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Multicultural Education
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Ninth Edition
Edited by
James A . Banks University of Washington , Seattle
Cherry A . McGee Banks University of Washington , Bothell
ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES
Multicultural Education
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Vice President & Director George Hoffman
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Cover Photo Credit © Maynard Johnny Jr./GarfinkelPublication Inc.
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ISBN: 978-1-119-23874-4 (PBK)
ISBN: 978-1-119-22211-8 (EVALC)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:
Multicultural education : issues and perspectives / edited by James A. Banks, University of Washington, Seattle,
Cherry A . McGee Banks, University of Washington, Bothell. — Ninth edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-119-23874-4 (pbk.)
1. Multicultural education—United States. 2. Minorities—Education—United States. 3. Educational
anthropology—United States. 4. Educational equalization—United States. I. Banks, James A. II. Banks, Cherry A.
McGee.
LC1099.3.M85 2015
370.117—dc23
2015027991
Printing identification and country of origin will either be included on this page and/or the end of the book. In addition, if
the ISBN on this page and the back cover do not match, the ISBN on the back cover should be considered the correct ISBN.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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v
Part 1 Issues and Concepts 1
1 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals 2
by James A. Banks
2 Culture, Teaching, and Learning 24
by Christina Convertino, Bradley A. Levinson, and Norma González
Part 2 Social Class and Religion 41
3 Social Class and Education 42
by Lois Weis
4 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life 59
by Charles H. Lippy
Part 3 Gender 79
5 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom 81
by David Sadker and Karen Zittleman
6 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy 98
by Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault
7 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools 115
by Diane S. Pollard
8 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education 132
by Cris Mayo
Part 4 Race, Ethnicity, and Language 149
9 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform 151
by James A. Banks
10 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching 171
by Leslie H. Picca and Ruth Thompson-Miller
Brief Contents
Preface xvii
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vi Brief Contents
11 Language Diversity and Schooling 188
by Manka M. Varghese
Part 5 Exceptionality 211
12 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities 213
by Sara C. Bicard and William L. Heward
13 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools 235
by Luanna H. Meyer, Hyun-Sook Park, Jill M. Bevan-Brown, and Catherine Savage
Part 6 School Reform and Classroom Assessment 257
14 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective 258
by Sonia Nieto and Patty Bode
15 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement 275
by Cherry A. McGee Banks
16 Classroom Assessment and Diversity 295
by Catherine S. Taylor and Susan B. Nolen
Appendix: Multicultural Resources 309
Glossary 315
Contributors 321
Index 325
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vii
Part 1 Issues and Concepts 1
1 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals 2
by James A. Banks 1.1. The Nature of Multicultural Education 2
1.2. The Historical Development of Multicultural Education 3
1.2.1 How Multicultural Education Developed 5
1.3. The Nature of Culture in the United States 5
1.3.1. The Meaning of Culture 5
1.3.2. Identifi cation and Description of the U.S. Core Culture 6
1.3.3. Equality 6
1.3.4. Individualism and Individual Opportunity 7
1.3.5. Individualism and Groupism 7
1.3.6. Expansionism and Manifest Destiny 7
1.3.7. Microcultures in the United States 8
1.3.8. Groups and Group Identifi cation 10
1.3.9. The Teaching Implications of Group Identifi cation 11
1.3.10. The Interaction of Race, Class, and Gender 12
1.4 The Social Construction of Categories 13
1.4.1. Gender 13
1.4.2. Sexual Orientation 13
1.4.3. Race 13
1.4.4. Social Class 14
1.4.5. Exceptionality 14
1.5 The Dimensions of Multicultural Education 15
1.5.1. Content Integration 16
1.5.2. The Knowledge Construction Process 16
1.5.3. Prejudice Reduction 17
1.5.4. An Equity Pedagogy 17
1.5.5. An Empowering School Culture and Social Structure 18
1.6 The School as a Social System 19
Summary 20
Questions and Activities 20
References 21
Contents
Preface xvii
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2 Culture, Teaching, and Learning 24
by Christina Convertino, Bradley A. Levinson, and Norma González 2.1. Getting to Know Culture: An Overview of Culture’s
Meanings and Uses 25
2.2. Some Early Origins of the Construct of Culture 27
2.3. Culture as Transmission and Adaptation 27
2.4. Creating Culture: Cultural Transmission and Education 28
2.5. Culture Change: Cultural Psychology and Cultural Production 29
2.6. Critiques of Culture 31
2.7. Culture and Educational Achievement 32
2.8. Cultural Deficit Models 32
2.9. Cultural Difference Model and Mismatch Hypothesis 33
2.10. Educational Achievement: Voluntary versus Involuntary Immigrant Students 34
2.11. Putting Culture to Work: Culture and Learning in the 21st Century 35
2.12. Rethinking Learning and Cultural Processes in Education 36
2.13. Learning in Context: What Teachers Need to Know 36
2.14. Concluding Remarks 37
Questions and Activities 38
References 38
Part 2 Social Class and Religion 41
3 Social Class and Education 42
by Lois Weis 3.1. Education and the Production of Social and Economic Inequalities 44
3.2. Ability Grouping and Tracking 45
3.3. Official Knowledge and Its Distribution 47
3.4. Access and Outcomes in the Postsecondary Sector 48
3.5. Research on Class Privilege 50
3.6. Globalizing Our Imagination 52
Questions and Activities 54
References 54
4 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life 59
by Charles H. Lippy 4.1. Europeans Plant Christianity in North America 60
4.2. Early Signs of Diversity 60
4.3. Common Themes 61
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4.4. The Spread of Evangelical Protestantism 62
4.5. Religious Freedom and the Separation of Church and State 63
4.6. Diversity, Religious Freedom, and the Courts 66
4.7. Pluralism Becomes the Norm 69
4.8. New Faces of Pluralism 71
4.9. Summary and Educational Implications 75
4.10. Resources 75
Questions and Activities 76
References 77
Part 3 Gender 79
5 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom 81
by David Sadker and Karen Zittleman 5.1. The Hidden Civil Rights Struggle 82
5.2. Report Card: The Cost of Sexism in Schools 84
5.3. Gender Bias in Today’s Classroom: The Curriculum 86
5.3.1. Invisibility: What You Don’t See Makes a Lasting Impression 87
5.3.2. Stereotyping: Glib Shortcuts 88
5.3.3. Imbalance and Selectivity: A Tale Half Told 88
5.3.4. Unreality: Rose‐Colored Glasses 88
5.3.5. Fragmentation: An Interesting Sideshow 88
5.3.6. Linguistic Bias: Words Count 88
5.3.7. Cosmetic Bias: Pretty Wrapping 88
5.4. Gender Bias in Today’s Classrooms: Student–Teacher Interaction 89
5.5. Trends and Challenges 90
5.5.1. The Boy Crisis 90
5.5.2. The Rebirth of Single‐Sex Education 92
5.5.3. Supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students (LGBT) 94
5.6. Strategies for Creating Gender‐Fair Classrooms 95
Questions and Activities 96
References 96
6 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy 98
by Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault 6.1. Feminist Phase Theory 99
6.2. Male‐Defined Curriculum 99
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6.3. Contribution Curriculum 101
6.4. Bifocal Curriculum 101
6.5. Women’s Curriculum 103
6.6. Gender‐Balanced Curriculum 106
6.7. Changes in Traditional Ways of Teaching 107
Sample Lessons 110
Summary 113
Questions and Activities 113
References 113
7 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools 115
by Diane S. Pollard 7.1. Evolution of Thinking about Gender Equity 116
7.2. Intersections of Gender and Other Statuses 117
7.2.1. Concepts of Gender 117
7.2.2. Gender and Diversity 118
7.2.3. Within‐Group Heterogeneity 119
7.2.4. Gender Equity and Diversity: Implications for Education 120
7.3. Teacher Perceptions and Expectations 121
7.4. Classroom Experiences of Females and Males from Diverse Populations 122
7.5. Supporting Gender Equity among Diverse Populations 125
7.5.1. Strategy 1: Confronting and Addressing Stereotyping, Discrimination, and Systemic Oppression 125
7.5.2. Strategy 2: Obtaining Knowledge about Cultures, Statuses, and Intersections 126
7.5.3. Strategy 3: Building on Students’ Assets and Strengths 127
7.5.4. Strategy 4: Increasing the Number of Female and Male Teachers Who Represent Diversity in Race, Ethnicity, Disability, Sexuality, and Other Statuses 128
7.6. Conclusions 128
Questions and Activities 129
References 129
8 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education 132
by Cris Mayo 8.1. Sexuality and Gender Identity 133
8.2. LGBTQ Issues and the School Curriculum 134
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8.3. Overlapping Histories of Multiculturalism and LGBTQ Movements 135
8.4. Histories of Gay‐Inclusive Multiculturalism and Other Curricular Inclusiveness 137
8.5. Challenges to Homophobia and Heterosexism 138
8.6. Challenging Assumptions about LGBTQ People 139
8.7. Why Homophobia? 142
8.8. Dilemmas of Queer Inclusion 144
8.9. Seven Things to Do to Improve Education for Students of All Sexual Orientations and Genders 145
Questions and Activities 146
References 146
Part 4 Race, Ethnicity, and Language 149
9 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform 151
by James A. Banks 9.1. The Mainstream‐Centric Curriculum 151
9.2. Public Sites and Popular History 153
9.3. Efforts to Establish a Multicultural Curriculum 154
9.4. Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content 155
9.4.1. The Contributions Approach 155
9.4.2. The Additive Approach 157
9.4.3. The Transformation Approach 159
9.4.4. The Social Action Approach 161
9.4.5. Mixing and Blending Approaches 163
9.5. Guidelines for Teaching Multicultural Content 166
Summary 167
Questions and Activities 168
References 168
10 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching 171
by Leslie H. Picca and Ruth Thompson-Miller 10.1. Context 172
10.2. Methodology 172
10.3. Journals by White Students 173
10.3.1. The Frontstage 174
10.3.2. The Backstage 175
10.4. Journals by Students of Color 178
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10.5. Comparing the Journals Written by Whites and Students of Color 181
10.6. Conclusion and Next Actionable Steps 182
Journal Exercise 184
How Do I Do This? 184
Questions and Activities 185
References 186
11 Language Diversity and Schooling 188
by Manka M. Varghese 11.1. The Immigrant Population in the United States 189
11.2. Dramatic Increase in Linguistic Diversity in Schools 192
11.3. Additional Sources of Linguistic Diversity: Dialect Variation and Indigenous Languages 192
11.4. Historical and Legal Overview of Language Policy in the United States 193
11.5. Implementation of Federal Policy 193
11.6. Language Policy in Recent History 195
11.7. Programmatic Responses to Linguistic Diversity 196
11.8. Instructional Programs 197
11.9. The Bilingual Debate and the Research Context 197
11.10. Program Types That Contribute to Successful Educational Practice 198
11.11. The Lived Reality of Today’s Linguistically Diverse Students 199
11.12. Views on Language Learning and Teaching 199
11.12.1. Language 200
11.12.2. Language Learners 200
11.12.3. Age 200
11.12.4. First Language 201
11.13. Language Learning and Teaching 201
11.13.1. Theories of Second‐Language Learning 201
11.13.2. Instructional Methods and Approaches 203
11.13.3. Instructional Strategies and Contexts for Learning 203
11.14. Conclusion 205
Questions and Activities 205
Resources 206
Professional Associations 206
Websites 206
References 206
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Part 5 Exceptionality 211
12 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities 213
by Sara C. Bicard and William L. Heward 12.1. Identification of Students with Disabilities 214
12.2. Is Disability a Social Construct? 215
12.3. How Many Students with Disabilities Are There? 216
12.4. How Are Students with Disabilities Classified? 217
12.5. How Is Eligibility for Special Education Determined? 218
12.6. How Does Classification Affect Instruction? 218
12.7. History of Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities 218
12.8. The Individuals with Disabilities Act: A Legislative Mandate for Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities 220
12.8.1. Major Principles of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 220
12.8.2. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 225
12.8.3. The Americans with Disabilities Act 225
12.8.4. The No Child Left Behind Act 225
12.9. Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities: Progress Made but Challenges Remain 226
12.9.1. Effective Instruction 226
12.9.2. General and Special Education Partnership 227
12.9.3. Early Intervention 228
12.9.4. Transition from School to Adult Life 228
12.9.5. Special Education in a Diverse Society 229
Summary 231
Questions and Activities 231
References 231
13 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools 235
by Luanna H. Meyer, Hyun-Sook Park, Jill M. Bevan-Brown, and Catherine Savage 13.1. Special Education as Exclusion 236
13.2. Special Education and Segregation 236
13.3. Strategies to Prevent Misdiagnosis and Disproportionality 238
13.4. The Monoculture of Mainstream Education 239
13.5. Parent Participation and Working with Families 240
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13.6. Causes of Limited Parental Involvement 241
13.7. A Mismatch: Special Education and Families 242
13.8. Strategies to Increase Parental Participation 243
13.8.1. Preparation of Professionals for Partnerships with Parents 244
13.8.2. Preparation of Parents for Partnerships with Educators 244
13.9. Culturally Competent Teachers and Inclusive Pedagogies 245
13.10. Preintervention Culturally Responsive Teaching 245
13.11. Culturally Responsive Interventions 246
13.12. Culturally Situated Schooling and Inclusive Pedagogies 248
13.13. Quality Inclusive Schools 248
13.14. Delivery of Special Education in the Context of General Education 249
13.15. Inclusive Schools and Teacher Education 250
13.16. Managing Inclusive Classrooms 250
13.17. Diversity and Caring Communities: Outcomes for the Social Good 251
Questions and Activities 252
References 252
Part 6 School Reform and Classroom Assessment 257
14 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective 258
by Sonia Nieto and Patty Bode 14.1. School Reform with a Multicultural Perspective 260
14.2. Conditions for Systemic School Reform with a Multicultural Perspective 261
14.3. School Reform Should Be Antiracist and Antibiased 262
14.4. School Reform Should Reflect an Understanding and Acceptance of All Students as Having Talents and Strengths that Can Enhance Their Education 265
14.5. School Reform Should Be Considered within the Parameters of Critical Pedagogy 267
14.6. A Study of Identity, Struggle, and Resilience at SCotA 268
14.7. The People Most Intimately Connected with Teaching and Learning (Teachers, Families, and Students) Need to Be Meaningfully Involved in School Reform 269
14.8. School Reform Needs to Be Based on High Expectations and Rigorous Standards for All Learners 269
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14.9. Conclusion 271
Questions and Activities 271
References 272
15 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement 275
by Cherry A. McGee Banks 15.1. Reasons That Parent and Family Involvement
in Schools Is Important 277
15.2. Historical Overview 279
15.3. The Changing Face of the Family 279
15.4. Parents with Special Needs 282
15.5. Single Parents 283
15.6. Low‐Income Parents 283
15.7. Teacher Concerns with Parent and Family Involvement 284
15.8. Steps to Increase Parent and Family Involvement 285
15.9. Establish Two‐Way Communication between the School and the Home 285
15.10. Enlist Support from Other Staff Members and Students 286
15.11. Enlist Support from the Community 288
15.12. Develop Learning Resources for Parents to Use at Home 289
15.13. Broaden the Conception of Parent and Community Involvement 289
15.13.1. Parents Working with Their Own Children 290
15.13.2. Professional Support Person for Instruction 290
15.13.3. General Volunteers 291
15.13.4. Decision‐Makers 291
Summary 292
Questions and Activities 292
Internet Resources For Information on Parent Involvement 292
References 293
16 Classroom Assessment and Diversity 295
by Catherine S. Taylor and Susan B. Nolen 16.1. Bias and Sensitivity Issues in Assessment 296
16.2. Lessons Learned from a Bias and Sensitivity Review Panel 298
16.2.1. “Othering” 298
16.2.2. Consistency with Culture 298
16.2.3. Developing Interpretations 299
16.2.4. Culturally Inappropriate Tasks 299
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16.3. Investigating Potential Bias through Statistical Analyses 300
16.4. The Effects of Engagement on Assessment Performance 301
16.5. The Social Context of Assessment 303
16.6. Teacher Assessment Practices 304
Summary 306
Questions and Activities 306
References 306
Appendix: Multicultural Resources 309
Glossary 315
Contributors 321
Index 325
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Preface
Racial, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity—which has increased in the
United States as well as in other nations since the eighth edition of this book was published—
presents both opportunities and challenges to educators. The challenges of diversity within recent
years were manifested by the persistent conflicts between police officers and communities of
color in the United States and by the tragic events in France in January 2015. Seventeen people
lost their lives in conflicts that resulted from many complex factors related to cultural and reli-
gious diversity as well as to social class—including the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in
a French satirical magazine but also from the alienation and structural exclusion of Muslim youth
within French society (Erlanger, 2015 ). Diversity is also a source of population rejuvenation,
innovation, and economic vitality within a nation. Educators in multicultural nation-states in the
21st century need to construct creative and novel ways to actualize the strengths of diversity
while working to resolve its challenges.
Diversity continues to increase in the United States. The 2013 American Community
Survey reveals that the United States is becoming increasingly non‐White because the growth in
the population of people of color is outpacing the growth of the non‐Hispanic White population.
Most of the increase in the population of the United States that occurred between 2009 and 2013
resulted from the increasing Latino population. There were approximately 54 million Latinos
living in the United States in 2013, which was approximately 17 percent of U.S. residents (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2014 ). While the population of people of color increased substantially between
2000 and 2013, the non‐Hispanic White population decreased from 69 to 63 percent of the
nation ’ s population. Ethnic minorities made up more than 92 percent of the growth of the
U.S. population between 2009 and 2013. While the population of Latinos and Asians increased
significantly between 2000 and 2013, the African American population increased only slightly,
from 12.3 to 13.8 percent of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014 ). The U.S. Census
Bureau projects that ethnic minorities will increase from 37.6 percent of the nation ’ s population
in 2013 to 57 percent in 2060. Ethnic minorities made up 118 million of the total U.S. population
of 316 million in 2013 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 , 2014 ).
Students who speak a language other than English at home are the fastest‐growing segment
of the U.S. student population, making up approximately 21 percent of the school‐age population
in 2013 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014 ). A significant percentage of these students have undocu-
mented parents or are themselves undocumented (Peréz, 2011 ; Yoshikawa, 2011 ). Yet most of the
nation ’ s teachers are White, female, middle-class (or aspiring to the middle class), and monolin-
gual. There is a wide and growing ethnic, cultural, social‐class, and linguistic gap between many
of the nation ’ s teachers and their students. Teachers are faced with both the challenges and oppor-
tunities of dealing with diversity creatively and constructively in their classrooms and schools.
The social‐class divide within U.S. society is widening, and the percentage of students who
are poor in the nation ’ s schools is increasing (Murray, 2012 ; Stiglitz, 2012 ). A report by the
Southern Education Foundation ( 2013 ) indicates that 51 percent of students in U.S. public schools
were eligible for free or reduced‐priced lunches in 2013, which means that they lived in low‐
income families. Consequently, in designing effective instructional programs and interventions,
teachers and other educators must also respond effectively to the ways in which race, class, gen-
der, and social class interact to influence student behavior and learning.
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xviii Preface
Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives, ninth edition, is designed to help current
and future educators acquire the concepts, paradigms, and explanations needed to become effec-
tive practitioners in culturally, racially, linguistically, and social‐class diverse classrooms and
schools. An important goal of this book is to help teachers attain a sophisticated understanding of
the concept of culture and to view race, class, gender, social class, and exceptionality as interact-
ing concepts rather than as separate and distinct. Consequently, intersectionality—or how race,
class, gender, and exceptionality are fluid variables that interact in complex ways—is an over-
arching concept in this book (Caruthers & Carter, 2012; Grant & Zwier, 2012).
Teacher education programs should help teachers attain the knowledge, attitudes, and
skills needed to work effectively with students from diverse groups as well as help students from
mainstream groups develop cross‐cultural knowledge, values, and competencies. The ninth edi-
tion of this book—which can help teachers to attain these goals—has been revised to reflect
current and emerging research, theories, and practices related to the education of students
from different cultural, racial, ethnic, language, gender, religious, and social‐class groups.
Exceptionality is part of our concept of diversity because there are exceptional students in each
group discussed in this book.
Chapter 16, “Classroom Assessment and Diversity”, is new to this ninth edition. All of the
chapters from the previous edition have been revised to reflect new research, theories, census
data, statistics, interpretations, and developments. Learning Objectives have been added to the
beginning of each chapter in this edition. The Multicultural Resources in the Appendix have been
substantially revised and updated. The Glossary has been revised to incorporate 2014 statistical
data from the United States Census American Community Survey as well as new developments
in the field. Two chapters from the eighth edition of this book do not appear in this paper edition
but can be found on the online Web site for this book at Wiley.com. They are “Race, Class,
Gender, and Disability in the Classroom”, by Carl A. Grant and Christine E. Sleeter; and
“Recruiting and Retaining Gifted Students from Different Ethnic, Cultural, and Language
Groups”, by Donna Y. Ford.
This book consists of six parts. The chapters in Part 1 discuss how race, gender, class, and
exceptionality interact to influence student behavior. Social class and religion and their effects on
education are discussed in Part 2. Part 3 describes how educational opportunity differs for female
and male students and how schools can foster gender equity as well as create safe educational
environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students. Chapter 7 describes
how race and gender are interacting rather than separate and discrete variables. The issues,
problems, and opportunities for educating students of color and students with language differences
are discussed in Part 4. Chapter 10, which focuses on racism in the “backstage” and “frontstage,”
describes ways in which racism is manifested in the “backstage” in what some commentators are
describing as a postracial period in the United States. Part 5 focuses on exceptionality, describing
the issues involved in creating equal educational opportunity for students who have disabilities and
for those who are gifted. The final part—Part 6—discusses multicultural education as a process of
school reform, ways to increase student academic achievement by working effectively with par-
ents, and classroom assessment and diversity. The Appendix consists of a list of books for further
reading and a Glossary that defines many of the key concepts and terms used throughout this book.
Acknowledgments We are grateful to a number of colleagues who helped with the preparation of this ninth edition.
First, we would like to thank the authors, who revised their chapters in a timely and professional
way. We would also like to thank Catherine S. Taylor and Susan B. Nolen, two of our colleagues
at the University of Washington, for taking time from their busy schedules to write the chapter
“Classroom Assessment and Diversity”, for this ninth edition.
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xixPreface
We would like to thank the following individuals who helped us revise the list of
Multicultural Resources that is included in the Appendix:
Sara C. Bicard, Auburn University, Montgomery, Alabama
Douglas Cheney, University of Washington, Seattle
Donna Ford, Vanderbilt University
Khyati Joshi, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Sara Schneider Kavanagh, Stanford University
Charles Lippy, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Cris Mayo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Luanna Meyer, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
Diana S. Pollard, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
David Sadker, American University and University of Arizona
Federico R. Waitoller, University of Illinois at Chicago
Lois Weis, University of Buffalo
Karen Zimmerman, American University
We also thank Yiting Chu and Tao Wang, research assistants at the Center for Multicultural
Education at the University of Washington, for helping to update the statistics in this ninth edition as
well as for other editorial and research assistance during the preparation of the manuscript of this edi-
tion. We wish to acknowledge Kimberly McKaig for her help with the proofreading of this edition.
We hope the contributors to this ninth edition as well as the scholars who helped us bring
it to fruition in other ways will take pride in it. Reading and editing the chapters for this ninth
edition have enriched us.
James A. Banks
Cherry A. McGee Banks
References Caruthers, J., & Carter, P. L. (2012). Intersectionality of race, class, gender,
and ethnicity. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Encyclopedia of diversity in educa- tion (vol. 2 pp. 1270–1272). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Erlanger, S. (2015, February 3). France’s ideals, forged in revolution, face
a modern test. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.
com/2015/02/03/world/frances‐ideals‐forged‐in‐revolution‐face
‐a‐modern‐test.html
Grant, C. A., & Zwier, E. (2012). Intersectionality and education. In
J. A. Banks (Ed.), Encyclopedia of diversity in education (vol. 2,
pp. 1262–1270). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Murray, C. (2012). Coming apart: The state of White America, 1960–2010.
New York: Crown Forum.
Peréz, W. (2011). Americans by heart: Undocumented Latino students and the promise of higher education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Stiglitz, J. E. (2012). The price of inequality: How today’s divided society endangers our future. New York: Norton.
Southern Education Foundation. (2013, January). A new majority: Low‐ income student now a majority in the nation’s public schools. Retrieved
from http://www.southerneducation.org/Our‐Strategies/Research‐and
‐Publications/New‐Majority‐Diverse‐Majority‐Report‐Series/A‐New
‐Majority‐2015‐Update‐Low‐Income‐Students‐Now.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2012, December). U.S. Census Bureau projections show
a slower growing, older, more diverse nation a half century from now.
Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives
/population/cb12‐243.html.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2014). 2013 American community survey. Retrieved
from http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/product
view.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_5YR_DP05&prodType=table.
Yoshikawa, H. (2011). Immigrants raising citizens: Undocumented par- ents and their young children. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
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part
1
1 Issues and Concepts
The two chapters in Part 1 define the major concepts and issues in multicultural
education, describe the diverse meanings of culture, and describe the ways in which
such variables as race, class, gender, and exceptionality influence student behavior.
Various aspects and definitions of culture are discussed. Culture is conceptualized as a
dynamic and complex process of construction; its invisible and implicit characteristics
are emphasized. The problems that result when culture is essentialized are described.
Multicultural education is an idea, an educational reform movement, and a process
whose major goal is to change the structure of educational institutions so that male and
female students, exceptional students, and students who are members of diverse racial,
ethnic, language, cultural, and religious groups will have an equal opportunity to achieve
academically in school. It is necessary to conceptualize the school as a social system in
order to implement multicultural education successfully. Each major variable in the
school—such as its culture, its power relationships, the curriculum and materials, and
the attitudes and beliefs of the staff—must be changed in ways that will allow the school
to promote educational equality for students from diverse groups.
To transform the schools, educators must be knowledgeable about the influence of
particular groups on student behavior. The chapters in this part of the book describe the
nature of culture and groups in the United States as well as the ways in which they inter-
act to influence student behavior.
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1
2
chapter
Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals James A. Banks
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Name the three major components of multicultural education.
2. List the characteristics of the macroculture and microcultures in the United States.
3. Explain how race, class, and gender interact to influence student behavior.
4. Name and describe the five dimensions of multicultural education.
1.1 The Nature of Multicultural Education Multicultural education is at least three things: an idea or concept, an educational reform move-
ment, and a process. Multicultural education incorporates the idea that all students—regardless
of their gender; sexual orientation; social class; and ethnic, racial, or cultural characteristics—
should have an equal opportunity to learn in school. Another important idea in multicultural
education is that some students, because of these characteristics, have a better chance to learn in
schools as they are currently structured than do students who belong to other groups or who have
different cultural characteristics.
Some institutional characteristics of schools systematically deny some groups of students
equal educational opportunities. For example, in the early grades, girls and boys achieve equally
in mathematics and science. However, at advanced levels of mathematics, boys score higher on
tests such as the SAT college entrance examination (Boaler & Sengupta‐Irving, 2012 ). Girls are
less likely than boys to participate in class discussions and to be encouraged by teachers to par-
ticipate. Girls are more likely than boys to be silent in the classroom. However, not all school
m o n k ey
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n es
si m
ag es
/G et
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es
Banks_c01.indd 2 7/31/2015 12:41:41 PM
31.2 The Historical Development of Multicultural Education
practices favor males. As Sadker and Zittleman point out in Chapter 5, boys are more likely to be
disciplined than girls, even when their behavior does not differ from that of girls. They are also
more likely than girls to be classified as learning disabled (Cortiella & Horowitz, 2014). Males
of color, especially African American males, experience a highly disproportionate rate of disci-
plinary actions and suspensions in school. Some scholars, such as Howard (2014), have described
the serious problems that African American males experience in school and in the wider society.
Women outpace men in graduation rates both from high school and from colleges and universi-
ties. The percentage of bachelor’s degrees earned by women increased from 24 percent in 1950
to 57 percent in 2013 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014).
In the early grades, the academic achievement of students of color, such as African Americans,
Latinos, and American Indians, is close to parity with the achievement of White mainstream stu-
dents (Steele, 2003). However, the longer these students of color remain in school, the more their
achievement lags behind that of White mainstream students. Social‐class status is also strongly
related to academic achievement. Weis, in Chapter 3—as well as Knapp and Yoon (2012)—
describe the powerful ways in which social class influences students’ opportunities to learn.
Exceptional students, whether they are physically or mentally disabled or gifted and tal-
ented, often find that they do not experience equal educational opportunities in the schools. The
chapters in Part 5 describe the problems that exceptional students experience in schools and
suggest ways that teachers and other educators can increase their chances for educational
success.
Multicultural education is also a reform movement that is trying to change the schools and
other educational institutions so that students from all social‐class, gender, racial, language, and
cultural groups will have equal opportunities to learn. Multicultural education involves changes
in the total school or educational environment; it is not limited to curricular changes (Banks,
2015; Banks & Banks, 2004). The variables in the school environment that multicultural educa-
tion tries to transform are discussed later in this chapter and illustrated in Figure 1.5. Multicultural
education is also a process whose goals will never be fully realized.
Educational equality, such as liberty and justice, is an ideal toward which human beings
work but which they never fully attain. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism (disability
discrimination) will exist to some extent no matter how hard we work to eliminate these prob-
lems. When prejudice and discrimination are reduced toward one group, they are usually directed
toward another group or take new forms. Whenever groups are identified and labeled, categoriza- tion occurs. When categorization occurs, members of in‐groups favor in‐group members and
discriminate against out‐groups (Bigler & Hughes, 2009). This process can occur without groups
having a history of conflict, animosity, or competition, and without having physical differences
or any other kind of important difference. Social psychologists call this process social identity theory or the minimal group paradigm (Rothbart & John, 1993). Because the goals of multicul-
tural education can never be fully attained, we should work continuously to increase educational
equality for all students. Multicultural education must be viewed as an ongoing process, not as
something that we “do” and thereby solve the problems that are the targets of multicultural edu-
cational reform.
1.2 The Historical Development of Multicultural Education Multicultural education grew out of the ferment of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. During
this decade, African Americans embarked on a quest for their rights that was unprecedented in
the United States. A major goal of this movement was to eliminate discrimination in public
accommodations, housing, employment, and education. Its consequences had a significant influ-
ence on educational institutions as ethnic groups—first African Americans and then other
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4 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
groups—demanded that the schools and other educational institutions reform curricula to reflect
their experiences, histories, cultures, and perspectives. Ethnic groups also demanded that the
schools hire more Black and Brown teachers and administrators so that their children would have
more successful role models. Ethnic groups pushed for community control of schools in their
neighborhoods and for the revision of textbooks to make them reflect the diversity of peoples in
the United States.
The first responses of schools and educators to the ethnic movements of the 1960s were
hurried (Banks, 2006, 2015). Courses and programs were developed without the thought and
careful planning needed to make them educationally sound or to institutionalize them within the
educational system. Holidays and other special days, ethnic celebrations, and courses that focused
on one ethnic group were the dominant characteristics of school reforms related to ethnic and
cultural diversity during the 1960s and early 1970s. Grant and Sleeter (2013) call this approach
“single‐group studies.” The ethnic studies courses developed and implemented during this period
were usually electives and were taken primarily by students who were members of the group that
was the subject of the course.
The visible success of the civil rights movement, plus growing rage and a liberal national
atmosphere, stimulated other marginalized groups to take actions to eliminate discrimination
against them and to demand that the educational system respond to their needs, aspirations, cul-
tures, and histories. The women’s rights movement emerged as one of the most significant social
reform movements of the 20th century (Brewer, 2012). During the 1960s and 1970s, discrimina-
tion against women in employment, income, and education was widespread and often blatant.
The women’s rights movement articulated and publicized how discrimination and institutional-
ized sexism limited the opportunities of women and adversely affected the nation. The leaders of
this movement, such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, demanded that political, social, eco-
nomic, and educational institutions act to eliminate sex discrimination and provide opportunities
for women to actualize their talents and realize their ambitions. Major goals of the women’s
rights movement included offering equal pay for equal work, eliminating laws that discriminated
against women and made them second‐class citizens, hiring more women in leadership positions,
and increasing the participation of men in household work and child rearing.
When feminists (people who work for the political, social, and economic equalities of the
sexes) looked at educational institutions, they noted problems similar to those identified by ethnic
groups of color. Textbooks and curricula were dominated by men; women were largely invisible.
Feminists pointed out that history textbooks were dominated by political and military history—
areas in which men had been the main participants (Trecker, 1973). Social and family history and
the history of labor and ordinary people were largely ignored. Feminists pushed for the revision
of textbooks to include more history about the important roles of women in the development of
the United States and the world. They also demanded that more women be hired for administra-
tive positions in the schools. Although most teachers in the elementary schools were women,
most administrators were men.
Other marginalized groups, stimulated by the social ferment and the quest for human rights
during the 1970s, articulated their grievances and demanded that institutions be reformed so they
would face less discrimination and acquire more human rights. People with disabilities, senior
citizens, and gays and lesbians formed groups that organized politically during this period and
made significant inroads in changing institutions and laws. Advocates for citizens with disabili-
ties attained significant legal victories during the 1970s. The Education for All Handicapped
Children Act of 1975 (PL. 94‐142)—which required that students with disabilities be educated in
the least restricted environment and institutionalized the word mainstreaming in education— was
perhaps the most significant legal victory of the movement for the rights of students with disabili-
ties in education (see Chapters 12 and 13).
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51.3 The Nature of Culture in the United States
1.2.1 How Multicultural Education Developed
Multicultural education emerged from the diverse courses, programs, and practices that educa-
tional institutions devised to respond to the demands, needs, and aspirations of the various groups.
Consequently, multicultural education in actual practice is not one identifiable course or educa-
tional program. Rather, practicing educators use the term multicultural education to describe a
wide variety of programs and practices related to educational equity, women, ethnic groups,
language minorities, low‐income groups, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people,
and people with disabilities. In one school district, multicultural education may mean a curricu-
lum that incorporates the experiences of ethnic groups of color; in another, a program may include
the experiences of both ethnic groups and women. In a third school district, this term may be used
the way it is by me and by other authors, such as Nieto and Bode (2012) and Grant and Sleeter
(2013)—that is, to mean a total school reform effort designed to increase educational equity for
a range of cultural, ethnic, and income groups. This broader and more comprehensive notion of
multicultural education is discussed in the last part of this chapter. It differs from the limited
concept of multicultural education in which it is viewed as curriculum reform.
1.3 The Nature of Culture in the United States The United States, like other Western nation‐states such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and
Canada, is a multicultural society. The United States consists of a shared core culture as well as
many subcultures. In this book, we call the larger shared core culture the macroculture; the
smaller cultures, which are a part of the core culture, are called microcultures. It is important to
distinguish the macroculture from the various microcultures because the values, norms, and char-
acteristics of the mainstream (macroculture) are frequently mediated by, as well as interpreted
and expressed differently within, various microcultures. These differences often lead to cultural
misunderstandings, conflicts, and institutionalized discrimination.
Students who are members of certain cultural, religious, and ethnic groups are sometimes
socialized to act and think in certain ways at home but differently at school (Au, 2011). In her
studies of African American students and families in Trackton, a working‐class community in the
Piedmont Carolinas, Heath (1983, 2012) found that the pattern of language use in school was
very different from the pattern used at home. At home, most of the children’s interaction with
adults consisted of imperatives or commands. At school, questions were the dominant form of
interaction between teachers and students. A challenge that multicultural education faces is how
to help students from diverse groups mediate between their home and community cultures and
the school culture. Students should acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to func-
tion effectively in each cultural setting. They should also be competent to function within and
across other microcultures in their society, within the national macroculture, and within the world
community (Banks, 2015).
1.3.1 The Meaning of Culture
Bullivant (1993) defines culture as a group’s program for survival in and adaptation to its envi-
ronment. The cultural program consists of knowledge, concepts, and values shared by group
members through systems of communication. Culture also consists of the shared beliefs, sym-
bols, and interpretations within a human group. Most social scientists today view culture as
consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human societies. The
essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements but how the
Banks_c01.indd 5 7/31/2015 12:41:41 PM
6 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them. It is the values, symbols, interpreta-
tions, and perspectives that distinguish one person from another in modernized societies; it is
not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies (Erickson, 2012). People in a
culture usually interpret the meanings of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in
similar ways.
1.3.2 Identification and Description of the U.S. Core Culture
The United States, like other nation‐states, has a shared set of values, ideations, and symbols that
constitute the core or overarching culture. This culture is shared to some extent by all of the
diverse cultural and ethnic groups that make up the nation‐state. It is difficult to identify and
describe the overarching culture in the United States because it is such a diverse and complex
nation. It is easier to identify the core culture within an isolated premodern society, such as the
Maoris before the Europeans came to New Zealand, than within highly pluralistic, modernized
societies, such as the United States, Canada, and Australia (Penetito, 2010).
When trying to identify the distinguishing characteristics of U.S. culture, one should real-
ize that the political institutions in the United States, which reflect some of the nation’s core
values, were heavily influenced by the British. U.S. political ideals and institutions were also
influenced by Native American political institutions and practices, especially those related to
making group decisions, such as in the League of the Iroquois (Weatherford, 1988).
1.3.3 Equality
A key component in the U.S. core culture is the idea, expressed in the Declaration of Independence,
that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” When this idea was
expressed by the nation’s founding fathers in 1776, it was considered radical. A common belief
in the 18th century was that human beings were not born with equal rights—that some people
had few rights and others, such as kings, had divine rights given by God. When considering the
idea that “all men are created equal” is a key component of U.S. culture, one should remember
to distinguish between a nation’s ideals and its actual practices, as well as between the meaning
of the idea when it was expressed in 1776 and its meaning today. When the nation’s founding
fathers expressed this idea, their conception of men was limited to White males who owned prop-
erty (Foner, 1998). White men without property, White women, and all African Americans and
Indians were not included in their notion of people who were equal or who had “certain
unalienable rights.”
Although the idea of equality expressed by the founding fathers in 1776 had a very limited
meaning at that time, it has proved to be a powerful and important idea in the quest for human
rights in the United States. Throughout the nation’s history since 1776, marginalized and excluded
groups such as women, African Americans, Native Americans, and other cultural and ethnic
groups have used this idea to justify and defend the extension of human rights to them and to end
institutional discrimination, such as sexism, racism, and discrimination against people with
disabilities (Branch, 2006). As a result, human rights have gradually been extended to various
groups throughout U.S. history. The extension of these rights has been neither constant nor linear.
Rather, periods of the extension of rights have often been followed by periods of retrenchment
and conservatism. Schlesinger (1986) calls these patterns “cycles of American history.” The
United States is still a long way from realizing the ideals expressed in the Declaration of
Independence. However, these ideals remain an important part of U.S. culture and are still used
by marginalized groups to justify their struggles for human rights and equality.
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71.3 The Nature of Culture in the United States
1.3.4 Individualism and Individual Opportunity
Two other important ideas in the common overarching U.S. culture are individualism and
individual social mobility (Gorski, 2013; Stiglitz, 2012). Individualism as an ideal is extreme in
the U.S. core culture. Individual success is more important than commitment to family, commu-
nity, and nation‐state. An individual is expected to achieve success solely by his/her own efforts.
Many people in the United States believe that a person can go from rags to riches within a genera-
tion and that every American‐born boy can, but not necessarily will, become president. Individuals
are expected to achieve success by hard work and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This
idea was epitomized by fictional characters such as Ragged Dick, one of the heroes created by
the popular writer Horatio Alger. Ragged Dick attained success by valiantly overcoming poverty
and adversity. A related belief is that if a person does not succeed, it is because of his or her own
shortcomings, such as being lazy or unambitious; failure is consequently the person’s own fault.
These beliefs are taught in the schools with success stories and myths about such U.S. heroes as
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.
The beliefs about individualism in U.S. culture are related to the Protestant work ethic. This
is the belief that hard work by the individual is morally good and that laziness is sinful. This
belief is a legacy of the British Puritan settlers in colonial New England. It has had a powerful
and significant influence on U.S. culture.
The belief in individual opportunity has proven tenacious in U.S. society. It remains strong
in American culture despite the fact that individuals’ chances for upward social, economic, and
educational mobility in the United States are highly related to the social‐class, ethnic, gender, and
other ascribed groups to which they belong (Knapp & Yoon, 2012; Stiglitz, 2012). The findings
of social science research, as well as the chapters in this book, document the extent of social‐class
stratification in the United States and the ways in which people’s opportunities in life are strongly
influenced by the groups to which they belong (Weis, 2008 Chapter 3, this book), yet the belief
in individual opportunity remains strong in the United States.
1.3.5 Individualism and Groupism
Although the groups to which people belong have a major influence on their life chances in the
United States, Americans—particularly those in the mainstream—are highly individualistic in
their value orientations and behaviors. The nuclear family reinforces individualism in U.S. cul-
ture. One result of this strong individualism is that married children usually expect their older
parents to live independently or in homes for senior citizens rather than with them. The strong
individualism in U.S. culture contrasts sharply with the groupism and group commitment found
in Asian nations, such as China and Japan (Butterfield, 1982; Reischauer, 1981). Individualism is
viewed rather negatively in these societies. One is expected to be committed first to the family
and group and then to oneself. Some U.S. social scientists, such as Lasch (1978) and Bellah,
Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton (1985), lament the extent of individualism in U.S. society.
They believe it is harmful to the common national culture. Some observers believe that groupism
is too strong in China and Japan and that individualism should be more valued in those nations.
Perhaps modernized, pluralistic nation‐states can best benefit from a balance between individual-
ism and groupism, with neither characteristic dominating.
1.3.6 Expansionism and Manifest Destiny
Other overarching U.S. values that social scientists have identified include the desire to conquer
or exploit the natural environment, the focus on materialism and consumption, and the belief in
the nation’s inherent superiority, which is often referred to as “American exceptionalism.”
Banks_c01.indd 7 7/31/2015 12:41:41 PM
8 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
These beliefs justified Manifest Destiny and U.S. expansion to the West and into other nations
and the annexation of one‐third of Mexico’s territory in 1848. These observations, which reveal
the less positive side of U.S. national values, have been developed by social scientists interested
in understanding the complex nature of U.S. society (Appleby, Hunt, & Jacob, 1994).
In his discussion of the nature of values in U.S. society, Myrdal contends that a major ethi-
cal inconsistency exists in U.S. society (Myrdal, Sterner, & Rose, 1944/1962). He calls this
inconsistency “the American dilemma.” He states that American creed values, such as equality
and human dignity, exist in U.S. society as ideals. However, they exist alongside the institutional-
ized discriminatory treatment of African Americans and other ethnic and cultural groups in
U.S. society. This variance creates a dilemma in the American mind because Americans try to
reconcile their democratic ideals with their treatment of marginalized groups. Myrdal states that
this dilemma has been an important factor that has enabled ethnic groups to fight discrimination
effectively. In their efforts to resolve their dilemma when the inconsistencies between their ideals
and actions are pointed out to them by human rights advocates, Americans, according to Myrdal,
often support the elimination of practices that are inconsistent with their democratic ideals or the
American creed. Some writers have refuted Myrdal’s hypothesis and contend that most individu-
als in the United States do not experience such a dilemma related to the gap between American
ideals and racial discrimination (Ellison, 1995).
1.3.7 Microcultures in the United States
A nation as culturally diverse as the United States consists of a common overarching culture as
well as a series of microcultures (see Figure 1.1). These microcultures share most of the core
values of the nation‐state, but these values are often mediated by the various microcultures and
are interpreted differently within them. Microcultures sometimes have values that are somewhat
alien to the national core culture. Also, some of the core national values and behaviors may seem
somewhat alien in certain microcultures or may take different forms.
Microculture A
National Macroculture
Microculture B
Microculture C
Microculture D
FIGURE 1.1 Microcultures and the National
Macroculture The shaded area represents the national macroculture. A, B, C, and D represent microcultures that consist of unique institutions, values, and cultural elements that are nonuniversalized and are shared primarily by members of specific cultural groups. A major goal of the school should be to help students acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to function effectively within the national macroculture, within their own microcultures, and within and across other microcultures.
Source: James A. Banks. (2015). Cultural Diversity and Education: Foundations, Curriculum and Teaching, 6th ed. (Boston: Pearson), p. 75. Used with the permission of the author.
Banks_c01.indd 8 7/31/2015 12:41:42 PM
91.3 The Nature of Culture in the United States
The strong belief in individuality and individualism that exists within the national macro-
culture is often much less endorsed by some ethnic communities and is somewhat alien within
them. Most African Americans and Latinos who have not experienced high levels of cultural
assimilation into the mainstream culture are much more group oriented than are mainstream
Americans. Schools in the United States are highly individualistic in their learning and teaching
styles, evaluation procedures, and norms. Many students, particularly African Americans,
Latinos, Native Americans, and Hawaiian Americans are group oriented (Au, 2011; Lee, 2006).
These students experience problems in the school’s highly individualistic learning environment.
Teachers can enhance the learning opportunities of these students, who are also called field
dependent or field sensitive, by using cooperative teaching strategies that have been developed
and field‐tested by researchers such as Slavin (2012) and Cohen and Lotan (2014).
Some theories and research indicate that female students may have preferred ways of know-
ing, thinking, and learning that differ to some extent from those most often preferred by males
(Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Halpern, 1986; Taylor, Gilligan, & Sullivan, 1995).
Maher (1987) describes the dominant inquiry model used in social science as male constructed and
dominated. She contends that the model strives for objectivity: “Personal feelings, biases, and
prejudices are considered inevitable limitations” (p. 186). Feminist pedagogy is based on different
assumptions about the nature of knowledge and results in a different teaching method. According
to Maher and Tetreault (1994), feminist pedagogy enhances the learning of females and deepens
the insight of males. In Chapter 6, Tetreault describes feminist pedagogy techniques she uses to
motivate students and enhance their understandings.
After completing a major research study on women’s ways of knowing, Belenky and col-
leagues (1986) concluded that conceptions of knowledge and truth in the core culture and in
educational institutions “have been shaped throughout history by the male‐dominated majority
culture. Drawing on their own perspectives and visions, men have constructed the prevailing
theories, written history, and set values that have become the guiding principles for men and
women alike” (p. 5).
These researchers also found an inconsistency between the kind of knowledge most appeal-
ing to women and the kind that was emphasized in most educational institutions. Most of the
women interviewed in the study by Belenky and her colleagues (1986) considered personal-
ized knowledge and knowledge that resulted from firsthand observation most appealing. How-
ever, most educational institutions emphasize abstract, “out‐of‐context” knowledge. Ramírez and
Castañeda (1974) found that Mexican American students who were socialized within traditional
cultures also considered personalized and humanized knowledge more appealing than abstract
knowledge. They also responded positively to knowledge that was presented in a humanized or
story format.
Research by Gilligan (1982) provides some clues that help us better understand the find-
ings by Belenky and her colleagues (1986) about the kind of knowledge women find most appeal-
ing. Gilligan describes caring, interconnection, and sensitivity to the needs of other people as
dominant values among women and the female microculture in the United States. By contrast,
she found that the values of men were more characterized by separation and individualism.
A major goal of multicultural education is to change teaching and learning approaches so
that students of both genders and from diverse cultural, ethnic, and language groups will have
equal opportunities to learn in educational institutions. This goal suggests that major changes
should be made in the ways that educational programs are conceptualized, organized, and taught.
Educational approaches need to be transformed in order to create effective multicultural class-
rooms and schools.
In her research on identifying and labeling students with mental retardation, Mercer (1973)
found that a disproportionate number of African American and Mexican American students were
labeled mentally retarded because the testing procedures used in intelligence tests “reflect the
Banks_c01.indd 9 7/31/2015 12:41:42 PM
10 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
abilities and skills valued by the American core culture” (p. 32), which Mercer describes as
predominantly White, Anglo‐Saxon, and middle and upper class. She also points out that meas-
ures of general intelligence consist primarily of items related to verbal skills and knowledge. Most
African American and Latino students are socialized within microcultures that differ in significant
ways from the U.S. core culture. These students often have not had an equal opportunity to acquire
the knowledge and skills that are measured in mental ability tests. Consequently, a disproportion-
ate number of African American and Latino students are labeled mentally retarded and are placed
in classes for slow learners (Richman, 2012). Mental retardation, as Mercer points out, is a socially
determined status. When students are placed in classes for the mentally retarded, the self‐fulfilling
prophecy develops. Students begin to act and think as though they are mentally retarded.
1.3.8 Groups and Group Identification
Thus far, this chapter has discussed the various microcultures that make up U.S. society. Indi-
viduals learn the values, symbols, and other components of their culture from their social group.
The group is the social system that carries a culture. People belong to and live in social groups
(Bullivant, 1993). A group is a collectivity of persons who share an identity, a feeling of unity. A
group is also a social system that has a social structure of interrelated roles (Theodorson &
Theodorson, 1969). The group’s program for survival, values, ideations, and shared symbols
constitutes its culture (Erickson, 2012).
The study of groups is the major focus in sociology. Sociologists believe that the group has
a strong influence on the behavior of individuals, that behavior is shaped by group norms, and
that the group equips individuals with the behavior patterns needed to adapt to their physical,
social, and metaphysical environments. Sociologists also assume that groups have independent
characteristics; they are more than aggregates of individuals. Groups possess a continuity that
transcends the lives of individuals.
