I have received definitions people in their 60's and 30's both male and female.
The first person shared with me that their definition of culture is the beliefs and historical views as to how to live. It is how you choose to live with your family. It consists of family customs and values. Their definition of diversity is all inclusive which encompasses everyone and everybody.
The next person I spoke to defined culture as habits, beliefs and lifestyle of people. They defined diversity as difference among the group and a large group of people that have differences.
The last person I asked about their definition of culture is family values, ancestry, traditions, families doing things for each other. It also deals with food and living life everyday. It deals with how you worship/religion and passing down traditions from one generation to the next. Diversity was defined as mixture of people and different ethnic backgrounds. It deals with a mixture of people with various background which are not in the same family or culture.
Many of the answers I received for the definition of culture explained how they are unconscious rules that govern everything we do. None of the people I spoke to referred to the way men and women fit in culture (Gonzalez-Mena, 2008). The definitions did include how culture relates everything we do. I did not recall anyone mentioning parenting patterns in their definition of culture. All the definitions explain how complex culture is to define (Laureate Education, Inc., 2007).
When speaking about diversity, it was agreed upon that it means difference and even difference within the same culture. They did not imply prejudice or inferior ways of thinking when speaking on diversity. The definitions of diversity explained to me a positive way of accepting no one is the same (Laureate Education, Inc., 2007).
After listening to the definition received from the persons I interviewed, I realized that culture is seen as a part of who you are and what you do everyday. I was excited to hear no negativity within their definitions. I have learned that some members of society may see culture in a negative light. It was nice to experience generation variance and gender differences explain culture and diversity. It helped me re-examine how society views culture and diversity in order to determine where society stands in these areas.
References
Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2008). Diversity in Early Care and Education. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2007). [DVD]. Family Cultures, Dynamics Interactions. Baltimore, MD: Author.
"It takes a village to raise a child." -African Proverb-
Like you I did not receive any negative response in the definition on culture or diversity. I was surprise to hear how much everyone, really put some thought into it, an gave me their true words.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned how none of the responders mentioned gender. In Gonzalez-Mena's article/video she mentioned that gender is tighly linked to culture.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ms. Davis, above. The responses were positive, and also well thought out.
It is amazing that everyone is looking at the culture from the perspective of unconscious rules of behavior and how we generally do things. You said no one mentioned parenting patterns as a way of culture, I find the same to be true but I think generally that we all don't look at parenting pattern as cultural, and that there is a link between how we raise our children to how our parents raised us. Gender is a real feature of culture because of the expectation of role identity attached gender in each community.
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