Diversity Considerations

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of culture on attitudes, values, perception, human behavior, and interpersonal relations. The discriminatory factors that promote societal, political, socioeconomic, and spiritual oppression of culturally diverse populations will also be illustrated in this paper. The paper would further examine the racial and cultural diversity within non-native English-speaking communities. Moreover, this paper will also analyze how current research may positively impact the delivery of public safety and enhance the evaluation of information and resources.

Lastly the chosen articles used for this paper will be evaluated on the basis of their reliability and credibility.

Influence of culture on attitudes, values, perception, human behavior, and interpersonal relations The behavior, values, perceptions, and attitudes of different human beings are greatly influenced by their experience as well as their genetic inheritance. The ways in which different people are developed are formed by the social circumstances and experiences within the context of their innate genetic potentials. The question remains that how hereditary potential and experience serve their roles in developing the behavior, values, perceptions, and attitudes of a human being.

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All human beings are born into specific cultural and social settings and ultimately develop several social connections. The characteristics of a person’s cultural settings greatly influence the way they learn to behave and think, by means of example, punishments, rewards, and instructions. In addition, the culturally induced behavioral patterns, like forms of humor, body language, and speech patterns, become so profoundly embedded in the mindset of human beings that they frequently operate without the people themselves being completely aware regarding them.

All the various cultures include a slightly different mesh of meanings and patterns; attitudes towards different cultures, expectations for behavior, customs and habits in arts, clothing, foods, and religions, social roles, systems of government and trade, ways of earning a living, and values and beliefs regarding each of these activities (Chan, et.al, 2012). What is perceived as acceptable human behavior is different in different religions and in different periods of time. All the cultural and social groups have typically accepted varieties of behavior for their members, with possibly some particular standards for subgroups, like children and adults, males and females, athletes and artists. Atypical behaviors might be considered either simply distasteful or amusing, or punishably illegal. A behavior considered as normal in one culture might be considered as deplorable in some other religion. For instance, assertively competitive behavior is perceived as arrogant in exceedingly cooperative cultures. On the other hand, a lack of interest in competition might be considered as being out of step in many subcultures of an exceedingly competitive society, for instance, the US.

It is widely accepted that the expectations, understandings, customs, rules, roles, and norms of interactions in interpersonal relationships are mainly marked out and transmitted by culture and cultural factors. However, it has been found that the cultural influences greatly extend from the expression and interpretation of interpersonal relationships. It has further been found that culture not only influences the internal but external aspects of interpersonal relationships as well. For instance, there is significant evidence which indicates cultural variations in the demonstrations of emotions and feelings underlying interpersonal relationships (Crisp & Turner, 2011).

Discriminatory factors that promote societal, political, socioeconomic, and spiritual domination of culturally diverse populations

Race

Racism may be defined as the unconscious or the conscious belief in the dominance of one race over some other race. This definition presumes the existence of various biological races, specifically the human genome project. Nevertheless, despite that race is evidently a social construct; racism is still widespread all across the globe. In spite of the fact that a very small number of people now remain to believe in a superior race having an innate right to practice power over the ones that are considered as inferior; there are a lot of people who still exercise ethnocentrism or racism. They believe that some of their known cultures have some sort of superiority over some others and also that some customs, traditions, cultures, and histories are not appropriately compatible with theirs. Any sort of racism is related to power and the powerful people usually determine what is superior and discriminate against people who have less power. For this reason, racism may be considered as the practical translation of discrimination into action (Chan, et.al, 2012).

Ethnicity

Discrimination, as with cultural racism, on the basis of culture and ethnicity considers some minorities and cultures as intrinsically undesirable or inferior. Hostility or Anti-Semitism toward Jews as an ethnic or religious minority persists from the medieval times when the Jews were generally the only non-Christian minority that existed in Europe. Jews, expelled from their nations or murdered, stripped of property, penalized with high taxes, compelled for living in ghettos secluded from the Christians, and generally forbidden from practising majority of the professions and trades, strived for hundreds of years against prejudice and injustice of the Christian societies.

Xenophobia

As a response to the increasing diversity and globalization in the society, many individuals respond with xenophobia that refers to the aversion or fear to foreign countries or foreigners. The concept of foreign in majority of the cases depends on the ideas and images constructed socially, which reduces the globe to “us”, “them”, “good ones like me”, and “the normal”, the others who are distinctive: a disruption, a threat demonstrating a degradation of appropriate behavior and values. Despite that majority of the individuals consider xenophobia as generally acceptable and in contradiction with the human rights culture; it is not atypical. Discriminations on the basis of xenophobia, for instance acts of violence and verbal abuse, are evidently the violations of human rights (Correa, 2000).

Gender

Gender discrimination is quite pervasive in our society. Schools, childcare institutions, family, media, and other societal institutions transmit and preserve stereotypes regarding women and men. In the Western societies, conventional gender traits are frequently related to power – men and their specific activities are classified as influential, public oriented, important, brave, productive, strong, outgoing, and having increased value, social recognition, and monetary rewards. On the other hand, it is widely believed that the main traits of women include; family-oriented, caring, dependent, and passive.

