EDUC6164 - Week 3 - Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

 

I asked a variety of persons to define the terms diversity and culture.  My sampling group included a male and two female early childhood professionals, a female new to the field of early childhood, a male parent and art teacher, a female parent and employee in the medical profession, and my husband.  Their ages ranged from 21 to 57 years young.  Two of the persons have minimal mental challenges, two have moderate physical challenges.

The definition of culture from all persons referred to traditions and heritage.  One early childhood professional added combined beliefs and knowledge.  A parent defined culture as a transmission of ideas through written, oral, and creative communication.  One artistic person defined culture as different arts, music, tv, drawing, and painting.

The definitions of culture seemed to be understood by most of my sampling group.  All the persons seemed to understand that culture is passed down, in different ways, through a group of people, such as a family.  Culture of a community was omitted.  

The definition of diversity seemed more of a challenge.  The differences of people were frequently mentioned.  The three early childhood professionals extended this statement with a list of differences including color, beliefs, ideas, gender, religion, height, weight, opinions and food.   Those not trained in the early childhood field could only mention the word differences, but could not elaborate.

The diversity of mental, emotional, learning, behavior and physical abilities were omitted by all persons in my sampling group.  This surprised me, as three of my responses came from people who have at least one of these disabilities.  Also omitted were class, language, education, age and sexual orientation. 

I realize, by sampling families of my child care, that many parents were not comfortable answering the questions on the definitions of diversity and culture.  The two families that did answer struggled with the term diversity.  One parent took the words home, and returned with definitions that obviously had been internet searched.  The early childhood professionals had an understanding of both words.  This exercise has pointed out the need for parental training, and the success of early childhood training.