Social Customs And Family Dynamics Of Australian Society - Samples

Question: Discuss about the Social Customs And Family Dynamics Of Australian Society. Answer: I am an international student, currently living in Australia. For the past one and half year, I have been staying in Australia to study for my degree course from a renowned Australian university. Just after arriving in the country I had already begun to notice some of the differences in the Australian culture from that of ours. In this essay, I will highlight my views regarding social customs and family dynamics of Australian society. I have observed Australia as a culturally diverse country. The people residing here have a very rich variety of customs, languages, and cultures (Gunson, 2016). Unlike American culture, there is no official religion of the Australian nation. Older people in the Australian community tend to believe in god and thus the religious institutions play a major role in societies. Whereas, most of the Americans believe in Christianity. The family structures in the Australian society are no longer the archetypal family type. With the increased number of divorces, remarriages, and step-relations, the family structure of Australia is no different than that of Americans. The stigma related to same-sex relations have decreased throughout these years and the society is experiencing more common-sex couples and families (Gomes et al., 2014). Though the structure of the traditional families in the Australian society is no more a realistic social standard, the concept of the family and family values still are fundamentally important to the people of Australia throughout their life. Another thing I liked about the Australian culture and families is the concept of Individualism.Australian families encourages their family members to follow their aspirations and dreams and become independent in their life despite the family wealth and supports. Children in the Australian society are taught to think themselves as unique and the values and norms of the social customs, family dynamics and attitudes are incorporated in them while they grow up (Luke, 2018). T he self-determining, self-reliant and responsible attitudes of the Australians make them truly unique and special before the world. I found out some of the cultural differences relating to social customs and family dynamics between the Australian and the Americas. American people do not tend to value their cultures and families like the Australians. People in America do encourage their children but there lays a huge lack in guidance and care form the elders of the family. The structure of the family and social attitudes varies widely from that of the Australians. People here are more generous, helpful and believe in family bonding and long-term relations unlike the American people. In this essay I will highlight my views regarding gender relationships, art and music of the Australian society. The concept of Gender plays a very important role in the family structure of the Australian communities (Kale Luke, 2017). Australian people believe in the concept of gender equality in the true sense and I have observed that gender does not dictate the role or the duty of a person in an Australian family. In our American culture, I have often seen that women are forced to stay back at home and look after the family. It is considered as the duty of a woman to do household chores and leave their job if the male partners do not approve it. In Australia, I have seen women enjoying equal opportunities to choose their way of contributing to their home. Women in the Australian society tend to get married and start their families after establishing a successful care for themselves (Banks, 2015). I have noticed that Australian couples commonly meet through social circles and netw orking websites. A lot number of my university friends found their partner from online dating apps which are on the rise these days.Coming from the country of America, I found out some of the cultural differences relating to arts, music and gender relationships between the Australian and the Americas. One of the unique features in the Australian world of music is the Indigenous Australian music (Olding, 2013). The young population has an immense craze for rock and popular music. Hip-hop, pun, and rock songs are the contemporary popular music among the Australian crowd. American music on the other hand is the roots music. The American music rules the global music industry and Hollywood. One of the most notable music cultures of America is the Jazz. Besides, American music platform includes a broad category of music like gospel, blues, country music, Cajun, jug bands and Native American music arts (Moran, Abramson Moran, 2014). Unlike Australian music, American music industry is popu lar throughout the world. In the context of arts, Australia is famous for their aboriginal paintings. I have observed some of the aboriginal arts which are painted in leaves, rock carvings and sand paintings. Beside this, colonial, landscape and atelier are some of the notable Australian art I observed till date. American arts on the other hand are more renowned for their visual artistry (Gomes, 2015). The collection of American arts represents cultural exchange and development. Mostly the paintings and sculptures were done on paper and canvas structures. American artists are the beginner of the watercolor paintings, patriotic art and modern art in the world. Students from all over the globe participate in the exhibitions of America. References Banks, J. A. (2015).Cultural diversity and education. Routledge. https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/31056987/ze_2006_372.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3AExpires=1523006955Signature=ATIy2fGNZbxTwpglr%2BAk87Wmuv8%3Dresponse-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DCultural_diversity_and_education.pdf Gomes, C. (2015). Negotiating everyday life in Australia: Unpacking the parallel society inhabited by Asian international students through their social networks and entertainment media use.Journal of Youth Studies,18(4), 515-536. Gomes, C., Berry, M., Alzougool, B., Chang, S. (2014). Home away from home: International students and their identity-based social networks in Australia.Journal of International Students,4(1), 2-15. Gunson, N. (2016). Traditional knowledge and invasive missionary culture: Australia and the South Pacific. Kale, J., Luke, A. (2017). Learning through difference: Cultural practices in early childhood language socialisation. InOne child, many worlds(pp. 11-29). Routledge. Luke, A. (2018). Critical literacy in Australia: A matter of context and standpoint. InCritical Literacy, Schooling, and Social Justice(pp. 186-206). Routledge. Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., Moran, S. V. (2014).Managing cultural differences. Routledge. Olding, A. (2013).An investigation of the social relationships and social interactions amongst international students studying in Australia: A case study using facebook(Doctoral dissertation, University of Tasmania).