National Stereotypes

    The targets of stereotypes may be residents of an entire nation.  Professor Brian Ripley, Oxford (England) University, kindly provided me with an example of such stereotyping, appended below.  Note that he stereotypes all Americans (does this include all those in the Americas, including Canada, Ecuador, Brazil, and so on?) as being both arrogant and uncivilized.  I do not deny that this assertion may have some basis in reality, but it, like other stereotypes, likely exaggerates differences between groups and underestimates differences within groups.  You might find it interesting to see what other characteristics are attributed to residents of the United States: Stereotypes of Residents of the United States.

    PS -- the professors conducting the research to which Ripley, believe it or not, objected consisted of one American, one Indian, one Persian, one Turk, and one Japanese.

From: "Prof Brian Ripley" <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk>

To: "Wuensch, Karl L." <wuenschk@ecu.edu>

Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 2:36 AM

Subject: Re: Faculty Survey

 

On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Wuensch, Karl L. wrote:

> Dear Colleague:
>
>
> A team of researchers here at East Carolina University (ECU) is
> conducting a worldwide survey on technologies employed in online
> instruction and the pedagogical effectiveness of these techniques.  We
> are surveying both students and faculty, and have accumulated responses
> so far from universities spanning the nation and around the world.

You seem to believe there is only one nation in the world. This American
arrogance is deemed very offensive in the civilized world.

[...]

Karl L. Wuensch, Chair, Faculty Information Technology Review Committee
East Carolina University, Greenville NC 27858-4353

Note, no country specified.

--
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

---

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This page most recently revised on the 16^th of December, 2013.