Cultural Mosiac

Culture Mosaic is a way to describe the different aspects that make up diversity in a society. Everyone has different parts of their lives that come to define who they are and also how society sees them. These different parts are called tiles, which make up a person just as tiles make up a mosaic. Chao and Moon state that the titles can fit into three main categories: demographic, geographic and associative features (Chao 2005). As I examine myself, I can see different tiles that make up my cultural mosaic and how they fall into those three categories.

According to Chao and Moon, demographic tiles, are “physical in nature or inherited from one’s parents and ancestries.” (2005, p. 1129) For me the most obvious in this category is my gender. I’m a female. My race is also pretty obvious as my skin color and lack of accent gives away that I’m a white American. My ethnicity though is something that can’t be told from my outward appearance. My ethnicity is a grab bag of things, including Dutch, German, Irish and Native American. This is what we know so far. I’m currently researching family history so I may find out more whirl doing that. I’m also 25 years old. I think for my appearance one might guess that I’m in my 20s.

The second category for titles to be filed under is geographic. Geographic refers to “physical features of a region, whether they are natural or human-made” (Chao 2005, p. 1130). For myself, I live in a cold climate; Grand Rapids, MI. Although we do have some summer and some very hot days, it seems to be more often cold than hot. The cold temperature puts in me a minority group of people who loved 85+ degree days with high humidity, because it beats the hypothermia-inducing cold of Michigan. We are surrounded by The Great Lakes. These lakes and smaller inland lakes are easily found within a short distance of almost anywhere in Michigan. This makes me a swimmer and not afraid of water. As mentioned previously, I live in Grand Rapids, MI. I have never lived outside of it. Grand Rapids is a big-small town. By big-small town I mean that its small enough that residents know a good amount of people here, but big enough that it has a slight big-city feel to it. It is also a very diverse city, which gives me the opportunity to interact with many people who have different cultural mosaics than my own. This is something I have been doing ever since elementary school.

The last category is associative. This category is made up of “all groups with whom an individual choose to identify” (Chao 2005, p. 1131). For me this means big family, still married parents, Christian Reformed, Army sister, Library staff member, ALA member, MLA member, GVSU alumni, GVSU Libraries staff member.

Using associative, geographic and demographic as categories to help sort through one’s personal titles can help to sort out who one is. When discussing culture and diversity it is important to take a broader approach. Rather than looking at one aspect of a person, such as race, it’s important to look at everything that makes up a person. Using the cultural mosaic that Chao and Moon developed helps to look at each person as a whole.

Source:

Chao, G. T., & Moon, H. (2005). The Cultural Mosiac: A Metatheory for Understanding the Complexity of Culture. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 1128-1140.