Exercise 4

World cultures:       Culture is an essential part of conflict and conflict resolution. Cultures are our lives and relationships, giving us messages that shape our perceptions, attributions, judgments, and ideas of self and other. Cultures are more than language, dress, and food customs. Cultural groups may share race, ethnicity, but they also arise from cleavages of generation, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, ability and disability, political and religious affiliation, language, and gender.       Two things are essential to remember about cultures: they are always changing, and they relate to the representative dimension of life. The representative dimension is the place where we are constantly making meaning and enacting our identities. Cultural messages from the groups we belong to give us information about what is meaningful or important, and who we are in the world and in relation to others our identities. Though largely below the surface, cultures are a shifting, dynamic set of starting points that orient us in exacting ways.