Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Education

Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Education Dr. Paul R. Carr

Every day in the US (Children’s Defense Fund, Washington, DC, 1998) • 3 people under 25 die from HIV • 6 children commit suicide • 13 children are homocide victims • 14 children are killed by firearms • 81 babies die • 280 children are arrested for violent crimes • 781 children are born of low birthrate • 1,403 children are born to teenage mothers • 1,827 children are born without health insurance • 2,430 children are born into poverty • 2,756 children drop out of school • 3,436 children are born to unmarried mothers • 5,753 children are arrested • 8,470 children are reported abused or neglected • 11.3M children have no health insurance • 14.5M children live in poverty

Women of color report a concrete ceiling barring their advancement • The components of the concrete ceiling: • Not having an influential mentor or sponsor (47%). • Lack of informal networking with influential colleagues (40%). • Lack of company role models who are of same racial/ethnic group (29%). • Lack of high visibility assignments (28%). • Some diversity programs are not as effective as they could be or were intended: • 75% are aware of training to raise awareness about race/gender issues but only 22% say their managers receive adequate training in diversity. • Half of respondents cite pervasive stereotypes in evaluating work environment. • More than half of those women believe that corporate diversity programs are less than effective in dealing with issues of subtle racism. • Only 26% say career development is important for company's diversity program. • Only 17% say managers are held accountable for progress of women of color. (http://diversitycentral.com/business/diversity_statistics.html#american_indian)

Women and work • Earnings (Compares to each $1.00 earned by White male managers) • Asian/other women: 67 cents • White women: 59 cents • African American women: 57 cents • Hispanic women: 48 cents • Education: • Asian/other women have the highest education of all women managers – 63% have college or advanced degrees. • African-American women managers have the next highest incidence of college degrees (40 percent), yet earn less than White women managers. • African-American women have higher educational attainment than African-American men, a situation unique to this group. • Family: • Women managers are more likely to be single parents than male managers. • Women managers who are unmarried and have children under 18: 22% African-American, 15% Hispanic, 8% White, and 5% Asian/other women. (http://diversitycentral.com/business/diversity_statistics.html#american_indian)

Diversity in the Legal Profession • Combined African American (AA) and Hispanic representation among lawyers was 7% in 1998. Today, it is about 10%, which includes Asians. Less than ¼% of lawyers are American Indians. • Less than 3% of all partners in the nation's law firms are racial minorities, and is even lower in relation to largest and most profitable firms. • In the 77 largest firms in New York City, 34 out of 4,400 partners are AA (less than 1%). • In the 40 largest firms in Chicago, only 46 out of 3,000 partners are AA. • Fewer active AA federal appellate judges today than in 1980. ¾ of federal circuit courts now have no AA or Latino jurist. Asian Americans account for only 7 of 748 federal judges. There is only one Native American Federal Judge. The Fourth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over a higher percentage of African American citizens than any federal circuit except the District of Columbia, has never had a black appellate judge. In Florida, for example, 7 out of every 10 judges in the court system are white men. • People of color comprise about 15 percent of judicial law clerks. • In 1999, the total number of minority law graduates in the United States dropped for the first time since 1985. • Lawyers of color comprise less than 10 percent of the nation's corporate counsel legal staff. http://diversitycentral.com/business/diversity_statistics.html#american_indian

Paul Gorski’s “ThreeDimensions of Racism and the Digital Divide in Education” I. Gaps in Physical Access • Classrooms with 50%+ minority population are less likely to have Internet access. • Schools with 50%+ minority population are less likely to have adaptive hardware and software for students with disabilities. II. Gaps in Pedagogical Access • Students in schools with 50%+ minority enrollments are much less likely to have participated in the creation or maintenance of the school Web site. • Teachers in schools with 50%+ minority population are less likely to have received training in use of the Internet and are less likely to have assistance in use of Internet. III. Gaps in Cultural Access • Latino men, ages 25-54, spend on average 28% less time on the Internet than the average man in that age group. African American men spend 32% less time on the Internet than the average. • Studies show that both Native American and African American Internet users, for differing reasons, remain distrustful of Internet technology. (http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/resources/dividedimensions.html)

