A Blueprint for Multicultural Understanding

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A Blueprint for Multicultural Understanding

• Culture is a group that shares a program for
  survival, values, ideations, and shared symbols
  and perpetuates itself beyond the lives of
  individuals (Banks, 1997).
• Culture can consist of many different ethnic
  groups or races

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Key Terms Concepts All people share basic
needs.Each of us learns a set of behaviors and
beliefs from the people we grow up with

• Human Race
• a group that shares physical characteristics such
  as facial features, skin color, etc.
• A social reality Used to sort social groupings
  and to define social and economic interactions.
• No genetic different between races - DNA from 2
  different races is often exactly identical
• Specific DNA sequences cannot be relied on for
  medical cures

• Ethnic group shares an ancestral heritage, some
  genetics and language.
• Kinship
• Food preferences, lifestyles, etc
• Body of beliefs and ritual activities that
  celebrate the communitys historical experience.

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Everyone Has a Culture

• Culture is a complex ideaas are Humans!
• Many of these differences are related to
  culture-ways of living and being that are handed
  down from one generation to the next.
• All people share basic needs. Each of us learns a
  set of behaviors and beliefs from the people we
  grow up with
• Kind of houses we build and foods we eat
• When not fully understood, can lead to
• Stereotypes
• Prejudices
• Discriminations
• Racism

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Key Terms Concepts

• Stereotypes is generalization that does not allow
  for differences.
• Prejudice is a negative opinion, prejudgment or
  attitude about a group or its individual members.
  
• Often accompanied by ignorance, fear or hatred
• Discrimination is a behavior that treats people
  unequally because of their group memberships.
• Often begin with negative stereotypes and
  prejudices
• Racism
• when one cultural group oppresses another group
• Prejudice power

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Key terms Concepts

• Three types of racism
• Individual racism (superiority over others)
• Institutional racism involves social policies,
  laws regulations whose purpose is maintain the
  power of the dominant group.
• Cultural racism involves society beliefs
  customs that promotes that the dominant group is
  superior
• White privilege is
• Preferential treatment of white people based
  solely on their skin color and/or ancestral
  origin from Europe
• Advantages and immunity specially granted whites
  and withheld from non-whites
• White Supremacy
• Historically based
• Institutional perpetuated system of exploitation
  and oppression
• Purpose is to maintain a system of wealth, power
  and privilege
• Keeps racism alive

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We all need to understand stereotypes

• Use these questions to ask yourself how you are
  influenced by stereotypes
• Does something about this persons appearance or
  behavior make me think that they are better or
  worse?
• What is the basis for making this assumption?

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Stereotypes

• What labels am I consciously or subconsciously
  applying to this person?
• To what cultural group am I assuming this person
  belongs to?
• What do I know about that group and that groups
  within-group differences?
• Am I thinking globally?

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Three things to keep in mind

• 1. All individuals are in some respects, like all
  other individuals.
• We are all members of the human race and in the
  same species, Homo Sapiens.
• 2. All individuals belong to a cultural group.
• The cultural group serves as the basis for
  individuals to become humanized.
• 3. All individuals have some uniqueness.
• Individuals differ from one another both
  biologically and socially.
• No two individuals share the same experience in
  their society.

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A Model of Multicultural Understanding

• Awareness of self is the first step to
  understanding others
• To know oneself
• Know your worldview (what is your view of life?)
• Global Thinking
• We must become cognizant of world events
  ourselves
• The dominant view does not always translate
  correctly such as press, political analysis

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How do we move away from stereotypical thinking?

• Curriculum Transformation by Banks
• Presently, almost all educational material comes
  from a Eurocentric and male-centric format.
• Harmful to students in mainstream culture
  because it reinforces a false sense of
  superiority, leads to misconceptions about other
  racial and ethnic groups, denies them
  opportunities to benefit from knowledge and
  perspective of other groups.
• Harmful to students in non-dominant cultural
  groups because it fails to validate their
  knowledge, perspective, and culture.

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Curriculum Transformation by Banks

• Heroes and Holidays is good,
• BUT
• Highlights the other as not part of the whole
• Fails to address the real experience of
  non-dominant groups

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Curriculum Transformation by Banks

• Integration or Inclusion all year long
• Move beyond special celebrations
• Deal with real issues and concepts
• Structural Reform
• New material and perspectives woven into
  current frameworks
• Teacher must continually expand his/her
  knowledge base from various perspectives
• Social Action and Awareness
• Social issues brought into curriculum
• Student perspective is a multicultural resource
• Helps establish equity and social justice

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HSTA Multicultural Education in Science
Teaching

• www.wv-hsta.org/mced/default.htm
• Support
• Activities
• Resources