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Running head: CULTURAL DIVERSITY Impact of history and cultural diversity on work practice- a reflection Name of the Student Name of the University Author Note
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1CULTURAL DIVERSITY Part 1 We can define culture as a complex association of traditions, values, behaviours, beliefs, and material objects. Our cultures are often shared by shared by a large group of people and we pass down the cultures from one generation to the next. Commonalities in social backgrounds suchascommonreligion,language,traditionsandoriginalsoleadtoclassificationor differentiation of people (Forehand & Kotchick, 2016).I was born and brought up in Australia. My parents belong to different cultures. My mother is from Lebanon, which is bounded on the east and north by Syria. My mother’s birth place contains equal proportion of Muslim and Christian population. She is proficient in Arabic. She follows the Beirut accent, which is highly regarded in her community. Owing to her upper middle class family status, she was equally proficient in English. She relocated to Australia during the late 1980s to pursue higher education, following which she met my father. My mother used to live with her family in an apartment in Beirut, a densely populated area. There was an omnipresence of patriarchal religion in her community and women were generally expected to nurture and care for the family (Cleveland, Laroche & Hallab, 2013). However, she was one of those who broke the traditional boundaries and reached Australia to pursue higher education. On the other hand, my father is from Egypt. He belongs to the larger population of Arabic speaking Sunni Muslims. There were few Christian minorities in his homeland who were generally Catholic or Protestants. He lived in Upper Egypt and is extremely proficient in English. My father had also learnt French as a foreign language during his high school days. He shifted to Australia after 1982, after receiving a job. Showing accordance to his cultural traditions, he is always considered to have more power in the household than my mother and is responsible for making the major decisions. My parents got married after they met each other in Australia. Their
2CULTURAL DIVERSITY religiousbeliefsaresimilar.BothofthemwerepracticingSunniMuslims.Theethnic backgrounds of my parents have built in us the central belief of oneness of God. We are monotheistic and consider Koran to be the word of God. Our cultural background has inculcated in us the belief that souls exist before birth and after death. Although polygamy is legal among our community, my parents are strictly against it and hold it as a social stigma. However, they are not conservative. Furthermore, the domestic units in my father’s culture regardedmarriage as historically patrilocal where the bride had to move to the household of her husband. However, my parents established a new place of residence in Australia after getting married. They have been living in Western Sydney for more than 25 years.Our religion advocates for the division of property of a dead person among his heirs and surviving spouse. Although, male heirs are usually preferred over females in receiving shares that are twice as large, my father does not believe in this custom and has mentioned that we all siblings are equally inheritors of his belongings (Krishna-Hensel, 2016). Thus, I can state that I and my sister have not been raised by conservative parents. They are usually moderates. My cultural background believes in modest dressing in public and all female members of our family wear a head scarf to cover the hair and ears.My parents helped in enhancing our literacy levels by teaching us English as the first language. English is the language we speak at home. They often communicate with our relatives in Arabic. Although, I and my sisters are able to understand the language well, we tend to make a lot of mistakes while speaking it and need to work upon improving our mother tongue. In addition, they generally follow the principles of peaceful parenting (Coates, 2015). On most occasions they allow me to do what I intend to, but only when they are convinced enough that my demands are justifiable. They do not succumb to the give-in style of parenting and set
3CULTURAL DIVERSITY limits with empathy. This gave me an opportunity to evaluate my wrong demands and helps me to manage self-behaviour.They have helped in defining age-appropriate boundaries for me and have inculcated in me the habit of knowing my own limitations. They trust me completely and are certain of the fact that a parent-child relationship always hinges on mutual trust. They believe that I am well aware of my personal boundaries and am responsible enough to take ownership of my own feelings. They have adopted a mini-democracy system at our home where we siblings are allowed to voice or opinion our thoughts on a particular matter. Middle Eastern parenting values generally emphasize on setting restrictions, permissiveness and strict discipline among children at an early age. Moreover, this culture generally relies on placing high demands over the children and keep girls under heavy scrutiny (Khurshid, 2015). Unlike this authoritarian parenting style of the culture to which my parents belong, they have always focused on interdependence and have built a healthy and trusting relationship among the family members. Sitting down for dinner together strengthens our family bonding and provides a sense of security and belonging. It helps me to relieve my stress and also assists in adoption of healthy food choices. We usually follow a month of fasting for the Ramadan and alsocelebrate the Ester and Christmas season with our neighbours and friends. I have been taught to show signs of respect to seniors and use special terms to address them.My parents have adopted the practice of allowing personal and psychological space to us siblings, which immensely helps us in dealing with challenges and enhancing our thinking and physical capacities. Their moderate supervision on our activities have made it easier to talk to them about situations that require help.
