Saturday, July 19, 2014

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture



Blog Assignment: Perspectives on Diversity and Culture
#1 Male –
Culture – worldly, understanding of other peoples beliefs and differences
Diversity- variety – equal respect and understanding of a variety of people regardless of race, sex, religion…

#2  female Teaching College Student
Culture is a group or society that shares the same beliefs, customs, and traditions.
 Diversity is different race, beliefs, ideas, styles etc.

#3 Female Colleague, also a different religion
Diversity: The world is made up of different people who come from different backgrounds, are a different color; practice a different religion, live life differently because of where they come from. The world would be a pretty boring place if we were all the same thing...like a robotic society!
Culture: It is where people come from, their family heritage, and their blood line. It can also be a person's religion and how they live their life based on how they feel and believe.

#4  Female friend – Nurse Practitioner
Culture - a person(s) acting in ways to represent their heritage with dance, costume, and language for example.
Diversity - Respecting and understanding there are differences in each culture and to not impose bias and judgment in relation to your own.
Reflection
What is culture? I would define culture as a combination of all of the above definitions.  This course has helped me look beyond the “physical” cultural differences – surface culture and to understand that it is a much deeper thing and has meaning.  Diversity is tolerance in the differences among us all. We could be within the same culture and yet be very diverse.  I think what is missing is that your culture is dependent on where you live, when you live there (time as in years/decades), and what is also going on within the dominant culture to influence your culture. 
Julia Gonzalez-Mena (2008) discussed a “narrow view” of culture because of our own personal perspectives.  I admit that before and maybe still, I had/have a narrow view of culture. It is hard to dig so deep within you to understand it all, getting past our perspectives but with diversity is the respecting differences.  I have always respected the differences between myself and others but I didn’t truly understand culture and am now able to look past the physical.  

 Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2008). Diversity in Early Care and Education (5th ed., pp. 8–13). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.

2 comments:

  1. Hello Danielle,
    I think you make a great point about looking beyond the "physical" and digging a bit deeper into the true reality of person and what they represent. I think our society has gotten so superficial and not focused on the depth of a person. We need to look at what a person represents and believes. We can learn so much from a person when we look beyond the physical. it even allows us to learn more about ourselves when we dig deeper. It amazes me how a country like ours sometimes can overlook the diversity that is all around us.

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  2. Hi Danielle,
    In asking three people questions about what they think culture and diversity is, it seems like people have the same opinion about culture and diversity relating or overlapping. As a result I believe most people are thinking that with culture you have diversity, and with diversity you have a person or groups culture. On the other hand not really relating deeper characteristics of a group or individual person’s culture.

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