October Diversity Word of the Month By Emily Sugiyama The Word of the Month feature represents a collaboration between DiversityCentral.com and Intercultural Press, Inc. Each month, we feature a word, term or phrase related to diversity or other aspects of culture selected from sources published by Intercultural Press. In The Color of Words, An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States, the term "ethnocentrism" is defined as: The tendency of people to put their own group (ethnos) at the center: to see things through the narrow lens of their own culture and use the standards of that culture to judge others. An ethnocentric point of view usually leads to a biased belief in the inferiority of other groups and, at the extreme, to cultural chauvinism. The differences we encounter in others-in dress, speech, manners, politics, or any other cultural attribute-test our sense of trust in them and might even threaten or offend us. "The American tourist who, when presented with a handful of Italian lira, asks 'How much is this in real money' is ethnocentric" (Serena Nanda, Cultural Anthropology, 1994, 9). Source: Herbst, Philip H. The Color of Words, An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States. Yarmouth: Intercultural Press, Inc., 2001. Read more: Check out, "A View from the US: Racism and Ethnocentrism: Challenges ahead for the EEC." By John Fernandez, Mindy Printz, Mary Barr. See, "Assessing Diverse Employees-A Multicultural Quagmire?" back to top   Have a comment on our feature Diversity Word of the Month? Write to our Editor in Chief, Barbara Deane.

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