What is "culture"?
What is "diversity"?
My teen aged daughter answered these questions without much hesitation. She defined culture as the way someone acts because of their ethnicity. Diversity is simply the differences between people. I further examined her as to whether our family is diverse or not. "Of course it is. We are all so different!" To my teenager, cultural diversity would be only one of many types of diversity to be experienced.
My 87-year-old aunt and I had a conversation about her Hungarian family and the one she married into, my dad's Polish family. She described culture as the things each group likes to do. Ethnicity was not so important because boundaries in Eastern European countries are always changing, entire countries disappear, and everyone thinks that the village they are from is better than any village on earth, whether it lies in Poland or in Germany. She believes that my grandfather lived on German soil because of claims to the land, but he spoke Polish. Diversity, she commented, was the mix of us.
My friend from Hong Kong, transplanted to the United States for college and now a die-hard New Yorker, fervently defines culture as that which grows from ethnic heritage. His children are growing up in America, but "they WILL be Chinese as long as I am their father". His thoughts about diversity stem from his experiences as a misunderstood Chinese man, with language and values being the cause for many misunderstandings. (Neither his English nor his Mandarin is very clearly understandable.) He is happy in New York because there is a large Chinese population where he feels comfortable, however, there are clear barriers to diversity as well. In Long Island, he believes that the neighbors mistake him for the landscaper, because he is a "Chinaman" cutting the grass. He is sure that no one believes that he actually owns the house he maintains. His particular neighborhood is not ethnically diverse as in Manhattan. He has chosen a school that is operated in a Chinese neighborhood for his children.
Ethnicity seems to be the major element of culture and diversity, and language has also been discussed. Language is identified in Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves (Derman-Sparks, Edwards, 2010) as a deep culture characteristic and in The Developing Child in the 21st Century (Smidt, 2006), as being closely tied to identity. What I did not hear was the influence of religion, which was a little suprising considering the current wartime climate. Aside from current events, religious differences very often cause stress in relationships at the very least, and large-scale social unrest throughout the world. Religious beliefs are at the very root of one's lifestyle and choices in the activities of daily living. I am most heartened by the response of my teenager, who was quick and definite, in predictable teen style, about the simplicity of culture and diversity, and that even the young with limited life experience can answer these questions with a positive response.
References:
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).
Smidt, S. (2006). The developing child in the 21st century: A global perspective on child development. New York, NY: Routledge
2 comments:
Hi Mary,
I too asked my teenage daughter to define the terms of culture and diversity. She, like your daughter, was very quick to answer. For me, her quick response was influenced by the consistent conversation she has experienced in her life with these topics. It is not a new concept for her to consider and examine our differences in the community. Which makes me wonder how children growing up in more homogenous communities learn about differences in meaningful ways.
Your post showed individuals who stand in very different positions. Your teenage daughter is growing up in this era where diversity is obvious and necessary along with rapid-changing technology that provides her the access to cultures. Your aunt comes from a different culture where culture itself is not as important as possessing land. Then your friend comes from a culture with certain way of thinking and behaving. And, he experiences something quite different.
I think that's a great example of diversity within itself.
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