American Cultures Merit Badge

1. Meet the groups: choose two of five Often forgotten Requirement

THE CHOICE THAT GOVERNS THIS REQUIREMENT IS PRINTED ABOVE IT AND HAS NO NUMBER. Three groups, one of them your own, chosen before you start. Then two of these five options, each using a different group. Four of the five need access to a community; one does not.

THE MOST IMPORTANT SENTENCE ON THIS BADGE IS PRINTED ABOVE THIS REQUIREMENT AND HAS NO NUMBER. It says to choose THREE groups with different racial, cultural, national or ethnic backgrounds, ONE OF WHICH COMES FROM YOUR OWN BACKGROUND, and to use those groups for requirements 1, 2 and 3. There is no box to tick beside it, which is exactly why it gets read past. Make that choice deliberately and write the three down. Then note what this requirement does with them: two of the five options, each using a DIFFERENT group, so two of your three get used here.

CHOOSE YOUR GROUPS WITH THIS LIST IN FRONT OF YOU, NOT BEFORE IT. Four of these five options need a community you can actually reach: a festival that is running near you, an institution that will have you, a person willing to talk, an exhibit that is about one of your groups. Only 1(d), learning something traditional and teaching it to your friends, needs no access at all. Choose three groups with no local presence and you have closed four doors without knowing it. The badge helps here in a way it never explains: one of your three must be your own background, and that group you can always reach. Since this requirement wants two options using different groups, your own can carry one of them, and only ONE other group has to be within reach. Let the third be whichever you most want to learn about, because requirements 2 and 3 need no access.

2. Imagine one group alone, then all three together Often forgotten Requirement

The only requirement on this badge you cannot research, and it has two halves. First, what a place would be like if one of your groups had always lived there alone. Then what it would be like if all three of your chosen groups had lived there at the same time.

3. Differences and similarities between the three Often forgotten Requirement

Two answers, not one. Some differences between the religious and social customs of your three groups, AND some ideas or ways of doing things that are similar across all three. The similarities are the half that takes real thought.

4. A contribution by each of three different people Often forgotten Requirement

A DIFFERENT THREE. Three people, each from a different racial, ethnic or religious background, and nothing says they belong to the three groups you chose. Note that this list of categories is not the same one the opening note used.

THIS IS A DIFFERENT THREE, AND A DIFFERENT LIST OF CATEGORIES. Requirements 1, 2 and 3 all use the three groups fixed by the note above requirement 1. This requirement does not mention them. It asks about three different PEOPLE, each from a different racial, ethnic or religious background, and it never says those people belong to your groups. Read the two lists side by side: the opening note says racial, cultural, national or ethnic, and this requirement says racial, ethnic or religious. Cultural and national appear only in the note; religious appears only here. You may use people from your own three groups if that suits you, and it can be tidy, but nothing obliges you to and the question being asked here is wider.

5. Give a talk, then lead a discussion Often forgotten Requirement

Two jobs and only the first gets rehearsed. The talk is to your Scout unit or class at school, on how people from different groups have gotten along together. Then you lead a discussion on what can be done to help groups understand one another better.

TWO JOBS, AND ONLY THE FIRST ONE GETS REHEARSED. Giving a talk is preparation you control entirely. Leading a discussion is not: it means having a question ready that somebody can actually answer, being willing to sit through the silence after you ask it, and doing something sensible with whatever comes back. Prepare three or four questions rather than one, and expect to need the second. Note also that the two halves have different subjects. The talk is about how people from different groups HAVE GOT ALONG; the discussion is about what CAN BE DONE to help groups understand one another better. Past and future, and it is easy to give one talk covering both and then have nothing left to discuss.

Counselor signs it off Milestone

The completion date is the date you met the requirements, not the date of the signature.

Usually comes after 5. Give a talk, then lead a discussion.

Merit badge requirements are republished annually. A Scout beginning work uses the requirements as they stand then; a Scout already working may finish under the ones they started with. Guide to Advancement 7.0.4.3 governs which applies. This page records the date its copy was read. Check it against the official page before relying on it.