Religion

The boom of Islamophobia is of specific concern these days and since ever, which refers to the discrimination, hatred and fear of Islam, and that is the most common religion in Western countries after Christianity. The antagonism toward Islam following the terrorist attacks on targets in England, Spain, and the US during the past years has unveiled deep rooted discriminations in majority of the Western countries. Amongst the most widespread public expressions of the discrimination is the rejection of being authorized to construct mosques, a scarcity of official recognition of Islam as a religion, restraints on girls and women on wearing the headscarf, and failure in supporting facilities for the religious communities or groups of Muslims (Crisp & Turner, 2011).

Sexual orientation

Homophobia refers to hatred for or aversion to homosexual people, lesbians or gays, or their cultural backgrounds, or typically to individuals having a different sexual orientation, counting in the transgendered and bisexual individuals. Despite that the legal reforms in a number of Western nations have greatly reinforced the human rights of lesbians and gays; there is a great variation in conditions. This ranges from the urban regions wherein homosexual individuals work and live openly, and also from the civil unions having rather less difficulty, to the rural regions and areas of Central and Eastern Europe wherein gays might follow harassment, discriminatory laws, and even aggression as a psychological disorder, a disease, or even an ethical offense. The heterosexual norms are unconsciously or consciously applied by several others to lesbians and gays, faulting them for being unsuccessful in conforming to the types of behavior expected of normal individuals.

Disability

It is misconceived by a number of individuals that individuals having disabilities may not be productive members of the society. The major negative attitudes either include that the individuals having disabilities are sick or broken and need healing or fixing, or even that are good for nothing and require being cared of (Correa, 2000).

Racial and cultural diversity within non-native English-speaking communities People belonging to different linguistic backgrounds face a number of issues in their daily lives. For the fact that culture and language are entwined, language minority individuals are anticipated to use and learn the novel cultural dispositions and the novel language in an effective and efficient manner. This novel culture and language is diverse from what they have learned at home. Despite that the United States is amongst the most diversified nations of the world, there are some languages which are widely employed like Spanish and English.

English is the global language which a good majority if individuals employ for communicating in the United States and specifically for global interrelationships. Despite that a number of non native English speakers seek for English language classes in their nations and communities prior to migrating to any Anglophone nation for the purpose of making it convenient for them to intermingle and interact with others, there are many amongst them who yet strive when they face up the reality of interacting with an actual Anglophone. Such people are then discriminated and criticized in various walks of their life. For this reason, the society compels them for improving their communication skills to their earliest (Correa, 2000).

Positive impact of current research on the delivery of public safety and evaluation of information and resources The current research contributes to the delivery of public health by enhancing the knowledge base regarding the factors promoting cultural discrimination in our society. Previous studies related to similar constructs have been explored and analyzed in depth which helped in analyzing the impact of cultural diversity and discrimination on various groups and communities existing in the society. Furthermore, the study contributes towards increasing awareness amongst diversified cultural groups and minorities regarding the influence of culture on attitudes, values, perception, human behavior, and interpersonal relations. In addition, this research paved the way for cultural harmony in societies that are exceedingly culturally diverse. This research give power to the communities and individuals to meet the challenges allied to the economic, cultural, and social inequality and discrimination in the society.

Reliability and credibility of the chosen research articles

The reliability and validity of the study are highly important for increasing the credibility and accuracy of the data collected by the researcher. Reliability is referred to the consistency of the data which is achieved when the research instrument gives same results when used again. Moreover, validity is the credibility of the research instrument which checks if it measures what it is supposed to measure. In this study, the reliability of the research method was achieved through matching it with the aims of the study. The sources of data were disclosed in order to have reliable research findings.

The validity of the research instrument was ensured by comparing previous researches which have used the same method. Attempt was made by the research to ascertain that the reliability errors are cut down so that in case disparities are noted in the data, they may be attributed to the intervention rather than sloppy inferences. Furthermore, this research meets the criteria of generalizability or the external validity of the research, which entails if the conclusions derived from the research may be transferred to different groups.

Conclusion

This paper analyzed and explored previous researches related to the topic of this research, that is: cultural diversity. The paper started with the demonstration of the way culture influences on attitudes, values, perception, human behavior, and interpersonal relations. This was followed by the illustrations of the discriminatory factors that promote societal, political, socioeconomic, and spiritual domination of culturally diverse populations. The factors presented in the paper include; race, ethnicity, xenophobia, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and disability.

The last topic of the research content was the racial and cultural diversity existing within non-native English-speaking communities. In the concluding part of the paper, positive impact of current research has also been presented on the delivery of public safety and evaluation of information and resources. Lastly, reliability and credibility of the chosen research articles was presented.

References

Chan, K., Satterfield, T., & Goldstein, J. (2012). “Rethinking ecosystem services to better address and navigate cultural values”. Ecological Economics, Vol. 74, pp. 8-18. Correa, C. (2000), Beyond TRIPs, in D.A. Posey (ed.), “Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity”, London: Intermediate Technology Publications, pp. 533-534 Crisp, R. J., & Turner, R. N. (2011). “Cognitive adaptation to the experience of social and cultural diversity”. Psychological bulletin, Vol. 137(2), pp. 242.