I sent a message to
several friends, family and colleagues asking them to send their definition of
culture and diversity.
I was curious how
quickly people would respond to me and how similar or different their
definitions would be from each other and myself.
The definitions from a female colleague were as follows:
Culture: refers to the environment in which
children and families come from. It is
the different beliefs and lifestyles that families instill in their children
through their modeling. The language the
family speaks primarily in the home.
Different types of foods that the family cooks. It is important to teach diversity and
culture in classrooms, to help children understand the world in which they live
in.
Diversity: refers
to many things, children with special needs, a-typical children, children from different
origins, children from different backgrounds, children from different types of
families-single parents, grandparents, and same sex parents. Just about anything that makes you different
from someone else.
The definitions from a culturally different male family member were as
follows:
Culture: is
what defines a group of people living in or about a place.
Diversity: is
defined as the difference between people be it religion, gender, national
origin, race coexisting in a particular place.
The definitions from a culturally different female college student were
as follows:
Culture: is the norms, practices, and behaviors of
a particular group of people.
Diversity: is
the differences in culture of different groups.
The aspects of culture
that have been included in the answers here are similar to surface
culture. All too often, when early
childhood educators think about culture, they think about the surface things that
are easy to see, taste, and define (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010). Examples of surface culture include the
different type of food cooked is a perfect example of surface culture. The other two people’s definitions were to
general to categorize them either surface or deep culture.
The aspects of
culture missing from the definitions were the deep culture items about language,
values, ideas of education and roles within the group. My colleague touched a little bit on the deep
culture aspects with references to the home language and home environment. Looking back on these definitions makes me
think that they are very similar to my definition of culture and diversity from
just a few short weeks ago.
I think beginning
to look at culture through the perspective of deep culture the metaphor of the
iceberg seems more and more accurate.
Additionally, reading the definitions of other also adds the idea of
culture and diversity are often looked from a very surface level view and not
considering what really makes the person who they are and what they
believe. Culture is like an iceberg the
tip shows and the beneath the surface is the unconscious part where the
tensions come into play (Laureate, 2011).
The young college student and the male from another culture provided
very generic definitions without any detail; therefore, not providing the deep
culture definition that we have learned about this week.
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). (2011). Culture and
Diversity. [DVD].
Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. Baltimore, MD:
