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A co-culture is a group in the society that has little or no say in contributing to the development of a dominant structure of the society to which they live. Some of the co-cultural groups include the homeless, homosexuals, ethnic groups, the disabled as well as the religious minorities (Ting-Toomey & Dorjee, 2018). Studying co-cultures is significant in various ways. The identification and explication of the communication practices of the co-cultural groups are significant and valuable in understanding how the individuals who are marginalized in a dominant society tend to communicate with the people in the same society but have direct access to the institutional power, the influencers of the dominant society. Learning about the co-cultures also enables the learner to understand how the minorities survive under the dominant majorities in society.
Various potential communication barriers exist between a co-culture and the dominant culture. Language is the key barrier as the co-culture may not be of the same language with the dominant culture, and therefore, the two groups cannot communicate effectively. Different cultures have different languages. The only viable mode of communication is through the use of non-verbal means as the words may not be easily understood. The use of non-verbal communication may as well not work as expected as it is subject to misinterpretation.
Stereotyping and prejudices play a major role in hindering communication between cultures. Members of the dominant cultures have negative perceptions regarding the co-culture associating them with bad things merely because they might have heard from someone else. Dominant cultures only believe what members of their culture says, characterizing the co-culture as deceptive and harmful. The negative stereotyping creates prejudices among the co-culture, and this provokes judgmental attitudes. When stereotyping and prejudices are incorporated, it becomes had for the two cultures to come to terms due to judgmental attitudes.
Ethnocentrism is another barrier to communication between co-cultures and dominant cultures. Mostly, the two cultures don’t have a lot of similarities, and therefore each culture perceives the other as being different from them, which is bad. With the dissimilar concept in mind, it is difficult to get members of the two cultures together as they have no common agenda. The dissimilarity can be reflected in behavior and religion where every person in the respective groups feel different from those that belong to the other.
A co-culture of homelessness implies that the people who are in that culture are homeless and they share similar beliefs, norms, values, and behaviors. They also share similar structures, and they belong to the same economic class and thus have a similar environment. According to Walsh et. al. (2016), the homeless do not converse freely with other people, and they feel that they don’t belong to the same social class with most of the interested parties who want to question them and due to this they inhibit a stereotyping effect that the interested parties want to take advantage of their situation. They, therefore, refuse to open up and only freely talk with the other homeless people whom they are in the same culture.
The homeless feel insecure while communicating with people from the dominant culture and this may lead to a lack of disclosure of information. Another reason why the homeless as a co-culture refuse to open up for the dominant culture is the fear of being judged wrongly. Most of them do not live in the streets because they wanted to, but because certain circumstances that led to their eviction from their homes. According to a study by Crane (1998), some of the homeless people were evicted from their homes as they were unable to pay for their mortgage or are mentally ill. Others had their homes taken by their relatives when their parents died, and as children they had no one to take care of them, eventually ending up to the streets.
References
Crane, M. (1998). The associations between mental illness and homelessness among older people: an exploratory study. Aging & Mental Health, 2(3), 171-180. Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13607869856641?journalCode=camh20Ting-Toomey, S., & Dorjee, T. (2018). Communicating across cultures. Guilford Publications. Retrieved from: https://www.guilford.com/books/Communicating-Across-Cultures/Ting-Toomey-Dorjee/9781462536474/summaryWalsh, C. A., Lorenzetti, L., St-Denis, N., Murwisi, P., & Lewis, T. (2016). Community Voices: Insights on social and human services from people with lived experiences of homelessness. Review of Social Sciences, 1(2), 27-41. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297610988_Community_Voices_Insights_on_Social_and_Human_services_from_People_with_Lived_Experiences_of_Homelessness
