Three shared perspectives on Diversity and Culture
Person 1 -
Diversity includes the multitude of elements of a person that make him
or her the individual he or she has become. Some of these elements are obvious,
like a person’s ethnicity, age, gender, nationality, sex, religion, and
socio-economic status. Other, lesser considered, elements include things like a
person’s language, education, family type (for example, single or double parent
family, only child or siblings, adoption family members or blended families by
marriage), physical ability, mental ability, diagnoses, and major life
experiences. We all hold many, many elements of diversity within ourselves and
our individual identities are shaped in large part by these things.
Culture is a very multi-tiered thing. It exists at
the interpersonal (within oneself), interpersonal, group, community, societal,
national, international, and species levels. It is formed through the choices
and decisions that we perpetuate at each and every one of its levels. The many
elements of diversity that we each hold link directly to the cultures with
which we associate and internalize. No two people, even identical twins, have
the same exact culture as one another because it includes the elements of the
world around us that we each make our own, as well as the attitudes and
behaviors that each individual person adopts throughout his or her life.
Person 2 –
What is diversity? In my family I taught my three children that
we are all the same people. There will
be people who look at us differently. My
oldest is African American, my next two are mixed! My children grew up in area and went to
school with a diversity of all different nationalities! They never looked at a
color, race, or nationality and still don’t to this day! Going shopping with my
oldest when he was little in the 80’s and some people would stair, mostly
older! He would ask why? I would say well in some people culture it is
frowned on that your dad and I shouldn’t be together. Dad is black and I am
white. He said that’s dumb! I said you’re right, but that’s how they were
brought in their family’s culture. Some in our family don’t feel this way. Culture
is what you teach your children about your heritage. It’s about traditions, foods, holidays,
birthdays! It’s not about hate and
treating person or race different just because he or she looks different.
Person 3 –
Culture to me is the
traditions and preferences of a group of people. This may include religious
beliefs and spiritual practices, celebrated holidays, style music and art, the
food they eat, the way they communicate and more. It is the way of life other
group of people. Diversity to me is the difference among the individual people
in a group. This could include cultural, ethnic and racial differences.
The shared perspectives
of my friends all talked about culture being rules and behaviors of people.
They all said that culture is learned. And it is embedded in individuals. (Gonzale-Mena,
2008, pp. 8–13) Everyone talked about ethnicity and religious practices,
different languages, and race. Only one of my three sources talked about social
class and abilities and disabilities and economic level and social class. One
personal mentioned sex but not sexual orientation.
While taking this course
my facts have changed about what culture and diversity are. Culture and
diversity used to be just mean race, language, and religion to me. Now I see
that it's so much more. I would have never thought that economic status what is
an attribute of culture. I do believe culture is learned and the way we are
brought up just give us a set of rules and behaviors that we believe to be the
correct way. How groups of people are brought up, what they eat, how they
sleep, how they play together that is all part of their culture. (Edwards, 2019)
References
Edwards, L. (2019). Anti-Bias
Education For Young Children And Ourselves. National Association For.
Gonzale-Mena, J.
(2008). Diversity in Early Care and Education (5th ed., pp. 8-13, pp.
8–13). Boston.
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