Perspectives of Culture and Diversity

For this assignment I selected people who were different from me in at least one way. Each other them provided perspectives  that had some similarities as well as some differences.
The first person I asked was a co-worker of mine, Barbara. She is a veteran teacher who I feel has much more experience in the field than I do. She stated that culture is identifying with a certain group of people based on their traditions, beliefs, and social standards. She felt diversity was the ability to accept differences within the groups and coexist. The next person I ask was my boyfriend who works in the civil engineering. He feels culture includes the way you are raised which is also impacted by the region in which you are raised.. Diversity is the differences between each other. Finally, Abby is a first year social psychologist, and she feels culture is what makes you who you are. It includes everything and the ways a person does something. When she thinks of diversity she pictures the school she works in because it has a very diverse population of students on different academic levels,family styles, and ethnicity which all come together for a common goal.

When I look at the different definitions I received, I immediately thought about the reading from our textbook. Derman-Sparks ( 2010) identified to be everyday and every action which goes right along with what Abby stated. I also thought about the panelists in last weeks video who identified culture as simply being complex. When I asked each person what culture was they simply got stuck, one even stated, " how can I define something so broad and in depth?"

Also, when I look at these definitions I immediately think about the omission of language as a components to culture. In last weeks video, Professor Benavides focused a great deal on how language abilities plays such a major part in our culture. I was surprise to see that no one included this within their definition of culture.

By asking others to define culture and diversity it was interesting to find how some people feel uncomfortable talking about it. Upon asking each person I was first provided a very uneasy look as though they thought there definition would not be right. I also feel like what each person has experienced in their lives impacted their definition greatly. For the veteran teacher, I feel she was most comfortable with answer the question and provided an answer that included her experiences as a teacher. For my boyfriend, he was able to pull from his experience from moving from the North to the South. This is why he included regional differences. My friend Abby, was also able to pull from her experiences as a school psychologist within a particular school.