Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Blog: Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

1.  Tomoko: Believes diversity is comprised of people from different countries and culture is what those people carry with them from past generations.

2.  Kalpana:  Believes diversity is about different thoughts, ideas, and experiences along with race, ethnicity, religion, and genders.  She also believe everyone has a culture and every culture is different by how families live and what they have experienced and choose to continue.

3.  Wendy:  She believes diversity is about different cultures coming together.  She believes diversity also has to do with people’s skin color, the foods they eat, and from where they came.

 From the aforementioned definitions of culture and diversity there are many aspects of what I have learned culture and diversity to be from this course.  I have learned that people perceive culture and diversity mostly from what they see on the surface.  Only one person I asked about culture and diversity included individual thoughts, ideas, and experiences, which go beneath the surface of appearances.  I think our society still needs to gain better insights as to how complex culture and diversity are instead mainly believing culture and diversity has to do with one’s skin color and/or race. 

One aspect of culture and diversity that has been omitted is a person’s abilities.  People are all unique in what they can do and what they can offer, whether they are considered to have a disability or not.  Also, not considered was economic class, gender, daily living, and sexual orientation. 

Through these definitions of diversity, I continue to be amazed of how people view diversity and culture.  These views, for the most part, seem superficial to me.  Only the “tip of the iceberg” views.  I think we need to be educated more on how complex and multifaceted culture and diversity truly is in the lives of each individual.   Dominant culture also strongly influences many cultures and so I believe the thinking about such a topic is influences our definitions, for the most part.