With Anti-Racism at Work Week planned for the week of 5th November, now is the time to think about how you can participate. A good place to start is with understanding the meaning of "cultural diversity". Everyone has a culture. Referred to as "collective programming", it is the combination of customs, traditions, symbols, values, phrases and other forms of communication by which we belong to a community. We are born into a culture and then learn how to think and behave within it. No matter where you later move to, the culture into which you are born and raised will have a life-long influence on your values.

Our cultural induction literally starts at birth. In many Eastern cultures, children are born at home; in Western cultures most births take place in hospital. Then there is the whole question of how close the infant stays to its parents. In Europe, many babies sleep in separate rooms from their earliest days, whereas in Japan they remain in close proximity to their parents for the first couple of years. In many African cultures, young children are carried around on their parents' backs while they go about their daily lives. A frequent sight all around Ireland now.

Childcare and the question of working parents marks another distinction. It's not an issue in many African and Indian cultures where mothers are automatically the main care-providers and also work, so the baby is either cared for by the extended family or simply taken along to work. We've all seen images of women working in the fields with their young children on their backs.

Work and childcare are perceived as totally separate in Western cultures. There is a movement towards recognising the unpaid work of women in the home and a higher incidence of men electing to stay at home.

The path of cultural programming can be traced right throughout life. The above examples illustrate how, from our earliest days, our environment defines who we are and instils in us our core beliefs. If you move country, you will probably see changes in yourself as you adjust to your new environment - these will be even more evident when you return to your original homeland.

In some cultures, it is especially important to retain as much of the home culture as possible. This, combined with obvious factors such as skin colour and accents, makes ethnic groups very visible. A lack of understanding of the significance to different groups of retaining their cultural identity can lead to racism.

Racism is about the abuse of power by one group or individual over another, against whom they are prejudiced. Power is used to isolate or discriminate against others on the basis of skin colour, nationality, ethnic group, or nationality. The effect is that the abuser of power defines himself as somehow superior, thereby denying the victim of racism their right to equal treatment.

And yet, we hear "racist" remarks from people who are not in a position of power at all. This is xenophobia - an attitude based on a fear of strangers. Xenophobia also involves prejudice, however there is no abuse of power.