What is Cultural Role Playing?

With increasing involvement abroad, cultural role playing is becoming a prevalent training tool that military branches and other groups use as they prepare for interaction with people from different cultures. The ultimate goal in using cultural role playing as a training tool is to give military troops and other groups an opportunity to be involved in scenarios that are likely to appear as they work abroad and learn how to handle those situations in an appropriate way according to the cultural norms and traditions of the particular country. Cultural role playing is especially prevalent while preparing to work in cultures in the middle east and Asia where the customs, traditions and norms are often very different to what American citizens are exposed to as they are usually born and raised in the United States. Often times, cultural role playing consists of having natives of the target culture dress, speak and act like the people who are currently living in that country. As they are doing this, the participants will attempt to communicate with them effectively while accomplishing tasks that support their mission. Each training session is often closed with a discussion on what the participants could have done differently, answering any questions that came up in the scenario and offering constructive criticism to the participants for when they are in a real situation that requires them to use the skills and cultural competency acquired in these trainings. A good indicator of an effective cultural role player is that he or she has had many years of experience living and communicating in both the target culture as well as the culture that he or she is teaching to the learners. This indicates that the cultural role player has a strong grasp of the customs, traditions and cultural norms of both groups and can readily identify and explain the differences that the participants will experience while they are working abroad. Using cultural role playing as a training tool will help troops and other groups that intend to work abroad not only be able to work and communicate effectively with a different group of people, but they will also gain more understanding about the native peoples’ perspectives. This, in turn, will prevent debilitating misunderstandings between the two groups of people and will make for a more positive outcome at the end of any project. As groups from the United States continue to be involved abroad, cultural role playing will grow to be an increasingly prevalent training method that will help groups prepare for the differences they will find while working with another culture.