Social Class and Cultural Diversity

What is culture? According to the Oxford dictionary, “Culture is the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.” I’ve always thought culture and social class affected family very little, because I thought each family creates their own culture within a family. It turns out each of our family experiences are influenced in some way by social groups we belong to. Others involve the unique cultures to which we belong. Each influences the family in various ways, most often unseen. Growing up, my own assumptions about what is right and wrong often reflect the beliefs, values, and traditions of my family culture. I first thought of culture affecting a family to be a negative or a bad thing. I thought America's culture of families was negative due to the negative things you hear about on the news. You hear of all this crime and families being destroyed happening all over. It caused me to think our culture in the United States was bad and be negative towards families. I know realize how that's untrue. Because of the culture, my parents were raised in they were able to be influenced by those cultures around them. The culture they were mostly influenced by was the culture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My Father does not practice that faith but because that was the most dominant culture that's what they adapted the most. As a family, we don’t drink, or swear, and try to be good law-abiding citizens. It’s very interesting to me how my dad has adopted or been influenced even though he is not in the faith. It proves to me how much a culture can affect a family as it affected mine. If we are surrounded by a positive culture the more it will help our family. It also seems if they are surrounded by a negative culture it will impact them negatively. Culture is also about traditions and our heritage. My family is dutch and we call our grandparents Beppe (grandma) and Pake (grandpa). We enjoy making meals together and candy to keep in touch with our culture. Family bonding is huge in my family. Social class may also affect a family. In the Oxford dictionary, the definition of social class is a social division in a society based on social and economic status. I wouldn’t say I was in a very high class, but definitely somewhere in the middle. I think that's affected my family a lot and how we interacted with other families around us. I never noticed how it fully affected my family culture until taking a step back and really broke it down. For others Class can affect whether someone is going to be accepted into a particular kind of school, their likelihood of succeeding in that school, the kinds of jobs they have access to, the kinds of friends they make, the degree of status, power, and perks people enjoy or lack in their daily lives. I still believe that nothing is set in stone and we still achieve anything we put our minds to no matter what trials or barriers we have in front of us. But I would be lying if I didn’t believe people had a bigger headstart than others. In summary, the culture and social class that surrounds our families have a huge impact on us. It causes us to create rules or norms that are totally normal for one family but totally different for another family. It may also seem foreign to them. We all have different cultures and need to always be respectful of those cultures.