Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I talked with 2 family member, all of various ages about their ideas of culture and diversity.  Here are the answers they shared with me.

Jeremy (Age 32)

Culture is beliefs and core values that you are brought up in.

Diversity is different backgrounds such as backgrounds, race, sexual orientation, religion, gender, and age.

Kelli (Age 52) 

Culture is the many different ways that people live. Their religions, food, dress, living conditions, and beliefs.

Diversity is being able to understand that everyone is different and accepting that people do things differently. Diversity would mean accepting differences from different cultures.

Wayne (Age 79)

Culture to me is the beliefs, social forms and traits of a social group.

Diversity is balancing the various racial groups in a group such as college students.

When looking at the statements that my three family members made in regards to culture and diversity, I saw many of the aspects we have studied in this course so far.  In Week 2's video, Julie Benavides, Louise Derman-Sparks, and Nadiyah Taylor sat down to discuss the aspects of culture.  Julie's first definition was very similar to Jeremy's definition of diversity, covering the basics of race, ethnicity, age, gender, language, etc.  Nadiyah and Kelli went on to take it further stating that it is how we percieve the world, it's very personal, and it's how individuals choose to live.  Kelli was right on in her definition of diverisity, when talking discussing other differences, and learning to accept differences.  Wayne discussed social forms and groups, as well as beliefs.   

To me, culture goes very deeply.  It's not only the items we see on the outside that are very apparent to us such as gender, race, age, etc., but there is so much more below the surface that makes up one's culture such as values and beliefs. Diversity encompasses the differences between individuals.  The social identities that all individuals hold vary from one person to another, and this framework makes up each individual and allows for much diversity in our world. 

I found it interesting that Jeremy's definitions for culture and diversity went hand in hand.  His ideas of culture looked at the surface of culture, while his definition of diversity looked under the culture of diversity describing values and beliefs.  He omitted the fact that diversity is describing individuals differences.  I feel Kelli was definitely looking further in depth at both, and omitted some of the basic surface aspects of culture such as gender, race, age, etc.  Wayne also looked deeper under the surface when it came to his idea of culture.  I thought it was very interesting how he looked at diversity as a balance of races in particular groups. 


What this tells me is that once again, everyone is very diverse.  We are all diverse in our thinking and understanding of our and others cultures.  Some of us are more aware of the surface culture, while other's take a deeper understanding.  This will allow me to have a deeper understanding of other's behaviors in regarding to their personal understanding of culture.  For example, I often come across families who will discuss certain culture groups in a very assuming manner.  This tells me that this person may not purposefully being biased, but it could be due to a lack of knowledge or using visual images to make determinations in their beliefs.