Perspectives on Culture & Diversity

By Deb Trowbridge

I asked several people what their definition of culture and diversity was. 

Here are the responses for culture:

·      Culture is a lifestyle.  We all have culture.  We all come from different places of the world (USA, Germany, Sweden, etc.) that shape the way we live.  Our ancestors and parents shape our culture.

·      Culture is the things we do such as Eskimo dancing, skin sewing and preparing Eskimo food.

·      Culture is your background.

·      Culture is the state of being where you feel like you are at home.

·      Culture is the way certain groups of people do thing.

·      Culture is the unique ways of living within a group such as the food you eat, the way you communicate (verbally and non-verbally), the way you raise children, the way you dress, the entertainment that is acceptable, etc.

·      Culture is your background, how you were raised to believe and traditions and values that you were taught as a child.  These cultural values dictate how you celebrate holidays and birthdays and how we live day to day and what we do when someone dies.

Here are the responses for diversity:

·      Diversity is a mix of cultures and represents people from all walks of life (Puerto Ricans, Alaska Natives, African American, etc.).

·      Diversity represents different people groups: Eskimo Inupiat, Eskimo Yupik, Indian Klinkets, Indian Athabasca, Canadian Inuit.  Diversity is all over the world.

·      Diversity is a wide range of different people.

·      Diversity is multiple paradigms interacting.

·      Diversity is how groups are different.

·      Diversity is the opposite of ‘same’ and ‘monotone’.  Diversity is plural.  It’s the many ways of doing things, seeing things, speaking things, etc.

·      Diversity has to do with how accepting we are of other’s beliefs and traditions.  How one immerses oneself with another culture that he/she lives in and around and how much one follows what other people believe.

After reflecting on the above definitions of culture and diversity from people I talked with, many of their definitions include things we have talked about in this course.  For example, almost everyone referred to ‘family’ culture and diversity.  It is our parents and family history that make us who we are.  There are various cultures within similar people groups.  In this course we learned that family culture is were we feel most comfortable and where we first establish our identity. Some of the definitions above reflected a deep understanding of ones culture (family values and traditions).  Finally, culture was referred to as the things we do.

I also found that people’s definitions omitted certain concepts that we learned about in this course such as, social economic status, work cultures, interest cultures, ability levels and etc.  Their definitions primarily focused on family culture and diversity but really didn’t think of culture and diversity beyond that.

I appreciate the definitions that say, “Culture is the state of being where you feel like you are at home” and “Diversity is multiple paradigms interacting.”  They are both definitions that personalize and generalize the meanings of culture and diversity.  I realized that each person answered based on their thinking of their own culture.  Our culture truly defines us and our thinking.