Sociologists also assume that knowledge about groups to which an individual belongs
provides important clues to and explanations for the individual’s behavior. Goodman and Marx
(1982) write, “Such factors as shared religion, nationality, age, sex, marital status, and education
have proved to be important determinants of what people believe, feel, and do” (p. 7). Although
membership in a gender, racial, ethnic, social‐class, or religious group can provide us with
important clues about individuals’ behavior, it cannot enable us to predict behavior. Knowing
one’s group affiliation can enable us to state that a certain type of behavior is probable.
Membership in a particular group does not determine behavior, but makes certain types of behav-
ior more probable.
There are several important reasons why knowledge of group characteristics and modali-
ties can enable us to predict the probability of an individual’s behavior but not the precise behav-
ior. This is, in part, because each individual belongs to several groups at the same time (see
Figure 1.2). An individual may be White, Catholic, female, and middle class, all at the same time.
That individual might have a strong identification with one of these groups and a very weak or
almost nonexistent identification with another. A person can be a member of a particular group,
such as the Catholic Church, and have a weak identification with the group and a weak commit-
ment to the tenets of the Catholic faith. Religious identification might be another individual’s
strongest group identification. Identification with and attachments to different groups may also
conflict. A woman who has a strong Catholic identification but is also a feminist might find it
difficult to reconcile her beliefs about equality for women with some positions of the Catholic
Church, such as its prohibiting women from being ordained as priests.
The more we know about a student’s level of identification with a particular group and the
extent to which socialization has taken place within that group, the more accurately we can pre-
dict, explain, and understand the student’s behavior in the classroom. Knowledge of the impor-
tance of a group to a student at a particular time of life and within a particular social context will
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111.3 The Nature of Culture in the United States
also help us understand the student’s behavior. Ethnic identity may become more important to a
person who becomes part of an ethnic minority when he/she previously belonged to the majority.
Many Whites who have moved from the U.S. mainland to Hawaii have commented on how their
sense of ethnic identity increased and they began to feel marginalized. Group identity may also
increase when the group feels threatened, when a social movement arises to promote its rights, or
when the group attempts to revitalize its culture.
1.3.9 The Teaching Implications of Group Identification
What are the implications of group membership and group identity for teaching? As you read the
chapters in this book that describe the characteristics of gender, social‐class, racial, ethnic, reli-
gious, language, LGBT, and exceptional groups, bear in mind that individuals within these groups
manifest these behaviors to various degrees. Also remember that individual students are members
of several of these groups at the same time. The core U.S. culture was described earlier as having
highly individualistic values and beliefs. However, research by Gilligan (1982) indicates that the
values of women—as compared with those of men—are more often characterized by caring,
interconnection, and sensitivity to the needs of others. This observation indicates how core values
within the macroculture are often mediated by microcultures within various gender, ethnic, and
cultural groups.
Also as stated previously, researchers have found that some students of color, such as
African Americans and Mexican Americans, often have field‐sensitive learning styles and there-
fore prefer more personalized learning approaches (Ramírez & Castañeda, 1974). Think about
what this means. This research describes a group characteristic of these students, not the behavior
of a particular African American or Mexican American student. It suggests that there is a higher
probability that these students will have field‐sensitive learning styles than will middle‐class
Anglo American students. However, students within all ethnic, racial, and social‐class groups
have different learning styles and characteristics. Gutiérrez and Rogoff (2003) have discussed
why describing ethnic groups in stereotypic and essentialized ways is problematic. The groups to
which students belong influence their behavior interactively and in complex ways because they
are members of several groups at the same time. Knowledge of the characteristics of groups to
which students belong, of the importance of each of these groups to them, and of the extent
to which individuals have been socialized within each group will give the teacher important clues
to students’ behavior.
Nationality
Exceptionality/ Nonexceptionality
Race/EthnicityGender
ReligionSocial Class
The Individual
FIGURE 1.2 Multiple Group
Memberships An individual belongs to several different groups at the same time. This figure shows the major groups discussed in this book.
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12 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
1.3.10 The Interaction of Race, Class, and Gender
When using our knowledge of groups to understand student behavior, we should also consider
the ways in which such variables as class, race, and gender interact and intersect to influence
student behavior. Middle‐class and highly assimilated Mexican American students tend to be
more field independent than do lower‐class and less‐assimilated Mexican American students.
African American students tend to be more field dependent (group oriented) than White
students; females tend to be more field dependent than male students. Therefore, it can be
hypothesized that African American females would be the most field dependent when com-
pared to African American and White males and White females. This finding was made by
Perney (1976).
Figure 1.3 illustrates how the major groupings discussed in this book—gender, race or
ethnicity, social class, religion, and exceptionality—influence student behavior, both singly and
interactively. The figure also shows that other variables, such as geographic region and age, also
influence an individual’s behavior. The ways in which these variables influence selected student
behaviors are described in Table 1.1.
Student
Behavior
Gender
Other Variables
Exceptionality
Religion
Social Class
Race/Ethnicity FIGURE 1.3
The Intersection of
Variables The major variables of gender, race or ethnicity, social class, religion, and exception- ality influence student behavior, both singly and interactively. Other variables, such as region and age, also influence student behavior.
■ TABLE 1.1 Singular and Combined Effects of Variables
Student Behavior
Gender
Effects
Race/Ethnicity
Effects
Social‐Class
Effects
Religious
Effects
Combined
Effects
Learning styles (field = independent/ field = dependent)
X* X X
Internality/externality X
Fear of success X X ?
Self‐esteem X X ?
Individual vs. group orientation X X X ?
*An X indicates that the variable influences the student behavior that is described in the far‐left column. An X in the
far‐right column means that research indicates that two or more variables combine to influence the described
behavior. A question mark indicates that the research is unclear about the effects of the variables.
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131.4 The Social Construction of Categories
1.4 The Social Construction of Categories The major variables and categories discussed in this book—such as gender, race or ethnicity,
class, and exceptionality—are social categories (Berger & Luckman, 1967; Mannheim, 1936).
The criteria for whether an individual belongs to one of these categories are determined by
human beings and consequently are socially constructed. Religion is also a social category.
Religious institutions, symbols, and artifacts are created by human beings to satisfy their meta-
physical needs.
These categories are usually related to individuals’ physical characteristics. In some cases,
as when they are individuals with severe or obvious physical disabilities, the relationship between
the labels given to individuals and their physical characteristics is direct and would be made in
almost any culture or social system. The relationship between categories that are used to classify
individuals and their physical characteristics, however, is usually indirect and complex. Even
though one’s sex is determined primarily by physical characteristics (genitalia, chromosome pat-
terns, etc.), gender is a social construction created and shaped by the society in which individuals
and groups function.
1.4.1 Gender
Gender consists of the socially and psychologically appropriate behavior for males and females
sanctioned by and expected within a society. Gender‐role expectations vary across cultures and at
different times in a society and within microcultures in the same society. Traditionally, normative
behavior for males and females has varied among mainstream Americans, African Americans,
Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans. Gender‐role expectations also vary somewhat across
social classes within the same society. In the White mainstream society in the 1940s and 1950s,
upper‐middle‐class women often received negative sanctions when they worked outside the
home, whereas women in working‐class families were frequently expected to become wage
earners.
1.4.2 Sexual Orientation
The discussion of gender roles provides an appropriate context for the examination of issues
related to sexual orientation (see Chapter 8). The quest by gays and lesbians for human and civil
rights has been an important development within the United States and throughout the Western
world in the last several decades. Sexual orientation deserves examination when human rights
and social justice are discussed because it is an important identity for some individuals and
groups and because many gay youths are victims of discrimination and hate crimes (Kavanagh,
2012; Mayo, 2014). Sexual orientation is often a difficult issue for classroom discussion for both
teachers and students. However, if done sensitively, it can help empower gay and lesbian students
and enable them to experience social equality in the classroom. Recognition is one important
manifestation of social equality (Gutmann, 2004).
1.4.3 Race
Race is a socially determined category that is related to physical characteristics in a complex way
(Jacobson, 1998; Leonardo, 2013). Two individuals with nearly identical physical characteristics,
or phenotypes, can be classified as members of different races in two different societies. In the
United States, where racial categories are well defined and highly inflexible, an individual with
any acknowledged or publicly known African ancestry is considered Black (Painter, 2010).
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14 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
One who looks completely Caucasian, but who acknowledges some African ancestry is classified
as Black. Such an individual would be considered White in Puerto Rico, where hair texture,
social status, and degree of eminence in the community are often as important as—if not more
important—than physical characteristics in determining an individual’s racial group or category.
There is a saying in Puerto Rico that “money lightens,” which means that upward social mobility
considerably enhances an individual’s opportunity to be classified as White. There is a strong
relationship between race and social class in Puerto Rico and in most other Caribbean and Latin
American nations.
Our discussion of race as a social category indicates that the criteria for determining the
characteristics of a particular race vary across cultures, that an individual considered Black in one
society may be considered White in another, and that racial categories reflect the social, eco-
nomic, and political characteristics of a society.
1.4.4 Social Class
Social scientists find it difficult to agree on criteria for determining social class. The problem is
complicated by the fact that societies are constantly in the throes of change. During the 1950s,
social scientists often attributed characteristics to the lower class that are found in the middle
class today, such as single‐parent and female‐headed households, high divorce rates, and sub-
stance abuse. Today, these characteristics are no longer rare among the middle class, even though
their frequency is still higher among lower‐class families (Murray, 2012). Variables such as
income, education, occupation, lifestyle, and values are among the most frequently used indices
to determine social‐class status in the United States (Warner, Meeker, & Eells, 1949/1960).
However, there is considerable disagreement among social scientists about which variables are
the most important in determining the social‐class status of an individual or family.
Social‐class criteria also vary somewhat among various ethnic and racial groups in the
United States. Teachers, preachers, and other service professionals were considered upper class
in many rural African American communities in the South in the 1950s and 1960s but middle
class by mainstream White society. The systems of social stratification that exist in the main-
stream society and in various microcultures are not necessarily identical.
1.4.5 Exceptionality
Exceptionality is also a social category. Whether a person is considered disabled or gifted is
determined by criteria developed by society. As Shaver and Curtis (1981) point out, disabilities
are not necessarily handicaps, and the two should be distinguished. They write, “A disability or
combination of disabilities becomes a handicap only when the condition limits or impedes the
person’s ability to function normally” (p. 1). A person with a particular disability, such as having
one arm, might have a successful college career, experience no barriers to achievements in col-
lege, and graduate with honors. However, this person may find that when trying to enter the job
market, the opportunities are severely limited because potential employers view him/her as una-
ble to perform well in some situations in which, in fact, this individual could perform effectively
(Shaver & Curtis, 1981). This individual has a disability but is viewed as handicapped in one situ-
ation (the job market) but not in another (the university).
Mercer (1973) has extensively studied the social process by which individuals become
labeled as persons with mental retardation. She points out that even though their physical charac-
teristics may increase their chance of being labeled persons with mental retardation, the two are
not perfectly correlated. Two people with the same biological characteristics may be considered
persons with mental retardation in one social system but not in another one. An individual may
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151.5 The Dimensions of Multicultural Education
be considered a person with mental retardation at school but not at home. Mercer writes, “Mental
retardation is not a characteristic of the individual, nor a meaning inherent in behavior, but a
socially determined status, which [people] may occupy in some social systems and not in others”
(p. 31). She states that people can change their role by changing their social group.
The highly disproportionate number of African Americans, Latinos, and particularly males
classified as learning disabled by the school indicates the extent to which exceptionality is a
social category (Richman, 2012). Mercer (1973) found that schools labeled more people men-
tally retarded than did any other institution. Many African American and Latino students who are
labeled mentally retarded function normally and are considered normal in their homes and com-
munities. Boys are more often classified as mentally retarded than girls. Schools, as Mercer and
other researchers have pointed out, use criteria to determine the mental ability of students of color
that conflict with their home and community cultures. Some students in all ethnic and cultural groups are mentally retarded and deserve special instruction, programs, and services, as the authors in Part 5 of this book suggest. However, the percentage of students of color in these pro-
grams is too high because it greatly exceeds their percentage in the school population. The per-
centage of students in each ethnic group labeled mentally retarded should be about the same as
the total percentage of that group in school.
Giftedness is also a social category (Ford, 2012; Sapon‐Shevin, 1994). Important results of
the socially constructed nature of giftedness are the considerable disagreement among experts
about how the concept should be defined and the often inconsistent views about how to identify
gifted students (Ford, 2012). The highly disproportionate percentage of middle‐ and upper‐
middle‐class mainstream students categorized as gifted compared to low‐income students and
students of color, such as African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, is also evidence of
the social origin of the category.
Many students who are classified as gifted do have special talents and abilities and need
special instruction. However, some students who are classified as gifted by school districts merely
have parents with the knowledge, political skills, and power to force the school to classify their
children as gifted, a classification that will provide them with special instruction and educational
enrichment (Sapon‐Shevin, 1994).
Schools should try to satisfy the needs of students with special gifts and talents; however,
they should also make sure that students from all social‐class, cultural, language, and ethnic
groups have an equal opportunity to participate in programs for academically and creatively
talented students. If schools or districts do not have in their gifted programs a population that
represents their various cultural, racial, language, and ethnic groups, steps should be taken to
examine the criteria used to identify gifted students and develop procedures to correct the dis-
proportion. Both excellence and equality should be major goals of education in a pluralistic
society.
1.5 The Dimensions of Multicultural Education When many teachers think of multicultural education, they think only or primarily of content
related to ethnic, racial, and cultural groups. Conceptualizing multicultural education exclusively
as content related to various ethnic and cultural groups is problematic for several reasons.
Teachers who cannot easily see how their content is related to cultural issues will easily dismiss
multicultural education with the argument that it is not relevant to their disciplines. This is done
frequently by secondary math and science teachers.
The irrelevant‐of‐content argument can become a legitimized form of resistance to multi-
cultural education when it is conceptualized primarily or exclusively as content. Math and sci-
ence teachers often state that multicultural education is fine for social studies and literature
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16 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
teachers but that it has nothing to do with their subjects. Furthermore, they say, math and science
are the same regardless of the culture or the kids. Multicultural education needs to be more
broadly defined and understood so that teachers from a wide range of disciplines can respond to
it in appropriate ways and resistance to it can be minimized.
Multicultural education is a broad concept with several different and important dimensions
(Banks, 2004). Practicing educators can use the dimensions as a guide to school reform when
trying to implement multicultural education. The dimensions are (1) content integration, (2) the
knowledge construction process, (3) prejudice reduction, (4) an equity pedagogy, and (5) an
empowering school culture and social structure. Each dimension is defined and illustrated in the
next section.
1.5.1 Content Integration
Content integration deals with the extent to which teachers use examples and content from a
variety of cultures and groups to illustrate key concepts, principles, generalizations, and theories
in their subject area or discipline. The infusion of ethnic and cultural content into the subject area
should be logical, not contrived.
More opportunities exist for the integration of ethnic and cultural content in some subject
areas than in others. In the social studies, the language arts, and music, frequent and ample oppor-
tunities exist for teachers to use ethnic and cultural content to illustrate concepts, themes, and
principles. There are also opportunities to integrate multicultural content into math and science.
However, the opportunities are not as ample as they are in the social studies, the language arts,
and music.
1.5.2 The Knowledge Construction Process
The knowledge construction process relates to the extent to which teachers help students to
understand, investigate, and determine how the implicit cultural assumptions, frames of refer-
ence, perspectives, and biases within a discipline influence the ways in which knowledge is
constructed within it (Banks, 1996).
Students can analyze the knowledge construction process in science by studying how rac-
ism has been perpetuated in science by genetic theories of intelligence, Darwinism, and eugenics.
In his important book The Mismeasure of Man, Gould (1996) describes how scientific racism
developed and was influential in the 19th and 20th centuries. Scientific racism has had and
continues to have a significant influence on the interpretations of mental ability tests in the
United States.
The publication of The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994), its widespread and
enthusiastic public reception, and the social context out of which it emerged provide an
excellent case study for discussion and analysis by students who are studying knowledge
construction (Kincheloe, Steinberg, & Gresson, 1996). Herrnstein and Murray contend that
low‐income groups and African Americans have fewer intellectual abilities than do other
groups and that these differences are inherited. Students can examine the arguments made by
the authors, their major assumptions, and how their conclusions relate to the social and politi-
cal context.
Gould (1994) contends that Herrnstein and Murray’s arguments reflect the social con-
text of the times, “a historical moment of unprecedented ungenerosity, when a mood for slash-
ing social programs can be powerfully abetted by an argument that beneficiaries cannot be
helped, owing to inborn cognitive limits expressed as low I.Q. scores” (p. 139). Students
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171.5 The Dimensions of Multicultural Education
should also study counterarguments to The Bell Curve made by respected scientists. Two good
sources are The Bell Curve Debate: History, Documents, Opinions, edited by Jacoby and
Glauberman (1995), and Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined, edited by Kincheloe and
colleagues (1996).
Students can examine the knowledge construction process in the social studies when they
study such units and topics as the European discovery of America and the westward movement.
The teacher can ask the students the latent meanings of concepts such as the “European discov-
ery of America” and the “New World.” The students can discuss what these concepts imply or
suggest about the Native American cultures that had existed in the Americas for about 40,000
years before the Europeans arrived. When studying the westward movement, the teacher can
ask students these questions: Whose point of view or perspective does this concept reflect, that
of the European Americans or the Lakota Sioux? Who was moving west? How might a Lakota
Sioux historian describe this period in U.S. history? What are other ways of thinking about and
describing the westward movement? Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited about History, by James W. Loewen (2010)
contains excellent examples of lessons that teachers can use to help students understand the
ways in which the perspectives and points of view of authors influence the writing and con-
struction of history.
1.5.3 Prejudice Reduction
Prejudice reduction describes lessons and activities teachers use to help students develop positive
attitudes toward different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. Research indicates that children
come to school with many negative attitudes toward and misconceptions about different racial
and ethnic groups (Aboud, 2009; Levy & Killen, 2008). Research also indicates that lessons,
units, and teaching materials that include content about different racial and ethnic groups can
help students to develop more positive intergroup attitudes if certain conditions exist in the teach-
ing situation (Bigler & Hughes, 2009). These conditions include positive images of the ethnic
groups in the materials and the use of multiethnic materials in a consistent and sequential way.
Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis provides several useful guidelines for helping students
to develop positive interracial attitudes and actions in contact situations. He states that contact
between groups will improve intergroup relations when the contact is characterized by these four
conditions: (1) equal status, (2) common goals, (3) intergroup cooperation, and (4) support of
authorities such as teachers and administrators (Schofield, 2012).
1.5.4 An Equity Pedagogy
Teachers in each discipline can analyze their teaching procedures and styles to determine the
extent to which they reflect multicultural issues and concerns. An equity pedagogy exists when
teachers modify their teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic achievement of students
from diverse racial, cultural, gender, and social‐class groups. This includes using a variety of
teaching styles and approaches that are consistent with the wide range of learning styles within
various cultural and ethnic groups, being demanding but highly personalized when working with
groups such as Native American and Alaskan students, and using cooperative learning techniques
in math and science instruction in order to enhance the academic achievement of students of color
(Cohen & Lotan, 2014; Slavin, 2012).
Several chapters in this book discuss ways in which teachers can modify their instruction
in order to increase the academic achievement of students from gender groups (Part 3) and differ-
ent cultural and linguistic groups (Part 4).
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18 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
1.5.5 An Empowering School Culture and Social Structure
Another important dimension of multicultural education is a school culture and organization that
promote gender, racial, and social‐class equity. The culture and organization of the school must
be examined by all members of the school staff. They all must also participate in restructuring it.
Grouping and labeling practices, sports participation, disproportionality in achievement, dispro-
portionality in enrollment in gifted and special education programs, and the interaction of the
staff and the students across ethnic and racial lines are important variables that need to be exam-
ined in order to create a school culture that empowers students from diverse racial, ethnic, and
language groups and from both gender groups.
Figure 1.4 summarizes the dimensions of multicultural education. The next section identi-
fies the major variables of the school that must be changed in order to institutionalize a school
culture that empowers students from diverse cultural, racial, ethnic, and social‐class groups.
Content
Integration
Knowledge
Construction
Prejudice
Reduction Equity
Pedagogy
Multicultural
Education
Empowering
School Culture
Content integration deals with the extent to which teachers use examples and content from a variety of cultures in their teaching.
An equity pedagogy exists when teachers modify their teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse racial, cultural, gender, and social-class groups.
This dimension focuses on the characteristics of students’ racial attitudes and how they can be modified by teaching methods and materials.
Grouping and labeling practices, sports participation, disproportionality in achievement, and the interaction of the staff and the students across ethnic and racial lines must be examined to create a school culture that empowers students from diverse racial, ethnic, and gender groups.
Teachers need to help students understand, investigate, and determine how the implicit cultural assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives, and biases within a discipline influence the ways in which knowledge is constructed.
FIGURE 1.4 The Dimensions of Multicultural Education
Source: Copyright © 2012 by James A. Banks.
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191.6 The School as a Social System
1.6 The School as a Social System To implement multicultural education successfully, we must think of the school as a social sys-
tem in which all of its major variables are closely interrelated. Thinking of the school as a social
system suggests that educators must formulate and initiate a change strategy that reforms the total
school environment to implement multicultural education. The major school variables that must
be reformed are presented in Figure 1.5.
Reforming any one of the variables in Figure 1.5, such as the formalized curriculum or
curricular materials, is necessary but not sufficient. Multicultural and sensitive teaching materials
are ineffective in the hands of teachers who have negative attitudes toward different racial, ethnic,
language, and cultural groups. Such teachers are rarely likely to use multicultural materials or are
likely to use them detrimentally. Thus, helping teachers and other members of the school staff to
gain knowledge about diverse groups and democratic attitudes and values is essential when
implementing multicultural programs.
To implement multicultural education in a school, we must reform its power relationships,
verbal interaction between teachers and students, culture, curriculum, extracurricular activities,
attitudes toward minority languages (Romaine, 2009), testing and assessment practices, and
grouping practices. The school’s institutional norms, social structures, cause‐belief statements,
values, and goals must be transformed and reconstructed.
Assessment and Testing Procedures
Instructional Materials
Formalized Curriculum and Course of Study
Teaching Styles and Strategies
Learning Styles of the School
School Culture and Hidden Curriculum
School Policy and Politics
Languages and Dialects of the School
Community Participation and Input
Counseling Program
School Staff: Attitudes, Perceptions, Beliefs, and Actions
The School as
a Social System
FIGURE 1.5 The School as a Social System The total school environment is a system consisting of a number of major identifiable variables and factors, such as a school culture, school policy and politics, and the formalized curriculum and course of study. Any of these factors may be the focus of initial school reform, but changes must take place in each of them to create and sustain an effective multicultural school environment.
Source: Copyright © 2012 by James A. Banks.
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20 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals
Major attention should be focused on the school’s hidden curriculum and its implicit norms
and values. A school has both a manifest and a hidden curriculum. The manifest curriculum con-
sists of such factors as guides, textbooks, bulletin boards, and lesson plans. These aspects of the
school environment are important and must be reformed to create a school culture that promotes
positive attitudes toward diverse cultural groups and helps students from these groups experience
academic success. However, the school’s hidden, or latent, curriculum is often more important
than its manifest or overt curriculum. The latent curriculum has been defined as the one that no
teacher explicitly teaches but that all students learn. It is that powerful part of the school culture
that communicates to students the school’s attitudes toward a range of issues and problems,
including how the school views them as human beings and as males, females, exceptional stu-
dents, and students from various religious, cultural, racial, and ethnic groups. Jackson (1992)
calls the latent curriculum the “untaught lessons.”
When formulating plans for multicultural education, educators should conceptualize the
school as a microculture that has norms, values, statuses, and goals like other social systems.
The school has a dominant culture and a variety of microcultures. Almost all classrooms in the
United States are multicultural because White students as well as Black and Brown students are
socialized within diverse cultures. Teachers also come from many different groups. As Erickson
(2012) points out, all individuals—including students and teachers—are also multicultural
because components of more than one culture or group influence their behavior. Each indi-
vidual belongs to an ethnic or culture group; is gay, straight, or bisexual; and is religious or
nonreligious.
Many teachers were socialized in cultures other than the Anglo mainstream, although these
may be forgotten and repressed. Teachers can get in touch with their own cultures and use the
perspectives and insights they acquired as vehicles for helping them relate to and understand the
cultures of their students.
1 . 1 S U M M A R Y
Multicultural education is an idea stating that all students, regard-
less of the groups to which they belong, such as those related
to gender, ethnicity, race, culture, language, social class, religion,
sexual orientation, or exceptionality, should experience
educational equality in the schools. Some students, because of
their particular characteristics, have a better chance to succeed
in school as it is currently structured than students from other
groups. Multicultural education is also a reform movement
designed to bring about a transformation of the school so that
students from both genders and from diverse cultural, language,
and ethnic groups will have an equal chance to experience school
success. Multicultural education views the school as a social sys-
tem that consists of highly interrelated parts and variables.
Therefore, in order to transform the school to bring about
educational equality, all major components of the school must be
substantially changed. A focus on any one variable in the school,
such as the formalized curriculum, will not implement multicul-
tural education.
Multicultural education is a continuing process because the
idealized goals it tries to actualize—such as educational equality
and the eradication of all forms of discrimination—can never be
fully achieved in human society. Multicultural education, which
was born during the social protest of the 1960s and 1970s, is an
international movement that exists in nations throughout the world
(Banks, 2009). A major goal of multicultural education is to help
students develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to
function within their own microcultures, the U.S. macroculture,
other microcultures, and the global community.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
1.1 What are the three components or elements of multicultural
education?
1.2 How does Banks define multicultural education?
1.3 Find other definitions of multicultural education in several
books listed under the category “Issues and Concepts” in
the Appendix to this book. How are the definitions of
multicultural education in these books similar to and differ-
ent from the one presented in this chapter?
1.4 In what ways did the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights
Movements of the 1960s and 1970s influence the develop-
ment of multicultural education?
1.5 Ask several teachers and other practicing educators to give
you their views and definitions of multicultural education.
What generalizations can you make about their responses?
1.6 Visit a local school and, by observing several classes as well
as by interviewing several teachers and the principal, describe
Banks_c01.indd 20 7/31/2015 12:41:43 PM
21References
what curricular and other practices related to multicultural
education have been implemented in the school. Share your
report with your classmates or workshop colleagues.
1.7 Define macroculture and microculture.
1.8 How is culture defined? What are the most important com-
ponents of culture in a modernized society?
1.9 List and define several core or overarching values and charac-
teristics that make up the macroculture in the United States.
To what extent are these values and characteristics consistent
with practices in U.S. society? To what extent are they ideals
that are inconsistent with realities in U.S. society?
1.10 How is individualism viewed differently in the United States
and in nations such as China and Japan? Why? What are the
behavioral consequences of these varying notions of
individualism?
1.11 What is the American dilemma defined by Myrdal? To what
extent is this concept an accurate description of values in
U.S. society? Explain.
1.12 How do the preferred ways of learning and knowing among
women and students of color often influence their experi-
ences in the schools as they are currently structured? In
what ways can school reform help make the school environ-
ment more consistent with the learning and cognitive styles
of women and students of color?
1.13 In what ways does the process of identifying and labe-
ling students with mental retardation discriminate against
groups such as African Americans and Latinos?
1.14 In what ways can the characteristics of a group help us
understand an individual’s behavior? In what ways are
group characteristics limited in explaining an individual’s
behavior?
1.15 How do such variables as race, class, and gender interact to
influence the behavior of students? Give examples to sup-
port your response.
1.16 What is meant by the “social construction of categories”? In
what ways are concepts such as gender, race, social class,
and exceptionality social categories?
1.17 List and define the five dimensions of multicultural educa-
tion. How can these dimensions be used to facilitate school
reform?
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24
chapter
2
Culture, Teaching, and Learning Christina Convertino , Bradley A. Levinson , and Norma González
I think the best way to learn about a multicultural society is to study many cultures. If
during class we studied one culture a day, we might scratch the surface on what it
would be like to be informed of and about numerous cultures.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define and give examples of the different meanings and uses for the concept of culture.
2. Describe the ways that an understanding of culture can help educators make effective
connections between their students ’ social lives and their learning in schools.
3. Explain how culture and learning are inextricably connected.
4. Discuss examples of culture as transmission and adaptation.
5. Define and compare cultural production, cultural continuity, cultural deficit, and
cultural difference theories.
6. Identify and discuss the ways that cultural processes and cultural traditions can
influence learning.
The statement at the beginning of this chapter represents one preservice student ’ s ideas about
what is meant by a “multicultural society” and about how educators can best prepare themselves
to teach in multicultural schools. His understanding of the relationship between culture and soci-
ety follows the tossed salad or mosaic theory : the idea that many distinct cultures comprise a
multicultural society. From his perspective, culture represents a set of characteristics (e.g., lan-
guage, customs, food, and holidays) attributable to clearly identifiable, distinct, and bounded
B le
n d I
m ag
es -
K id
S to
ck /G
et ty
I m
ag es
Banks_c02.indd 24 7/31/2015 12:43:22 PM
252.1 Getting to Know Culture: An Overview of Culture’s Meanings and Uses
groups of people; therefore, his suggestion to study one culture per day seems like an efficient
and logical way for teachers to learn about the overwhelming number of cultures within a multi-
cultural society.
This particular approach to understanding culture, also known as the tourist‐based or trans- mission approach, is fairly common, especially in teacher training. It typically involves “experts
transmitting to practitioners certain traits of Culture ‘X’ or Culture ‘Y’” (González, 1995, p. 237).
Yet in spite of the prevalence of a tourist‐based understanding of culture in schools, this approach
does not offer to educators an accurate or adequate view of culture. In fact, the idea of culture as
a set of bounded behaviors and traits attributable to a social group, which can be studied in one
day, may actually do significant harm in the context of schools and schooling.
If culture, then, is not a set of identifiable characteristics, what is it, and what significance
should it have for educators, students, and learning? If tourist‐based understandings of culture are
counterproductive, why are they so popular? One of the main goals of this chapter is to answer
these questions in order to provide educators with a better understanding of the concept of culture
and enable them to put such understanding to work. Specifically, this chapter examines culture as
a complex and layered construct rather than a list of traits attributable to different, usually
“exotic,” social groups; such a complex construct cannot be learned in one day.
What we refer to in this chapter as getting to know culture means actually grappling with
the complexity that surrounds the different meanings and uses of the culture concept in educa-
tion. Accordingly, getting to know culture means asking questions like: Where does the concept
come from? For what purposes has it been used in education? How has the concept changed over
time? Why has it changed? What is the usefulness of the concept? What are the limitations of the
concept? What other concepts are connected to culture? All of these together represent the mul-
tiple layers that make up the concept of culture; all are necessary for educators to understand how
culture is implicated and reflected in teaching and learning.
The other overarching goal of this chapter is to provide educators with an understanding
of culture that will help them to make more effective connections between their students’
social lives and their learning in schools. Putting culture to work depends on knowing culture
in all of the previously mentioned ways so that it can be applied effectively and appropriately
in teaching and learning. More specifically, in the latter part of this chapter we discuss how
21st‐century educators can put culture to work in classrooms by understanding how culture
and learning are inextricably connected—in ways that go beyond superficial understandings
of culture as a set of traits and characteristics or of learning as a simple matter of transmission
and acquisition.
2.1 Getting to Know Culture: An Overview of Culture’s Meanings and Uses
As in a complex labyrinth, no single or direct pathway leads to a meaningful understanding of
culture. In fact, although culture is one of those seemingly commonsense words that gets used on
a daily basis, few people can clearly define it. Depending on the circumstances, culture might
refer to the idea of “capital C” Culture: what is often referred to as high culture, invoking associa-
tions with certain refined tastes and habits typified by the classical arts, like a Bach overture or
the Mona Lisa. In this sense, some people have “more” culture, while others have much less. In
other circumstances, someone might use culture as a catchall term for the beliefs and practices
that differentiate groups of people, such as traditional Japanese food, dress, and decorum. In this
sense, everyone “has” culture in equal measure, but the substance of culture is different. In the
context of schools and classrooms, moreover, culture is often something that the “other” has, and
Banks_c02.indd 25 7/31/2015 12:43:22 PM
26 Culture, Teaching, and Learning
it is often viewed as a “problem” to be solved. This trend frequently surfaces in teacher education
courses, where White preservice teachers consistently claim that they have no “culture” and are
therefore genuinely concerned about how they will teach “culturally diverse” students in their
classrooms.
The differences, tensions, and conflicts embedded in the meaning and uses of culture are
actually not new, but rather reflect the difficulty of defining a seemingly commonsense concept.
Anthropologists, for whom culture has been the central focus of their study, have struggled and
often failed to reach consensus on a singular definition of culture (Kuper, 1999), in large part
because of the complexity of the concept as well as the different ways in which the concept gets
used to explain human life. Moreover, the concept of culture continues to change according to
broader social, economic, and political shifts, such as industrialization and, more recently, glo-
balization. In fact, some contemporary anthropologists question whether the concept of culture is
still relevant at all or whether it needs to be replaced.
For educators, the question of what culture is can be particularly challenging, since most
teacher training programs increasingly emphasize the importance of culture to learning but rarely
provide enough examples or experience to aid teachers in understanding the concept. Moreover,
little effort is made to differentiate between the understandings and uses of culture in different
academic fields. For example, the majority of educators are introduced to the culture concept
through discussion of and coursework on multicultural education, where the primary focus is
often on student identity and a representation of ethnic groups across the curriculum. In other
words, “culture, for multiculturalists, refers primarily to collective social identities engaged in
struggles for social equality” (Turner, 1993, p. 412). By contrast, “anthropology and its various
concepts of culture are not primarily oriented towards programs of social change, political mobi-
lization, or cultural transformation” (p. 412), and yet anthropological understandings of how
cultural practices are produced, and thus mediate learning, are essential to providing a meaningful
and effective education to all students.
The fact that these different approaches to understanding the connections between culture
and education are not made explicit, results in much of the confusion and the superficial applica-
tions of culture that characterize most teaching in schools today. This fact also explains why so
many teachers automatically link culture to ethnic or racial identity and fail to understand that
“every individual participates in many cultures” that are not necessarily tied to ethnic or racial
group membership (Pollock, 2008, p. 370). In fact, “culture matters because it shapes all aspects
of daily living and activity. [And] unfortunately, the manner in which culture manifests itself for
students is frequently not understood in schools and is not used effectively to enhance teaching
and learning for all students” (Howard, 2010, p. 51).
Thus, teachers must cultivate deeper understandings of how culture is implicated in teach-
ing and learning, moving beyond superficial tourist—or “holiday and hero”—approaches. At the
same time, the persistent achievement gap between low‐income students and students of color, on
one hand, and middle‐ to upper‐middle‐income White students, on the other, demands a view of
culture aimed toward transforming educational inequities. Educators are in the unique position of
being cultural brokers who cross intellectual borders between anthropology, sociology, psychol-
ogy, cultural studies, and multicultural education, to arrive at understandings of culture that are
both theoretically rich and pedagogically effective.
In this chapter, we focus primarily on anthropological approaches to understanding culture
through a critical lens that contributes to the multiple dimensions of multicultural education
(Banks, 2015). In the following sections, we provide an overview of how anthropologists have
developed culture as a set of ideas that have changed throughout history in response to broader
socioeconomic and political shifts. We do not provide a comprehensive definition of the concept
but rather focus on the development of those aspects of the culture concept that pertain most
significantly to teaching and learning (see also Erickson, 2011).
Banks_c02.indd 26 7/31/2015 12:43:22 PM
272.3 Culture as Transmission and Adaptation
2.2 Some Early Origins of the Construct of Culture Following the Industrial Revolution, the concept of culture went from meaning the growth of
something, like horticulture or agriculture, to signifying the creative aspirations of the human
mind. These early notions of culture, as a series of increasingly superior manifestations of human
creativity and intellect, were closely tied to other prevalent modes of thought at the time—
Eurocentrism and evolutionism in particular. Consequently, the idea of culture was associated
with the late 19th‐ and early 20th‐century ideas about the progression of evolutionary stages that
ranked racial groups in terms of levels of intelligence or development. In this Eurocentric view,
there were civilized and primitive people. The civilized were those who had developed higher
levels of culture, while the primitives had either little or no culture.
In response to the racism embedded in this concept of culture, the German‐born American
anthropologist Franz Boas set out to disprove the idea of cultural evolutionism by conducting exten-
sive ethnographic fieldwork around the turn of the 20th century among the coastal Indians of British
Columbia. Using a historical comparative method, Boas replaced the “theory of progress” with a
theory of “cultural relativism” (Visweswaran, 2010, p. 77) by demonstrating that cultures are neither
superior nor inferior; they are just different from one another. Accordingly, differences in human
development and behavior were based on ways of knowing and traditions specific to the adaptation
and reproduction of social groups, rather than on overall levels of progress or development.
For 21st‐century educators, there are two central components of this earlier version of cul-
ture that remain significant and largely misunderstood. First is the use of culture to replace scien-
tific racism in explaining differences in human behavior. Subsequent sections in this chapter
discuss the persistent and insidious conflations of culture and race, which unfortunately reflect the
limited success of these earlier efforts by Boas and others to show that cultures are neither inher-
ently superior nor inferior. Second is the centrality of teaching and learning to the very meaning
and substance of culture. One cannot conceive of education in the absence of culture; education is
the process by which culture is constantly transmitted and produced (Erickson, 2012).
2.3 Culture as Transmission and Adaptation At a fundamental level, the meaning of culture is deeply implicated in education. Moreover, as the
21st century opened, it has become abundantly clear that efforts to improve education cannot ignore
culture. The very process of education is one in which cultural knowledge is constantly transmitted,
acquired, and produced. Cultural beliefs and values shape what occurs within formal education
systems. Economic and political changes are often expressed in cultural terms through value con-
flicts about what should be taught in schools: for example, conflicts related to curriculum, including
creationism versus evolutionism, English‐only immersion versus dual‐language bilingualism, pho-
netics versus whole language, and so on. Meanwhile, culture also works as a force to reshape the
environment and therefore, in turn, influences economic and political systems.
As stated earlier, the definition of culture remains contested. In current popular discourse,
culture often refers to the beliefs, values, and meanings that can bind a group of people together.
Culture is often invoked as a group’s entire way of life, including patterns of behavior and uses
of material artifacts. At this point in the discussion, we will emphasize culture as shared symbol
systems as well as the cognitive models that make such symbol systems meaningful and intelli-
gible. In short, culture refers to the symbolic meanings by which the members of a group or society communicate with and understand themselves, each other, and the world around them.
Human beings are, above all, great symbol‐makers and manipulators. Unlike most other
animals, our instinctual repertoire is quite limited. The behavior needed to survive, with which
most other animals are genetically hard‐wired, we must acquire through learning and knowledge
Banks_c02.indd 27 7/31/2015 12:43:22 PM
28 Culture, Teaching, and Learning
acquisition. We are probably the only species to regularly use symbols in this learning process
and the only species to systematically transmit the rules of symbol use to succeeding generations.
In each culture, in each individual, we seemingly recreate the entire evolutionary process through
which human beings learn to create, communicate, interpret, and use symbols. In fact, this is a
workable definition of education. At heart, education is the transmission and acquisition of sym-
bolic knowledge for understanding, controlling, and transforming the world.
Of course, education is much broader than schooling, which is an institution of more recent
historical invention. Until the development of agriculture and the rise of city‐states, tribal socie-
ties likely educated their children through complex and deliberate practices, but not in separate
institutions like those we call schools. Rather, education was probably a seamless part of every-
day life, taking place through the productive and ritual activities characterizing a society’s way
of life. A school, on the other hand, is typically an age‐graded, hierarchical setting where, as
Judith Friedman Hansen (1979) puts it, “learners learn vicariously, in roles and environments
defined as distinct from those in which the learning will eventually be applied” (p. 28). Only
since the beginnings of the modern period some 200 years ago—a period characterized by the
rise of capitalism, large‐scale urbanization, the consolidation of the nation‐state, and the ubiquity
of the printing press—have mass school systems been created and has much of human learning
been assigned to schools. Especially since World War II, schools have become the dominant
format for learning in most areas of the world. Still, schools are no less influenced by culture than
are other informal means of education.
Whether in or out of school, then, from an anthropological perspective the educational
process fundamentally oscillates between an emphasis on continuity and an emphasis on change.
This is because the challenges of evolution, broadly speaking, require a social group to adapt to
novel circumstances through innovation and then to consolidate and perpetuate this adaptation
through repeated inculcation. Through the use of culture, human groups have wrested a living
from the environment and assured themselves biological and social continuity.
Finally, we must also be cautious about how we conceive of the “group” that educates. As
human societies have grown more differentiated, biological and cultural adaptation to the physical
environment have become more highly mediated by complex traditions and institutions. Intensive
agriculture, urbanization, and industrialization have led to occupational and class stratification as
well as large‐scale political formations, such as empires or nation‐states. The concerns of the
nation‐state as a large‐scale human group, for instance, must not be confused with the concerns of
those groups that constitute any given nation‐state. While some educational systems and processes
may seem adaptive for the nation‐state as a whole, they may be highly maladaptive for particular
groups, such as the Amish farmers of the United States or the Quechua Indians of Peru, or even for
the punk rockers on the outskirts of Lima, the capital of Peru. Moreover, certain kinds of educa-
tional processes, such as the teaching of an ethic of competitive individualism, may be adaptive in
relation to the economic foundations of a capitalist nation, but not in relation to a self‐sufficient
community or, ultimately, in relation to the well‐being of the Earth’s biosphere. All of this explains
why we cannot view education as benefiting all individuals and groups in a given society or as
providing a means of adaptation in some simple functional sense. Education can just as likely
serve as the vehicle for domination of one group over another in the pursuit of its own interests.
2.4 Creating Culture: Cultural Transmission and Education
As we have seen, the educational process cannot be separated from the broader human process of
cultural adaptation. The following social science concepts represent some of the foundational
ideas about the way that culture has been described and portrayed in the educational process.
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292.5 Culture Change: Cultural Psychology and Cultural Production
From the very origins of their academic disciplines in the late 1800s, anthropologists and
sociologists wondered how human societies could reproduce themselves from one generation to the
next without falling into disarray. What allowed a society to adapt to its environment while retaining
some historical cohesion and continuity? How did a society conserve essential features of its cul-
tural and technological repertoire? Social science theories of education largely sought to address
these questions through an analysis of the process of cultural transmission—the passing on of basic
cultural knowledge and values across the generations. Contemporary schools and classrooms are
replete with examples of cultural transmission; for example, traditional classroom management
teaches dominant cultural communication patterns, like raising hands for turn‐taking.
Enculturation refers to the basic process of cultural transmission by which individuals
come to acquire the crucial meanings and understandings of their primary culture, usually the
local community or kin group (cf. the related sociological term socialization). In Western indus-
trial nations, school culture typically reflects the dominant culture. Consequently, students who
are enculturated in the dominant culture—White, middle to upper‐middle class—possess greater
cultural capital. Cultural capital represents the “views, standards and cultural forms” (Ferguson,
2001, p. 50)—the physical characteristics, gestures, behavioral traits, styles of talking, and so
on—that are specific to the varied classes in a capitalist society. Since school structures and prac-
tices tend to exemplify the cultural capital of the dominant class, those students who possess the
cultural capital of the dominant class have a significant advantage in terms of school success over
those whose cultural capital does not match that of the schools (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977).
Schools privilege the cultural capital of students from dominant groups by bestowing on
them greater legitimacy. This in turn provides them with superior academic credentials and the
necessary symbolic currency to access greater economic opportunities once they finish school-
ing. Conversely, those students who do not possess sanctioned cultural capital experience “sym-
bolic violence,” wherein their cultural and social resources are devalued by schooling (Bourdieu &
Passeron, 1977, p. 4; see also Fordham, 1996). Since schools typically legitimize only the traits
of the dominant group’s cultural capital, subordinated groups do not receive the resources, vali-
dation, or opportunities needed to alter their social position; thus, schools may often serve to
reproduce class structures and inequalities (Levinson, Foley, & Holland, 1996).
Acculturation refers to the processes through which individuals from different cultures come
into contact with each other. For example, children frequently make friends with peers from differ-
ent cultures in the context of the classroom or other learning contexts, such as camp, neighborhood,
church, mosque, temple, or after‐school programs. As a result of the contact, each individual’s
cultural ways of being are influenced and to some degree changed. Qin (2006) describes “dissonant
acculturation” as the growing gap between the children and parents of recent immigrant families
due to the fact that most school‐age children from these families learn how to speak English and
participate in U.S. culture more quickly than do their parents. On the basis of her research with
Chinese immigrant families, Qin further attributes dissonant acculturation to what she calls parallel dual frames of reference, according to which immigrant parents tend to compare their child’s behav-
ior with cultural norms of behavior in China; in turn, the child increasingly compares his/her parents
to friends’ parents in the United States or to mainstream U.S. parents depicted in the media.
2.5 Culture Change: Cultural Psychology and Cultural Production
After many years of focusing on processes of cultural transmission and the achievement of cul-
tural continuity, anthropologists and sociologists began to examine more closely how education
contributed to change. If cultural transmission occurred smoothly, how did societies challenge
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30 Culture, Teaching, and Learning
their own inertia? If education mainly served to mold the young into the cultural patterns of a
society, how did innovation ever occur? From cultural transmission and the role of teachers,
attention turned to cultural acquisition and the role of the learner. How did relatively novice
individuals acquire the basic cultural knowledge of a society, and what distinctive interests and
traits might they bring to the learning process? This question spawned a tremendously fruitful
collaboration between anthropology and psychology, giving rise to the new field of cultural psy- chology. The work of the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978), with its emphasis on the role
of symbolic “tools of mediation” in the relation between individual and society, has become
central to this field. Cultural psychology has been especially adept at showing how peer‐group
socialization and good teaching can use such tools of mediation in moving students to higher and
more complex forms of cognition.
More recently, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) have proposed a powerful theory of
“situated learning,” in which society is fundamentally composed of overlapping “communities of
practice” that serve as the vehicles for cultural acquisition. Such an account places identity at the
heart of cultural learning. As one moves from “legitimate peripheral participation” (p. 14) to a
more central, expert role in a community of practice, one increasingly develops identities of mas-
tery and their corresponding emotional investments.
An important overarching concept that has emerged to encompass the processes of cultural
transmission and acquisition is that of cultural production. Education may be seen as a constant
process of cultural production. Even if education is oriented primarily toward the achievement of
continuity in a relatively closed system, the theoretical possibility of modification and change
always exists. In the process of acquiring transmitted cultural knowledge, individuals or subcul-
tures can modify or extend the knowledge, in effect organizing the knowledge for themselves
while producing and adding new knowledge to the common stock. For example, as a carpenter
teaches an apprentice the techniques of stair‐laying, as well as the cultural value of precision, the
apprentice may discover a new cut that saves time without sacrificing much precision. The com-
munication of this discovery can become an act of cultural production, even as the apprentice
moves from the periphery toward the center of his or her community of practice. Over time, most
carpenters in the community may adopt the change, or some may resist and deem it too sloppy a
compromise. As Judith Friedman Hansen (1979) summarizes, “the transmission of knowledge is
subject both to conservative forces and to tendencies toward continual redefinition” (p. 26).
The capacity for individuals to change culture is referred to as agency. Stated in a different
way, agency represents how individuals actively appropriate certain elements of cultural prac-
tices while discarding others. Because of the persistent reliance on tradition and cultural trans-
mission in modern schools, student agency is rarely recognized, valued, and implemented in
ways that contribute to innovating school knowledge, curricula, and practices. More frequently
and ironically, schools generate and thus legitimize student production of new forms of cultural
knowledge that are resistant to schooling. In his book Learning to Labor (1977), Paul Willis
describes student agency in an ethnographic study of working‐class “lads” in England. Within
this framework, students were seen as resisting the false bargain of social mobility proffered by
their school. Their resistance constitutes a form of agency, but by opposing the middle‐class ide-
ologies of the school through cultural practices such as “having a laff,” the lads ironically repro-
duce their working‐class status. What Willis’s work shows is how individuals need not be
portrayed as “cultural dopes” doomed to endlessly reproduce a static and unyielding culture, but
rather should be seen as actively manipulating and tinkering with cultural elements, although not
always to their educational benefit.
In the 21st century, the concomitant expansion of technology with political and economic
changes across the globe contributes to an accelerated circulation and flow of peoples, ideas, and
goods across national borders to produce globalization (Appadurai, 1996; Burbules & Torres,
2000; Rizvi, 2000). With the increasing movement of people, images, goods, and ideas across
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312.6 Critiques of Culture
national boundaries, the contact and interdependence between different cultures also increase. As
a result, previous ideas about the processes of cultural transmission and acquisition must account
for global cultural production (Rizvi, 2000). Moreover, as cultural practices become detached
from local contexts, or “deterritorialized,” due to the migration of peoples and flow of cultural
images through global media, tensions over cultural maintenance and renewal arise. At the same
time, the increasing contact between different societies and cultures can contribute to an incorpo-
ration of various belief systems and cultural practices that promote the value of cultural diversity.
This phenomenon of transculturation has been receiving increased attention, especially as glo-
balization accelerates new flows of people and ideas and as transnational migration makes new
kinds of hybrid identities possible and desirable.
2.6 Critiques of Culture Although anthropologists have not agreed on a single definition of culture, the once‐preeminent
idea of culture as bounded, holistic, and static—a “laundry list of cultural traits” (Spindler, 1996),
a set of contending “billiard balls” (Wolf, 1982)—has become even less tenable. Instead, culture
is increasingly viewed as dynamic, interactional, and emergent. Often, new concepts of culture
are tied to examining borderlands (Anzaldúa, 1987) that are composed of emergent practices and
mixed conventions that do not conform to expectation. Gupta and Ferguson (1992), for example,
note that
the fiction of cultures as discrete object‐like phenomena occupying discrete spaces becomes implau- sible for those who inhabit the borderlands. Related to border inhabitants are those who live a life of border crossings—migrant workers, nomads, and members of transnational business and professional elite. What is “the culture” of farm workers who spend half a year in Mexico and half a year in the United States? (p. 7)
Another theorist, Homi Bhabha (1995), in his provocative work The Location of Culture, argues
for examining “border lives” as exemplars of moments “of transit where space and time cross to
produce complex figures of difference and identity, past and present, inside and outside, inclusion
and exclusion” (p. 1). It is these “in‐between” spaces, he argues, that
provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration and contestation in the act of defining the idea of society itself, (p. 1)
But students do not need to live on or near borders to create new, complex cultural identities.
Increasingly, through their participation in cross‐cutting youth cultures, students draw from an
intercultural and hybrid knowledge base.
Another critical theoretical turn in conceptualizations of culture was the rise of postmodern-
ism and poststructuralism. Postmodernism questioned whether what had become known as the
culture of the modern world was still viable in more fragmented and decentered economic and
political conditions. Within a postmodern perspective, the idea of general models and grand theo-
ries gave way to considering contradiction, ambiguity, and local and contingent ways of position-
ing knowledge. Michel Foucault (1969), a French social theorist, explored how knowledge was
intimately connected with the conveyance of power. An increasing emphasis on textuality and
discourse came to dominate discussions about culture. Discussions of culture gave way to the
exploration of discourses that have the capacity to construct, rather than merely reflect, our reali-
ties. For example, educational policies and practices frequently represent broader discourses about
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32 Culture, Teaching, and Learning
what it means to be a “good” or “bad” student, or likewise to “fail” or “succeed” in school. As
these discourses circulate in schools and within public education, they often serve to constitute
certain “types” of students as different, deviant, outcasts, or misfits and, thus, constrain the educa-
tional opportunities and outcomes of these students who are viewed as being in conflict with
school norms and practices (Convertino, in press).
2.7 Culture and Educational Achievement Up to this point, we have focused on varied and changing versions of the culture concept, particu-
larly in terms of its connections with teaching, learning, and schooling. In this section, we explore
how earlier understandings of the culture concept—as a set of bounded and static traits attribut-
able to a social group—came to be a major focus in educational scholarship from the 1950s to
today. Specifically, we examine both the contributions and drawbacks of major educational theo-
ries that posit culture as the preeminent concept for explaining differences in educational
achievement.
2.8 Cultural Deficit Models In the late 1950s, the anthropologist Oscar Lewis (1959) argued that membership in a group that
has been poor for generations constituted a separate culture, a “culture of poverty.” For Lewis, the
culture of poverty model was meant to be a counterdiscourse to notions of supposed familial
instability and disorganization as well as an alternative to racist biological notions of race and
poverty. Unfortunately, the concept was taken up as a distortion of the complexity of the lives of
the poor, and what emerged was a view that the “culture of poverty” was antithetical to school
achievement and thus explained educational failure. This theory led to the development and
expansion of cultural deficit models in schooling, according to which poor and minority students
were viewed through a lens of deficiency and were considered substandard in their socialization
practices, language habits, and familial orientation toward scholastic achievement.
Vestiges of the cultural deficit models continue to have a negative and harmful impact, par-
ticularly where minority and poor students are concerned. The widespread use of Ruby Payne’s
(1996) Framework for Understanding Poverty in teacher training is just one significant example of
cultural deficit models that continue to influence teachers’ thinking and understanding of culture.
According to Payne’s framework, since poverty is as much cultural as it is monetary, middle‐class
educators cannot relate to their poor students because they do not know the hidden rules of surviv-
ing poverty any better than poor students know the hidden rules of middle‐class culture. For exam-
ple, the teacher no more knows how to physically fight and defend him‐ or herself than the poor
student knows how to reserve a table at a restaurant. According to Payne, in order for educators to
be effective with poor students, they need to teach them the hidden rules of middle‐class culture.
Not unlike the tourist‐based approach, Payne’s framework is popular among educators and school
administrators because it provides seemingly simple and quick solutions to very complex prob-
lems (see Gorski (2013) for an incisive critique of Payne’s theoretical framework).
The cultural deficit model in both its original and contemporary renderings illustrates two
very important misunderstandings of culture that in turn lead to misuses of the concept of culture
in education. First is the misunderstanding that culture is composed of a set of static and bounded
traits and values evenly attributable to all members of the group. For example, all students from
cultural group X are poor and consequently cannot learn to read, do not want to work, and have
parents who do not care about education. Besides blatant stereotyping and eliminating group and
individual diversity, this misunderstanding of culture can lead to extremely harmful educational
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332.9 Cultural Difference Model and Mismatch Hypothesis
practices that actually create the conditions for educational failure (e.g., disproportionate use of
discipline and “deficit talk” with poor and minority students).
The other significant misunderstanding is the fact that the cultural deficit model is actu-
ally used to explain the educational failure of poor and/or minority students. In other words, the
culture of these students is characterized as deficient in contrast to the culture of middle‐ and
upper‐middle‐class nonminority students, which explains the latter groups’ higher educational
achievement. This mode of thought and use of culture blames the individual and fails to account
for the structural conditions that consistently characterize the schools that poor and minority
students attend, including unequal resources, lack of qualified teachers, and greater use of
heavy‐handed discipline (Ferguson, 2001; Fine, 1992; Kozol, 1992; Oakes, 2005).
In addition, underlying the cultural deficit model are the old ideas of racial ranking that
originally plagued 19th‐century anthropologists; simply put, educators following the cultural
deficit model are likely using culture as a stand‐in concept to represent deep‐seated notions about
race. Ladson‐Billings (2006) refers to the phenomenon in teacher education of tying culture and
race together, and then using culture as a catchall term for difference and deviance, as the “poverty
of culture”—an intentional play on the concept of the “culture of poverty.” She points to educators’
reliance on “culture” to explain the misbehavior of students who are ethnically, racially, or
linguistically different from themselves. She provides the following example from the field
experiences of a teacher education program (Ladson‐Billings, 2006):
I listened as they described their students’ misbehavior in terms of culture. “The black kids just talk so loud and don’t listen,” said one teacher education student. I asked her why she thought they spoke so loudly. “I don’t know; I guess it’s cultural.” I then asked if she thought they were talking loudly because they were black or because they were kids. She paused a moment and then said, “I guess, I’ve never thought about that.” This is an interesting response since so much of this student’s teacher preparation includes a focus on development. Why don’t more of our students say things like, “Since my students are eight years old I expect that they will behave in this particular way?” (p. 106)
In another example, Valenzuela (1999) explores the academic achievement and educational affili-
ations of Mexican and Mexican American students attending a comprehensive inner‐city high
school in Texas. Although students in the study reported a positive attitude toward education in
general, they expressed decreases in positive affiliations with school due to school‐based policies
and practices that were dismissive of their cultural and linguistic resources. Valenzuela uses the
concept of subtractive schooling to describe how educational policies and practices require the
loss or subtraction of crucial aspects of students’ cultural and linguistic identities in order for
them to be academically successful. Mexican American students’ cultural backgrounds are seen
as deficient, and they are encouraged to assimilate. English‐only legislation, as well as the passage
of legislation (HB 2281) that banned ethnic studies from an Arizona school district, are examples
of subtractive schooling policies that similarly hinder the social and academic achievement of
diverse students.
2.9 Cultural Difference Model and Mismatch Hypothesis Approximately a decade after sociologists introduced the cultural deficit model as a means to
explain disparities in educational achievement and social mobility, the emphasis on culture took
another turn in the fields of anthropology and education. Consistent with academic attention to
the educational disparities of minority students, anthropologists during the 1970s and 1980s
refuted the deficit‐driven approach and posited that the consistent educational failure of certain
groups of students was due to a mismatch between the culture of home and community and that
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34 Culture, Teaching, and Learning
of schools (Heath, 1983; Levinson et al., 1996). In other words, poor and minority students’
cultures were merely different from the prevailing beliefs and practices of school culture, not
deficient. Here one can see the return of anthropological relativism working against a veiled form
of evolutionist racism.
Heath’s (1983) landmark study Ways with Words offers one of the more compelling exam-
ples of variance in student experiences and outcomes due to the mismatch between home and
school culture. In her study, Heath looked at the home literacy practices of three different com-
munities in a South Carolina town: a working‐class African American community, a working‐
class White community, and a middle‐class White community. Each community demonstrated a
distinct approach to literacy; however, only the literacy orientation and practices of the middle‐
class White (mainstream) community matched those of the school. The distinct literacy practices
of the two nonmainstream communities constituted a “mismatch” between home and school lit-
eracies that had progressively greater negative outcomes for the school‐age children of these two
communities (see also Valdés, 1996). According to the cultural difference model or mismatch hypothesis exemplified by Heath’s study, since school culture is linguistically and/or materially a
different cultural world for underrepresented students, educators should seek to know and appre-
ciate the culture of their students by engaging with the community‐based linguistic patterns of
their communities and building pedagogically upon them.
Although these were powerful concepts that held sway for almost 30 years, the cultural
difference paradigm nonetheless focused primarily on microinteractional processes—that is, on
classroom and language practices—and generally assumed that all members of a particular group
share a normative, bounded, and integrated culture. This approach tended to mask the underlying
issues of political‐economic and power relationships between dominant and minority popula-
tions, and sought answers instead through “fixing” teachers’ interactional patterns.
2.10 Educational Achievement: Voluntary versus Involuntary Immigrant Students
In order to address the broader or macrolevel issues of power that contribute to differences in
educational achievement between dominant and minority students, John Ogbu (1978) observed
that some students (recent Chinese immigrant students, for instance) who are culturally very dif-
ferent tend to do well in school, while long‐standing minority populations do not fare as well. He
urged educators to look instead at the “cultural frames of reference” toward schooling that impli-
cated historical conditions, echoing in some way Boas’s earlier admonition to look carefully at
particular histories. Ogbu elaborated his theme to account for the reasons that “caste‐like” invol-
untary minorities (in the United States, mostly African American, Native American, and some
Latino groups) often see school in negative terms, while historical circumstances cast a different,
more positive light on schooling for immigrant students who are “voluntary” minorities. This
formulation shifted the gaze from the micro to the macro and questioned larger structural influ-
ences on school achievement. Levinson et al. (1996), in reflecting on the impact of Ogbu’s recon-
figuration, noted how the cultural difference approach ignored relations of power:
Neglecting to emphasize how communication styles, cognitive codes, and so on were the cultural practices of variably empowered groups, historically produced within relations of power, the cultural difference approach tended to essentialize the cultural repertoires of minoritized groups. (p.8)
Although Ogbu’s work has been rightfully criticized for repeating the error of essentializing and
overly typologizing groups, it does provide an analysis of educational achievement that points to
how cultural attitudes toward schooling of minority students are “historically produced within
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352.11 Putting Culture to Work: Culture and Learning in the 21st Century
relations of power” (Levinson et al., 1996, p. 8). The trick, as we shall see, is to preserve Ogbu’s
fundamental insights into the effects of history and domination on certain groups, while allowing
for a more fluid, complex, and situationally emergent understanding of culture.
2.11 Putting Culture to Work: Culture and Learning in the 21st Century
Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the development of the culture concept and how the concept
has changed in response to broader social, economic, and political shifts. Changes brought on by
globalization emphasize the hybridity of cultural practices and have served to complexify sim-
plistic notions of culture as a static, bounded, and cohesive tradition used to distinguish groups of
people. We also demonstrated how teacher training programs frequently appropriate the latter
version of culture to explain the connection between culture and education, thus falling into
tourist‐ and transmission‐based approaches.
In addition, we highlighted how static and bounded notions of culture are used to explain
differences in educational achievement that have “often viewed nondominant students and com-
munities as the ‘other’ and have assumed a singular pathway of development based on American
middle-class norms” (Nasir, Rosebery, Warren, & Lee, 2006, p. 490). In schools, teachers and
administrators frequently appropriate these deficit discourses to explain student failure. Similarly,
school personnel often perceive culture as a set of traits shared among all members of a (usually
nondominant) group. According to this line of thinking, “culturally responsive” teaching is a mat-
ter of providing instruction that reflects the traits of a certain cultural group; as a simple example,
since Native American students share the cultural trait of preferring cooperation over competi-
tion, a teacher using culturally responsive instruction would have Native American students work
primarily in groups. Often well intended, this approach, also known as the cultural styles approach, depends on the idea that differences in learning styles reflect the traits of cultural
groups (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003). Consistent with tourist‐based approaches and educational
achievement theories, cultural learning style constructs perpetuate shallow cultural analyses of
learning and school achievement patterns (Pollock, 2008).
In the next section of this chapter, we explore learning as a cultural process that complexi-
fies earlier anthropological notions of learning as cultural transmission and acquisition. We out-
line key theoretical approaches that provide for deep cultural analyses in education based on
culture as partial, emergent, fluid, and dynamic. Accordingly, the discussion is focused on how
today’s educators can put culture to work in classrooms by understanding how culture and learn-
ing are inextricably connected in ways that go far beyond superficial understandings of culture as
a set of traits or characteristics and learning as simply a matter of acquisition and transmission.
To this end, we emphasize the critical idea that culture is not the “name for a thing;” rather,
culture is “a placeholder for a set of inquiries—inquiries which may be destined to never be
resolved” (Stolzenberg, 2001, p. 444). Consequently, putting culture to work depends on educators’
willingness and ability to recognize and engage with the fact that getting to know culture is never a
complete or finished endeavor. Moreover, getting to know culture and being able to put culture to work represent a holistic orientation toward learning that (1) accounts for learning inside as well as
outside of schools; (2) understands that a cultural view of learning recognizes that there are “multi-
ple dimensions to learning, including cognition, discourse, affect, motivation, and identity” (Nasir
et al., 2006, p. 490); (3) recognizes diversity within and across cultural groups; (4) understands that
all individuals participate in multiple cultures that change across a lifetime; and (5) recognizes and
engages with the fact that culture is not just what students bring from home—schools are also cul-
tural sites and teachers are themselves cultural beings (Ladson‐Billings, 2006; Pollock, 2008).
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36 Culture, Teaching, and Learning
2.12 Rethinking Learning and Cultural Processes in Education
The concept of culture emphasized in schools has focused on how shared norms shape individual
behavior and thus on discovering and implementing standardized rules for behavior. However,
when we move away from uniform categorizations of a shared group culture, the realities of
ambiguity and contradiction come into focus. Processual approaches to culture take into account
multiple perspectives by focusing on the processes of everyday life in the form of daily activities
as a frame of reference. Instead of individual representations of an essentialized group, cultural practices are viewed as dynamic, emergent, and interactional. By focusing on understanding
processes rather than locating characteristics, “learning is conceived of as a process occurring
within ongoing activity and not divided into separate characteristics of individuals and contexts”
(Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003, p. 20). Similarly, cultural differences are “attributed to variations in
people’s involvement in common practices of particular cultural communities” (p. 21), and these
practices cannot be identified strictly with membership in ethnic, racial, or linguistic groups.
Consequently, to understand cultural variations, educators must attend to students’ histo-
ries of participation in cultural communities that constitute their linguistic and cultural‐historical
repertoires of practice. According to a cultural‐historical approach, cultural repertoires of prac-
tice represent the “ways of engaging in activities stemming from observing and otherwise partici-
pating in cultural practices” (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003 p. 22). On the basis of prior experiences,
repertoires prepare individuals with a range of competencies that reflect community‐based
approaches. By understanding their students’ repertoires of practices, teachers can facilitate
learning based on developing “dexterity in using both familiar and new approaches” (p. 23).
Cultural modeling (Lee, 2007) is a design framework that organizes tasks and participation
structures as mediational tools to facilitate relevant and meaningful learning opportunities for
students. Two core components of this framework are a focus on the cultural practices that youth
participate in outside of school and a focus on the very specific demands of different disciplinary
domains in school. In order for educators to design curriculum and instruction based on the cul-
tural modeling framework, they must understand how to make connections between students’
cultural repertoires of practice and school‐based knowledge. This requires that teachers have a
sophisticated and in‐depth understanding of their students’ participation in communities of prac-
tice outside of schools, derived from the teachers’ own long‐term observation of and participation
in those communities. In the next section, we discuss how teachers can come to know the cultural
resources and practices that mediate how their students learn.
2.13 Learning in Context: What Teachers Need to Know In “Getting to Know Students’ Communities,” Wyman and Kashatok (2008) provide conceptual
and concrete suggestions for how teachers can better know their students in order to improve
their teaching in culturally relevant, meaningful, and appropriate ways. Wyman, a White non‐
Native female educator and researcher, and Kashatok, a Native Yup’ik male educator and
researcher, base their suggestions on 15 years of experience working in and with small Alaskan
communities. Although their article focuses on the particular circumstances and communities of
practice in the highly isolated contexts of small Alaskan villages, their suggestions have value for
all teachers in terms of getting to know their students and their communities. In particular, they
posit that the tendency for non‐Native teachers to insulate themselves from the communities in
which they teach by restricting the hours and community contexts in which the teachers partici-
pate often results in teacher and student relationships that are based on stereotypes that under-
mine student learning. By contrast, teachers who adopt a “triangulating stance” are better able to
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372.14 Concluding Remarks
support their students because they know their students’ cultural repertoires of practice as a result
of participating in various community contexts and are continuously learning about the students
and their community(ies).
The funds‐of‐knowledge framework (González, 2005) is a similar conceptual and meth-
odological approach to designing curriculum and instruction based on conducting systematic and
ethnographic research with students’ households to identify the pedagogical resources and
strengths embedded in those households and communities. Here, again, the underlying assump-
tion is that teaching and learning are enhanced when teachers have in‐depth knowledge of their
students’ everyday lives. Moreover, because a funds‐of‐knowledge approach is based on teach-
ers’ learning from students’ households and communities, it does not assume a static and
unchanging notion of “culture.” Rather, Moll and González (2004) emphasize engaging life by
“living culturally” through situated practices. When teachers draw on household knowledge, stu-
dent experience is legitimated as valid, and classroom practices can build on familiar knowledge
bases that students can manipulate to enhance learning in mathematics, social studies, language
arts, and other content areas. As a note of caution, a funds‐of‐knowledge approach does not rep-
resent a linear transference of subject knowledge (e.g., mathematical knowledge from household
to classroom). Since knowledge is always mediated through social interaction and particular
contexts, it is not possible to disembed knowledge from its social meanings. In other words:
[H]uman thinking is irreducible to individual properties or traits. Instead, it is always mediated, dis- tributed among persons, artifacts, activities, and settings. . . . How social relationships, ideas, or activities become resources for thinking, then, must be studied in relation to the concrete and varied practices of human beings.
(González, Andrade, Civil, & Moll, 2001, p. 122)
To be sure, this is different from the case of a teacher conducting a single home visit to catalogue
the different hobbies or activities that students’ households engage in. A funds‐of‐knowledge
approach seeks to understand not only what knowledge exists in households but also how that
knowledge is socially and collectively constructed. An emphasis on the social and collective
construction of knowledge and learning also highlights the significance of examining how indi-
viduals who are not group members, like teachers, are intertwined in “consequential interactions”
with students that serve to mediate student learning (Pollock, 2008, p. 371). Becoming culturally
competent not only includes educators getting to know their students’ everyday practices outside
of school; it also involves educators becoming aware of their “own consequentially patterned
interactions with students inside of classrooms” (p. 373). Accordingly, by examining how they
interact with and respond to students in real time, teachers can better understand how they create
or prohibit opportunities for learning in individual students’ lives. Writes Pollock, “That is, when
people [teachers] realize that they too participate in patterned interactions with major conse-
quences for children, they finally are thinking culturally” (pp. 373–374). And engaging in differ-
ent forms of classroom and community ethnographic research, such as those suggested by
Carolyn Frank (1999), can undoubtedly help teachers to see and reflect upon such culturally situ-
ated interactions.
2.14 Concluding Remarks In the context of a rapidly changing world, adaptive knowledge—“the development of flexible
knowledge and dispositions that facilitate effective navigation across varied settings and tasks”
(Nasir et al., 2006, p. 490)—is increasingly important and necessary for both educators and stu-
dents. For youth from nondominant communities who are consistently faced with major societal
Banks_c02.indd 37 7/31/2015 12:43:23 PM
38 Culture, Teaching, and Learning
challenges and obstacles, the importance of adaptive expertise is even greater. Given accelerated
changes in what counts as relevant and necessary knowledge, existing normative ideas about
learning and thus teaching are inadequate. Furthermore, in the context of a global world charac-
terized by an expanding multiculturalism through the constant circulation of ideas and people,
the social relations that mediate learning and the production of knowledge cannot be reduced to
a singular or normative reference (e.g., an individual, a nation‐state, or a bounded cultural group).
Transnational relationships that cross geopolitical borders and sociocultural spaces remind us
that students can engage in language and literacy practices across transnational social fields
(Lam & Warriner, 2012) and that mapping new mobilities (Leander, Phillips, & Taylor, 2010)
involves dynamically related elements of resources for learning. Learning, then, is mediated
through and with cultural practices and processes that are themselves diverse, partial, and fluid.
In other words, learning is inscribed in shifting and multiple practices situated within dynamic
and changing contexts.
Consequently, today’s educators cannot rely on one‐dimensional views of culture, teach-
ing, and learning; rather, they must cultivate the capacity to view themselves, their students, and
their learning and teaching as multidimensional. We argue that for educators to “know” how to
teach in a multicultural society, they must practice a cultural approach to learning and teaching.
Beyond tourist‐ and transmission‐based approaches, a cultural approach to teaching and learning
examines the “organization of people’s everyday interactions in concrete contexts” (Pollock,
2008, p. 369) in order to understand “patterns of people’s approaches to given situations”
(Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003, p. 22) and how others make sense of their lives.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
2.1 After reading this chapter, what new ideas and understand-
ings do you have about the meaning of culture?
2.2 What is the role of culture in learning and teaching? Why is
it essential to implement a complex understanding of cul-
ture in the classroom? What does this involve?
2.3 How does the way in which culture is described in this
chapter differ from the tourist‐based approaches to culture
that are common in schools and classrooms?
2.4 How do the ways in which culture is understood and used in
schools differ from the ways in which it is understood and
applied in anthropology? How can these two ways of under-
standing culture be blended to improve learning in schools?
2.5 How does a complex understanding of culture help to
reduce stereotypes of groups of people? What are the impli-
cations of a deep understanding of culture for teaching and
learning?
2.6 How can teachers’ understanding of their own cultural prac-
tices help them to put culture to work in the classroom?
2.7 What problems result when teachers essentialize students
according to their culture?
2.8 What does it mean to say that culture is complex, fluid, and
hybrid? Why is it important for educators to understand
complex cultural ways of being?
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part
41
2 The two chapters in Part 2 discuss the effects of two powerful variables on student
behavior, beliefs, and achievement: social class and religion. Social class is a powerful
variable in U.S. society despite entrenched beliefs about individual opportunity in the
United States. As Lois Weis points out in Chapter 3 and as Jonathon Kozol ( 2005 ) notes
in his disturbing book The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America , students who attend affluent middle‐ and upper‐class schools have more
resources, better teachers, and better educational opportunities than do students who
attend low‐income, inner‐city schools. Students from the lower, middle, and upper
classes usually attend different kinds of schools and have teachers who have dissimilar
beliefs and expectations about their academic achievement. The structure of educational
institutions also favors middle‐ and upper‐class students. Structures such as tracking, IQ
tests, and programs for gifted and mentally retarded students are highly biased in favor
of middle‐ and upper‐class students.
Students who are socialized within religious families and communities often have
beliefs and behaviors that conflict with those of the school. Religious fundamentalists
often challenge the scientific theories taught by schools about the origin of human
beings. The controversy that occurred over intelligent design during the 2005–2006
school year epitomizes this phenomenon. Religious fundamentalists also attack text-
books and fictional books assigned by teachers that they believe violate or contradict
their doctrines. Conflicts about the right to pray in the school sometimes divide
communities. The school should help students mediate between their home culture and
the school culture. Lippy, in Chapter 4 , describes the religious diversity within the
United States and some of its educational implications.
