"What Is Cultural Identity?"

Find out how Elise Trumbull and Maria Pacheco of Brown University define "cultural identity." Through this list based on their informational text, learn the definitions of the words used to explain the term.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 10 Unit 1's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: What Is Cultural Identity, Ethnic Hash, Two Kinds, Honestly Frida, Legal Alien, By Any Other Name, HAPA, Where Worlds Collide, My Mother Pieced Quilts, Everyday Use, Two Ways to Belong in America, An Indian Father's Plea
10 words 1543 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. entail
    impose, involve, or imply as a necessary result
    One of the most basic types of identity is ethnic identity, which entails an awareness of one's membership in a social group that has a common culture.
  2. culture
    all the knowledge and values shared by a society
    Cultural identity is a broader term: people from multiple ethnic backgrounds may identify as belonging to the same culture.
  3. distinct
    not alike; different in nature or quality
    Social groups existing within one nation may share a common language and a broad cultural identity but have distinct ethnic identities associated with a different language and history.
  4. appropriate
    suitable for a particular person, place, or situation
    If we link Garcia and Geertz's definitions, we can imagine culture as invisible webs composed of values, beliefs, ideas about appropriate behavior, and socially constructed truths.
  5. manifest
    reveal its presence or make an appearance
    When we encounter a culture that is different from our own, one of the things we are faced with is a set of beliefs that manifest themselves in behaviors that differ from our own.
  6. emerge
    happen or occur as a result of something
    Nonetheless, one's beliefs and actions are not any more natural or biologically predetermined than any other group's set of beliefs and actions; they have emerged from the ways one's own group has dealt with and interpreted the particular conditions it has faced.
  7. dynamic
    characterized by action or forcefulness of personality
    As conditions change, so do cultures; thus, cultures are considered to be dynamic.
  8. posit
    take as a given; assume as a postulate or axiom
    This argument posits that individuals select beliefs, values, and ideas that guide their actions from a larger set of cultural beliefs, values, and ideas.
  9. heritage
    practices that are handed down from the past by tradition
    Cultural heritage refers to what society as a whole possesses, and a cultural inheritance is what each individual possesses.
  10. contradictory
    not able to be true at the same time
    In fact, it would be impossible for any one person to possess a society's entire cultural heritage; there are inevitably complex and contradictory values, beliefs, and ideas within that heritage
Created on Mon Oct 06 15:58:02 EDT 2014 (updated Wed Oct 08 18:17:38 EDT 2014)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.