Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Abstract

As an individual, I have always valued diversity. The blending of different cultures has always been a part of my reality because of the environment where people from different tribes, ethnicity, and religion lived together in harmony. Growing up in Nigeria, the different tribes of my country were able to co-exist, more than that, they often shared the information about their different beliefs. The sharing of the different cultures helped foster a community that was accepting of people regardless of what made them different. Moving to the United States, I experienced a culture shock because I was in a new environment where difference is not celebrated, but actually comes with hostility and culture division. This realization was tough to accept. Knowing the history of the United States, I curious to understand why people were not as accepting of each other, a reality different from what I experienced coming from a different country. Through my communication studies classes, I became more aware of the roles cultural identities played in how we interact with each other. I was also more aware that good communication is the key to fostering community. Because of this, I decided to explore this topic to understand how our social identities played a role in how we communicate the differences we had. To do this, I read multiple research papers who shared my desire to bridge our community; I explore political correctness, cultural competence, cultural humility, and why difference matter. I also interviewed fifteen individuals to get their insight and have an answer to my main research question which is "what needs to happen to help people be able to communicate better about the difference?

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