Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Point-of-view of a  39 year old father and businessman

Culture is a way of life of a people.  It affects their values and belief systems in terms of work, education and socialization to name a few.  It impacts on the type of family structures they foster whether its extended family, nuclear family and single parent family.

Diversity refers to differences in terms of culture, ethnicity, race, language et cetera. 

Point-of-view of a 47 year old teacher

Culture is the totality of who one is. It encapsulates the general way of life of a group of people. The way the group thinks and behaves. It therefore includes their language, foods, dress code, method of worship, dances, songs and general values, beliefs, rituals and customs. One's culture is acquired through socialization and is passed from generation to generation.

Diversity has to do with acknowledging the difference in each human being and accepting and respecting each one as being unique. Areas of diversity may be in age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, nationality, intellectual ability, developmental capacity/ability (cognitive, physical, social, emotional), religious affiliation/spiritual orientation, race, ethnicity et cetera.

Point-of-view of a 61 year old Guidance Counselor

Culture is the way of life of a people. It takes into account the foods, dress, languages, ways of worship, education etc. The culture of a school is everything that is done in the school and is the accepted ways of doing things by the participants who interact within the school.  Since a school is a microcosm of the wider society, students bring with them their culture. The teacher's responsibility therefore is to provide opportunities for students to practice and share their culture. This is a positive way of catering for diversity in the classroom.

Diversity is a state of being different. It includes differences in human development, languages, culture, economy etc. Diversity must bring into focus issues of fairness, equity and justice.  As humans there are variations in the rate we develop owing to diversity in environmental contexts which affect students' behavior, thinking, personality, abilities, learning styles and appearance. These have implications for teachers.  It is imperative to avoid discrimination at all times.

State aspects of culture and diversity that have been studied in this course and are included in the responses.

Culture has been referred to by all respondents as a way of being.  It includes the values and beliefs of a people.  The respondents made reference to both surface culture and deep culture.  For example, the businessman’s examples relate strictly to deep culture.  They include work, education and socialization.  The teacher and the guidance counselor examples included a mixture of both surface culture and deep culture. The teacher made mention of one dimension of cultural identity, that is, the acquisition of culture through the cultural group to which we belong which is referred to as cultural socialization. Dominant school culture which is the widely accepted ways of functioning in the school has been mentioned by the guidance counselor as well as student culture.  Even reference was made to cultural identity when the teacher mentioned that culture incorporates the way the group thinks and behaves.

In my studies, we would have examined the definition of diversity in terms of the differences and the need to respect those differences.  We also noted the important role the teacher plays to ensure that fairness and justice prevail. 

Identify aspects of culture that have been omitted and provide examples of such omission

Mention was not made of cultural continuity and discontinuity (Derman-Sparks & Edwards 2010).  Cultural continuity includes upholding family practices such as religion. Cultural discontinuity will refer to the falling away from certain family customs such as honoring birthdays which was a regular family practice.  

Ways in which other people’s definitions of culture and diversity influenced my own thinking about these topics

I realize that many similarities exist between the perspectives of the individuals selected and my own perspective even though cultural differences exist among us.  However, that does not mean that if we were to live closely with each other we would automatically work well with each other.  Fiction is likely to manifest itself among groups of people.  It occurs in families which are “suppose” to be close knit relationships among kin.  No relationship is exempted from disagreement.  The formulae which must be embraced in order to live amicably are tolerance and respect for each other.  It is important that rules be establish at schools and in the wider sphere of society so that a certain level of respect and appreciation  for each other is maintained in order to exist harmoniously. 

 Reference

Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).