R E F E R E N C E
Kozol , J. ( 2005 ). The shame of the nation: The restoration of apartheid schooling in America . New York : Random House .
Social Class and Religion
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42
chapter
3
Social Class and Education Lois Weis
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Identify and discuss the ways that schools are linked to the production and maintenance
of social‐class inequalities.
2. List key areas in which more research on the relationship between social class and
educational outcomes needs to be done.
3. Compare and contrast ability groups and tracking.
4. Identify key factors in and summarize the literature on the relationship between social
class and access to higher education.
5. Describe the ways that social class and educational privilege are related.
6. Discuss the characteristics and educational significance of the Coleman Report.
Section 402 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act ordered a survey to determine the relationship between
student achievement and the kinds of schools students attend. This was done with the expressed
intent of determining the extent to which U.S. schools provide opportunities for minority chil-
dren, with an eye toward finding out whether schools can reduce racially linked inequalities in
academic achievement. It was widely expected that massive inequities would be revealed between
the characteristics of schools that Black and White children attend (although other racial groups
were included in the survey, the primary goal of the survey was to pinpoint reasons for Black/White
differences in achievement) and that specific school characteristics could be identified that serve
to produce academic outcomes. It was thought that if such variables could be teased out in the
analysis, monetary intervention could be justified, and that “lacking” schools could work to build
up the pinpointed characteristics through an infusion of federal dollars, thereby equalizing aca-
demic outcomes by race.
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Banks_c03.indd 42 7/31/2015 12:47:34 PM
43Social Class and Education
Unfortunately, it proved not to be so simple, as the research did not yield the expected
results. In 1966, James Coleman and his team reported, in what is popularly known as “The
Coleman Report,” that differences in achievement across race and socioeconomic status are not
easily explained by differences in school‐based resources. Their research suggests that individual
achievement is, in fact, much more highly correlated with family socioeconomic status (hereafter
referred to as social class) than with school characteristics. When standardized test score aver-
ages (academic achievement) are compared across sampled schools, more variation exists within
schools than between them. The general conclusion of this congressionally mandated report is
that the quality of school facilities and programs minimally affects academic achievement when
compared with the effect of social class. This set in motion the long‐standing mantra “schools
make no difference.” Put another way, after family background is held constant in the analysis,
differences in school facilities and/or programs barely alter academic achievement at all.
Academic achievement, argue Coleman and his colleagues, is almost wholly dependent on fam-
ily background rather than on what goes on in schools.
The Coleman Report jump‐started a multidecade research program on the relationship
between family background and school‐related outcomes, most specifically, academic achieve-
ment and attainment (how far one goes in school). Christopher Jencks and colleagues (1972)
affirmed and extended Coleman’s findings in the somewhat later, and highly controversial, vol-
ume Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America. By reanalyz-
ing the Coleman data, Jencks and colleagues furthered the intellectual project regarding the
production of inequality through schools. Employing new data as well as that collected by
Coleman, the authors concluded that inequality in the United States can be reduced only by
1 percent through balancing the quality of high schools. Additional expenditures on schools, they
argued, are unlikely to boost achievement, and any redistribution of school‐based resources is not
likely to reduce the racially related test score gap. In a widely discussed statement (cited in
Karabel & Halsey, 1977), Jencks and colleagues argued that a more fundamental change in soci-
ety is required before equalizing educational opportunity can make a difference in achievement
outcomes. In a highly controversial and contested move, they suggested that “socialism” is the
only way to affect the existing distribution of wealth and power in the United States, thereby sug-
gesting that schools can and, in fact, do little. More pointedly, they argue that we must stop tink-
ering with “marginal” institutions such as schools and get down to the “real” business of
equalizing opportunities through equalizing access to jobs and flattening earnings.
The conclusions of both Coleman and Jencks (although Coleman has received more sus-
tained attention over the years) are often used to support the argument that equalizing school fund-
ing will have little direct effect on student achievement. Since the release of the Coleman Report
(and, later, the Jencks volume), issues regarding the validity of the test measures employed have
emerged. The use of a general intellectual measure (verbal ability)—instead of a test targeted more
specifically to what is taught in school—may have led to an underestimation of the importance of
schooling (Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, Ouston, & Smith, 1979). Carver (1975) similarly argues
that the results of the Coleman Report are not a surprise, since psychometric tests are designed to
maximize individual differences and are, therefore, poor measures of achievement. He recommends
either the use of criterion‐referenced tests, which measure whether a standard has been achieved, or
edumetric tests, which reflect gain due to a treatment. In addition, if student learning is the concern,
argues Carver, students should be tested at the beginning and end of a specified interval in school
rather than being compared according to school‐level test scores. This, he argues, renders Coleman’s
cross‐sectional design inappropriate as a way of assessing the “effects” of school.
Consolidating the critique, Bowles and Levin (1968) raised questions about the specifica-
tion of school‐based variables such as per‐pupil expenditure and student‐teacher ratio, which
they argue most likely led to an underestimation of the effects of schooling as opposed to student
family background.
Banks_c03.indd 43 04-09-2015 22:17:13
44 Social Class and Education
Rutter and colleagues’ (1979) later work in England offers a more optimistic appraisal of
the role of schooling with regard to decoupling the linkage between class and achievement,
thereby equalizing academic outcomes. Although suggesting that student achievement differs
across secondary schools and that initial variation between schools holds nearly constant over
5 years, the authors nevertheless upend Coleman’s “schools make no difference” mantra. Unlike
Coleman and Jencks, Rutter’s team concludes that it matters which school a student attends
because particular characteristics of schools (those associated with the academic and social ethos
of the school) lead to student success.
Although Rutter and colleagues challenge the notion that schools exert scant effect on stu-
dent outcomes as compared to family background, a large corpus of evidence since Coleman
points toward the role that schools play in the reproduction of social‐class inequalities both at the
individual and collective societal levels. Even though individuals can, of course, transcend their
class background through schooling (and there are many examples of such class transcendence),
it is arguably the case that schools work largely to reproduce and maintain class inequalities rather than fundamentally challenge them. The critical question is, of course: How does this hap-
pen? More specifically: What is it about families and schools that serve to reproduce the rela-
tively tight relationship between social class and educational outcomes?
Keeping in mind both the vastness of the research in this area and the fact that one chapter
can offer only a partial answer to this broad‐based question, my goal in this chapter is twofold: (1)
to review select scholarly work on the ways in which elementary, secondary, and postsecondary
schools in the United States are specifically linked to the production and maintenance of social‐
class inequalities, and (2) to articulate key areas where important research remains to be done. In
the latter regard, I address the following: (1) the necessity of intensifying research efforts on those
already privileged, and (2) the importance of globalizing our research imagination as we probe the
relationship between class and education in the massively shifting global context.
3.1 Education and the Production of Social and Economic Inequalities
As noted above, social scientists have long argued that school outcomes, whether achievement or
attainment (how far one goes in school), are linked in large part to student social‐class back-
ground, usually measured by parents’ level of education, occupation, and/or income (Coleman
et al., 1966; Gamoran, 1987, 2001, 2008; Gamoran & Long, 2007; Jencks et al., 1972; Reardon,
2011, 2014). What is most stunning, perhaps, is that in spite of the massification of the U.S. sys-
tem of education during the 20th century, differences by social class have persisted at largely
consistent levels (Arum, Gamoran, & Shavit, 2007). Campbell, Hombo, and Mazzeo (2000), for
example, suggest persistent relative class differences in achievement‐related outcomes (as linked
to National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP] test score data over three decades),
while Hout, Raftery, and Bell (1993) indicate that class differences in attainment have remained
relatively constant.
In the “millennium” issue of Sociology of Education, Gamoran (2001) offers a forecast for
the future of inequality. His prediction that the next hundred years would see a substantial decline
in race‐based inequality in the United States received enough criticism from other social scien-
tists to cast doubt on this prediction. However, he later confirmed his conclusion regarding con-
tinued social‐class inequality with new evidence that became available after 2001, the year his
original paper was published (Gamoran, 2008). As Gamoran notes in this 2008 follow‐up
piece: “To foreshadow my current findings, the updated evidence and new policies do not provide
a basis for overturning the earlier conclusion that the outcomes of US education will continue to
be stratified by social class” (p. 169).
Banks_c03.indd 44 7/31/2015 12:47:34 PM
453.2 Ability Grouping and Tracking
Although my focus in this chapter is education and social class, there is a strong correlation
between race and class in the United States, as high proportions of African Americans and
Latinos/Hispanics who are from nonprivileged backgrounds suffer under the weight of exclusion
and marginalization. In highlighting social class, then, I do not mean to deny the ongoing and inde-
pendent effects of race in the production of inequalities through school, a point that is particularly
salient in the United States and increasingly important in the United Kingdom, Germany, and
France, where immigrant populations of color have significantly altered the social and economic
landscape since World War II. Rather, it is to suggest that class is a fundamental organizer of social
experience, both objective and subjective, and that it additionally constitutes an organizer that is at
times ignored in our discussions of race and ethnicity. As work by Banks and Banks (2013),
Ladson‐Billings (2006), Ogbu (1988), McCarthy (1988), Leonardo (2013), and others remind us,
the experiences of racially subordinated groups cannot be understood entirely by looking at social
class because race has its own independent trajectory with regard to the production of subjectivities
and lived‐out inequalities (Massey & Denton, 1993; Oliver & Shapiro, 1995).
There is a rich literature spanning the ways that class stratification in families and K‐12
educational institutions affect three sets of educationally related outcomes: academic achieve-
ment and attainment (see references above), postsecondary entrance and graduation (Bailey &
Dynarski, 2011; Bastedo & Jaquette, 2011), and short‐ and long‐term employment opportunities
and income (Jencks et al., 1972). Such class‐related stratification through schools serves to privi-
lege those already privileged, while simultaneously denying opportunities to poor, working‐class,
and, increasingly, lower‐middle‐class students. These include, among others:
Social and cultural capital embedded within families and the extent to which such varying
forms of capital are differentially valued by schools (Horvat & Antonio, 1999; Ladson‐Billings,
1995, 2006; Lareau, 2000, 2003)
Academic tracking (Gamoran & Mare, 1989; Kelly, 2008; Lee & Bryk, 1988; Lucas, 2001;
Oakes, 1985)
High‐stakes testing (Haney, 1993; McNeil, 2000; Nichols & Berliner, 2007)
Differential access to academic knowledge in elementary school (Anyon, 1981)
Differential access to rigorous math and science courses in secondary school (Aaronson,
Barrow, & Sander, 2007; Alexander & Cook, 1982; Burkam & Lee, 2003; Ma & McIntyre,
2005; Oakes, Joseph, & Muir, 2003; Riegle‐Crumb, 2006; Wimberly & Noeth, 2005) that are
directly linked to college attendance patterns
Dropout and push‐out patterns (Fine, 1991) that contribute to pipeline constriction, particu-
larly in secondary schools (Haney et al., 2005)
Increased segregation and hypersegregation resulting from the repeal of desegregation court
orders (Orfield & Lee, 2005)
Although all the aforementioned mechanisms of exclusion are important in producing and
sustaining class inequalities, space prevents discussion of all of those noted. Here I highlight two
such mechanisms, as they are key to the role of K‐12 institutions in class production and repro-
duction: (1) ability grouping and tracking, and (2) “official” knowledge and its distribution.
3.2 Ability Grouping and Tracking Ray Rist (1970) conducted groundbreaking work by observing a group of African American chil-
dren through their kindergarten, first‐grade, and second‐grade years. On the basis of careful ethno-
graphic data gathering, he notes that the kindergarten teacher divides students into separate reading
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46 Social Class and Education
groups in the classroom according not to measured ability but to characteristics typically associ-
ated with differential social‐class backgrounds, such as appearance, behavior, and language use.
After the eighth day of kindergarten, students are placed at three tables, with students at the
highest‐ability reading table more closely approximating children of middle‐class background in
their dress and grooming (e.g., hair is carefully brushed and tied or braided) as well as in their use
of standard American English. The remaining two tables of medium and low reading ability are
composed of students who are poorly dressed and speak in a neighborhood‐based dialect.
Throughout the 3 years of observation, Rist chronicles a class‐based “self‐fulfilling prophecy,”
one accompanied by the teacher spending relatively less time instructing the lower‐ability groups
(students at table 3 could not even see the board due to the placement of the table). Over time,
students themselves begin to refer to one another as “smart” or “dumb” based on table placement.
Rist argues that this self‐fulfilling prophecy creates an immovable class‐linked “caste system,”
wherein students placed at table 1 on day 8 of kindergarten are the only ones who both learn to
read at grade level and have a chance at success. Most interestingly in light of the argument in
this chapter, the kindergarten teacher in Rist’s study is Black, thereby affirming the power of
class in relation to race in this particular instance.
By second grade, students at table 3 are referred to as “the clowns.” This is in spite of the
fact that the students’ IQ test scores in kindergarten reveal no significant differences across the
three tables. Over time, however, vast differences emerge with regard to academic achievement—
differences that Rist and others attribute to subjective judgment and subsequent teacher behavior
as related to assumed class differences in academic ability.
What begins with Rist as a blistering critique of the effects of ability‐group assignment as
related to class production and reproduction begins to temper somewhat over time. Key research
since Rist expands into math ability groups (Hallinan & Sorensen, 1987; Useem, 1992) as well
as into later elementary school grades and the relatively long‐term effects of ability grouping.
The gender of students (Hallinan & Sorensen, 1987) joins social class and race as variables con-
sidered in conjunction with sorting, and the effects of social class per se are seen as less robust.
No studies, however, use the longitudinal approach pioneered by Rist as a way of assessing the
effects of ability grouping over time, suggesting that ability‐group placement in the early elemen-
tary years may have long‐standing class‐linked effects. Studies of older students or those studies
that do not employ a longitudinal design (i.e., studying the same children over time from a young
age) may miss the full impact of initial group placement on high school track placement and
academic achievement.
Findings—quantitative (those that are statistical in nature) and qualitative (those that are
ethnographically driven)—related to social class and the high school track structure are more
compelling with respect to the creation and/or maintenance of social inequalities. Rosenbaum’s
(1975) highly quantitative assessment of the internal workings of the track structure in a homoge-
neous White working‐class school challenges the notion that track placement is accomplished
meritocratically (i.e., solely through factors such as test scores). A high proportion of variance in
track placement cannot be explained by any of the variables ostensibly used to sort students into
tracks, and measured IQ (the most valid and stable of the variables by virtue of Rosenbaum’s sta-
tistical analysis) accounts for the smallest amount of variance in track placement when compared
with all other competing variables. Fifty percent of college attendance, on the other hand, can be
explained by track placement, suggesting that track placement takes on a life of its own once stu-
dents are tracked into specific locations in the track structure. Rosenbaum argues that since track
placement cannot be explained by a set of valid and stable criteria, and since such placement is so
powerful in terms of predicting college attendance, tracking should be eliminated.
Oakes (1985) explores qualitatively the tracking experiences of students at 25 junior high
and high schools, which, unlike the work of Rosenbaum, includes students from varying social‐
class and racial backgrounds. Her work extends that of Rosenbaum in that she looks closely at
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473.3 Official Knowledge and Its Distribution
the tracking experience of students who are not White as well as those of varying class back-
ground. Oakes finds that college tracks (as opposed to noncollege tracks) foster independence in
students, involve more time spent on instruction, and are composed of a more White and middle‐
to upper‐middle‐class student population. Lower or noncollege tracks, on the other hand, enforce
conformity, spend less time on classroom instruction, and include higher levels of non‐White and
working‐class students.
Vanfossen, Jones, and Spade (1987) explore tracking through the use of 1982 follow‐up
data from the 14,825 sophomore and senior students in the High School and Beyond (HSB)
study, concluding that key individual, school‐level, and social‐psychological variables affect
track placement. They argue that academic or college track students are more committed to aca-
demic goals, exhibit better classroom discipline, and receive better treatment from teachers than
students in noncollege tracks. These findings support the work of Rosenbaum (1975) and Oakes
(1985) as well as expand on the variables involved, broadening the scope of existing tracking
research in terms of social‐class and racial groups. Gamoran (1987) uses the sophomore data
from both the original (1980) and follow‐up (1982) HSB studies to determine between‐ and
within‐school differences with respect to learning opportunities, concluding that variation in stu-
dent experiences in school exerts important effects on student achievement, with patterns in
course‐taking being the most significant within‐school factor.
Research is quite clear then that track placement has consequences in terms of the type of
knowledge students are exposed to and the college options available to such students when they
leave high school (Oakes, 1985; Rosenbaum, 1976). Unfortunately, recent research suggests that
track structures are difficult to alter because of the social, political, and economic forces that
work to maintain them (Fine, Weis, Powell, & Wong, 1997; Oakes & Wells, 1996). Yonezawa and
Wells (2005), for instance, argue that classes continue to be segregated by race and class, main-
taining low‐income and minority student populations in the lowest levels in spite of attempts by
select schools to break down such race/class links to tracking. Predominantly African American
and Latino/Latina students, who form the low and middle tracks, resist entering high‐track classes
even when given a “choice” because of the ways in which these classes are both presented to
them (as “not for them”) and perceived by them.
3.3 Official Knowledge and Its Distribution Spurred by early calls from Black scholars such as W. E. B. DuBois (1935, 1975) with regard to
what is (and is not) taught about African history and culture in U.S. schools, as well as later calls
in England for a “new” sociology of education that focuses on the nature of school knowledge,
scholars address what constitutes “official” knowledge as well as the ways in which such knowl-
edge is differentially distributed through schools (Banks, 1993; Gordon, 1990; Page & Valli,
1990). Both the nature of school knowledge and its distribution are key mechanisms through
which schools serve to produce and reproduce class‐based inequalities. It is important to note that
although the focus on legitimate knowledge is often seen as having originated among White
British scholars, Black scholars were thinking, theorizing, actively pursuing change, and produc-
ing scholarship about the issues related to power, ideology, and development of school knowl-
edge before the work of White scholars within and outside the United States and Britain. Banks
(1992, 1993) and Gordon (1990) have made important points about the contributions of these
early Black scholars and the attribution of “newness” to much later scholars who make largely
the same theoretical points.
The theoretical starting point for most of these analyses is articulated by Michael F. D.
Young (1971), who argues that there is a “dialectical relationship between access to power and
the opportunity to legitimate dominant categories, and the processes by which the availability of
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48 Social Class and Education
such categories to some groups enable them to assert power and control over others” (p. 31).
Stated more simply, what counts as school (or “legitimate”) knowledge tends to embody the
interests and culture of the group or groups who have the power to distribute and legitimate their
worldview through educational institutions. Young (1971), Apple (1979, 1982), Bernstein (1977),
Bourdieu (1977), Cornbleth (1990), and other scholars argue that the organization of knowledge,
the form of its transmission, and the assessment of its acquisition are factors in the production
and reproduction of class.
In the United States, Apple (1979, 1982) exhibits the most sustained focus on the ways in
which curricular knowledge (both the form and content of the “commodified” culture in school)
is part of a selective tradition that serves to naturalize as well as ideologically “prop up” structur-
ally based social and economic inequalities. Apple’s investigation into what he later calls “offi-
cial” knowledge (Apple, 1993) highlights the ways in which school knowledge works to
marginalize working‐class and poor students.
Looking more specifically at the distribution of knowledge—or, to put it another way,
“who gets what kind of knowledge”—Anyon (1980, 1981) focuses on the extent to which “offi-
cial” knowledge in elementary schools is differentially distributed. Working‐class students, for
example, are offered knowledge as rote memorization and a series of structured tasks, while
knowledge distributed to students in what she calls “executive elite” public schools is far more
challenging. Students in these latter schools are socialized into an academic culture of excellence
while working‐class students are socialized into a culture of rote memorization, a finding con-
firmed in later studies by McNeil (1986), Weis (1990), and (Oakes, 1985). The notion that knowl-
edge is differentially distributed extends Bowles and Gintis’s (1976) focus on what they call the
“correspondence principle,” wherein they argue that the everyday actions/activities of schools
serve to socialize students into their future (and highly differentiated) place in the labor force.
This corpus of research on the workings of K‐12 institutions suggests that schools largely
ensure that poor and working‐class students, if they graduate from secondary school at all, are
less well positioned than their more privileged counterparts for college and university entrance/
persistence/graduation. Because postsecondary education is a key sorting ground for well‐paying
and stable employment in our increasingly competitive global economy, it must be taken into
account in any serious analysis of education and social class.
3.4 Access and Outcomes in the Postsecondary Sector Arum and colleagues (2007) argue that the most important question with regard to the expansion
of education is “whether it reduces inequality by providing more opportunities for persons from
disadvantaged strata, or magnifies inequality by expanding opportunities disproportionately for
those who are already privileged” (p. 1). In Shavit, Arum, and Gamoran’s (2007) path‐breaking
edited volume Stratification in Higher Education: A Comparative Study, the contributors stress
the centrality of this broad question for research on higher education.
Higher education has expanded rapidly in response to intensified demands for democrati-
zation of access at the same time as the worldwide knowledge economy renders higher education
a key point of access for an increasing number of jobs. The authors in the Shavit and colleagues
(2007) volume draw data from 15 nations, mostly in Western Europe (France, Italy, Germany, the
Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Great Britain) but also in Eastern Europe (Russia, the Czech
Republic,) and East Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan), as well as Israel, the United States, and
Australia. Data indicate that the pinpointed systems of higher education vary in rate of expansion
(massification), extent of differentiation (type of institution within the tertiary sector—2‐year,
4‐year, etc.), and the market structure within which they sit (highly marketized in the sense of
depending on a higher proportion of private relative to public funds rather than vice versa).
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493.4 Access and Outcomes in the Postsecondary Sector
However, worldwide evidence suggests that although expansion is pervasive, with only a few
national exceptions, inequality rates in the transition from secondary school to higher education
are either stable or actually increased under conditions of massification. This means that as the
postsecondary system numerically expands, there is greater class‐linked inequality rather than
the reverse.
Research on U.S. postsecondary education underscores this point. In the United States,
working‐class and poor students are entering colleges and universities in greater numbers than
ever before (Ellwood & Kane, 2000). While research on linkages between the type and selectivity
of postsecondary institution attended is certainly not new (Karabel, 1972), evidence suggests that
the social‐class‐related gap in type of institution attended is widening. Thomas and Bell (2008)
demonstrate that while less‐privileged students increasingly attend institutions of higher educa-
tion, attendance at the most selective ones is increasingly composed of more privileged students.
Using Pell Grants (a federal grant in the United States that demands a high literacy level even to
fill out applications) as a proxy for low income/poverty, Thomas and Bell note that “it is not just
the most selective institutions which are seeing lower numbers of low‐income students. Low‐
income students are less likely to be in 4-year in general than they were a decade ago” (p. 281).
Looking across the years 1992–1993 and 2000–2001, “there was a 2.9 percent drop in the enroll-
ment share of Pell Grant recipients at 4-year institutions across all states, with 48 of the states
seeing a decline in their Pell enrollment shares” (Mortenson, 2003, quoted in Thomas & Bell,
2008, p. 281). Conversely, during the same time, Pell enrollment at 2‐year public colleges
increased by 1.2 percent (Mortenson, 2003), continuing a longer‐term trend that began in the
1970s (Mortenson, 2006). Although the net gain or loss in percentage points may appear small,
this represents a very large number of low‐income students who are increasingly locked out of
higher‐prestige institutions.
More recently, Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson (2009) argue that the state “flagship”
universities (e.g., University of Wisconsin‐Madison and University of California, Berkeley) have
become much more selective over time and that such selectivity has been accompanied by
changes in the social‐class background of admitted students (Cook & Frank, 1993; Hearn, 1990;
Kingston & Lewis, 1990). In the less‐selective institutions, detailed by Bowen and colleagues,
“more than 40 percent of undergraduates come from families in the top‐quartile of the income
distribution” (p. 17). While movement from the 2-year to 4-year college sector should be possi-
ble, research by Clark (1960), Weis (1985), Brint and Karabel (1989), and Dougherty and Kienzl
(2006) suggest difficulties associated with such movement.
Factors specifically linked to colleges and universities increasingly point toward the pro-
duction of social‐class inequalities and arrangements. Recent changes in financial aid policies
and processes that reduce grants to low‐income students (in favor of loans) make it more and
more difficult for poor, working‐class, and lower‐middle‐income students to attend and persist in
postsecondary institutions (Avery & Kane, 2004; Heller, 2001; Hoxby, 1997; National Center for
Public Policy and Higher Education, 2001; St. John, 2003). Because family incomes have not
kept pace with college costs, students shoulder a larger financial burden, making financial aid
much more critical for this group at the same time as middle‐ and upper‐middle‐class students
have more sustained access to family funds, thereby attending and completing college in record
numbers.
