Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

When I asked my peers to define diversity I was not surprised that many of their response were similar but expressed with different words. One educator said " Diversity is having qualities that makes us different from each other." Another response was "It is the unique attributes that we each have that distinguishes us apart". The last educator said "It the different identities that people represent such as, thoughts, background, ethnicity, race, socioeconomics, religion etc. that make them unique. Diversity is indefinite and different for everyone. Demographic factors, as well as cultural norms, can make a person ‘diverse’ from another..

When asking my peers to define culture they also had similar answers. Response to this question were "Culture consists of the knowledge, tools, and behaviors traditionally collected that pervade the environment of the child, including the cultural practices of members of the family unit and other family members" Another interpretation of culture was that "Culture is a learned collection of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, viewpoints, and social behaviors that influence a group of people's behavior." The last definition is "Culture is a patterned way of life which includes practices and traditions, beliefs, rules of conduct, and also material items".

In the video "Family Cultures: Dynamic Interactions" (Laureate Education, 2011), Professor Louise Derman-Sparks and her panelist (Laureate Education, 2011) define culture as being personal and having a different set of characteristic which include race, religion, ethnicity, gestures, body movements, language, socio-economic class, parenting styles, life styles, and abilities.

I feel that my peers answers were all general answers regarding how they viewed culture and diversity. However, they omitted that culture extends into the classroom.and that our educational environment builds a culture of its own (Laureate Education, 2011) that children must adapt to outside their own family culture.

Reflecting on my peers definitions, my views, and perspective on culture and diversity I find that many educators have a general knowledge of the topics very much as I did. These course have help me to understand that the topics of diversity and culture have many layers. Surface culture, those things that we can physically see, hear, taste, smell and touch (Hammond, 2015 as cited in Campesi, 2020) is the conscious or visible part of culture. Culture also involves things that are unconscious (Gonzalez-Mena, 2008), the things which are mostly invisible, the things we do not think about, but do. These invisible values known as deep culture guides behaviors and social interactions. It has opened my mind on how people observe and make conclusions on how they see others. Culture, in my opinion, encircles of all other aspects of diversity. Race and gender are inadequate to describe society, and therefore one's personality. Learning about cultures and diversity helps dispel negative stereotypes and personal biases about different groups. In addition, cultural diversity helps us recognize and respect “ways of being” that are not necessarily our own, so that as we interact with others we can build bridges to trust, respect, and understanding across cultures.

References

Campesi, M. (2020, September 20). Surface culture: The visible gateway to deep culture. Retrieved from https://www.schoolrubric.com/surface-culture-the-visible-gateway-to-deep-culture/#:~:text=Surface%20culture%20is%20the%20visible,of%20your%20own%20surface%20culture.

Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2008). Diversity in Early Care and Education (5th ed., pp. 8–13). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill. Retrieved from https://class.content.laureate.net/0c5aa3c6afa783b3200b91be3996bb46.pdf

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Culture and diversity [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu