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By Diane Starke, El Paso Community College
Purpose:
This self-paced
module provides a series of annotated web sites providing definitions,
key concepts, awareness tests, and teaching tips for recognizing and
handling the instructional challenges, problems, and opportunities
presented by student diversity in the classroom. Diversity and multiculturalism
are monumental topics. During one search, Google located well
over half a million sites. For practicality, the following sections
focus on the major topics of interest to educators. The sections
do not represent mutually exclusive classifications since most sites
reflect the multiplicity of topics and issues involved.
Key Concepts:
Section
1: Diversity
Diversity
is an often ignored or misunderstood factor contributing to either instructional
effectiveness or instructional failure. Apart from issues of political
correctness, it raises concerns regarding the fit between learning and
teaching styles, the instructional effect on self-esteem, failure or success
in furthering and achieving instructor and student objectives, issues
of acculturation - both desirable and undesirable - and appropriateness
of instructional materials. In this module, diversity refers
to the complex of significant differences exhibited by the student population
in a classroom, i.e., race, language, age, ethnicity, gender, culture,
learning abilities and disabilities, religion and socioeconomic level.
This site offers both a classification and definitions of diversity, i.e.,
race, ethnicity, gender, language, special needs, sexual orientation,
religion, socioeconomic and geographic differences.
http://www.tommihail.net/diversity.html
This site is an excellent source of background materials, links, and activities
for diversity and multicultural issues. It is a must for both beginning
and experienced educators.
http://diversity.ucdavis.edu/html/external_resources.html
This site contains a diversity planning guide which, though meant for
businesses primarily, provides many helpful insights, guidelines, and
work practices/strategies applicable to all organizations.
http://www.duke.edu/web/equity/Diversity.htm
Section
2: Ethnicity, Race, and Culture
The terms race,
ethnicity, and culture are often perceived as near synonyms. However,
Margaret Andersen, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies and Vice Provost
for Academic Affairs, University of Delaware, Newark, sees race as defining
a group through “some physical or cultural characteristic,”
while ethnicity defines a group as one that shares a “cultural heritage
or is perceived to do so.” To further clarify the concepts,
Sonia Nieto, Professor of Education, University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
says that “it is generally understood that culture is made by people,
but that one is born with a particular ethnicity and that’s unchangeable.
I would say that the difference is not that simple, because many people
who are from the same ethnicity can manifest their identity in very different
ways.” And, finally, she continues, “if we understand
race and ethnicity as created through political and social historical processes
that involve group self-definition, but often also imposition from state
authority, then you see how transient they can be, but also that they have
to be understood within a political context.”
“Transcript of Harvard Educational Review’s Ethnicity and Education
Forum: What Difference Does Difference Make?” Harvard
Educational Review. Summer 1997. 15 November 2002.
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~hepg/forum.html
This site, from the Teaching Effectiveness Program at Oregon University,
offers an excellent set of links with an emphasis on practical and specific
suggestions for effectiveness in the classroom. broad topics include:
- Students
(College & University)
- Hate
- The Inclusive Classroom
- Learning Styles
- Oppression
- White Privilege
- Organizations
http://tep.uoregon.edu/
Sometimes things seem to explode in the classroom, and what do we do then?
How do we address important, but hot, topics -- religion, politics,
race, class, gender -- in our classroom discussions? "Handling Hot
Moments in the Classroom" by Lee Warren of Harvard University's Derek
Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, offers strategies for turning difficult
encounters into learning opportunities.
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/hotmoments.html
Section
3: Language Diversity
As Jean Molesky
states, “ The United States is indeed both a linguistically diverse
nation and an English-speaking one, if the latter term is taken to mean
the undisputed dominance of English in public life. The complex current
language situation in the United States is the result of intertwining
developments in immigration, settlement, and policy-making. “ She
then quotes Glazer who states, “If a group emigrates because of
religious, political, or cultural oppression, members will cling to their
national language more than if they emigrated to improve their economic
situation.”
Molesky, Jean. “Understanding the American Linguistic Mosaic:
A Historical Overview of Language Maintenance and Language Shift.”
Language Diversity: Problem or Resource? Eds. Sandra Lee McKay
and Sau-ling Cynthia Wong. San Francisco: Newbury, 1988. 30-31.
This site is a somewhat esoteric collection of links to more sophisticated
discussions of L2 learning topics and issues, i.e., “Brain Research:
Implications for Second Language Learning” and “A National
Study of School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students’ Long-Term
Academic Achievement Final Report: Project 1.1 - Findings from
a Large Urban Research Site.” The latter provides an interesting
analysis of findings from a Houston research site for a variety of
approaches for educating language minority students.
Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence
http://www.crede.ucsc.edu
This site lists and elucidates four common misconceptions about language
diversity:
“The best way to promote English literacy is to immerse children
and adults in English-only instruction…. English illiteracy is high
because language minorities are not as eager to learn English and assimilate
as prior generations were…. English literacy is the only literacy
worth noting….[and] the predominance of English and English literacy
is threatened.”
Willey, Terrance. G. “Myths About Language Diversity and Literacy
in the United States.” Eric Digest: National Center for ESL
Literacy Education. May 1997.
http://www.cal.org/ncle/digests/Myths.htm
This site offers an invaluable bibliography, organized by subtopics, of
language diversity, i.e., ESL, Special Populations, Bilingual Education,
and Two-Way Immersion.
http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/
Eric Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics
This site offers annotated bibliographies on specific topics in language
education and linguistics, i.e., “Age Differences in Second Language
Acquisition,” “Computer-Assisted Language Learning,” “Integrating
Mathematics and ESL Instruction,” and “Education Reform
and Language Minority Students.”
http://www.cal.org/ericcll/minibibs/
This site, National Directory of Teacher Preparation Programs (pre-service
and in-service) for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students, is
of interest to those preparing to enter teacher education. It presents
a typology of teacher preparation programs, definitions, and requirements
for different programs and state certifications.
http://crede.berkeley.edu/tools/directory2-1/intro.html
McKay, Sandra Lee and Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Eds. Language Diversity:
Problem or Resource? San Francisco: Newbury: 1988.
Of particular interest are the chapters dealing with the “language
situation” of various language minority groups - Mexican Americans,
Puerto Rican, Cuban Americans, Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans,
Korean Americans, and Vietnamese Americans.
Section 4: Multiculturalism
“Multiculturalism
in education refers to a fundamental change in the curriculum of both
secondary, and post-secondary schools. In its most basic form, adopting
a multicultural curriculum means including the study of other cultures
and their products and histories alongside the traditional curriculum.
(By products, I mean things such as literature, religion and philosophy,
and the arts.) Adopting a multicultural curriculum also means including
the study of traditionally underrepresented groups and their cultures,
products, and histories.
Harding, Dave. “A Question of Quality: Multiculturalism in
Education.” Progressive Review. November 1995.
This site serves as an Internet clearinghouse of resources for multicultural
education. Selections include background articles, biographies,
book reviews, discussion groups, lesson plans, and links to resources
on specific areas of interest, such as ethnic cooking, folklore, and holidays.
This site lends itself to browsing in order to define areas of interest.
http://wwwlibrary.csustan.edu/lboyer/multicultural/main.htm
This site is the home of the Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education.
Each issue has a theme. For example, the Fall 2001 theme was “Interracial
and Mixed-Racial Relationships and Families.” Its multiple
offerings justify checking this site for thematic applicability.
http://www.eastern.edu/publications/emme
This is a must peruse site with an emphasis on practical discussions of
various diversity subtopics, i.e., multiculturalism, teaching effectively
- everything from course content to problematic assumptions to learning
styles. Of particular use are the “CRLT Multicultural Occasional
Papers” and the “Multicultural Teaching Strategies.”
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/multimain.html
Section
5: Other Identities
Are you aware of your attitudes about yourself and others based
on age, race, gender, and academic background? Harvard University, the
University of Virginia, and the University of Washington have developed
the Implicit Association Test to help you find out.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
This site provides a massive statistical compilation of socioeconomic
data, i.e., Levels of Education, Outcomes of Education, International
Comparisons of Education.
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/digest/
Catherine G. Krupnick, in her article "Women and Men in the Classroom:Inequality
and Its Remedies" explains how she analyzed videotaped class sessions
to answer the research questions: What are the differences, if any, between
male and female students' participation in classroom discussion? How does
the gender of the teacher affect the students' participation?
Originally published in On Teaching and Learning, Volume 1 (1985),
accessed from
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/krupnick.html
Hate crimes, or bias-motivated crimes are offenses motivated by hatred
against a victim based on his or her race, religion, sexual orientation,
handicap, ethnicity, or national origin. Parents, Families, and
Friends of Lesbian and Gays' website explores the issues surrounding hate
crimes and hate crime legislation.
http://www.pflag.org/education/hatecrimes.html
The PFLAG website also offers "Tips for Professionals Who Work with GLBTQ
Youth"
http://www.pflag.org/publications/Tips_youth.PDF
Reed, John H. A Guide to Classroom Instruction for Adjunct Faculty.
Washington, DC: American Chemical Society. 2002.
This is a practical and eminently useful guide for all beginning educators.
Its discussion of “Personality Types that Affect Classroom Interaction”
offers suggestions for dealing with a different set of diverse characteristics
as evidenced by the classification into “Introverts, Gripers, Ready
Answerers, Ramblers, Talkers, Conversationalists, Mules, Bunglers, and
Experts.”
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