Concurrently, the emergence of a nationally integrated market for elite and selective col-
leges (Bowen et al., 2009; Hoxby, 1997) intensifies pressure for admittance to elite and highly
selective postsecondary institutions, encouraging greater numbers of privileged students to seek
entrance to the somewhat less‐selective 4‐year sector (relative to the elite and highly selective
sector) than was the case in prior decades (Ellwood & Kane, 2000; Mortenson, 2003, 2006;
Thomas & Bell, 2008). This means that poor and working‐class students are increasingly “locked
out” of state flagship universities, institutions that offered a key mechanism for social mobility
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50 Social Class and Education
for past generations of working‐class students (Bowen et al., 2009; Thomas & Bell, 2008). Recent
studies make clear that poor, working‐class, and lower‐income students are attending flagship
state institutions less and less often, as these institutions are becoming increasingly the purview
of the children of the privileged (Bowen et al., 2009; Shavit et al., 2007; Thomas & Bell, 2008).
In addition, McPherson and Schapiro (1998), Gumport (2007), and Slaughter and Rhodes
(2004) point to specific economic and organizational changes that have encouraged colleges and
universities to shift from selecting students as a “charitable” function to balancing full‐paying
students or high‐merit students with low‐income and first‐generation college students. This
makes it less and less possible for low‐income students to attend a wide range of colleges. An
important force here, of course, is intensified state disinvestment in public higher education. This
contributes both to a marked increase in tuition bills and to a decreased amount of money avail-
able for scholarships tagged for low‐income students.
Decades of research, then, point to an array of K‐16+ “mechanisms of exclusion” that
serve, by and large, to relegate poor and working‐class students to less‐valued positions in the
economy while increasingly “propping up” those who are already privileged. While perhaps
unintended, this means that the K‐16+ educational system in the United States works predomi-
nantly to ensure the reproduction of social‐class inequalities at both the individual and collective
levels. It is important to note, however, that while the “logic” of the system functions as described
here, there are always individuals who come from very humble backgrounds and effectively use
the educational system to reposition themselves in class terms. Although noteworthy to be sure,
the success of these outstanding individuals does not empirically describe (nor can it be used to
serve as a proxy for) the overall shape of the educational opportunity structure, a structure that
largely serves to maintain class inequalities.
3.5 Research on Class Privilege Much scholarly work takes as its starting point the exclusionary processes through which poor,
working‐class, and lower‐middle‐class students end up in the same relative class position as their
parents. By turning our scholarly attention disproportionately toward the ways in which educa-
tional institutions work (or do not work) to marginalize and/or open up opportunities for those
historically disenfranchised, we ignore the ways in which educational institutions work explicitly
on behalf of the relatively privileged as well as the ways in which privileged groups themselves
work to maintain what Bourdieu (1984) calls “distinction.” Given that we now recognize that the
production of class must be understood relationally (i.e., the production of those who lack privi-
lege and the processes through which this occurs must be understood in relation to the production
of those who have privilege and the processes through which this occurs), scholars take this line
of research increasingly serious.
For example, although the poor and the working class have objectively made great strides
with regard to generalized academic achievement and attainment in the United States, such
improvement pales in comparison to that of the privileged, who exhibit seemingly naturalized
capacity to run harder and faster. Rather than reflecting naturally occurring patterns toward
increasing inequality, however, research indicates that those involved in the production of privi-
lege (parents, children, schools, colleges, and universities) work exceptionally hard on a day‐to‐
day and year‐to‐year basis to ensure that their own privileged position and that of their children
is maintained.
Lareau (2003), for example, turns her attention to class‐linked child‐rearing practices,
arguing that middle‐ and upper‐middle‐class child‐rearing practices across race position already
advantaged children for both greater academic success in school and the ability to advocate for
themselves in relation to adult authority. Weininger and Lareau (2009) find that middle‐ and
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513.5 Research on Class Privilege
upper‐middle‐class child‐rearing practices of “concerted cultivation”—in contrast to working‐
class child‐rearing practices that emphasize “natural growth”—remain evident throughout the
college search and application process, substantially advantaging middle‐ and upper‐middle‐
class students relative to their working‐class and poor counterparts. This advantage occurs irre-
spective of measured “intelligence” and works “across race.”
Scholars also focus on the ways in which elite secondary schools advantage students in the
college application/admissions process. Cookson and Persell (1985) offer early work on private
school advantage, focusing on the ways in which private boarding schools prepare students for
power. More current work by Proweller (1998), Howard and Gatzambide‐Fernandez (2010),
Gaztambide-Fernández (2009), Kahn (2011), and Demerath (2009) pinpoints specific school‐
based mechanisms that confer advantage in secondary schools that serve relatively privileged
populations. These include a sustained and intense focus on high‐status knowledge, specific
attention to tutoring and preparation for college entrance tests, and the editing of college essays/
applications, all of which serve to confer specific and targeted advantage to those already privi-
leged. Weis, Cipollone, and Jenkins (2014) also tackle this set of issues in their ethnographic
investigation of students in three privileged secondary schools: two elite independent day schools
and one affluent public suburban school. They similarly conclude that the maintenance of privi-
lege is anything but “natural.”
In an important qualitative study, McDonough (1997) documents a range of class/race‐related
opportunities for college counseling in secondary schools as linked to differential postsecondary
destinations, paying particular attention to the role of counselors in the college search and appli-
cation process. In more recent quantitative work, Hill (2008) finds that organizational practices
tied to what she calls the “college linking process” vary considerably by secondary school and
make a difference for postsecondary attendance patterns, with some schools better able to posi-
tion their students for college admission.
Beyond differential preparation for and admission to a range of colleges and universities,
selectivity of college takes on a life of its own with regard to persistence and graduation rates.
Recent work by Bowen and colleagues (2009) indicates that there are a large number of students
whose secondary school preparation appears to qualify them to attend more highly selective
4‐year institutions than they end up attending. The authors note that such “undermatching” has
grave consequences for persistence and graduation rates from postsecondary institutions, as stu-
dents are more likely to persist and graduate if they attend more highly ranked institutions to
begin with.
Research by Stephan, Rosenbaum, and Person (2009) similarly concludes that where one
goes to postsecondary school predicts persistence and graduation rates above and beyond the
entering characteristics of admitted students. The authors argue that “academic preparation is an
important mechanism of stratification at college entry, but even comparable students (similar on
many characteristics, including preparation) have different degree completion chances at differ-
ent types of colleges” (p. 585). The selection of an institution in and of itself matters, then, with
regard to outcomes, as students in more selective postsecondary institutions exhibit much higher
persistence and graduation rates than those in less‐selective institutions. As noted earlier, this is
also the case when researchers hold the social class of admitted students constant in the
analysis.
Beyond having higher rates of student persistence and graduation, selective institutions are
better resourced than less‐selective institutions (Leslie, Slaughter, Taylor, & Zhang, 2012) and
confer on their graduates both special entree to the best graduate and professional programs in the
country (Eide, Brewer, & Ehrenberg, 1998) and well‐documented labor‐market advantages
(Bowen & Bok, 1998; Rumberger & Thomas, 1993; Thomas, 2000; Thomas & Zhang, 2005).
Again, this relationship holds even when characteristics of entering students are held constant in
the analysis.
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52 Social Class and Education
A focus on privileged students and privileged secondary and postsecondary schools points
toward two conclusions. (1) Despite their class advantages at birth, those who are privileged still
work very hard on a daily basis to maintain “distinction.” More specifically, elite and affluent
secondary schools, as institutions, work tirelessly to maintain the advantage that children bring
with them to school, as do privileged parents and children. (2) At least at the postsecondary level,
the selection of the institution to attend in and of itself matters with regard to persistence and
graduation rates, linkages to valued graduate and professional programs, and labor‐market out-
comes. This empirically points to an increasingly segmented educational system in which it is
exceedingly difficult to “jump tracks,” so to speak, as institutional privilege enables entrance to
the next highly valued sector, making it very difficult for those who attend less‐privileged institu-
tions to “scale the class structure” by virtue of education.
To wrap up, then, class counts but must be worked at, and the structure of institutional
arrangements also counts, as privileged institutions facilitate and enable moves to the next level
to a greater extent than do less‐privileged ones. It must be noted, however, that in spite of these
empirically documented deepening inequalities in educational achievement and attainment,
important research has directed our attention toward marked progress in educational opportuni-
ties for previously excluded groups in the population (Hurtado, Inkelas, Briggs, & Rhee, 1997;
Perna, 2000; St. John, Musoba, & Simmons, 2003). However, leaving aside the historically based
yet lessening class/race inequalities in elite private institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton
(Bowen & Bok, 1998; Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005; Karabel, 2005), it is arguably the case
that there has been marked reorganization in the opportunity structure of postsecondary educa-
tion, with the middle and upper‐middle classes solidifying their grasp on elite public instit-
utions—institutions that were established by virtue of the Morrill Act of 1862 to “promote the
liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in
life” (Morrill Act of 1861, sec. 4, cited in Thomas and Bell, 2008, p. 274). Despite notable pro-
gress for select racial and ethnic groups, the bulk of the evidence clearly suggests that the wide-
spread expansion of educational opportunities has, by and large, worked best for those already
privileged (Gamoran, 2008; Shavit et al., 2007) and that the relationship between social class and
education is stronger than ever. As I suggest here, this is accomplished both by what the poor and
working classes do not get by virtue of schooling, as well as what the children of the privileged
do get, and their families are able to demand, by virtue of their privilege.
3.6 Globalizing Our Imagination In light of our rapidly globalizing world, it is important to broaden our research and thinking to
encompass the ways in which what happens in the rest of the world is related to what goes on in
the United States (Weis & Dolby, 2012). Although a number of volumes call for increased
research into the role that education plays in the production of class and social structure more
generally, relatively little serious scholarly attention has been devoted to the relationship between
education and social class in massively altered global context.
In this regard, “globalizing the research imagination,” in the phrasing of Kenway and Fahey
(2008), has two meanings. First, it means that we must situate our analyses of education and
social structure within a broadened range of countries, including first‐wave industrialized nations,
such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, as well as new players in the global
arena, such as Singapore, China, Mexico, and India. Second, it means that we must take into
account the ways in which what goes on within one nation is both similar to and increasingly
linked to what goes on in the rest of the world. In other words, we must sustain a clear focus on
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533.6 Globalizing Our Imagination
education and class in varying national contexts while simultaneously acknowledging intensified
global movement in the form of the transnational migration of commerce, information, capital,
and peoples as it impacts class construction both within and between nations.
The increasingly globalized and knowledge‐based economy creates a reality in which move-
ment affects the fundamental structures of our lives, whether or not we ourselves are mobile. Since
the 1970s, we have witnessed a massive realignment of the global economy. In the first wave of this
realignment, working‐class jobs—primarily in manufacturing—were increasingly exported from
highly industrialized countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, to poor
countries, where the truly desperate take jobs that pay starvation wages and offer no job protection
or benefits. In the current second wave, middle‐class jobs are also being exported, as members of
a new middle class in countries such as India and China are increasingly educated as architects,
accountants, medical technicians, and doctors. These members of a new middle class are willing to
work for American, British, Canadian, and Australian companies at a fraction of the salary they
would be paid for the same work at corporate headquarters. Such movement has implications for
the production of social structure and associated class processes in a wide variety of nations.
By way of example, the American middle class is now being ripped apart by these same
global forces of knowledge capitalism (Brown, Lauder, & Ashton, 2011).With the rise of all‐
consuming processes of globalization, the competition for jobs no longer exists within national
boundaries. Rather, the job market increasingly constitutes a “global auction” wherein bidders
work across national contexts to obtain the highest‐quality work at the lowest cost. Although not
new in the sense that owners of capital historically sought to minimize the costs of labor (and
workers, of course, fought back to gain a “living wage”), companies now have myriad options as
they traverse the now‐global marketplace to lower the cost of doing business. The nation‐state,
then, no longer constrains the “bidding wars” or the construction of job sites in the way that it
once did, setting in motion entirely different processes of class construction and a new relation-
ship between education and social structure worldwide (Reich, 2007).
In this regard, the globalization of the economy creates markedly altered economic oppor-
tunities for people in a wide variety of nations, as companies seek the cheapest locale in which to
situate manufacturing plants, call centers, and so forth. Tied to this is the fact that the shifting
macrostructure of the global economy interacts with the movement of people across the globe.
Such intensifying transnational migration patterns have worldwide implications for the relation-
ship between education and social structure, as social‐class formations and positionalities are
now being produced and realigned in relation to large numbers of recent immigrants/migrants in
nations that are differentially positioned in relation to globalizing capital and culture. This
includes those who possess “flexible citizenship” (Ong, 1999)—individuals who can take their
inherited or cultural capital and/or academic credentials and relocate to other nations to take up
professional and high‐level technical positions—and those who enter both rich and poor nations
as immigrants or refugees with little more than the clothes on their back. In point of fact, a rela-
tively high proportion of the latter group of migrants/immigrants do relatively well in school in
receiving nations such as the United States and Canada, in stark contrast to their predicted edu-
cational achievement and attainment based on current class position in their adopted land (Li,
2005, 2007; Rumbaut & Portes, 2001).
What I am suggesting here is that it is no longer the case that the linkage between education
and social class can be bounded by national context, as movement (of cultures, information, capi-
tal, and peoples) is the hallmark of the new global reality. In this sense, then, future research must
go well beyond understandings offered in this chapter. Such broadening of our own research
frame will enable empirically informed and increasingly productive discussion about class and
education in the 21st century.
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54 Social Class and Education
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
3.1 What was the significance of the Coleman Report? In what
ways did the work of Jencks and Rutter challenge and/or
extend this work? To what extent do the debates opened by
this work continue to influence discussions on school equity
and funding today?
3.2 In what ways does social class shape schooling? In what
ways does schooling shape social class? How do the upper
classes (the educated middle class, the affluent, and the
wealthy) maintain the social structure and their own social
and economic advantage? To what benefit? To what
detriment?
3.3 Is all school knowledge equally valued by society? Is track-
ing compatible with equal opportunity and meritocracy?
Explain. If students receive fundamentally different types
of education based on their academic track/ability group,
what are the long‐term implications beyond school? Can
schools be detracked? Should they be detracked? Explain.
3.4 To what extent has the expansion of higher education, and
access to such education, increased social and economic
inequality? How has this occurred? Current trends in higher
education highlight the need to create online opportunities
as a mechanism for increasing access. To what extent, based
on your previous discussion of expansion and access, do
you believe online education will increase access? What are
some of the other potential consequences?
3.5 What conclusions can be drawn regarding the construction
of class privilege from studying privileged students and
privileged school settings (secondary and postsecondary)?
What does such study reveal about class practices and
social class more broadly?
3.6 What have been the major impacts of a globalizing econ-
omy? In what ways has globalization both opened and con-
strained opportunities? How does the move away from a
manufacturing‐based economy toward a knowledge‐based
economy affect schooling and the construction of social
class more broadly?
3.7 A phrase heard often in the United States is “pull yourself
up by your bootstraps,” meaning that one is responsible for
one’s own station in life. In other words, through hard work,
one is capable of determining one’s place in society. Based
on what you read in this chapter, what evidence can you
provide to challenge this sentiment? Provide a counterargu-
ment informed by this chapter and your own life experi-
ences. How have your experiences at home, in school, and
elsewhere influenced who you are today and the path you
are currently pursuing?
R E F E R E N C E S
Aaronson, D., Barrow, L., & Sander, W. (2007). Teachers and student
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Alexander, K., & Cook, M. (1982). Curriculum and coursework: A sur-
prise ending to a familiar story. American Sociological Review, 47(5),
626–640.
Anyon, J. (1980). Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. Journal of Education, 162(1), 67–92.
Anyon, J. (1981). Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry,
11(1), 3–42.
Apple, M. (1979). Ideology and curriculum. Boston: Routledge & Kegan
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Apple, M. (1982). Education and power. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Apple, M. (1993). Official knowledge: Democratic education in a con- servative age. New York: Routledge.
Arum, R., Gamoran, A., & Shavit, Y. (2007). More inclusion than diver-
sion: Expansion, differentiation, and market structure in higher educa-
tion. In Y. Shavit, R. Arum, & A. Gamoran (Eds.), Stratification in higher education: A comparative study (pp. 1–38). Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
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chapter
Z u ri
je ta
/S h u tt
er st
o ck
.c o m
4
Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life Charles H. Lippy
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe the religious diversity in early English and Spanish settlements in North
America.
2. Discuss the educational implications of the separation of church and state.
3. Describe the role that courts have played in determining the place of religion in schools.
4. Name and describe examples of religious pluralism in the United States.
5. Compare and contrast ways that schools respond to the religious sensibilities of religious
majorities with those of religious minorities.
Two contrasting themes mark American religious history:
1. The United States is a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. Other religious com-
munities are tolerated, but the many forms of Christianity dominate common life.
2. Religious diversity flourishes in the United States. No one group or belief system dominates.
Because of separation of church and state, religious pluralism prevails. Americans are free
to believe and worship as they choose—or to not believe.
Both perceptions have long histories; both are vital to understanding American religion and
culture in the 21st century.
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60 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
4.1 Europeans Plant Christianity in North America European settlement in the British colonies forming the United States in 1776 had a history of
less than 175 years. Protestant Christianity shaped the religious consciousness of most settlers
coming from England (Lippy, Choquette, & Poole, 1992). In southern areas such as Virginia,
although some variety existed, colonial arrangements included legal establishment of the Church
of England; public tax money supported its parishes and clergy, and all living there were theoreti-
cally part of a parish.
To Massachusetts in the North came settlers with deep ties to the Church of England but dis-
satisfied with presumed compromises it made with Roman Catholic ways in order to craft a religious
establishment with broad appeal. These dissenters set up churches reflecting their own understanding
of religious truth. Generally, we label them all Puritans; all sought a purer form of Protestantism than
they found in the Church of England. But they exhibited differences. The Pilgrims who settled in
Plymouth in 1620 believed such religious falsehood engulfed the Church of England that only by
separating from it, relocating, and forming their own religious institutions could they ensure their
salvation. Puritans settling in other areas of New England still saw themselves as Anglicans but
thought that not having bishops and simplifying worship made their churches purer.
Both thought that settling in North America gave them religious freedom, generating the
idea that the United States was founded on the principle of religious freedom. But none wished
those who disagreed with them to have religious freedom; alternative views were dangerous. For
example, Massachusetts authorities banished Roger Williams in the 1630s because he was a reli-
gious seeker. Later acclaimed a beacon of religious liberty influencing Baptist developments,
Williams was regarded as a dangerous heretic. Therefore, he moved a few miles to what is now
Rhode Island, where Massachusetts authorities lacked power, and organized a church reflecting
his own views.
By the end of the 17th century, British policy required general toleration of most Protestant
groups that did not disrupt public order. Roman Catholics, however, lacked formal recognition.
They had a legal haven in Maryland, but flourished especially in Pennsylvania, where the Quaker‐
dominated government supported the “holy experiment” of the colony’s founder, William Penn,
which welcomed settlers of any religious persuasion who supported the commonweal.
4.2 Early Signs of Diversity Immigration brought more diversity than English policy recognized. The arrival of the first slave
ships, in 1619, added an African tribal dimension; many Southern congregations in time became
biracial. White Christians were at first reluctant to proselytize among the slaves, fearing that
conversion mandated their freedom. More sustained efforts to convert African Americans after
the middle of the 18th century brought a vibrant fusion of African ways with evangelical
Protestantism. The chant, song, and dance central to tribal religiosity joined with the enthusiastic,
often emotional style of evangelicalism to give African American Christianity a distinctive aura.
Africans whose forced migration brought them through the Caribbean added other twists, includ-
ing practices associated with voodoo. Both Europeans and African Americans were drawn to
slaves with a gift for preaching. However, few Whites recognized how the power of slave preach-
ers echoed that of tribal conjurers, a blending that endured after slavery’s abolition and the emer-
gence of independent African American denominations. Also, some slaves were Muslims,
although the conditions of slavery made it impossible to sustain Muslim practices.
Ethnicity reflected other manifestations of diversity. The Dutch settling New York (New
Netherlands) generally espoused a Calvinistic Reformed faith; even under English control, they
remained a strong presence. In what became New Jersey, Scandinavian immigrants brought
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614.3 Common Themes
strands of Lutheranism. German immigrants coming to Pennsylvania carried many religious
labels, usually variants of Protestant Christianity. Almost from the inception of the colonies came
Jewish immigrants; although on the religious margins, they established synagogues and commu-
nities in places such as Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; New York; and Newport,
Rhode Island. Often ignored because Christian colonists rarely understood them as religious
were practices of Native American tribes. They, too, added to the diversity.
By the middle of the 18th century, Scots‐Irish immigrants had planted their brand of
Presbyterianism, especially in the middle colonies and then south along the eastern slopes of the
Appalachian Mountains. By midcentury, too, Methodism, then a “new religion” in England, had
made its way to North America. Even so, the first national census in 1790 showed that only
around 10 percent of the population held formal religious membership. That figure underesti-
mates the wider influence of the churches and downplays how serious a step joining a church
(actually becoming a member) was. Many regularly attended worship and tried to live by reli-
gious moral codes but never took that step.
Spanish settlements in areas from Florida through Texas and the Southwest to California
brought more diversity. Missions fixed a Spanish Catholic presence there. In addition, a style of
Catholicism reflecting the French experience flourished along the Gulf of Mexico from Mobile
to New Orleans and along the southern Mississippi River. When these areas joined the
United States, they added both Spanish and French Catholicism to American religious diversity.
4.3 Common Themes Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, Congregationalist Puritans, and Baptists
all had roots in the European Protestant heritage grounded in the Reformation of the 16th century.
Although they had differences, common features became evident in the decades after independ-
ence as the nation struggled to define what being a republic, a representative democracy, meant.
Widely shared was some sense that personal experience informed vital religion, but people disa-
greed about whether one freely chose to accept salvation or whether God alone determined or
predestined who received salvation. Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Dutch Reformed,
influenced by John Calvin’s theology, tended to attribute all to the work of God; Methodists
believed that people accepted God’s gift of salvation of their own free will. Some Baptists empha-
sized free will; some believed that God alone determined who would be saved. Anglicans (those
who were part of the Church of England) and Lutherans also showed diversity, but for many,
God’s work in salvation remained a mystery, gradually apparent to those who faithfully attended
worship and accepted church doctrine.
In the middle of the 18th century, emphasis on personal religious experience received a
boost when waves of revivals called the Great Awakening swept through the colonies, although
scholars debate whether historians invented both the phenomenon and the label. For about a dec-
ade after 1740, folks seemed to exhibit intensified interest in religion. Many talked about being
converted, some convinced that God gave them signs that they were chosen for salvation and
some believing they had freely accepted God’s offer of salvation. The revival enriched the bira-
cial character of Christianity in the southern colonies; several evangelical preachers, as men-
tioned, actively sought converts among enslaved African Americans.
Although church members remained a minority of the population, the influence of
Protestant denominations emphasizing personal decision and free will grew immensely in the
first half of the 19th century. Those stressing election by God slowly shed that idea. Free will and
choice resonated with the democratic ideas informing American political life. In this approach,
all persons were equal, whether as sinners or as those who chose salvation. In a democracy,
wealth and rank supposedly did not matter; neither did they in evangelical denominations, such
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62 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
as the Methodists and Baptists, that offered salvation to all. These groups (along with Presbyterians,
who gradually jettisoned a narrow understanding of predestination) aggressively presented their
message to ordinary folk.
As the growing American population moved westward, evangelicals became proponents of
camp meetings, which brought together frontier people living far apart for times of preaching and
fellowship. As factory towns developed along the rivers and canals in the North (the Erie Canal
in New York is a prime example), evangelists adapted camp meeting techniques for urban reviv-
als. Itinerant evangelists built their reputations on preaching that moved the minds and emotions
of audiences, not on the erudite theological discourse once favored by New England Puritans.
Denominations requiring clergy to have formal training saw their influence dwindle; few had the
time or money to prepare for ministry this way. Table 4.1 shows the relative growth of Christian
groups from 1650 to 2012.
4.4 The Spread of Evangelical Protestantism These currents helped a broad evangelical Protestantism dominate Christianity in the United
States by the time of the Civil War. The thousands of Roman Catholics arriving from Ireland in
the 1830s and 1840s did not diminish that influence, for Protestants continued to control busi-
ness, industry, and political life. This Protestant Christian character became more deeply etched
into American culture as public education began to develop in the 1830s. The McGuffey Readers
(Westerhoff, 1978; Williams, 1980), standard fare in primary education for generations, exhibited
an evangelical Protestant tone in their lessons, fusing Protestant beliefs and moral values with
sound learning. Although other groups (Irish Catholics, German Catholics, Jews, and more) were
growing, this broad evangelical Protestantism pervaded common life, reinforcing the image of
the United States as a Christian nation.
