Ethnocentrism
entry by Julie M. Marx, Global Family Expert at Expat Valley
The tendency to interpret and evaluate other cultures through the lens of one’s own cultural framework, typically with an implicit or explicit assumption that one’s own culture constitutes the normal or superior standard. Understood developmentally in intercultural competence models as an early (and moveable) position on a continuum toward ethnorelativism.
Comparable terms
Cultural bias (general — broader, non-theoretical equivalent) · Cultural parochialism (HR/research — emphasizes narrowness of worldview) · Monoculturalism (education, research — describes orientation rather than attitude) · Denial/Defense/Minimization (Bennett DMIS — the three ethnocentric stages in the developmental model)
Why this matters
Ethnocentrism quietly undermines intercultural relationships at home, school, and work. It can damage trust with host‑country friends, helpers, and colleagues. Treating it as a developmental starting point, not a moral verdict, makes growth toward more flexible perspectives possible.
Cross-references
Intercultural Competence (Cultural Adaptation); DMIS (Cultural Adaptation); Ethnorelativism (Cultural Adaptation); Cultural Humility (Cultural Adaptation); IDI (Cultural Adaptation); Intercultural Sensitivity (Identity & Belonging). Ethnorelativism is the developmental pole opposite ethnocentrism in Bennett’s model; cultural humility is the attitudinal practice most directly associated with moving away from ethnocentric orientations. The IDI is the instrument that measures where an individual currently sits on the ethnocentrism-to-ethnorelativism continuum; intercultural sensitivity is the perceptual capacity that develops as that movement progresses.
Sources
Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity positions ethnocentrism as the starting point of a developmental continuum, comprising the stages of Denial, Defense, and Minimization, in which the individual’s own cultural worldview is experienced as the only or the superior reality. Bennett, M.J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2), 179–196.
The concept originates with: Sumner, W.G. (1906). Folkways. Ginn. The first systematic use of the term in social science.
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