A. Shrewder,
L.A. Jensen, & W.M. Goldstein about co-sleeping (1995). The piece gave information about
preferred sleeping arrangements in another culture, specifically the Japanese and added
clarifying details to the information like, the Japanese sleeping practices documented in 19601962 were not driven primarily by lack of available space, (R.A. Shrewder, L.A. Jensen, & W.M.
Goldstein, 1995, p. 4). During the dialogue after the reading about co-sleeping it came up that
most of us hadnt participated in co-sleeping present in many other cultures and how we felt
about it based on our bias. Most of the us had only participated briefly or heard of it when it
pertained to available space, which wasnt the scenario in the observations of other cultures. The
general group consensus was that we thought of co-sleeping as odd and unnecessary. Once we

began shifting our focus from our initial judgments that were ethnocentric, to a more open
understanding the idea of co-sleeping could be viewed in different contexts. Our group was able
to brainstorm reasons this practice had cultural importance and recognize that though it differs
from our idea of sleeping arrangements and family bonding that our idea is not the only one
useful across cultures. We, as a group, also went into some detail about an observation of a
middle-class Anglo-American reader being likely to feel full of anxious concerns about issues
of sexuality, (R.A. Shrewder, L.A. Jensen, & W.M. Goldstein, 1995, p. 3). Our own experiences
and knowledge we gather through our culture in America is being applied to a culture where
religious contexts like separating genders and age groups for sexual reasons arent prevalent.
In the second mentor session we exemplified Rogoffs point that ethnocentric judgments
need to be consciously separated from cultural observations in order to draw out meaning and
occasionally use them to reflect on ones own culture that we are desensitized to.