Perspectives on Culture & Diversity

Diversity & Culture

What exactly is culture, and diversity? When asked the definition of culture, and diversity, many people give basic surface information that is mainly based on their everyday life experiences. For example, a home builder/ home improvement contractor explains his definition as,

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“I see culture as familiarized people, area, and language, in carpentry people that know parts of the work I do, and the different request that clients would like done to their house”.

“I’m not sure about diversity”, after giving it some thought he added, “Diversity can be when people have different ways of doing things even within their culture. They can have mixed feelings of operating tools, machinery, and of how to do projects and measurements”.

 

A young teen’s view on culture, “things that run down your family line, like dance, different languages, different skills, and handmade crafts”. He wasn’t too sure about diversity, but I included his interview because his definition of culture is so intelligent for a really young person.

 

A young college student expresses that “culture is a way of life and doing things. Specific people, such as their race, nationality, and countries are all cultures. Diversity is the different types of culture; America is really divers because of the multitude of nationalities that live here”.

 

After reflecting on responses of the subjects interviewed, I immediately noticed learned information from this study; such as, how culture can be represented in different groups of people with likeness and differences.

I also noticed that some aspects of my study were omitted such as the understanding of deep culture. My subjects presented surface information about culture as they understand it, but some of them presented deep culture information without realizing it. For example, builders and carpenters are of a type of culture among themselves. Additionally, the young college student is of a culture, and that she lives on campus and in the dorms are cultures within themselves.

Thinking about how others define culture and diversity, have influenced me to become more aware of how I categorize all things and people. I decided to help my students learn to recognize the different areas and levels of culture and diversity mainly because when asked to define culture, the majority usually gives surface information without understanding that there’s a deeper meaning of culture, and diversity.