We have been discussing culture and diversity in our third week of class and I asked some of my friends and family member to discuss the definition of both culture and diversity. The answers surprised me and I felt everyone enjoyed the topic and we had some great conversations about culture as a result. The three main people I asked were my brother in law who grew up outside the U.S., my friend who grew up in an Italian-American family and my husband who grew up in a French Canadian family mixed with an English family. I chose these three because I knew their childhood were very different from my own and I respect their thinking and I wanted to see what they said.
Some of the answers I heard while defining culture were words like: race, ethnicity, traditions, food, mind sets, beliefs, geography, religion, social class, spending habits, language, occupation, gender, appearances and values.
Some of the answers given to define the word diversity were: "All of the above." meaning everyone is included, someone said universality and also someone said, acceptance of the differing types of cultures we just spoke of. we learned, we
As far as what we have learned, I was fascinated to hear what my friends had to say given that they do not have any of the background or resources that I do as a grad student. I was actually pretty impressed with their answers. The biggest difference I found was how none of them really discussed the family culture. No one talked about how your parents or the number of siblings you have can influence your culture. Besides that, I was thoroughly impressed with their insight and their candor.
Hi, Cari! Those I 'interviewed' also said they enjoyed the topic and found it interesting. Like you, I was also impressed with the answers they gave. However, like me at the beginning of the course, my 'respondents' also tended to focus on surface culture. Thank you for your post!
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