Elyssa Daggett Assignment#2

EDU203 September 6, 2012

Every time a person steps out of there comfort zone or native culture they

immediately become someone unlike themselves. In these situations actions tend to

be more powerful than the person itself because in their perspective things tend to

be unnatural and they are not in their emic state of mind. An emic perspective is

being the insider in a situation. In an Emic perspective a person is in their own

natural culture and have grown to adapt in these situations. Being an outsider and

noticing people who have faults or is incompetent is an etic perspective. A person

evaluating using the etic persecuting is basing their findings by comparing a person

to a universal set of rules.

When defining these words together and looking at the short story Who is

Bobby by David Goode and Ability Profiling and School Failure by Kathleen Collins,

theses kinds of perspective actually do not work well with each other. Bobby is a 50

year-old man that has Down Syndrome, diabetes, with peripheral vascular disease.

These really do not matter when looking at the medical file; you come to see that

when Bobby took the intelligence test he scored a age of 2.8, realizing this file is

taken from an etic perspective. This test is an analytical test and is based on

numbers. Whereas if a person was to give Bobby a more emic perspective type of

test like a subjective test or to communicate the test wit a person, one would see

that he really would not score an age of 2.8.

 In the case study, videotaping became the answer. When working with Bobby

the therapist stated he is “a clinically low functioning individual with remarkable

native skills.” This became apparent in the videotape when Bobby was in his emic

state of mind and was with his friends. Being the insider and to be back in your own

native culture they began to realize that Bobby was not as incompetent as they had

tested and had communication skills that became noticeable when he was in his

own world. A person from the outside or etic perspective began to see that it was

really them who did not understand Bobby, and made him feel like he was not in a

familiar place anymore. A person from the etic perspective has to realize that

people outside of their emic perspective are not always who they really are.

In Collins novel, Jay an eleven-year-old boy who had Down Syndrome was

looked down upon in grades second through fifth. Teachers would send home

messages and do not realize that he is the out of his emic state of mind, and no

person is changing there own emic perspective for him. Just like Bobby, Jay took a

test and scored 85% on a reading exam. , whereas he scored a 20% on an

information type test. In a classroom setting Jay would be seen loud and out of line.

In his native culture he would go to church and was a musical, vocal kind of boy.

Growing up and having that become a person’s culture would make them more of a

group and audible worker. The thought processes behind this was that he was

trying to think aloud and to help the people around him and have them learn from

him. If a person were to walk in Laura’s classroom, a person would find that it was

an individual work style classroom. This is like a person trying to jam a square nob

into a round whole. You have to accommodate for other peoples well beings, as seen
by the observer. Instead of using Laura’s way of doing things, quiet and individual,

she decided to work with Jay and write something. As they worked a person would

see that he was back in his emic place because he had turned his writing into him

singing and dancing, just like is native cultures of going to church and working with

peers. To make a person participate in an activity they have to be applied in the

right way. In the activity in the classroom as Laura gave Jay a physical object to work

with and discuss out loud with her, she began to see that this was the way he

understood. You have to adjust and sometimes use the language of the other person.

A person sometimes has to enter another person’s emic state of mind and

understand how they do it.

When I am put into an uncomfortable place I would not act as I would if I

were in my home. A person with disabilities may be hard to understand in a setting

unfamiliar to them, but when put with their family and friends, or in a native place

there is no trouble understanding what they to say. No matter how many studies a

person does with emic and etic perspectives, a person will find that there is no

difference between the perspectives of a “normal” individual and a person with

disabilities.