Hey!

We are also a group of four HAAGA-HELIA university of applied scienses from Finland and we did a little research about the stereotypical New-Zealanders. This is what we found out:

The stereotypical New Zealand male is essentially a pioneer type: he is rural, unintellectual, strong, unemotional, democratic, has little time for high culture, good with animals (particularly horses) and machines, and is able to turn his hand to nearly anything. The hard man: New Zealand men have often been stereotyped as strong, unemotional and prone to violence. It has been blamed for New Zealand’s culture of heavy drinking and its high male suicide rate. New Zealand male culture was traditionally said to centre on the ‘three Rs’: Rugby (union), (Horse) Racing and beer.

New Zealand women are sometimes thought to be more independent than women elsewhere. New Zealand being the first country in the world to give women the vote and the only one to have all its most important positions of state power simultaneously filled by women is seen as evidence of this.

Women in New Zealand are supposedly unfeminine, for example wearing masculine clothing and spending little time on makeup and other forms of personal grooming. This can also be seen in a positive light; Kiwi women are portrayed as not being held back by ideas about being ‘ladylike’ and are therefore willing to take on ‘masculine’ tasks such as car maintenance and playing rugby.

So this is what we found out from the Internet. We didn’t actually have any kind of stereotypes of New Zealanders, but we associated New Zealand with  Australia and Australians.

New Zealanders: we would like to know what you think about these stereotypes? Do you agree with them or is this some kind of nonsense XD.

Greetings: Eeva, Jasmin, Johanna, Linda from Finland!! (it’s really cold in here…..)

Hello everybody

We are students of HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences. Our task was to observe different stereotypes in Plan magazine’s articles (Plan Maailmankuva 9/2011). In the articles there were three themes; “culture creating stereotypes”, “stereotypes in  developing politics” and “prejudices in society”.

Plan is a nonprofit organization that has been helping child poverty since 1937. The organization is working in 50 different developing countries.

In all of the articles it became obvious that people start to categorize minorities because of their different habits, looks and culture. These images of people and the negative expressions used when talking about minorities are hard to change and they often pass from father to son.

There were articles for example about gay people in Africa and immigrants in Finland and what prejudices they face in everyday life. There was also discussion about media, how they portrait people living in developing countries and creative images of different cultures with their choises of words and pictures (“rhythmic Caribbeans, humble Asians etc”).

There were also examples about dangerous stereotypes that men and women face especially in southern countries: the men should be strong and macho and women are feminine and weaker than men. The concerning part is that in many southern countries it seems that women think they sometimes deserve to be beaten.

We would be pleased to hear any comments/your own experiences concerning the subject.

Thank You!

- group Stadi

Hello!

We are tourism students in HAAGA-HELIA University of applied Sciences. We have been discussing how stereotypes and ethnocentrism influence on people from different cultures. We read a story about two girls living in Finland. The other girl was white and had lived all her life in Ethiopia and the other girl was black and had lived all her life in Finland. In the story the two girls explained how people have perceived them through stereotypes.  Mostly they have come across stereotypes in school life when teachers have asked where the black Finnish girl is from, and why the white Ethiopian girl has problems expressing herself in class.

The keywords in the text were stereotypes and ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism describes people who think that their own culture is the only normal one, and compare the other strange cultures to their own.

With the black Finnish girl you form your opinions more easily through stereotypes because she doesn’t look like a typical Finnish girl. The  white Ethiopian girls ethnic background is hidden so she does not encounter stereotypes in Finland.

Group Jenna

Stereotypes about Finn-Swedes in Finland

Hello all! We are a group of four students from HAAGA-HELIA University Of  Applied Sciences and our topic is about Finn-Swedes in Finland.

Swedish speaking Finns are a group of people who are Finns, but speak Swedish as their native language. About 6 % of Finnish population are Swedish speaking. They mostly inhabit the southern coastal area and western Finland.

There are quite many stereotypes among Finnish natives about these “Finn-Swedes”. They are considered to be an elitist group of people, who like to spend their time doing luxurious activities, such as golfing, sailing etc. Another common stereotype is that Finn-Swedes are wealthy folk who like to throw crab-feasts while singing drinking songs.

Finn-Swedes are considered to dwell in their own community caring little of the problems of others. Many Finn-Swedes demand services on their native language, especially the elderly, mainly because they can’t really speak Finnish. This is quite problematic, because many Finns don’t speak Swedish at all. It’s a common belief that Finn-Swedes live longer and happier lives.

Reasons for these stereotypes might be jealousy, as Finn-Swedes are considered to have higher standard of living and they tend to isolate themselves from the rest of the Finns. Many Finn-Swedes claim that these stereotypes are just common myths and they try to get rid of them. Yet, the basis for these stereotypes can be found among Finn-Swedes, since stereotypes don’t just spring out of nowhere.

Hello all!

We are students from HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences. Our topic is to familiarize ourselves with stereotypes of Canadian French community. We based our research on few articles and blogs about the topic. All the material were found from the Internet. According to our sources, our conclusion is that Canadian French are polite, talkative, active and proud of their roots. However they also are introverted. Most of the Canadian French live in the area of Quebec where the architecture has features from France. We understood that the area wants to become independent. They have their own accent in French language and their culture is a bit different than the Canadian culture in general. Based on the sources Canadian French have lively lifestyle, for example the cafe culture is vivid. The Canadian French society is seen a bit snobbish.

We didn’t have any personal experience of Canadian French so we based our conclusions on the articles.

We would be pleased if you would share your own experiences.

Thank you!

Hello, my name is Annica and I am a Principal lecturer at Haaga-Helia, responsible teacher of Qualitative methods, held in spring 2012.

The course is aimed at 3. year Finnish tourism students who are interested in qualitative methods; data collecting and analysis. It is a compulsory course and we will participate on INNOTOUR in the discussions on stereotypes (Finland, Canada and New Zealand). We will post, comment and discuss throughout the months of (latter part of January) and February, and hopefully, we will be able to contribute and learn from each other.

Look forward to a prosperous course and a good co-operation!

Annica