Assignment: Perspectives on Culture & Diversity

I asked a few people this week for their definitions of culture and diversity. Here are some of their responses.
Culture a set of values, beliefs and traditions shared by a group of people. It’s about who you associate with.
Diversity is differences between groups of people or items. It’s also in the ways we do things. She gave an example of the ways we dress or cook. Even if we are from the same culture, there are individual differences.

Culture is a group of people who share the same language and live in the same geographical area. Culture also involves things like religion, celebrations, food, clothing and music.
Diversity is differences. There is diversity in everything like people, plants and animals.

Culture is the environment you live in that affects you day to day. It gives you an identity and a sense of belonging. There are so many different cultures. This person also mentioned how younger and older people are from a different culture because they grew up in different time periods. Their values will be different because of the ways they were raised.
Diversity involves differences between people and tolerance of people who are unlike you. Aspects of diversity may be age, religion, class, sexual orientation or race. There is diversity everywhere.

The aspects of culture and diversity that were mentioned that have been discussed in this class are apart of the surface culture. This is mostly the celebrations, clothes, music etc. However, a couple people mentioned values and beliefs which are a big part of culture. Things people left out were parenting styles, ability levels, and family culture and gender differences. The people I asked had the understanding that diversity means differences between people and or items. One person mentioned the tolerance aspect and mentioned qualities like race, class etc. One person briefly talked about individual diversity. No one mentioned diversity between families or family members. The people I talked to seemed to have a basic understanding of culture and diversity, but these words and concepts should probably be used and or taught more often.

People’s definitions of culture and diversity are as varied as diversity itself. I agree that diversity is everywhere even if it isn’t obvious right away. This assignment also made me think of how diverse we are as individuals. It made me think of my family and the ways we are different. One example is that even though my brothers and I had a similar upbringing, there are differences in our values, beliefs, etc. Even people who seem alike in many ways may be very different. That’s why it’s important to avoid making assumptions.