US Census – Poverty and Health Insurance (2005) • The official poverty rate is 12.6% (37M people). • Blacks (25%) and Hispanics (22%) have highest rate. • Poverty rate for children under 18 (18%) remained higher than that of 18-64-year-olds (11%) and that of people 65+ (10%). • Number without health insurance coverage rose by 1.3M to 46.6M (from 15.6% in 2004 to 15.9% in 2005). • Between 2004 and 2005, people covered by employment-based health insurance (174.8M) declined from 59.8% to 59.5%. • Proportion and number of uninsured children increased between 2004 and 2005, from 10.8% to 11.2% and from 7.9M to 8.3M, respectively. • The uninsured rate, as well as the number of uninsured, for non-Hispanic whites is 11.3% and 22.1M; for blacks, it is 19.6% and 7.2M; the rate for Asians increased to 17.9% in 2005, up from 16.5 percent in 2004, with 2.3M being uninsured. • The uninsured rate for Hispanics, who may be of any race, was 32.7% in 2005, a slight increase from 2004. • Based on a three-year average (2003-2005), 29.9% of people who reported American Indian and Alaska Native as their race were without coverage. The three-year average for Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders was 21.8%. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty05/pov05hi.html

National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME) definition of multicultural education • Multicultural education is a philosophical concept built on the ideals of freedom, justice, equality, equity, and human dignity as acknowledged in various documents, such as the U.S. Declaration of Independence, constitutions of South Africa and the United States, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations. It affirms our need to prepare student for their responsibilities in an interdependent world. It recognizes the role schools can play in developing the attitudes and values necessary for a democratic society. It values cultural differences and affirms the pluralism that students, their communities, and teachers reflect. It challenges all forms of discrimination in schools and society through the promotion of democratic principles of social justice. • Multicultural education is a process that permeates all aspects of school practices, policies and organization as a means to ensure the highest levels of academic achievement for all students. It helps students develop a positive self-concept by providing knowledge about the histories, cultures, and contributions of diverse groups. It prepares all students to work actively toward structural equality in organizations and institutions by providing the knowledge, dispositions, and skills for the redistribution of power and income among diverse groups. Thus, school curriculum must directly address issues of racism, sexism, classism, linguicism, ablism, ageism, heterosexism, religious intolerance, and xenophobia. (http://www.nameorg.org/resolutions/definition.doc)

National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME) definition of multicultural education • Multicultural education advocates the belief that students and their life histories and experiences should be placed at the center of the teaching and learning process and that pedagogy should occur in a context that is familiar to students and that addresses multiple ways of thinking. In addition, teachers and students must critically analyze oppression and power relations in their communities, society and the world. • To accomplish these goals, multicultural education demands a school staff that is culturally competent, and to the greatest extent possible racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse. Staff must be multiculturally literate and capable of including and embracing families and communities to create an environment that is supportive of multiple perspectives, experiences, and democracy. Multicultural education requires comprehensive school reform as multicultural education must pervade all aspects of the school community and organization. • Recognizing that equality and equity are not the same thing, multicultural education attempts to offer all students an equitable educational opportunity, while at the same time, encouraging students to critique society in the interest of social justice.

Banks, James A. 2008. An Introduction to Multicultural Education (4th ed., p. 29). Boston: Pearson.

