Diversity and Equity Today: Meeting the Challenge

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Diversity and Equity TodayMeeting the Challenge

• Chapter Thirteen

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Society in the Classroom

• Wider society influences what goes on in the
  classroom, for better or for worse
• Racism and sexism present and often unchallenged
  in the structures of schooling
• Jane Elliotts Discrimination Day exercises
• Members of a group identified as superior
  literally tend to act and feel superior those
  identified as inferior also react accordingly

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Theories of Social Inequality

• Genetic Inferiority Theory
• argues that biologically some groups of people
  are inferior intellectually and socially
• interpretations of IQ testing to support this
  theory continued to be offered and continue to be
  discredited (Jensen, Schockley, Herrnstein)
• Cultural Deficit Theory
• inferior home environments explained low
  achievement rates of minority children
• 1960s, 1970s compensatory education movement
• beginning of Head Start
• does not take childrens unfamiliarity with the
  dominant culture into account
• Critical theory
• questions the whole social order and its power
  relations
• looks at the relationship between the child and
  the school, rather than the child or school in
  isolation

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Cultural Difference Theory

• Respects the variety of different cultures and
  assesses the relationships among various cultural
  groups
• Addresses cultural mismatchdiffering ways of
  learning, demonstrating knowledge, behaviors and
  socialization patterns among students
• Confronts the traditional role of schools as
  instruments of social policy that maintain the
  dominant culture

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Cultural Subordination Theory

• Examines social processes that lead to lower
  status for minority groups and structured
  inequalities in the system
• Anyons study of elementary schools
• Testing, tracking, and ability grouping
• Schools, curriculum, and setting reflect white
  middle-class worldview

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Resistance Theory

• Students experiencing discrimination retreat
• Adolescent girls submerge their intelligence
• African American students caught between cultures
  
• Other students give the impression they dont
  care about schooling, and teachers can give up
  on them

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The Impact of Language

• What linguists agree on
• all languages can support complex cognitive
  processes and express whatever needs to be
  expressed
• language prestige is attached to
  economic/military power of group using it
• children learn better through use of native
  language
• not all non-standard speakers have same language
  development
• the way a child's primary language is valued
  affects self-concept
• every language has variety of linguistic styles
• reading failure is frequently caused by conflict
  between English-speaking teachers and
  non-English-speaking children

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Bilingual and ESL Instruction as Bridges to
English Proficiency

• 42 of all public school teachers have at least
  one Limited English Proficiency (LEP) student in
  their classroom
• Spanish-speaking more likely to receive bilingual
  instruction others get ESL programs
• Oakland School Districts controversial Ebonics
  instruction program
• BEV Language and cultural subordination

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Pedagogical Approaches to Pluralism

• Ignore differences and teach to single standard
• Seek to eliminate differences by forcing
  compliance to a single standard
• Balance sensitivity to group differences without
  being biased by group differences
• culturally responsive pedagogy

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Multicultural Education and Democratic Pluralism

• 1. Teaching the exceptional and culturally
  different
• fitting students into existing structure with
  ESL, bilingual, remedial, special education
  programs
• retains status quo
• 2. Human relations
• promotion of unity, tolerance, and acceptance
  within existing structure among students
• Doesnt address institutional inequities
• 3. Single-group studies
• singling out groups for study foster acceptance,
  work towards social change on behalf of
  identified group
• Doesnt alter the main curriculum more add on
• 4. Multicultural education
• promotion of cultural pluralism, equal
  opportunity and respect in the school
• critical thinking, bilingual instruction
• debate over whether result is cohesion or
  fragmentation
• 5. Education that is multicultural and social
  reconstructionist
• preparation for the real world

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Multicultural and Social Reconstructionist
Education

• Practice of democracy
• Analysis of ones own life
• Development of social action skills
• Formation of social coalitions across boundaries
  of race, ethnicity, social class and gender

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Diversity, Equity, and SpecialEducation

• Multicultural education is the most equitable way
  to address educational needs of all students
  (Banks)
• Special education as a form of tracking (Skrtic)
• Labels may say more about the system than they do
  about the students

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Concluding Remarks

• Jane Elliotts experiment reminds us of the
  social construction of what is judged superior or
  inferior
• Slow progress from culturally deficient to
  culturally different explanations of differences
• Sensitivity means asking When is race or class
  or gender a relevant variable in this students
  performance, and when is it not?