Culture and Diversity Dialogue

Culture and Diversity Defined

I was asked to interview several people and to ask them to define culture and diversity. Below is the dialogue from those interviews, followed by a brief summary of how these definitions compliment our studies in this course.

            How do you define culture and diversity?

            Melanie J-B

Jenny, Culture is what we identify ourselves as and with. How we perceive to be important to us like family, religious values, dress, clothing and what we most strongly identify ourselves with is culture. Almost a heritage of sorts.

Now diversity is a mixture or combination of cultures within a setting such as work, school, community. We seek diversity in order to better learn about others that differ from us.

Victoria J-H

culture is the way a person is raised~the norms, biases and "unspoken" or understood rules that create the protective boundaries in their lives
diversity is the coming together of multiple cultures wherein the group creates its own norms, biases & boundaries based upon a new set of understood rules that create the protective boundaries for the interest of that particular group.

Cindy S

I would define Culture as to the ethnicity and customs someone has been raised by.

Diversity is different cultures coming together respecting each other’s differences and finding common ground to work things out.

Kay F

I had to share my definitions of culture and diversity.
Culture is the shared learning and experiencing of specific patterns in our surroundings that form and shape us into the people we become with similar values, practices, ideas, speech, and methods of operation.

Diversity is the practice of understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences should be respected.
Good Luck on your class!

There were aspects of culture and diversity that were included in the answers of the interviewees that I have learned about in this course.  In the definitions of culture the interviewees included:  how important we perceive family, religion, clothing, who we identify ourselves with, the way a person is raised, ethnicity and customs.  We have discussed all of these topics in this course.  Their definitions for diversity included; a mixture or combination or cultures in a setting, the coming together of cultures to create a group with its own boundaries, the coming together of culture and respecting each others differences , the practice of understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences.

The interviewees omitted any mention of race. 

After listening to the definitions of culture and diversity I realize that all of those that participated understood that culture has a direct correlation to family and who “raises” you.  All of the interviewees made a reference to values, practices, religion or practices of the family that shape us into who we are.  Our culture is who we are.  This is formed by our immediate surroundings.  After this exercise I think that my own feelings about culture and diversity are better supported.  We all have the same general understanding of what culture and diversity means.