COMR2010 Cultural Diversity a Personal Perspective

Consider in your response key ideas/ concepts from resources (and referring to authors using APA referencing).

Relate your workplace or region to issues presented in the prompt.

Articulate the significance of your learning (why it matters).

Identify how you can use your learning, especially in relation to personal, social and professional contexts.

I believe there is always a longing amongst the humans to be able to feel belonged, we all long to belong to a family, a group of friends or a cultural heritage.  Neither do we wish to be left alone, nor do we wish to associate ourselves with too many people, except what rightfully belongs to us. Each one of us associate with, and subscribe to a set of ideals, norms, beliefs and attitudes endorsed by the culture we belong to (Tjosvold, 2017). While a feeling of togetherness and harmony amongst the members of the same cultural group is indeed desirable, our inclination to relate to a particular worldview only, and to deny the norms, ideals and belief system of any other cultural group can cause conflict at workplace.

As an international student, I have come to Australia for completing my higher studies, and since the time of my arrival, I have discovered a variety of things about Australian culture that I was not primarily aware of. In my own country, we had a very polite and extremely formal culture, especially in academic institutions and workplaces. However, in Australia, I was both surprised as well as amazed to find a way too informal culture, where the students were freely allowed and rather encouraged to exchange their ideas, opinions and suggestions with the teachers. Since I was coming from a completely different nation, during the initial phase, I used to get perplexed and often disturbed, when I used to discover that often my actions and behaviour, that are intrinsic to my existence and cultural orientation, are interpreted in a wrong way here.

I am coming from a nation that enjoys a highly collective culture, and consequently I would most often refer to my family members while recalling any incident of the past (Thomas & Peterson 2017). However, here in Australia, people are more individualistic in their day to day affairs, and at times, they prefer to remain with friends only that astonished me. I could not relate to how things were, and started feeling upset. Since I came in a foreign land, and I found majority of the people behaving in different ways, I stated feeling alienated, and felt that there must be something wrong with me. However, gradually I started realizing that the Australians are inherently different from us, simply because it is a different country its cultural orientation and cultural norms and ideals are different, consequently making its people different.

Soon I started realizing that I should appreciate the diversity of cultures, and identify what is good in it. I have learnt to be more forthcoming, open-minded, hard-working, after my stay in Australia, and leading a life with humour, and having no hierarchical relation with anyone at workplace or in college, are the added advantages (Luo, 2016). This learning experience had been such a fulfilling experience for me. Even unknown to me, I always held parochial thoughts, whereby I had previously failed to appreciate the importance of other cultures or identify their goodness (DiAngelo & Sensoy, 2014).

I believe that living in the era of globalization, there is no point in upholding the values of one’s own cultural background, remaining ignorant of the existence of other cultural perspectives. This learning experience has turned out to be an invaluable resource for me, that have taught me that the careful observation of a foreign culture helps in expanding the horizon of cultural  knowledge , enhancing the individual’s ability to accept and embrace other cultural perspectives. From next time onwards, I would try to be less resistant towards a different cultural perspective, and would like to apply acquired cultural knowledge of a different culture, in learning something, or exploring new things about the culture.  

Reference List:

DiAngelo, R., & Sensoy, Ö. (2014). Getting slammed: White depictions of race discussions as arenas of violence. Race Ethnicity and Education, 17(1), 103-128.

Luo, Y. (2016). Toward a reverse adaptation view in cross-cultural management. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 23(1), 29-41.

Thomas, D. C., & Peterson, M. F. (2017). Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts. Sage Publications.

Tjosvold, D. (2017). Cross-cultural management: foundations and future. Routledge.