I asked a few colleagues to define culture and diversity ;
The feedback I received coincided with what we have been studying these past weeks. The women I spoke with are from mexico and the first lady believed that culture is the way that every family lives, and that we each create our own culture within our homes. The next lady felt that culture is about our traditions and values that have been passed on from our childhood. We learned that culture is a combination of our families values and traditions and our own personal interpretations of these as we form our own families and expectations. We also learned that culture is not static but ever changing.When asked about their definition of diversity the first lady expressed that it is not about outward appearances but rather about the different thoughts , beliefs and understandings and that we are each diverse from each other.We learned that each person has their own unique culture as does each family.The other lady expressed that her definition of diversity regarded different languages, and that we have in the world from different countries One concentrated on the external vision of diversity and culture ,and the other on the internal vision of culture and diversity.In these few weeks we have learned that culture is both internal and external, the external is easy to celebrate and also stereotype people ,while the internal is personal and varies from individual to individual and family to family. We must keep these important concepts in mind while we diverse and engage with children and their families and continue to address the importance and beauty of culture and diversity in our ever changing world.
Hello Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI like, how you describe culture as internal as external, being external what everyone knows about a culture and the internal being the one that makes each family and person different and unique. Unfortunately, the majority of the people focus on the external disregard the things that make people different and diverse.
It is interesting how each person views these two areas in different ways, you can tell by what they relate something about how they were brought up. I also was given different definitions for these words-similar but not the same. I think this is part of what makes us all unique in the big picture of society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you girls that it is amazing to see how differently the terms culture and diversity can be defined.I hope that my children are able to carry on some of the traditions that we have instilled in them.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you had one of each perspective (outer and inner). I was recently having a discussion with a young college student from the middle east and we were sharing details about our culture. He was telling me that he was surprised to find out about nursing homes here becasue in his culture, the children live with and take care of the elders. He said it is part of their religion and has just become an absolute part of their way of life. They don't even have such things as nursing homes. I explained to him that that is actually something that varies from family to family. It is not necessarly part of American culture. In fact, my father and mother both had parents that they lived with and took care of at the end of their lives. Even my grandfather moved his mother in with him when she could no longer take care of herself. So, that is something that comes from family culture or out of necessity of family circumstances, but is not necessarily the culture of our country or religion.
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