Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

The three people I chose to interview about diversity and culture were my husband, my 16 year old daughter and a parent from the Safety Town program that I just finished teaching.  I chose my husband because of his knowledge and background in social studies and interest in other cultures.  I chose my daughter because she is very intelligent and mature for her age and has already expressed a great deal of her views about how people are treated based on their cultures and differences.  I chose the parent from Safety Town because she is of a different culture than I but so are my husband and daughter but I already know them pretty well.  The parent that I interviewed had a wonderful conversation this week about her family's culture and I thought it would be interesting to post her perspective.

My husband, Marc, comes from a family of mostly German, Scottish and English descent and grew up in a rural town of Southeast Iowa. 

*Marc's definition of culture is:  "Characteristics that make a group
  unique" (Personal communication, 2013).
*Marc's definition of diversity is:  "Those characteristics of a people that are
  different within a society" (Personal communication, 2013).

My daughter, Alexandra, comes a family with German, Scottish and English descent from her father's family and Greek and Italian from my family.  She was born in the suburbs of Chicago and grew up in the suburbs until she was in 4th grade and then moved to rural towns in Iowa.

*Alexandra's definition of culture is:  "Beliefs, practices, and traditions that
  define a group of people" (Personal communication, 2013).
*Alexandra's definition of diversity is:  "Differences within a group, i.e., belief
  system, ethnicity, gender, social class, race, sexual orientation, and family
  structure" (Personal communication, 2013).

The parent that I interviewed was Viana Suleiman.  Her oldest daughter was a volunteer teen mentor for the Safety Town Program that I coordinate for 4-6 year olds for two weeks in the summer.  Her youngest daughter came to the Safety Town program.  Viana and her family are from Palestine and moved to the United States 10 years ago.

*Viana's definition of culture is:  "Beliefs and traditions that are passed
   on to you from your own family, country and religion" (Personal communication).
*Viana's definition of diversity is:  "Those characteristics about you that make
   you different from others such as religion, culture beliefs and values, color of
   skin, and family traditions" (Personal communication, 2013).

I found it interesting that these three individuals used words like unique characteristics, group defining, and beliefs and traditions passed on to define culture because these words define the three dimensions of cultural identity:  how the cultural group shapes the way we live (beliefs), how we express our cultural group (group defining, characteristics), and decisions we make to determine which elements we will keep for our own cultural identity (passing on characteristics) (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2008).

An aspect that was omitted from these definitions was the distinction that although people may belong to or identify with a certain group, people might not take on all of the characteristics, beliefs and values of that group (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2008).

When I talked to my husband, he stated that it was easy for him to come up with the definitions because of his background in history and social studies.  My husband actually started the conversation with Viana before I came over to talk to her because he was so interested in her background. 

When I talked to my daughter it was like having an everyday conversation with because her and I have conversations every day about diversity and I found her to be very knowledgeable about the subject for such a young person.  My daughter is often the underdog for those who are oppressed and stands up for everyone being respected regardless of their cultural identity.

The parent, Viana, was very interesting to talk to because she shared a great deal about her culture with my husband and I and was open to any questions we were willing to ask. One story that Viana shared that stuck with me was that as part of her culture that she decided to keep was to wear a head scarf to cover her head.  She has a beautiful, colorful head scarf and she told me that is how her neighbors know who she is: "I'm the lady with the head scarf that lives down the street."  She told me that she tries not to feel offended because she knows her neighbors were not intentionally being mean and she is able to have a sense of humor when people do not understand her culture.  I enjoyed getting to know more about her family in just a short time.

I realized that after talking to three very different people of gender and age and culture, people's perspectives on culture and diversity can be very dependent on their environmental exposure to these topics. Keeping that in mind, it is even more important than ever for early childhood educators to establish positive rapports with the children and families in their care in order to learn more about their cultural identities in order to provide a classroom environment where children and families will feel safe and comfortable to talk about cultures and differences in a non-threatening productive way.  Creating these relationships also empowers children and their families to educate others about their own cultural identity which can lead to many interesting and valuable conversations.

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and

ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).