Paul Gorski’s Definition of Multicultural Education • Multicultural education is a progressive approach for transforming education that holistically critiques and addresses current shortcomings, failings, and discriminatory practices in education. It is grounded in ideals of social justice, education equity, and a dedication to facilitating educational experiences in which all students reach their full potential as learners and as socially aware and active beings, locally, nationally, and globally. Multicultural education acknowledges that schools are essential to laying the foundation for the transformation of society and the elimination of oppression and injustice. • The underlying goal of multicultural education is to affect social change. The pathway toward this goal incorporates three strands of transformation: • the transformation of self; • the transformation of schools and schooling; and • the transformation of society. (http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html)

Paul Gorski’s Definition of Multicultural Education • Every student must have an equal opportunity to achieve to her or his full potential. • Every student must be prepared to competently participate in an increasingly intercultural society. • Teachers must be prepared to effectively facilitate learning for every individual student, no matter how culturally similar or different from her- or himself. • Schools must be active participants in ending oppression of all types, first by ending oppression within their own walls, then by producing socially and critically active and aware students. • Education must become more fully student-centered and inclusive of the voices and experiences of the students. • Educators, activists, and others must take a more active role in reexamining all educational practices and how they affect the learning of all students: testing methods, teaching approaches, evaluation and assessment, school psychology and counseling, educational materials and textbooks, etc. (http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html)

Paul Gorski’s Definition of Multicultural Education - The Transformation of Schools and Schooling • Student-Centered Pedagogy • The experiences of students must be brought to the fore in the classroom, making learning more active, interactive, and engaging. • Traditional teaching approaches and pedagogical models must be deconstructed to examine how they are contributing to and supporting institutional systems of oppression. • Known oppressive practices like tracking (even if informal) must be exposed and critically examined. • All aspects of teaching and learning in schools must be refocused on, and rededicated to, the students themselves instead of standardized test scores and school rankings. • Emphasis should be put on critical and creative thinking, learning skills, and deep social awareness as well as facts and figures. • Pedagogy must provide all students with equal potential to reach their potential as learners. • Pedagogy must be flexible enough to allow for the diversity of learning styles present in every classroom. (http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html)

Paul Gorski’s Definition of Multicultural Education - The Transformation of Schools and Schooling • Multicultural Curriculum • All curricula must be studied for accuracy and completeness. • All subjects must be told from diverse perspectives -- this is related to accuracy and completeness. • "Inclusive curriculum" also means including the voices of the students in the classroom. • Concepts such as "the canon" and "classic literature" must be reconceptualized, again with the idea of accuracy and completeness, to debunk the perception that the only great literature came from the U.S. and England. • Curricula should reflect the diversity of learning styles in every classroom. (http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html)

Paul Gorski’s Definition of Multicultural Education - The Transformation of Schools and Schooling • Inclusive Educational Media and Materials • Educational materials should be inclusive of diverse voices and perspectives. • Students must be encouraged to think critically about materials and media: Whose voice are they hearing? Whose voice are they not hearing? Why did that company produce that film? What is the bias this author may bring to her or his writing? • Continual Evaluation and Assessment • Educators and education researchers must continue to examine the emphasis on standardized test scores and develop more just alternatives for measuring student "achievement," "ability," or "potential." • Continuing evaluation measures must be taken to measure the success of new and existing programs meant to provide more opportunities to groups traditionally and presently underrepresented in colleges and universities. (http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html)

Paul Gorski’s Definition of Multicultural Education - The Transformation of Schools and Schooling • Supportive School and Classroom Climate • Teachers must be better prepared to foster a positive classroom climate for ALL students. • Overall school cultures must be closely examined to determine how they might be cycling and supporting oppressive societal conditions. • Administrative hierarchies in schools must be examined to assess whether they produce positive teaching environments for all teachers. • Teachers and administrators must be held accountable for practices deemed to be racist, sexist, heterosexist, classist, or in any other way discriminatory. (http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html)

(Pang, Valerie Ooka. 2001. Multicultural Education. New York: McGraw Hill, p.103)

