DIMENSIONS OF JUSTICE
English Teachers' Perspectives on Cultural DiversityBy RITA THORPE LAMBAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Rita Thorpe Lamb, Ph.D.
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4520-7314-9Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................viiCHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION........................................................1The Issue of Conceptualization.................................................3The Questions..................................................................6Definitions....................................................................6CHAPTER II. REFORMING THE CURRICULUM...........................................13Dimensions of Multicultural Education..........................................15Efforts to Establish a Multicultural Curriculum................................16Levels of Integration of Ethnic Content........................................18Rationale for Selection of Multicultural Literary Texts........................20The Changing Social Structure of the World.....................................21Social Change Promotes Educational Change......................................23Some Major Multicultural Anthologies Currently Being Used......................23CHAPTER III. THE METHOD........................................................27The Setting....................................................................28Criteria for Selection of Participants and Site................................31Collection of Data.............................................................32Interview Questions............................................................32Data Analysis..................................................................32Coding Categories..............................................................33Presentation of the Data.......................................................33CHAPTER IV. EXPERIENCES AND THEMES.............................................35Connecting School to Home, Community, and the World Beyond.....................36Transcending Our Shells........................................................50Maximizing Critical Thinking...................................................60Integrating the Curriculum with Ethnic Content.................................72Questioning Existing Curricula.................................................87CHAPTER V. IN CONCLUSION.......................................................101Discussion of Findings.........................................................105Personal Cultural Backgrounds..................................................105Goals and Objectives...........................................................107Teacher as Facilitator.........................................................108Ideological Resistance.........................................................111Success and Failure............................................................112Theory and Practice............................................................116Suggestions for Further Research...............................................125Closing Remarks................................................................128BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................131
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
"Chaos with transportation and student transfers during the first week of the new school year overshadowed what officials say was a historic event for Durham—the beginning of a truly integrated public school system" (The Herald-Sun, August 29, 1994, B-1). In the wake of a blazing controversy about how to put everything into motion, Durham city and county schools merged.
"This is the best of times and the worst of times...." said Superintendent C. Owen Phillips about the first week of the 1994–1995 school year (Ibid). For better or worse, change was the operative word in Durham Public Schools. The school district was in a state of perpetual motion as parents, students, principals, teachers, and other school personnel experienced the first school year under Phase II of the forced merger of two separate and unequal school districts, which called for a new student reassignment plan. During the previous two years, school administrators were moved, replaced, promoted, and demoted in an effort to merge the two separate districts.
The extremely controversial merger plan, which was designed to racially balance Durham's public schools, sent 6,000 students in the fall of 1995 to different schools. To many parents and community members, the future of the school district depended on the success or failure of the student reassignment plan. Many community leaders believed that it was still too soon to merge the districts, even after decades of planning.
In the third millennium, there seems to be an accelerated rush toward changing or reinventing the way America works. Among the Clinton Administration's primary goals was the development of a 21st-century telecommunications and information infrastructure that would serve all Americans, according to the late Ron Brown, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce. This National Information Infrastructure was envisioned by the Administration as a tool to help break down barriers of language, distance, and economics by encouraging exchanges of ideas, nurturing cultural appreciation, and fostering an awareness of commonality (Brown, 1994).
A continuing theme throughout the 20th and 21st centuries has been the demand for the reform of schooling in the United States. One of the reforms pushed by various ethnic groups as an alternative to the traditional education written into many school policies was the concept of multicultural education. More and more ethnic groups began to demand inclusion of their histories and cultures in the curriculum. There have been many widely differing conceptualizations of multicultural education. Some of these will be discussed in Part I. Many of the programs seem to have conflicting priorities and purposes. As a consequence, some educators consider multicultural education a quick fix, lacking substance. Furthermore, superfluous activities, such as highlighting holidays only, contribute little to any serious development of the field. As Henry Louis Gates (1990) says, "The mindless celebration of difference for its own sake is no more tenable than the nostalgic return to some monochrome homogeneity (p. xix).
What is multiculturalism, and why are they saying such terrible things about it? We've been told it threatens to fragment American culture into a warren of ethnic enclaves, each separate and inviolate. We've been told that it menaces the Western tradition of literature and the arts. We've been told it aims to politicize the school curriculum, replacing honest historical scholarship with a "feel good" syllabus designed solely to bolster the self-esteem of minorities. The alarm has been sounded, and many scholars and educators, liberals as well as conservatives, have responded to it" (p. 174).
