Civic

Civic character

Practices | Understand culture and context

Group of ethnic people in traditional clothes posing and smiling.

Use evidence-based resources, empathy, reflective questioning, and asset-based appreciative inquiry to fully understand and assess the lived and current experiences and circumstances of individuals, communities, and learning environments.

1. Highlights

Every challenge or problem that we want to address through Principled Innovation is located within a particular context. This context includes the unique people, natural and built environments, history, institutions and other influences that define its culture and ways of operating. Before working to design or implement solutions to a problem, Principled Innovation emphasizes the need to understand the culture and context within which we want to “create positive change for humanity.”

Consider the history, environment, institutions, and people to learn about context

Use empathy and perspective taking to understand others' experiences

Gain a deeper understanding of the problem and the system in which it's situated

If we don’t take the time to understand culture and context, we risk creating misguided solutions that fail to address the true problem and which are not embraced by the people affected. And poorly informed “solutions” often have unintended consequences that make the situation worse.

In order to understand culture and context, we draw on a variety of character assets, in particular the moral asset of empathy and the civic assets of perspective taking, inclusivity, and civility. Perspective taking means putting ourselves in others’ shoes and doing our best to understand the world as they experience it. This allows us to expand our understanding of what it means to live and work in the context in question and takes us beyond our own experiences. Inclusivity and civility create environments in which we welcome people’s differences and seek out their stories, honoring the voices and opinions of even those who disagree with us. These character assets set us up to deepen our knowledge and understanding of a problem and of the larger systems within which that problem is situated. This “appreciative inquiry” allows our principled innovations to better leverage the unique strengths which have contributed to a community’s prior successes.

Woman wearing traditional clothes standing in door.
Inclusivity and civility create environments in which we welcome people’s differences and seek out their stories, honoring the voices and opinions of even those who disagree with us.
Woman wearing traditional clothes working loom.
Perspective taking expands our understanding of what it means to live and work in the context in question and takes us beyond our own experiences.

2. Context

Woman wearing traditional clothes working loom.
Perspective taking expands our understanding of what it means to live and work in the context in question and takes us beyond our own experiences.

Understanding culture and context often begins with understanding our own culture and context, through critical and compassionate reflection (Practice I2), a practice which prepares us to seek out the experiences of others. In seeking to understand others’ culture and contexts, we need not put the responsibility for our own learning at the feet of those for whom it can be emotionally taxing to share their experiences. A wealth of media is available at our fingertips that can help us better understand the cultural values and systems interactions of those whose experiences are different from our own. Simply changing the radio station in our cars or listening to audiobooks or podcasts that push us to step outside our comfort zones can enrich our understanding of our world—and prepare us for the work of Principled Innovation.

Educators who practice Principled Innovation seek to understand the culture and context of their students every day as they strive to provide each student with the individualized support and guidance that they need to reach their learning goals. This includes building relationships with each student, getting to know the circumstances of their lives outside of school, and showing curiosity about their cultures and backgrounds without bias or making assumptions. Teachers can also create opportunities for students to learn about their classmates’ cultures and contexts through the stories of their peers or through literature or film. Practices such as these help students learn about the lived experiences of others who encounter the world in ways that are different from their own.

Understanding culture and context at a systems level involves setting expectations that this practice is an essential component of any innovation or decision-making process. Leaders have to model this practice themselves and work to build structures and systems that support it. For instance, a school or district should collaborate with and engage the broader community when working on any significant change effort. Environments that are overly focused on the speed of innovation or solving problems immediately may find it harder to engage in this practice, and leaders will need to work intentionally to ensure that approaches such as reflective questioning, empathy-building exercises, and appreciative inquiry are put in place.

3. Resources

Select one of our featured resources or visit the PI toolkit library for more tools.

A library full of books

Getting to know your students in a million words or less

  Video

  2 minutes

  By: Edutopia

Open

Collaborating to end homelessness

  Video

  10 minutes

  By: Principled Innovation® (PI)

Open

I was a low-income college student. Classes weren’t the hard part.

  Article

  10 minutes

  By: New York Times

Open

Missing stories

  Tool

  45 minutes

  By: Principled Innovation® (PI)

Open

Access our collection of +200 learning materials

PI toolkit library

4. Connect the dots

How could this practice be enacted through the Civic assets?

Graphic illustration of perspective taking.

Perspective taking

Perspective taking both supports and is supported by the PI practice of seeking to understand culture and context. In becoming better informed about the daily challenges others face in our communities or the resources others bring to solve those problems, we strengthen our ability to imagine what it is like to walk in others’ shoes.

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Graphic illustration of altruism.

Altruism

Our attempts at helping others through altruism must be informed by our understanding of the social and systemic contexts in which they live. Failing to understand the context may lead to misguided generosity that hurts more than it helps. While altruism is driven by a greater understanding of culture and context, it can also motivate us to understand others better. In this way, altruism works as both a result of and an impetus for seeking to understand the social context of others and the challenges they face.

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Graphic illustration of civility.

Civility

Civility is rooted in respecting other human beings as rightful members of a shared community, and framing our words in civil speech challenges us to match our words with our dispositions. Practicing civility helps us to frame our own perspectives of others and the assets that they bring to our communities. This framing provides an important starting point for understanding the resources available to solve our common problems, and it helps us stay in the room long enough to understand the root problems that affect our society.

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Graphic illustration of inclusivity.

Inclusivity

Bringing stakeholders together in inclusive settings which foster positive, safe and civil exchanges can surface deeper understandings of the value systems and interrelationships at play within the social context. The construction of inclusive environments gives us the opportunity to better understand the underlying social fabric of our communities.

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