I asked each of them the following questions: How do you define culture? How do you define diversity?
Here are their responses:
De'Ana- Culture is the establishment of a person or a group who share a similar background, beliefs, behaviors, and goals. Diversity is differences that are broad and eclectic.
McKenna- Culture is the belief, teachings, and understandings of a particular group of people within a community or unit that has been past down over time. Diversity is the differences with in each person's culture.
Michele- Culture guides the things you decide to do, your rituals and effect you behavior. Diversity is the differences in people and things.
My reflection:
I discovered the all three people I asked to define culture and diversity found it difficult to answer. These two questions made them think deeply and analyze their perspectives on the two topics. As, they would try and answer the questions other people who were around them felt compelled to responded as well and it sparked quite a debate among people.
Some aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied during this course are included in the answers I received. For example, when defining culture all of them said that culture is includes you beliefs and behaviors and is establish by a group of people. When defining diversity that all agreed that it has to do with differences.
Some aspects of culture and diversity were omitted. Some of the things that were omitted when defining culture was that it includes every single aspect of your life. "It is the way we eat, sleep, talk, play, care for the sick, relate to one another, think about work, arrange our kitchens, and remember our dead" (Derman-Sparks, 2010) (pg. 55). One of the things that were omitted when defining diversity was that diversity is what makes us unique and is an important part of self identity formation (Laureate Education, 2011).
Think about the way other people define diversity and culture has influenced my professional development by helping to see how complex it is to understand and define them. I think that there has been a lack of education that has been provided on the topic and thus adults struggle with understanding it's true meaning on larger scale and look beyond aspects like race, religion, and gender. As, an early childhood professional I believe it our responsibility to introduce concepts of culture and diversity into our curriculum to help build understanding and knowledge about culture and diversity to young children. So that when they grow up they become adults who have develop strong self identity and respect the culture, diversity, and identity of others.
References
Derman-Sparks, L. & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-Bias Education. Washington, DC. National Association fo the Education of Young Children
Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Family cultures: Dynamic interactions [Video file].Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
