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Co-cultures

As societies become more culturally diverse, there is also an increased awareness of how various cultures, and groups of people within them, interact. In any society, there’s usually a group of people who have more power than everyone else—that is, the ability to influence or control people and events (Donohue & Kolt, 1992). Having more power in a society comes from controlling major societal institutions, such as banks, businesses, the government, and legal and educational systems. According to co-cultural communication theory, the people who have more power within a society determine the dominant culture, because they get to decide the prevailing views, values, and traditions of the society (Orbe, 1998). Consider the United States. Throughout its history, wealthy Euro-American men have been in power. When the country was first founded, the only people allowed to vote were landowning males of European ancestry. Now, more than 200 years later, Euro-American men still make up the vast majority of the U.S. Congress and Fortune 500 CEOs. As a consequence, what is thought of as “American culture” is tilted toward emphasizing the interests, activities, and accomplishments of these men.

Members of a society who don’t conform to the dominant culture—by way of language, values, lifestyle, or physical appearance—often form what are called co-cultures; that is, they have their own cultures that co-exist within a dominant cultural sphere (Orbe, 1998). Co-cultures may be based on age, gender, social class, ethnicity, religion, mental and physical ability, sexual orientation, and other unifying elements, depending on the society (Orbe, 1998). U.S. residents who are not members of the dominant culture—people of color, women, members of the LGBTQ community, and so forth—exist as distinct co-cultures, with their own political lobbying groups, Web sites, magazines, and television networks (such as Lifetime, BET, Telemundo, and Here TV).

Because members of co-cultures are (by definition) different from the dominant culture, they develop and use numerous communication practices that help them interact with people in the culturally dominant group (Ramirez-Sanchez, 2008). There are three types of approaches, depending on whether the co-cultural members wish to assimilate (be accepted) into the dominant culture, get the dominant culture to accommodate their co-cultural identity, or separate themselves from the dominant culture altogether. For example, they might do some of the following:

Use overly polite language with individuals from the dominant culture
Suppress reactions when members of the dominant culture make offensive comments
Try to excel in all aspects of their professional and personal lives to counteract negative stereotypes about their co-culture
Act, look, and talk as much as possible like members of the dominant culture
Openly disparage their own co-culture
Quietly but clearly express their co-cultural identity through appearance, actions, and words
Conform to negative stereotypes in an exaggerated way to shock and scare members from the dominant culture

How might these communication practices work in real life? Imagine that an African American couple moves to a largely Euro-American suburb. They socialize primarily with their white neighbors—never displaying any indication of their African American heritage other than their skin color. Meanwhile, their son dresses in sagging pants, wears a do-rag, and blasts gangsta rap through Beats headphones. Through these behaviors, he actively strives to conform to stereotypes about young black males. Despite their differences, all these behaviors have the same goal: managing the tension between African American co-culture and the dominant Euro-American culture.