Read each of the situations presented below and then determine what barrier or barriers were present. For each situation, identify the barrier or barriers and then state what should the communicators have done to avoid these situations? What should they each do now?

1) A kindergarten boy from India was teased and called "Coconut Head" by his classmates who noticed the smell of tropical oil on his hair.

Barrier:

 

 

 

 

2) An increasing number of immigrants to an area served by a large urban school led its principal to start a program in which older student volunteers would tutor younger children from immigrant families in the families' homes. The principal hoped that the program would help the new students adjust more rapidly to school life and increase their parents' confidence in the school. A 17-year-old student, John, was assigned to tutor a Chinese girl, Mee Loon, in English. Her father became concerned that the tutor was male and dressed strangely.

Barrier:

 

 

 

 

3) A United States college-aged woman cleaned her dorm room while her Thai roommate was having breakfast in the dormitory dining hall. She did not know that in the Thai culture the head is sacred and putting a piece of clothing associated with a lesser part of the body on a place reserved for the head is one of the worst possible insults. The woman placed the Thai woman's skirt on the pillow portion of the bed. When the roommate returned, she became upset, cried, and left the room.

            Barrier:

4. Two brothers and a sister, aged 7, 8, and 10, respectively, were expelled from their elementary school for 9 months because they wore ceremonial daggers required by their religion. The children's parents explained that the dagger, called a kirpan, is one of five sacred symbols that must be worn at all times by baptized Khalsa Sikhs.

Barrier: