The response I received from multiple response of what culture dealt with from the people contacted in reference to this exercise. I was told that culture deals with race, religion, food and the way we do things. The responses regarding diversity were it deals with gender, religion, economics and a mixture of races together doing the same thing.
The aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course that are included were race, religion, food, gender and economics. The examples are a group of Black or African American people. People that follow Baptist religious practices. Fried chicken is a food that is common in the Mississippi culture.
The aspects that were omitted values extended family relationship, work, holidays, sexual orientation, education, healthcare, language and so forth. Examples: Families observing the traditional holidays such as Christmas and carrying out the common task associate with this holiday. Like purchasing gifts for family members and preparing feast. Children placed in a public or private school educational setting. Heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual in the same in environment represent diversity.
The people definition I received influenced my own thinking about these topics in that I realized that many people really do not consider all the components related to culture and diversity. They do not realize that culture and diversity includes every aspect of the way we live and what we do. Personally, I feel that we have taken for granted the things we do and disregarded them as culture. Leaving us to often misconstruing the true meaning of culture and diversity. However through this assignment I was able to identify in our culture we have more fried chicken fast food chains than any other business in our community. Upon discovering this I was amazed but this is an example of taking things for granted. I never realized it however it is true and it has been that way all the time.
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).
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Culture and Diversity [DVD]. Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. Baltimore, MD:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Culture and Diversity [DVD]. Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. Baltimore, MD:
Kvonya, I have to admit, prior to our course, I think I defined culture very narrowly...similarly to how your friends did. It's easy to think that culture is that of "surface" culture..the things we see. I think this is a common definition of culture. But, through exercises such as this, we are able to hopefully broaden others' perspectives!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post! Great work!
Hi Kvonya
ReplyDeleteYou made a very good point about how people in general are not aware of how culture and diversity includes every aspect of everything we do. And like you said, we do not give it any thought as to why we live a certain way or do the things we do. The first thing we say to someone that offends us is, Why did you do that? The answer to that question I believe is because of diversity and culture.