Cultural Portraits: A Synoptic Guide

Cultural Portraits is a reference guide that helps bridge the cultural gap with persons whose cultures differ from ours. It is an easy-to-use, instant-access source of information that can be readily used by Social Studies and ELL teachers, guidance counselors, school administrators, supervisors of organizations that employ foreign workers, police and border patrol officials, tourists, and generally all who come in contact with persons from different cultural backgrounds. It will minimize embarrassing incidents and improve cross-cultural understanding and communication and result in better productivity--be that in the classroom, in the factory, or in neighborhoods where there are English Lan-guage Learners.

In this study, you ll find accurate, research-based data on 80 countries, presented in 80 portraits. Each portrait, a two-page spread, contains: a) basic statistical information, such as: geography, religions, and potential political conflicts; and b) subjective information in several critical areas, such as: caveats, name structure, forms of address, gender relations, diets, long and short dates, numbers, body language, the concept of time, and national traits. A separate section of Educational Profiles provides K-12 schematic course sequences in education as well as grading scale equivalents, to help evaluate foreign transcripts and make accurate student placement. This material further is complemented by an extensive Glossary that offers succinct explanations of terms found in the book, and an Appendix of information related mostly to education, thus making it a complete and valuable resource on foreign cultures and education.