Cultural Diversity in the Public Sector Research Paper

Cultural Diversity in the Public Sector - Research Paper Example Not that the phrase ‘culture’ was not clarified, but ambiguities and dissimilar opinions began to turn up. It was in the year 1980, when Rappaport defined culture as â€Å"†¦a part of the distinctive means by which a local population maintains itself in an ecosystem and by which a regional population maintains and coordinates its groups and distributes them over the available land.† (233) Now that we have been provided with a verified characterization of culture, the question that still arises is â€Å"What does culture mean to US?† Everybody might have dissimilar responses, but collectively, the norms and traditions of living which have been passed down by our ancestors form our culture. When studying Sociology we can perceive that the term culture holds grand importance when referring to the society and its nature. Hence, the cultural nature of the society can be understood by studying its relation with the individuals who form it. What is ‘cul tural diversity’ or ‘cultural disparity’? Being an aggregate, it would be difficult for any society to grasp the answer, because when a mass of individuals (dependant/ independent) join together there ought to be a discrepancy in the outlook and beliefs, but if we review the previous expression we can discern that it itself is the answer to the former question. Therefore, culture diversity can be characterized as ‘the state of sheer conflict amongst different (sub) cultures of a civilization on the basis of language, customs, beliefs, ideas, norms and values. Cultural disparity is also known as racial or ethnic disparity. The two basic ingredients which shape a society and its components include the government (which wheels the societal set up and management) and the public sector (which practices the system provided by the regime). Hence, when people belonging to various cultural backgrounds begin holding and practicing their very own cultural ideals and b ecome badly informed of the reciprocal correspondence they have with other people, within the society and the organism of government, cultural diversity is at its dawn and it widens. For this reason, Stephen Tierney has also named this dilemma as ‘Multiculturalism’ or ‘Cultural Pluralism’ as he explains that the common factor which the struggles of this problem have is that ‘they reject earlier models of unitary, homogenous nation-state.’ (17) To understand the validity of cultural diversity in the public sector, we better comprehend the relationship between culture and the public sector, foremost. Culture and the public sector share a reciprocal relationship. This give-and-take relationship works with the mechanism that when a cultural reform or change is brought in the society, the rate of acceptance of change increases whereas when a cultural conflict begins to grow the pace of keenness and deliberateness decreases in the society and an unre st is up heaved in all aspects of the society i.e. economic, political, religious and most importantly institutional. â€Å"Culture is the product of learning, rather than of heredity†, says George Peter Murdock (113). Therefore, the problem of cultural diversity depends majorly on the fact how the society adapts to it and how it demands its solution, as this problem is not only developed by the socio cultural conflict but also due to many other un-proportionate reasons. This may or may not include the institutional environment, social stratification, political set up also the intra-cooperation techniques and many other facets to be laid. Cultural diversity leads a society towards havoc and devastation as it causes extreme unrest in the public sector. Following are the effects and their details, of cultural diver