According to Professor John S. Mayher (1990) of New York University, the solution is "to recognize that genuine cultural literacy only derives from meaningful encounters with the cultures one is to become literate in" (p. 43). He continues, "Cultural literacy must be understood as a two-way street; its acquisition, like the acquisition of the rest of language, is dialogic, based on both the learner's growing sense of what she wants and needs to understand about the world she lives in and the culture's prior experiences about how to best convey this" (p. 44). Because cultures are fluid in that they can and do change, the culture appropriate for one generation might not be meaningful to its successors.
Gates suggests that we try to think of American culture as a conversation among different voices, each conditioned by a different perception of the world (1990, p. 175). What did the English teachers' voices in Durham, North Carolina, say about multicultural approaches to learning?
THE ISSUE OF CONCEPTUALIZATION
"In ordinary life, as in science," said Peter L. Berger and Hansfried Kellner in Sociology Reinterpreted: An Essay on Method and Vocation, "there are no raw facts, only facts, within a specific conceptual framework—facts embodied in structures of relevance and meaning." It was the issue of conceptualization that gave impetus to this study. The purpose was to examine the perspectives on multicultural approaches to learning held by secondary-school English/ Language Arts teachers in a changing school system. The dilemmas were the beliefs and values that teachers were bringing to the classroom. There was tension between the ideal and what could actually be achieved. Is it possible for schools, colleges, and universities to be re-formed so that students from diverse racial, ethnic, and social-class groups experience educational equality?
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator, expounds a theory of cultural synthesis. He imagines a new social order where leaders and people are integrated and acting as coauthors of the action that both perform upon the world. In this synthesis, people are reborn in new knowledge and new action leading to transforming action resulting in a culture freed from alienation. This cultural synthesis—although it does not deny the differences between the views of the dominating and the oppressed—does deny the invasion of one by the other, and it affirms the undeniable support each gives to the other. It is to be a transformation of reality (Freire, 1968, pp. 182-183). The plan is, perhaps, too idealistic, and it would serve to dilute our existing rich cultures. One glance at the history of mankind's societal interactions can cast suspicion on man's ability or desire to implement Freire's dream of a society where the dominant group yields its power.
A more realistic idea would be to create a more interdependent society that embraces and celebrates our cultural diversity. Gloria Naylor, one of the most astute observers of contemporary African American life and author of The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, and Mama Day, urges African Americans to celebrate voraciously that which is their own.
Our educational system should be expanded—from extending our attempt to cultivate decency, tolerance, and some degree of respect for those different from us—to understanding, respecting, appreciating, learning from, and empowering other cultures. If we view various cultures as already possessing knowledge and develop a healthy intellectual curiosity about others, we can then become creators and re-creators of an improved society.
The following is a definition of multicultural education and suggests how it might effectively impact school and student success:
Multicultural education is a reform movement designed to change the total educational environment so that students from diverse racial and ethnic groups, students of both genders, exceptional students, and students from each social-class group will experience equal educational opportunities in schools, colleges, and universities. A major assumption of multicultural education is that some students—because of their particular racial, ethnic, gender, and cultural characteristics—have a better chance of succeeding in educational institutions as they are currently structured than do students who belong to other groups or who have different cultural and gender characteristics (Banks & Banks, 2010, p. 447).
A result of globalization and worldwide migration is the increase of racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity in nations around the world, including the United States (Banks, 2009). The increasing diversity and resulting cultural interaction provide opportunities and challenges. In the 21st century and the third millennium, the majority population of the United States will become the new minority. America, the brave immigrant experiment, must reconstruct its educational system, transforming schools to maximize the opportunities that diversity offers while minimizing the challenges. Multicultural approaches to learning are necessary strategies that will enable us to see around the cultural blinders that distort our vision to the extent of obliterating from the curricula more than half of humankind. What is espoused is a more transformative curriculum designed to empower students to develop the knowledge, skills, and values needed to become social critics who can make reflective decisions and implement those decisions in effective personal, social, and civic action.
As editor Leila Christenberry stated in the March 1995 issue of English Journal, "The reading and teaching of diverse literature, literature which reflects our own American multi-ness and which embraces the variety of the world, is pretty self-explanatory and pretty well defensible" (p. 13). Yet the perennial tension between multicultural literature and the literary canon remains a reality. One tenet of a democratic society is that individuals with diverse points of view will participate in dialogues. Perhaps this important discourse will enhance democracy and social justice and will make a positive difference in the success of students, including those in the Durham Public Schools.
This research will contribute to a better understanding of the teachers' perspectives of the dilemmas, of the tensions experienced, and of some barriers that must be overcome if teachers are to institutionalize this transformative approach to education—multicultural education. Which perspectives on multicultural approaches to learning are held by selected secondary-school English/Language Arts teachers in a changing school system?
