This week’s blog assignment was interesting in that it
allowed me to see how friends and co-workers viewed culture and diversity.
People don’t see things the same way, everyone looks at things through their
own cultural lens—they bring with them the culture from their own family, from
their school, their church and other organizations with which they are affiliated.
Culture is not static, it is changes and evolves as the person or group is
exposed to other’s culture.
The first person I talked with is a 35-year old, Caucasian male.
He believes culture is a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of
life, customs, arts etc.; and that diversity is understanding that each
individual is unique and recognizing our individual differences, race,
ethnicity, gender, etc.
The second interviewee is a 60-year old African American
female. Her definition of culture is inherited beliefs and values, types of
food eaten, how the families are arranged, and religion. Diversity in her
opinion is differences, variety, a group of people having many forms and
shapes.
The third person is a 20-year old Hispanic female who
believes culture is the way a group or race live, from language, beliefs,
religion, and arts. She went on to say that it was the way certain people live.
Her definition of diversity is the accepting of people for who they are.
Positive acceptance of people who have different beliefs, cultures and
ethnicities.
The interviewees described both surface culture and deep
culture. They spoke about art and foods which are both surface culture; as well
as religion, family roles, and language which are all deep culture.
This class has helped me to reinforce my understanding that
people see culture and diversity in many different ways. Many people think of
surface culture, but a great deal of people do look deeper and see more of the
deep culture such as a person’s values, religion, language, roles of children
and other members of the family, and historic events.
2 comments:
I think you really got some deep thorough answers on culture and diversity. Those that you interviewed seem to have a good start of understanding culture and diversity. This was a very intersting post, and I thank you for your ideas and comments.
I was happy to read that the people you surveyed did include deeper aspects of culture in their definitions of culture and diversity. It seems like they have a broader understanding of these concepts. Even though we all do see culture a little differently, as you said, I am encouraged that many people do look beyond the general or superficial aspects of culture. Nice post!
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