Cultural relativism vs ethnocentrism
MCAT glossary · MCAT
Definition
Cultural relativism: evaluate practices on their own terms; ethnocentrism: judge by one's own cultural standards.
Cultural relativism vs ethnocentrism in plain English
These are two opposite attitudes toward other cultures. Ethnocentrism means judging another group's customs using YOUR OWN culture as the yardstick — like calling a food 'weird' just because it's not what you grew up eating. Cultural relativism is the flip side: trying to understand a practice within ITS OWN culture's logic and meaning, instead of ranking it against yours. Social scientists lean on cultural relativism because it helps them describe people fairly rather than looking down on anything unfamiliar.
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