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4CULTURAL DIVERSITY Part 2 My parents admitted me to a private Islamic school in our community. I did not face any kind of racial or religious discrimination during my schooling years. However, I did face avoidance from my peers at University for wearing the head-scarf or hijab. The human rights of all nations outline the rules that it is the birth right of all women to practise their religion (Butler & Tavits, 2017). Women are always entitled with the prerogative of not being harassed due to perceptions that are related to their religion, ethnicity or nationality(Schachner, Noack, Van de Vijver & Eckstein, 2016). Public facilities, education and places of employment are the three major areas where women are discriminated for wearing hijabs. Further, majority of my classmates who were non-Muslims did not approach me during groupactivities, which were a part of our curriculum. Such religion-based discrimination resulted in inequalities. This created a personal dissatisfaction and I sat at the rear of the classroom during tutorials. Discrimination often leads to absenteeism, loss of attachment, lack of motivation and commitment among the people belonging to various cultural, racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. This made me select my class times based on the presence of my friends as they would always help in relieving my awkwardness of not knowing the other classmates who isolated me. I often used to be called names and that created a huge mental stress. Strong evidences suggest the association between race-based discrimination and mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety and ill health (Benner & Graham, 2013). Presently, I work at a medical practice located in Liverpool. The place represents the multicultural Australian heritage and as seen a recent upsurge in the number of Syrian refuges due to government resettlement programs.
5CULTURAL DIVERSITY In order to engage in effective conversations with them, I had to rework on my Arabic language skills. This created as a major problem as I was only able to communicate in broken Arabic. Consequently, I faced the wrath and disdain from the Arabic-speaking refugees, who were displeasured with my language speaking inabilities. People are most often comfortable in communicating in their own language and face difficulties in learning new languages (Almutairi, McCarthy & Gardner, 2015). Different cultures have various ways of assigning meanings to the words. This creates misunderstandings among people at the workplace who belong to different linguistic backgrounds. These cultural differences become common source of conflict and result inworkplaceissuesanddisagreements(Crawford,Candlin&Roger,2017).Effective communicationtherefore becamedifficult. Inorder to avoid miscommunicationwith the patients, I strictly adopted a professional approach and tried to prevent disagreements. I also relied on non-verbal communications to understand their problems (Romero, Edwards, Fryberg & Orduña, 2014). I had been brought up to be a non-conflict person and usually agreed to other’s thoughts in order to appease them. However, of late I have become quite submissive when tense situations arise even at home. This recent change of my behavior can be attributed to the fact that I dread taking care of aggressive patients. My position in the workplace requires me to maintain utmost composure when a patient explodes or yells at the services. Further, I need to understand the issues being faced by the patient that leads to such an aggressive behavior. My family traditions, cultures and attitudes that have been inculcated during my growing up years have probably instilled this trait in my personality. It is imperative for social workers to have a sound knowledge of the cultures of the clients (Messarra, 2014). Competence should be demonstrated
6CULTURAL DIVERSITY in the provisions of care-giving services, which identifies the cultures that are sensitive to the existence of the clients. Regardlessofethnic,racial,socioeconomic,orreligiousdifferences,collaborative relationshipsshouldbeestablishedinaworkplace(Velliaris&Pierce,2017).Cultural competence in a workforce therefore involved a set of congruent attitudes, behaviors, and policies, which come together in the form of a system that leads to effective work outputs cross- cultural situations. A sound understanding of the diverse cultures, traditions, values, and history is not just related to political correctness (Pieterse, Van Knippenberg & Van Dierendonck, 2013). It is integral for the elimination of health-care disparities and high quality patient care (Brice, Chu & Brice, 2017). Cultural diversities usually shape the perceptions, experiences, and decisions of person in relation to the environment. Such diversity influence the response of the people involved to external stimuli (medical services and preventive interventions in this case). In addition, cultural humility forms the heart of awareness related to prejudices, biases, and privileges. It is often egalitarian and collaborative. A self examination of such biases and prejudices is crucial for the development of an effective workplace (Wang, De Graaff & Nijkamp, 2016). The positive aspects of cultural diversity help in analyzing matter from different perspectives (Vangen & Winchester, 2014). To summarise, I can state that exploring cultural competency, understanding the role of language and respecting the religious or traditional views of a person belonging to a particular background will help in fostering a work culture, which promotes respect for difference.