Ten Factors Essential to Success in Urban Classrooms (Lisa Delpit) • Do not teach less content to poor, urban children, but understand their brilliance and teach more. • Whatever methodology or instructional program is used, demand critical thinking. • Assure that all children gain access to "basic skills," the conventions and strategies that are essential to success in American education. • Challenge racist societal views of the competence and worthiness of the children and their families, and help them to do the same. • Recognize and build on strengths. • Use familiar metaphors and experiences from the children's world to connect what they already know to school knowledge. • Create a sense of family and caring in the service of academic achievement. • Monitor and assess needs and then address them with a wealth of diverse strategies. • Honor and respect the children's home and ancestral culture(s). • Foster a sense of children's connection to community - to something greater than themselves. (http://www.essentialschools.org/pub/ces_docs/fforum/1999/speeches/delpit_speech99.html)

"How Multicultural Is Your School?” Schoolwide Practice: • Does our school foster understanding and acceptance of cultural differences? • Does our school acknowledge and treat honestly and fairly the contributions of different cultural groups? • Do our curricular materials accurately represent the histories, experiences, and contributions of various cultural groups? • Does our school provide all students equal access to quality educational programs and learning experiences? Teaching Practices: • Does our school tap into students' family, language, and culture as foundations for learning? • Do classroom practices encourage and reflect an understanding of different learning styles? • Do our teachers know how to use students' informal home language as a tool for developing formal literacy? • Do our assessment methods reflect the diversity of students' learning styles, language, and culture? (North Central Regional Laboratory - http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/presrvce/pe3lk48.htm)

"How Multicultural Is Your School?” School-Community Relations: • Does our school link learning to families and resources in the local community? • Is our school sensitive to the special needs and cultures of our parents? • Does our school provide ongoing parent education and training so parents can learn ways to enhance their child's learning at home? Professional Development: • Do we provide opportunities for staff to gain knowledge about different cultural groups? • Do teachers receive training to help them use students' family/language/culture as foundations for learning? • Do teachers receive training to help them work with culturally and linguistically diverse students/parents?“ (North Central Regional Laboratory - http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/presrvce/pe3lk48.htm)

(Ramirez, Lori Langer de. 2006. Voices of Diversity. New Jersey: Pearson, p.12)

Banks, James A. 2008. An Introduction to Multicultural Education (4th ed., pp. 128-129). Boston: Pearson.

20 (Self-)Critical Things I Will Do to Bea Better Multicultural Educator • I will learn to pronounce every student's full given name correctly. No student should need to shorten or change their names to make it easier to pronounce for me or their classmates. I will practice and learn every name, regardless of how difficult it feels or how time-consuming it becomes. That is the first step in being inclusive. • I will sacrifice the safety of my comfort zone by building a process for continually assessing, understanding, and challenging my biases and prejudices and how they impact my expectations for, and relationships with, all students, parents, and colleagues. • I will center student voices, interests, and experiences in and out of my classroom. Even while I talk passionately about being inclusive and student-centered in the classroom, I rarely include or center students in conversations about school reform. I must face this contradiction and rededicate to sharing power with my students. • I will engage in a self-reflective process to explore the ways in which my identity development impacts the way I see and experience different people. • I will invite critique from colleagues and accept it openly. I accept feedback very well until someone decides to offer me feedback. Though it's easy to become defensive in the face of critique, I will thank the person for their time and courage (because it's not easy to critique a colleague). The worst possible scenario is for people to stop providing me feedback, positive and negative. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/resources/self_critique.html

20 (Self-)Critical Things I Will Do to Bea Better Multicultural Educator • I will never stop being a student. If I do not grow, learn, and change at the same rate the world around me is changing, then I necessarily lose touch with the lives and contexts of my students. I must continue to educate myself—to learn from the experiences of my students and their parents, to study current events and their relationship to what I am teaching, and to be challenged by a diversity of perspectives. • I will understand the relationship between INTENT and IMPACT. Often, and particularly when I'm in a situation in which I experience some level of privilege, I have the luxury of referring and responding only to what I intend, no matter what impact I have on somebody. I must take responsibility for and learn from my impact because most individual-level oppression is unintentional. But unintentional oppression hurts just as much as intentional oppression. • I will reject the myth of color-blindness. As painful as it may be to admit, I know that I react differently when I'm in a room full of people who share many dimensions of my identity than when I'm in a room full of people who are very different from me. I have to be open and honest about that, because those shifts inevitably inform the experiences of people in my classes or workshops. In addition, color-blindness denies people validation of their whole person. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/resources/self_critique.html

20 (Self-)Critical Things I Will Do to Bea Better Multicultural Educator • I will recognize my own social identity group memberships and how they may affect my students' experiences and learning processes. People do not always experience me the way I intend them to, even if I am an active advocate for all my students. A student's initial reaction to me may be based on a lifetime of experiences, so I must try not to take such reactions personally. I will build coalitions with teachers who are different from me (in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, first language, disability, and other identities). These can be valuable relationships of trust and honest critique. At the same time, I must not rely on other people to identify my weaknesses. In particular, in the areas of my identity around which I experience privilege, I must not rely on people from historically underprivileged groups to teach me how to improve myself (which is, in and of itself, a practice of privilege). • I will improve my skills as a facilitator, so when issues of diversity and equity do arise in the classroom, I can take advantage of the resulting educational opportunities. Too often, I allow these moments to slip away, either because I am uncomfortable with the topic or because I feel unprepared to effectively facilitate my students through it. (I often try to make myself feel better by suggesting that the students “aren't ready” to talk about racism or sexism, or whatever the topic might be, when it's more honest to say that I am not ready.) I will hone these skills so that I do not cheat my students out of important conversations and learning opportunities. • I will invite critique from my students, and when I do, I will dedicate to listening actively and modeling a willingness to be changed by their presence to the same extent they are necessarily changed by mine. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/resources/self_critique.html

20 (Self-)Critical Things I Will Do to Bea Better Multicultural Educator • I will think critically about how my preferred learning styles impact my teaching style. I am usually thoughtful about diversifying my teaching style to address the needs of students with a variety of learning styles. Still, I tend to fall back on my most comfortable teaching style most often. I will fight this temptation and work harder to engage all of my students. • I will affirm and model appreciation for all forms of intelligence and the wide variety of ways students illustrate understanding and mastery of skills and knowledge. • I will reflect on my own experiences as a student and how they inform my teaching. Research indicates that my teaching is most closely informed by my own experiences as a student (even more so than my pre-service training). The practice of drawing on these experiences, positive and negative, provides important insights regarding my teaching practice. • I will encourage my students to think critically and ask critical questions about all information they receive including that which they receive from me. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/resources/self_critique.html

20 (Self-)Critical Things I Will Do to Bea Better Multicultural Educator • I will challenge myself to take personal responsibility before looking for fault elsewhere. For example, if I have one student who is falling behind or being disruptive, I will consider what I am doing or not doing that may be contributing to their disengagement before problematizing their behavior or effort. • I will acknowledge my role as a social activist. My work changes lives, conferring upon me both tremendous power and tremendous responsibility. Even though I may not identify myself as a social activist, I know that the depth of my impact on society is profound, if only by the sheer number of lives I touch. I must acknowledge and draw on that power and responsibility as a frame for guiding my efforts toward equity and social justice in my work. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/resources/self_critique.html

20 (Self-)Critical Things I Will Do to Bea Better Multicultural Educator • I will fight for equity for all underrepresented or disenfranchised students. Equity is not a game of choice—if I am to advocate education equity, I do not have the luxury of choosing who does or does not have access to it. For example, I cannot effectively fight for racial equity while I fail to confront gender inequity. And I can never be a real advocate for gender equity if I choose to duck the responsibility for ensuring equity for lesbian, gay, and bisexual students. When I find myself justifying my inattention to any group of disenfranchised students due to the worldview or value system into which I was socialized, I know that it is time to reevaluate that worldview or value system. • I will celebrate myself as an educator and total person. I can, and should, also celebrate every moment I spend in self-critique, however difficult and painful, because it will make me a better educator. And that is something to celebrate! http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/resources/self_critique.html

Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Education

Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Education

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