Frontex is comprised of people from different cultures, places and background. These people bring to the FRONTEX organisation different values, beliefs and behaviours. We need to know how to manage/ get along with these differences and allow each individual to reach his/her fullest potential while in pursuit of FRONTEX objectives.

Defining the words Culture, Diversity and Cultural Diversity

Ronald Inglehart (1997) defined CULTURE as; a system of attitudes, values and knowledge that is widely shared (passed on from generation to generation) within a society.

DIVERSITY finds its origin in the word “diverse”, meaning different. One of Merriam-Webster definitions of Diversity is "the condition or fact of being different". After 1992 the general meaning of diversity has shifted more to people, "Diversity means having a range of people with various racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds and various lifestyles, experience, and interests."

CULTURAL DIVERSITY is defined by Oxford dictionary as: "the existence of a variety of cultural or ethnic groups within a society." Wikipedia defines it as the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole.

Culture is a strong part of people's lives. It impacts on almost everything we do.  It influences their views, their values, their humor, their hopes, their loyalties, and their worries and fears.

If you are from Norway, Spain or Greece. If your parents are, Japanese, Bulgarian or Algerian. If you are German-Catholic or Bosnian-Islamic. If you are Jewish or Mormon. If you are straight or Gay. Or, if you are a mixture of cultures. Your culture has affected you. So when you are working with people and building relationships with them, it helps to have some perspective and understanding of their cultures.

The roots of Cultural Diversity

Here's a short story stop start out:

Three second-grade boys gathered by the chain link fence that divided the two school yards.

On the other side, six-year-old Hannah stopped to catch her breath after running and winning a short race. She was proud that she outran all the boys.

With her usual sense of curiosity, Hannah looked at the small group of second graders in the school yard next door.

“Dirty Kike.”

The words flew over the fence atop stones the boys hurled at her.

Hannah, who had never heard these words before, instantly knew what they meant, not by definition, but by connotation (the secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its primary meaning).

She knew they were hurled on wings of hatred, imitated, not created by the boys. 

Soon, however, they would internalize and own the hate.

She knew this. How?

As an adult she might tell you thoughts and feelings are energy fields. If you pay attention, you can read the field and know what you have not learned.

Were the roots of the diversity sown that day?

Where do the roots of diversity begin?

Like a tree diversity has many roots that branch out in all directions. Near the core we see the main roots. These are for diversity, Biological differences, Society structures and Ethnicity.

Biological differences: we are one human race with biological variations, mix exposure or one variation only.

Society structures: e.g., Individual versus Collective, Masculine versus Feminine 

• Individual; I identity. Values; freedom, honesty, social recognition
• Collective; WE identity Values; harmony, respecting parents wishes, fulfilment of others                              needs
• Masculine; complementary sex roles, males take initiative, communication masculine toughness and feminine softness
• Feminine; flex sex roles, both take initiative, fluid gender communication

In Cultural Diversity session 2 (Distinguishing cultural differences) more in depth information can be found on Society structures

Ethnicity: is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups such as a common set of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area

Factors that make us different

As we read earlier Webster's definition of Diversity is "the fact of being different". So what are these differences? Who we are and how we approach a given situation depends on many factors