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7CULTURAL DIVERSITY References Almutairi, A. F., McCarthy, A., & Gardner, G. E. (2015). Understanding cultural competence in a multicultural nursing workforce: registered nurses’ experience in Saudi Arabia.Journal of Transcultural Nursing,26(1), 16-23.https://doi.org/10.1177/1043659614523992 Benner, A. D., & Graham, S. (2013). The antecedents and consequences of racial/ethnic discriminationduringadolescence:Doesthesourceofdiscrimination matter?.Developmental Psychology,49(8), 1602.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0030557 Brice, W. D., Chu, E., & Brice, A. (2017). Culture-Based Rejection of Taboo-Infringing Imports.InternationalJournalofManagementandEconomics,53(3),67-81. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1515/ijme-2017-0019 Butler, D. M., & Tavits, M. (2017). Does the Hijab Increase Representatives’ Perceptions of Social Distance?.The Journal of Politics,79(2), 727-731.https://doi.org/10.1086/690817 Cleveland, M., Laroche, M., & Hallab, R. (2013). Globalization, culture, religion, and values: ComparingconsumptionpatternsofLebaneseMuslimsandChristians.Journalof Business Research,66(8), 958-967.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.12.018 Coates, C. A. (2015). The parenting coordinator as peacemaker and peacebuilder.Family Court Review,53(3), 398-406.DOI:10.1111/fcre.12161 Crawford, T., Candlin, S., & Roger, P. (2017). New perspectives on understanding cultural diversityinnurse–patientcommunication.Collegian,24(1),63-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2015.09.001
8CULTURAL DIVERSITY Forehand, R., & Kotchick, B. A. (2016). Cultural Diversity: A Wake-Up Call for Parent Training–RepublishedArticle.Behaviortherapy,47(6),981-992. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2016.11.010 Khurshid, A. (2015). Islamic traditions of modernity: Gender, class, and Islam in a transnational women’seducationproject.Gender&Society,29(1),98-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243214549193 Krishna-Hensel, S. F. (Ed.). (2016).Religion, education and governance in the Middle East: betweentraditionandmodernity.Routledge,10-13.Retrievedfrom: https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y- rsCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=lebanon+culture+religion&ots=7iHG4qaoej&sig= NFRGRm5VlPeawax-Dzhd7L37zeI#v=onepage&q=lebanon%20culture %20religion&f=false Messarra, L.C. (2014).Religiousdiversityatwork:The perceptualeffectsof religious discrimination on employee engagement and commitment.Contemporary Management Research,10(1), 59. doi:10.7903/cmr.12018 Pieterse, A. N., Van Knippenberg, D., & Van Dierendonck, D. (2013). Cultural diversity and team performance: The role of team member goal orientation.Academy of Management Journal,56(3), 782-804.doi:10.5465/amj.2010.0992 Romero,A.J.,Edwards,L.M.,Fryberg,S.A.,&Orduña,M.(2014).Resilienceto discrimination stress across ethnic identity stages of development.Journal of Applied Social Psychology,44(1), 1-11.DOI:10.1111/jasp.12192
9CULTURAL DIVERSITY Schachner, M. K., Noack, P., Van de Vijver, F. J., & Eckstein, K. (2016). Cultural diversity climate and psychological adjustment at school—equality and inclusion versus cultural pluralism.Child development,87(4), 1175-1191. DOI:10.1111/cdev.12536 Vangen, S., & Winchester, N. (2014). Managing Cultural Diversity in Collaborations: A focus onmanagementtensions.PublicManagementReview,16(5),686-707. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2012.743579 Velliaris, D. M., & Pierce, J. M. (2017). Cultural Diversity: Misconceptions, Misinterpretations, and Misunderstandings in the Classroom. InIntercultural Responsiveness in the Second Language Learning Classroom(pp. 84-105). IGI Global. DOI:10.4018/978-1-5225- 2069-6.ch006 Wang, Z., De Graaff, T., & Nijkamp, P. (2016). Cultural diversity and cultural distance as choice determinantsofmigrationdestination.SpatialEconomicAnalysis,11(2),176-200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17421772.2016.1102956