The Same Yet Different : Bahá'í Perspectives on Achieving Unity

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A cornerstone teaching of the Bahá'í Faith is unity in diversity, a concept whereby members of diverse cultures and backgrounds join together as one group yet maintain their cultural identity. This study looks at the perceptions of unity among members of the Bahá'í Faith to uncover a description of how they believe they can bring together diverse people. In-depth interviews sought to uncover lived experiences, focusing on respondents' perceptions of unity and probing into the process by which individuals from diverse cultures form a unified community. Using a constant comparison method, the researcher picked out phrases that represent salient ideas, located recurring themes that expressed the meanings, perceived a pattern of action and interaction as well as processes, constructed and arranged the categories as representations of the respondents' interpretations of their perceptions A linear Model of Multicultural Communication emerged that contains areas where trainers may focus: In a time-consuming process of decentering that includes consulting, actively eliminating prejudice and embracing diversity, respondents say they must abandon superiority, seeing their own culture as one of many possible positions. Respondents share foundational beliefs that serve as points of departure, such as that humans have both deeply ingrained traits and mutable personality states, the latter of which are linked to identity; that cultures are transitory in nature; that obstruction to communication comes from personal faults such as self-centeredness and preferring self over group; that one must be aware of her own culture of origin; that cultural differences are assets that can lead to a shared perception of the truth in situations.