My husband, who was born in England and raised in England and South America, defines culture as the difference between different ethnic groups of people. How they celebrate, what they eat, how they behave. He defines diversity as what sets people apart from each other.
My sister in law, who was born and raised in Michigan, defines culture as the way one group perceives another and defines diversity as the differences in people.
A colleague of mine, who was born and raised in Las Vegas, defines culture as how we behave and defines diversity as what makes us unique.
The answer from my friend reminds me of what Nadiyah Taylor stated in our video Family Culture from week 2, “Culture is our way of being in the world” (Laureate, 2011). This explanation helped cement the meaning of culture in my brain. The video from week 3, Culture and Diversity, also helped cement the meaning for me. Before watching the videos, I thought of culture in terms of celebrations, food, customs; the same things my husband stated above. After listening to Janet Gonzalez –Mena speak in our video, I realized I was only looking at the surface things. The things that Janet refers to as the “10% of the iceberg you can see”. (Laureate, 2011).
One thing that was not mentioned by any of my friends/family was the fact that culture is learned from the people around you, something Janet Gonzalez-Mena mentioned in the video Culture and Diversity. This class has helped me realize this point. I look back at many of my habits and everyday actions and realize I am my mother to a tee.
Listening to others define culture and diversity made me realize just how difficult they are to define. Each person I asked took a couple minutes to think about their answer before they responded. I enjoyed listening to their various responses and discussing each topic with them.
Laureate Education, Inc. (2011). Culture and diversity. Perspectives on Diversity and Equity [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Hi Leigh:
ReplyDeleteI think the answer from your sister-in-law is very interesting. I have never thought of culture as the ways I would perceive other people. To me, this means your culture could be defined differently depending on who is studying you. I think of Ngo's (2008) article and his discussion on discourse. Discourse is the statements or images assigned to us while identity can be what we assign to ourselves. As we take on the discourse of others, we can also begin to us it as part of our identity.
Ngo, B. (2008). Beyond "culture clash": Understanding of immigrant experiences. Theory into practice, 47(1), 4-11. Retrieved from the Education Research Complete.
Leigh,
ReplyDeleteThis was a great exercise. because it helped me to see how everyone thinks of culture, and I got so surprised when I saw that almost everyone sees only the surface culture like the food, the language,the religion, but they don't even pay attention to the diversity of people even within the same culture. I agree with you Leih that culture is learned from people around us. thanks for sharing.
Leigh,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed hearing the different definitions of culture from my friends/family. I think many of us are guilty of looking at people from the "tip of the iceberg" perspective. Thanks to this course, I will try to focus on looking deeper to understand people I interact with.
Thanks!
Teri