ABSTRACT
Sociocultural is a term that bridges social and cultural influences. The social aspect refers to interactions with other individuals, including those we meet face-to-face and those we vicariously encounter through books, TV, the Internet, and so on. The cultural aspect refers to the various characteristics shared by groups of people, such as language, belief systems, habits, and norms. It reflects the circumstances of specific groups historically—in certain times and places (Rueda, 2013). Sometimes we think about culture as something outside ourselves, as belonging to others. But culture is not just what others do—it's what we all do. As Rogoff (2003) points out, “Cultural processes surround all of us and often involve subtle, tacit, taken-for-granted events and ways of doing things that require open eyes, ears, and minds to notice and understand” (p. 11). So culture infuses all walks of life; we all have cultural dimensions to our identities.
