Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

For this blog assignment I interviewed my husband, my mother, and my friend.  Below are two questions that I asked each person and their responses:

Their definition of culture:
                          Husband-A person's way of life
                          Mother-Ethnicity and surroundings in which they are raised 
                          Friend-a person's countries traditional clothing, dances, customs.
Their definition of diversity:
                          Husband-Different backgrounds
                          Mother-Everything that is different or varied
                          Friend-changing or going against the "norm"

We have studied a variety of ways culture can be looked at such as it is related to various subgroups like ethnicity such as my mom mentioned and my friend.  We also studied about how culture is tied to a person's family and surroundings such as mentioned by my husband.  All of the definitions of culture that I received, in some way, can be found in , Diversity in Early Care and Education by Gonzalez-Mena.  I honestly feel that most individuals have some perception of what culture means just may not realize that there is more to the definition.  My mom for example thinks of specific ethnicity groups and their traditions specific to those groups which is common and true.  But culture is more than just ethnicity, it involves economic class, gender, sexual preference, religion, education and more.  

Diversity has one main theme, difference.  When I asked my husband about diversity, he paused and replied, different backgrounds.  My friend referred to the change against what is considered normal.  This idea is mentioned in  Diversity in Early Care and Education by Gonzalez-Mena.  Some see diversity as something possibly going against what they consider normal.  But what is "normal"?  

With both definitions, all my parties did not come up with a "complete" definition.  For example, none of them mentioned gender or religion.  I am not sure I knew a complete definition of culture until I began my studies at Walden University.  My mom and my husband both had trouble even defining either concept because putting it into words is a lot harder than one thinks. 

This exercise has been beneficial to me because it made me realize that I am not the only one who has trouble defining  these concepts and that knowing and understanding these concepts is important for me as an educator so I can bring knowledge to my students as well as know how to best approach the parents.  

References:
 Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2008). Diversity in Early Care and Education (5th ed., pp. 8–13). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.
Copyright 2008 by McGraw-Hill Education, Inc.. Reprinted by permission of McGraw-Hill Education, Inc. via the Copyright Clearance Center.

My Family Culture

This week's post is something that my husband talks about frequently due the large amount of zombie shows!  I on the other hand do not like to talk about it because it scares me that my children could be in a situation like that.
If a catastrophic event occured and I could only bring three items that represented my family culure, they would be:
      1.  Our family Bible- because it is the word of God our guiding light in which we live by and it has our family tree listed within the pages to show our family heritage.  I would explain that this item is important because it is the only item that contains our only written family history to remember where we came from.
      2.  Our Family photos-because they are our documented memories.  I would explain that these are important to our family because we sit and remember the events that we have done and shared.
      3.  My husband's guitar-this represents our music in our family.  We sing as a family and enjoy music.  It provides a wonderful outlet for us as a family and would be beneficial in a time like this.

If I had to choose only one item once arrived I would be devistated because I had already reduced everything to three items.  On the other hand, I would be thankful to be alive with my children and husband.  I would choose to keep the Bible because it is our guiding principles and documented family heritage.

This exercise has made me reflect on what I consider important and that would best represent us as a family.  Very tough to reduce everything we have to three items, on the other hand, most of what my family is....is literally us.  We represent our family culture and even if we had to leave everything, we would be our examples of our family culture.