1. How do these teachers define multiculturalism?
2. What experiences have these teachers had in their own classes with multicultural approaches?
DEFINITIONS
African Americans are United States residents and citizens who have an African biological and cultural heritage and identity. This term is used synonymously and interchangeably with Blacks and Black Americans to describe both a racial and a cultural group. African Americans are projected to increase from 41.1 million, or 14 percent of the population, in 2008 to 65.7 million, or 15 percent in 2050 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).
Anglo Americans are Americans whose biological and cultural heritage originated in England, or Americans with other biological and cultural heritages who have assimilated into the dominant or mainstream culture in the United States. This term is often used to describe the mainstream United States culture or to describe most White Americans. The non- Hispanic, single-race White population is projected to be only slightly larger in 2050 (203.3 million) than in 2008 (199.8 million). In fact, this group is projected to lose population in the 2030s and 2040s and comprise 50 percent of the total population in 2042, down from 66 percent in 2008 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).
Asian Americans are Americans who have a biological and cultural heritage that originated on the continent of Asia. The largest groups of Asian-Americans in the United States in 2007 were (in descending order) the Chinese, Filipinos, Asian Indians, Vietnamese, Koreans and Japanese. Other groups included Laotians, Thai, Hmong, Taiwanese, Cambodians, Pakistanis, and Indonesians. The Asian population is projected to increase from 15.5 million in 2008 to 40.6 million by 2050. Its share of the nation's population is expected to increase from 5.1 percent to 9.2 percent. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).
Cultural Assimilation is a phenomenon that takes place when one ethnic or cultural group acquires the behavior, values, perspectives, ethos, and characteristics of another ethnic or group and sheds its own cultural characteristics.
Culture is the ideations, symbols, behaviors, values, and beliefs that are shared by a human group. Culture can also be defined as a group's program for survival and adaptation to its environment. Pluralistic nation- states, such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, are made up of an overarching culture, called macroculture, which all individuals and groups within the nation share. These nation-states also have many smaller cultures, called microcultures, that differ in many ways from the macroculture or that contain cultural components manifested differently than in the macroculture.
Discrimination is the different treatment of individuals or groups based on categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social class, or exceptionality.
Ethnic Group is a microcultural group or collectivity that shares a common history and culture, common values, behaviors, and other characteristics that cause members of the group to have a shared identity. A sense of peoplehood is one of the most important characteristics of an ethnic group, which also shares economic and political interests. Cultural characteristics, rather than biological traits, are the essential attributes of an ethnic group. An ethnic group is not the same as a racial group. Some ethnic groups, such as Puerto Ricans in the United States, are made up of individuals who belong to several different racial groups. White Anglo Saxon Protestants, Italian Americans, and Irish Americans are examples of ethnic groups.
Individual members of an ethnic group vary considerably in the extent to which they identify with the group. Some individuals have a very strong identity with their particular ethnic group, whereas other members of the group have a very weak identification with it.
Ethnic Minority Group is an ethnic group with several distinguishing characteristics. An ethnic minority group has distinguishing cultural characteristics, racial characteristics, or both, which enable members of other groups to identify its members easily. Some ethnic minority groups, such as Jewish Americans, have unique cultural characteristics. African Americans have unique cultural and physical characteristics. The unique attributes of ethnic minority groups make them convenient targets of racism and discrimination. Ethnic minority groups are usually a numerical minority within their societies. However, the Blacks in South Africa, who are a numerical majority in their nation-state, are often considered a sociological minority group by social scientists because they had little political power until the constitution of the Republic of South Africa was established in 1996 (Moodley and Adam, 2004).
Ethnic Studies is the scientific and humanistic analysis of behavior influenced by variables related to ethnicity and ethnic-group membership. This phrase is often used to refer to special school, university, and college courses and programs that focus on specific racial and ethnic groups. However, any aspects of a course or program that includes a study of variables related to ethnicity can accurately be referred to as ethnic studies. In other words, ethnic studies can be integrated within the boundaries of mainstream courses and curricula.
Exceptional is used to describe students who have learning or behavioral characteristics that differ substantially from most other students and that require special attention in instruction. Students who are intellectually gifted or talented as well as those who have learning disabilities are considered exceptional.
Global Education is a curriculum reform movement concerned with issues and problems related to the survival of human beings in a world community. International studies is a part of global education, but the focus of global education is the interdependence of human beings and their common fate, regardless of the national boundaries within which they live. Many teachers confuse global education and international studies with ethnic studies, which deal with ethnic groups within a national boundary, such as the United States, Canada, or Australia.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from DIMENSIONS OF JUSTICEby RITA THORPE LAMB Copyright © 2010 by Rita Thorpe Lamb, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
