Cultural literacy in aviation safety and the Capstone program

Cultural Literacy is the ability of understanding and taking part fluently in a given culture. This is the knowledge, understanding and application of history, contributions, and perspectives of the different cultural groups when it comes to a particular project or in a comprehensive research question. It is the ability of associating an individual's knowledge, understanding and applying history, contribution, perspectives and the impacts on their own cultural groups. The groups are not limited to ethnic, religious or social groups but include groups that are associated with industry, professional and other work or even recreationally related entities.

Examples of cultures

Social cultures, which is a cultural concept, which is created by people of a social system and the way they interact with others. This is the external reference frame when it comes to the context of culture and it can be termed as group culture. It normally encompasses the languages that are used; exchanging culture through communicative vents as well as shared experinecs.it is based on ideas and identity and associated with certain group in which people socialize. Organizational cultures are the behavior of people within an organization and the meaning, which people attach to the way they behave. Culture involves the vision, systems, values, norms beliefs and habits of the organization. Aviation culture is the behaviors or norms within the aviation industry. Among the aviation cultures is the safety culture. Safety culture termed as the way safety is perceived, prioritized and valued within the organization. It is a reflection of how real commitment to safety at levels within the organization. It reflects the attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and values that employees hold when it comes to safety. Religious culture refers to the beliefs held by people in a particular religion. Ethnic cultures are the beliefs held by a particular ethnic group.

The Capstone program makes efforts of improving safety in aviation and its efficiency through a multi-year introduction using existing and emerging concepts and technologies. Its first priority is improving aviation system through introducing new communication surveillance and navigation technologies. It is also geared towards providing an improvement of aviation system capacity as well as its efficiency. For the capstone program to be developed easily cultural literacy has to be met. There has to be knowledge, understanding and application of history, contributions, and perspectives of the different cultural groups when it comes to the development of the capstone program. The Capstone project was a joint industry and the FAA research and the development effort put in place to improve aviation safety and efficiency. A rise in cases of accidents due to bad weather and terrain in the past is what led to the development of this program. There was need to improve aviation safety and efficiency due to past accidents in the aviation industry (Federal Aviation Administration, 2009).

The evolution of an organization as cultures change

Any organization is impacted by culture, which is its organizational culture. It is not only the organizational culture that affects an organization but also the social, religious, safety cultures and so on. In the case of the aviation industry, safety culture changes can lead to an organization's evolution. In the current world, people are becoming more and more cautious with their safety therefore the safety culture is changing by the day. Such a changing culture has brought about an evolution in the aviation industry. The new safety culture is now forming programs such as the Capstone program to be developed in order to make sure that there is safety within the aviation industry.

Evaluating challenges in managing a multi-cultural workforce

Currently the workforce is becoming more and more diverse in terms of culture. There are many people from different cultures within a workforce. It becomes a challenge to deal with such a workforce due to their different beliefs and norms. There are often some conflicts that come up due to their varying beliefs. It therefore becomes quite a challenge to deal with the different individuals from different cultures.

Evaluating past and current cultures for trends in aviation safety

There has been an increased safety culture within the aviation industry over the last few years. Currently there has been an improvement in aviation safety because of embracing the safety culture in the industry (Muqbil, 2008).