Culture and Diversity
Culture-
Defining culture was not an easy task. I asked many people their definition of what culture meant to them. They all looked at me and thought it was going to be an easy task. They found it to be as difficult as I did. I always thought culture to be your ethnicity and the country you were from. I am finding it is not as simple as that.
I asked my best friend and longtime colleague what culture was to her. She immigrated to the US when she was a child from Mexico. Her idea of culture is acknowledging your race and traditions, looking at your family values and morals. It is also where your ancestors came from.
My mother’s idea of culture is the accumulation and development of beliefs. Culture also encompasses a specific group’s heritage and history.
My father had a different idea of culture. He said culture is anything you want it to be. I thought this was a sarcastic definition, but as I have been reading and watching the videos I am finding this to more true than not.
In reviewing my parent’s definitions and ideas of what culture encompasses I do not see my definition of culture before I started this course. I gathered my ideas from my family but also from friends and coworkers.
Diversity-
The definition of diversity came a little easier to most people. I always thought of diversity meaning differences.
My friend Elida said diversity was being able to understand every culture, knowing their background knowledge.
My mother’s definition was variety amongst a common group of people.
My father’s definition was variety among others.
In looking at my parent’s ideas of diversity I can see where I got my definition for diversity. We lived in a fairly diverse population as a child in regards to ethnicity and religion.
The parts of culture that were included in the answers I got were surface answers. The definitions were very clinical. The parts of culture that were not included were the parts of deep culture. Specific parts of culture were not mentioned.
Leslie,
ReplyDeleteCulture and diversity are connected and play a role within each other. The dynamics of each are interesting and help shape our social identities. Each persons definition of culture and diversity are similar yet different because of our upbringing.