The massive European immigration between the Civil War and World War I challenged that
hegemony. Most of those millions of immigrants came not from Protestant or even Catholic areas
of Northern and Western Europe but from Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe. The majority
were Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Jews. Many Catholic parishes established
parochial (parish) schools, in part because Protestant assumptions informed public school curricula.
Some in positions of social, economic, and political power recoiled at both the religious orientation
of these immigrants and their cultural and ethnic folkways. Calls to Americanize the immigrants
were often ill‐disguised calls to Protestantize them, to force conformity to the dominant religious
style in order to buttress the idea that America was a (Protestant) Christian country.
■ TABLE 4.1 Number of Places of Worship
1650 1750 1850 1950 2012
Baptist 2 132 9,375 77,000 79,398
Congregationalist 62 465 1,706 5,679 5,116
Episcopal 31 289 1,459 7,784 6,794
Presbyterian 4 233 4,824 13,200 14,025
Methodist 0 0 13,328 54,000 47,551
Roman Catholic 6 30 1,221 15,533 17,644
Jewish 0 5 30 2,000 3,480
Holiness/Pentecostal 0 0 0 21,705 67,835
Source: Adapted from New historical atlas of religion in America, by E. S. Gaustad and P. L. Barlow, 2001. San
Francisco: Harper, p. 390; and Yearbook of American and Canadian churches: 2012, ed. E. W. Lindner, 2013. Nashville:
Abingdon.
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634.5 Religious Freedom and the Separation of Church and State
The Congregationalist Josiah Strong, who worked for the interdenominational Evangelical
Alliance, claimed, in his Our Country (1886/1964), that the religions of the immigrants, along
with their concentration in the nation’s cities and the rapid industrialization spurred by their
swelling of the workforce, threatened American identity. But they were threats only if one wed-
ded American identity to evangelical Protestant Christianity.
The steady growth of African American denominations, most of them Methodist or Baptist,
added another layer of diversity. Never mirror images of their White counterparts, these groups
became crucibles in forging an indigenous leadership that later propelled the civil rights move-
ment of the 20th century. In much of the South, where legal discrimination replaced slavery,
churches were frequently the only property African Americans owned; the preachers serving
them were often the only ones with advanced educations. Especially in the rural South, churches
became broad social institutions, centers of community life offering essential social welfare pro-
grams while legal racism penetrated the larger society.
Nonetheless, mainline Protestants exerted an influence in business and political affairs
increasingly out of proportion to their numbers in the whole population. After World War I,
Congress enacted the first laws limiting immigration overall as well as expanding earlier restric-
tions on Asian immigration, which primarily affected areas of the West. Quotas ensured that most
who entered the United States would have at least nominal Protestant associations, sustaining the
image that the United States was a Christian nation. Table 4.2 presents data on religious affilia-
tion from 1830 to 2007. Trends since 1990 suggest a steady decline in the proportion of Christians
in the population, thanks largely to changes in immigration policy made in 1965 and the increase
in the number who have no formal religion at all.
4.5 Religious Freedom and the Separation of Church and State
Countervailing forces always challenged the reality of the image of the United States as a
Christian nation, reinforcing the conviction that religious diversity and pluralism prevailed. In
this view, the United States was never a Christian nation per se but one where religious freedom
meant no one religious group or tradition had special privilege. This perspective has roots in the
First Amendment to the Constitution, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an
■ TABLE 4.2 Percentage of Americans Claiming Religious Affiliation
1830 1890 1990 2007
Baptist 25.0% 18.0% 20.0% 17.2%
Congregationalist 12.3 2.5 1.5 0.8
Episcopal 5.0 2.6 1.8 1.5
Presbyterian 17.0 6.2 2.7 2.7
Methodist 23.4 22.3 11.8 6.2
Roman Catholic 4.2 30.2 38.9 23.9
Jewish * * 4.4 1.7
Holiness/Pentecostal * * 4.4 4.4
Lutheran 3.4 6.0 6.0 4.6
Muslim N/A N/A N/A 0.6
Sources: Adapted from New historical atlas of religion in America, by E. S. Gaustad and P. L. Barlow, 2001. San
Francisco: Harper, p. 389; and U.S. religious landscape survey, by Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project, 2008.
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64 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Ever since their adoption,
courts and pundits have debated what those words mean.
In the early U.S. Republic, one reason to forgo a nationally established religion was prag-
matic. If most citizens identified with one of the numerous Christian denominations or sects,
primarily Protestant ones, none counted a majority as adherents, much less as members. Baptists,
Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Lutherans of many ethnic varieties, Episcopalians, and a
host of others lived together in relative peace and harmony. This diversity, celebrated by some as
leading to pluralism, made it unfair (undemocratic) to grant one group governmental support.
Another reason stemmed from the conviction that all religious groups inculcated the moral values
that made their followers good citizens. Shared morals trumped theological differences.
In addition, leading political thinkers embraced the rationalism and freedom of thought
associated with the Enlightenment. The Age of the Revolution was also the Age of Reason. Thomas
Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, for example, subscribed to Enlightenment
ideas. Contrary to popular lore, they were not 21st‐century fundamentalists disguised as
18th‐ century politicians, nor were they what a later age labeled secular humanists. Most believed
that an overarching Providence, whom the more orthodox called God, worked through human
affairs. All thought that religious doctrines, even those they rejected, molded people into moral
citizens, thereby supporting peace and social order. All questioned anything not demonstrated
through logic. Logic and reason also decreed that one had a right to think as one wished, to follow
the truth given by one’s own mind.
This rationalist emphasis on what the 18th‐century Boston pastor Jonathan Mayhew (1749)
called the “right of private judgment” and the evangelical Protestant emphasis on a personal
experience of conversion or election were in fact complementary. Both made the individual (not
churches, ministers, priests, or even Scripture) the final authority for belief and practice. No one
could experience conversion for another; only the individual could determine what the mind
deemed right and true. Most rationalists were confident (if not naively optimistic) that truth
would look pretty much the same to everyone. Because there was no guarantee, a democracy
must allow for latitude of belief among citizens. If different minds arrived at different truths, so
be it, so long as difference did not disrupt civil order.
For advocates of reason, the danger of government’s endorsing any belief system or giv-
ing official status to any one religious group or tradition was the potential to exert tyranny over
others. If a religious community could call on the coercive power of the state to force conform-
ity to its beliefs and practices, the state lost legitimacy. The religious community no longer had
to persuade people of its truth rationally or move people to experience for themselves the reality
of salvation.
Before ratification of the Bill of Rights, Virginia had adopted a statute providing for nearly
total religious freedom. Inspired by Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia statute became a model for
many states because the Constitution restricted only the Congress from establishing a religion.
A few New England states continued to pay salaries of teachers of religion and morals from pub-
lic funds. The last to end such provisions was Massachusetts in 1833.
The phrase “separation of church and state” never appears in the Constitution. It comes
from an 1802 letter written by President Thomas Jefferson in which he referred to a “wall of sepa-
ration between church and state.” Jefferson noted that, like the Connecticut Baptists who had
written to him, he found religion “a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he
owes account to none other for his faith or his worship” and “that the legislative powers of gov-
ernment reach actions only, and not opinions” (cited in Wilson, 1965, pp. 75–76). Jefferson
acknowledged the reality of God, but wanted to avoid government involvement in determining
what individuals believed and how they worshiped and lived their faith.
Legal provision for religious freedom did not mean, however, that all sorts of fanatics sud-
denly came to the United States, although numerous individuals tried to gain a following for their
own viewpoints. One result paralleled Enlightenment‐era shifts in Europe, namely, ensuring that
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654.5 Religious Freedom and the Separation of Church and State
Jewish identity carried no political disabilities. For centuries, many European Jews were forced
into ghettos, prohibited from practicing certain occupations outside their community, denied
access to political life, and restricted in their educational opportunities. Separation of church and
state, although using a Christian term (church) to refer to all religions, made that impossible in
the United States but did not eradicate either overt or covert anti‐Semitism.
This legal arrangement also meant that the United States became a nation where religious
experimentation flourished, although a broad evangelical Protestantism dominated public life. In
the 1830s in upstate New York, for example, Joseph Smith reported having a vision that led to the
founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints, popularly called the Mormons.
Because their teachings differed from orthodox Protestant doctrine, Mormons encountered hos-
tility that forced them to relocate several times. Garnering more followers as they moved, they
finally settled around the Great Salt Lake, just before Mexico transferred the Utah area to the
United States. The Saints represent what some historians regard as the first genuinely “new”
religion to emerge in the American context.
Around the same time, John Humphrey Noyes came from Vermont to Oneida in upstate
New York. He drew scores to his communitarian enterprise with its practice of complex mar-
riage. The Shakers, planted on American soil by Ann Lee and a handful of adherents just before
the American Revolution, also reached their peak in the 1830s. About 6,000 men and women
followed their simple, celibate life in nearly two dozen different communities, several of them
in upstate New York and in New England. Countless other groups gathered around inspired
teachers who carved a niche for themselves because government would not interfere in matters
of personal belief and practice. Many experimented with communal living. As in a market-
place, each competed to gain a following; those adept at convincing folk of their truth reaped
the most adherents.
Immigration in the early 19th century ensured that the United States would be home to a
significant Jewish population. Although several small Jewish communities existed in the English
colonies—with the earliest synagogues in places such as Newport, Rhode Island, and Charleston,
South Carolina—the immigration of Jews from German cultures brought diversity to the
Hebrew tradition itself. Eager to seize opportunities for fuller participation in public life that
came after the Enlightenment and the end of forced exclusion from society, many Jews were
drawn to Reform Judaism. The Reform movement sought to modernize Judaism by abandoning
nonessential features of Jewish practice thought to be inextricably wedded to ancient Near
Eastern culture.
Later Jewish immigrants found Reform too radical, yielding too much. Those resisting
most strongly became known as Orthodox Jews. Those called Conservative Jews modified some
traditional practice to accommodate life in a religiously pluralistic culture but believed the
Reform movement jettisoned too much. Despite the Christian domination of American religious
life, by the middle of the 19th century, a vibrant Jewish community represented a dynamic alter-
native. Today Reform Jews constitute the largest group.
In the first half of the 19th century, some religious teachers regularly preached at camp
meetings or worked the lecture circuit, a form of popular entertainment, in the larger cities. Along
the frontier, several sought to restore what they regarded as the actual practice of first‐century
New Testament Christianity. That meant shedding denominational structures and sometimes
even religious professionals such as clergy. This restorationist impulse resulted in groups that
later coalesced into the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ.
In northern cities, individuals such as William Miller drew crowds to their presentations on
biblical prophecy. Miller, eagerly expecting the imminent return of Christ to usher in the millen-
nial age, fixed a date when the second advent would transpire, more than once revising his calcu-
lations when Christ did not return on schedule. Most of his followers scattered because of the
“great disappointment” that ensued, but this teaching found new life in the Seventh‐Day
Adventists and the doctrines of their founder, Ellen G. Harmon White.
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66 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
By the end of the 19th century, countless groups had emerged, some reflecting the diverse
religious styles of new immigrants and others the ideas offered by dynamic speakers and writers.
Among the better known are the Amish and their religious cousins, the Mennonites, whose sim-
ple life eschewed involvement in the larger society hopelessly corrupted by modernity. Their
major immigration to the United States and Canada came shortly after the Civil War. During that
epoch, interest in science and applying scientific techniques to religious expression also increased.
Mary Baker Eddy, for example, named her use of mental power to effect healing Christian
Science. Her influence grew rapidly as she published her views and as practitioners promoted her
ideas across the country.
These examples illustrate the diversity and pluralism shaping American religious life, made
possible in part because of the First Amendment. Other factors aided religious experimentation.
The seemingly vast expanse of land in the nation provided space for religious teachers and groups
to go about their business without really interrupting or interfering with the lives of those around
them. Consequently, the American experience demolished a myth buttressing Western civilization
since the days of the Roman Empire, namely, that political stability and social harmony required
religious uniformity.
4.6 Diversity, Religious Freedom, and the Courts At the same time, some religious groups seemed to many Americans, primarily Protestants, to
overstep the limits of freedom. After all, they were minority groups on the margins of the larger
religious culture. If their beliefs and practices diverged too much from those of the majority,
should they be restrained or curtailed lest they undermine the dominant religious style? When
would diversity in the free exercise of religion become dangerous? How could government pro-
tect the majority without becoming tyrannical?
One example emerged when the Latter‐day Saints founder Joseph Smith advocated plural
marriage. A revelation he believed divine convinced him that his followers should adopt the
ancient biblical practice of men having more than one wife. Most Americans were aghast at
the idea of polygamy, and most states forbade it when the Utah Territory sought admission to the
Union. The situation was convoluted, and historians differ about how subsequent Mormon teach-
ing came to prohibit polygamy. Although the Saints once insisted polygamy was part of their free
exercise of religion, they abandoned it so that Utah could become a state. In the process, the U.S.
Supreme Court heard two cases dealing with plural marriage, Reynolds v. United States in 1878
and Davis v. Beason in 1890 (Miller & Flowers, 1987). After the official position changed and
Utah’s state constitution prohibited plural marriage, some individuals claiming Mormon identity
continued the practice. In 2008, one such example in Texas attracted wide attention in the media
and the courts, but most instances are ignored since practitioners likely live in remote areas where
residents often overlook what does not upset public order. Popular culture has also found plural
marriage a subject of intrigue.
Laws protecting Sabbath observance began in the colonial period. Among the earliest were
provisions in Virginia, part of “Dale’s Laws” in 1610, that required attendance at Christian wor-
ship and prohibited “any gaming,” public or private, on Sunday. As the American Jewish popula-
tion grew, Orthodox Jews, who strictly observed the Sabbath from sundown Friday until sundown
Saturday, believed laws favoring a Sunday Sabbath discriminatory. However, because the number
of Jews was small and the Jewish population fairly scattered, few challenged the status quo.
Sunday laws also affected Seventh‐Day Adventists, who, as their name indicates, hold the
Hebrew Sabbath—the seventh day, or Saturday—as sacred. Most Christians, whether Protestant,
Catholic, or Orthodox, believed that their practice of keeping Sunday, the first day, as sacred
superseded seventh‐day Sabbath observance. Well into the 20th century, many states and local
communities legally restricted Sunday labor, sale of certain products, and access to some
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674.6 Diversity, Religious Freedom, and the Courts
recreational activities. Known as blue laws, such regulations aroused little concern when Christians
constituted an overwhelming majority. They tended to keep Sunday sacred even without legal
restraints. But what about those for whom the seventh day was holy?
Most legal challenges involving Seventh‐Day Adventists and Orthodox Jews came in local
and state courts. Early challenges to blue laws reaching the U.S. Supreme Court did not directly
involve religious groups, although the issues at stake did. For example, the arrest of discount
store employees for selling restricted products on Sunday propelled McGowan v. Maryland
(1961); Two Guys from Harrison‐Allentown, Inc. v. McGinley (1961) was similar, but required a
separate decision. In both, the Court upheld Sunday blue laws using an “argument from history”
and insisted that even if blue laws indirectly supported Christian observance, they promoted the
general welfare by mandating one day of rest in seven. Bringing such cases to the Supreme Court
resulted in moves to repeal most blue laws.
In times of war, most court cases dealing with religion have concerned those who refused
to engage in combat and sometimes in activities that supported combat. Although hundreds have
been imprisoned, generally the courts concluded that members of religious groups, such as the
Quakers, the Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, and other historic “peace churches,” could
refuse military service, but most performed alternative service. One consequence of protest
against the U.S. military presence in Vietnam was extending conscientious objector classification
to those morally opposed to war even if they were not members of a religious body.
Over the years, free exercise issues have also involved groups that reject certain medical
procedures (e.g., blood transfusions), such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Christ,
Scientist. Generally, the courts have upheld the right of adults to refuse medical treatment on
religious grounds. More complex situations arise when parents refuse to authorize medical pro-
cedures for their minor children on religious grounds. Here the issue has been whether govern-
ment’s promoting the welfare of minors superseded parents’ rights to deny some treatments.
Apparent conflict between promoting the general welfare and upholding free exercise also
informed many cases, mostly on a state level, that concerned ritual serpent handling and ingest-
ing of poisonous liquids such as strychnine. Serpent handlers, basing the practice on the Gospel
of Mark, Chapter 16, insisted they did only what Scripture required. Did possible death from
snake bite make serpent handling a practice that undermined the general welfare, allowing the
government to prohibit it? Because serpent‐handling groups are concentrated in the mountains of
central Appalachia, most laws banning serpent handling were passed by states in that region. Few
were regularly enforced, and most had been rescinded by the end of the 20th century.
Numerous cases addressed whether sanctioning particular practices resulted in a de facto
establishment of religion. Many involved public school education. Some of the earliest con-
cerned children of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Witnesses refuse to salute the flag, insisting that reciting
the Pledge of Allegiance elevates the state above God. Before the rights of the Witnesses received
legal protection, several episodes resulted in children who were Witnesses being expelled from
school and their parents being prosecuted. At first, the Supreme Court rejected refusal to recite
the pledge as an exercise of religious freedom. In Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940),
the Court decreed that the social cohesion resulting from requiring students to recite the pledge
superseded free exercise. But in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 3 years later,
the Court reversed its position, setting a precedent that has prevailed since.
More recent debates center on the words under God inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance
by Congress in 1954. In June 2004, the Supreme Court dismissed one such case from California,
where a lower court had found the phrase unconstitutional; the Court ruled that the parent who
had initiated the case, an avowed atheist, lacked standing because he did not have legal custody
of his daughter, the one required to recite the pledge. Subsequent cases brought by different par-
ties resulted in a federal appeals court in 2010 allowing the phrase to stand because no law in fact
required anyone to say the challenged words or even to recite the pledge at all.
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68 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
As noted earlier, as public education became the norm in the United States in the 19th
century, curriculum materials often reflected the beliefs and practices of mainline Protestant
denominations. Christian holidays, such as Christmas and Holy Week before Easter, saw classes
suspended; Jewish holy days rarely received such preferential treatment, although Jewish chil-
dren incurred no penalties for absences on religious holidays. In some school districts, religious
groups—usually Protestants—used educational facilities for religious instruction, sometimes
during the regular class day. In McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), the Supreme Court
prohibited using school facilities and class time for instruction in a particular faith tradition, even
when participation was voluntary.
Some accommodation came in 1952 in Zorach v. Clauson, when the Court sanctioned
dismissing children early from regular classes to attend voluntary off‐site religious instruction.
For several decades, children whose parents so requested 1 day a week could attend such reli-
gious instruction, offered by both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. By the end of the
20th century, when recruiting volunteers to staff such programs became difficult and extracur-
ricular options expanded, most such endeavors were dismantled.
Greater controversy has revolved around Bible reading and prayer in the public schools and
whether such activities create a tacit establishment of religion or favor a particular religious tradi-
tion. In some communities, questions arose about prayers preceding athletic events or during
commencement exercises. In 1962, the Supreme Court in Engel v. Vitale struck down a New York
State Board of Regents requirement that public school students begin each school day by reciting
a presumably nonsectarian prayer. As furor over that judgment mounted, the Court in Abington v.
Schempp (1963) declared unconstitutional devotional Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s
Prayer, even if those for whom such were not acts of worship were excused.
School districts and state legislatures still wrangle with ways to get around these decisions.
Subsequent cases, mostly in lower courts, have whittled away at the absolute prohibitions, allow-
ing some student‐initiated prayers and the use of school facilities by voluntary student religious
groups outside class hours if they are available for other extracurricular programs. Frequently
overlooked in the heat of controversy is the Supreme Court’s insistence that prohibiting devo-
tional practices did not ban the academic study of religion in public schools, which is different
from teaching that any belief system contains ultimate truth. Nor have courts banned study of
sacred texts such as the Bible from literary and historical perspectives since such study does not
necessarily promote personal belief and commitment. Yet public school systems have been reluc-
tant to offer the academic study of religion lest it be misconstrued as endorsing one religion over
another. Although curriculum materials for religion courses continue to increase, few have the
training to teach religion as an academic subject.
In the early 21st century, debates continued over what separation of church and state
involves and how to ensure the free exercise of religion. Some, such as a case involving whether
Santeria is a religion and its ritual of sacrifice of chickens a protected religious practice, echoed
earlier themes. Other cases concerned ways to link religion and education legally, such as whether
states or communities could provide vouchers to defray the cost of religiously sponsored educa-
tion. Several focused on whether biology textbooks should include creationism as a scientific
perspective alongside theories of evolution. Because many thought creation sciences reflected a
single religious viewpoint, courts consistently rejected efforts to include it in school curricula.
When others advocated intelligent design to explain the origins of the universe, new court
battles ensued. Intelligent design seemed like creation science rebranded. Moves to introduce
intelligent design challenged how science was taught. It seemed a subtle way to introduce other
matters of faith into public school curricula. At first, the courts generally refused to require
teaching theories of intelligent design because they were construed as promoting religion, but in
some instances mandated presenting evolution as speculative theory, not as accepted scientific
fact. A critical case arose in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005. The local school board required teach-
ing intelligent design in its biology curriculum as well as discussing evolution as a theory, not as
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694.7 Pluralism Becomes the Norm
universally accepted scientific fact. Judge John E. Jones III overturned the board’s policy, declar-
ing that intelligent design was not science (Raffaele, 2005). Although this ruling seemed likely to
become a precedent, efforts to promulgate supernatural explanations of cosmic and human ori-
gins did not disappear.
In retrospect, some believe that early legal cases concerned how to protect the rights of
religious minorities but that later cases imposed minority rule on the majority. Regardless, legal
cases concerning religion reveal that a deep and abiding diversity marks American life, even if a
broadly based evangelical Protestantism once exercised dominant influence.
4.7 Pluralism Becomes the Norm The court cases of the 1960s concerning prayer and Bible reading came as the image of the
United States as a Christian nation was unraveling. As early as 1955, Will Herberg, one‐time labor
union organizer and Jewish professor of the sociology of religion at a Methodist seminary, in his
Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1960) argued that most Americans regarded the many forms of
Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Judaism as equivalent in molding adherents into respon-
sible citizens. Any religious label was a badge of social worth. For Herberg, equally important,
although disturbing, was the emergence of a cultural religion, the “religion of the American Way
of Life.” It emphasized materialism and conspicuous consumption, not the commitment and disci-
pleship permeating biblical faith. That unconscious push to a common ground minimizing denom-
inational particularities and distinctions among faith traditions echoes in words attributed to
President Eisenhower: The government of the United States “makes no sense unless it is founded
on a deeply felt religious faith—and I don’t care what it is” (cited in Herberg, 1960, p. 95).
World War II military service introduced thousands of Americans to persons of other reli-
gious persuasions; shared experiences in battle minimized faith differences. As veterans reen-
tered civilian life after the war, employment opportunities frequently entailed relocation. The
model of Americans living from birth until death in the same community or area disappeared.
Relocation often meant finding a new church with which to affiliate, chosen for personal reasons,
not denominational label. If the denomination of one’s birth had no congregation nearby, it was
easy to affiliate with another one.
The suburban sprawl accompanying mobility also eroded denominational loyalty. Mainline
Protestant denominations raced to build new churches in mushrooming suburban communities,
often working together so as not to “overchurch” an area. Church bureaucrats knew that families
likely identified with congregations, regardless of denomination, with programs oriented toward
young families. Denominational switching became the norm. Denominations could no longer
assume that those raised within the fold would retain a lifelong identification with a particular
tradition. Bonding to a particular heritage disappeared; people related instead to their local con-
gregation. Those not deeply steeped in their tradition rarely reared their children with a firm
commitment to that heritage.
The rush to the nation’s colleges and universities after the war, spurred by the G.I. Bill,
undermined denominational loyalty in a different way. The collegiate environment, like military
experience, introduced many to varieties of ways of being religious. It was not, as some feared,
that college education destroyed religious faith, but it brought exposure to persons from many
faiths, removing much of the apprehension surrounding alternative religions. Consequently,
higher education led people to see faith communities as functionally equivalent, with none hav-
ing an exclusive claim to truth. Some Protestants demurred, believing this exposure dangerous,
resulting in compromise with falsehood and contamination of authentic faith.
Mobility, military service, and collegiate experience were catalysts stimulating a sharp
increase in interreligious marriage. Marriage across Protestant denominational lines had long
been common. Now marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics and between Christians
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70 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
and Jews dramatically increased. The boundaries separating these larger faith traditions had pre-
viously proved more unyielding than those between Protestant denominations. Then, too, hun-
dreds of Americans who had served in the Pacific during the war brought home spouses from
various Asian or Pacific cultures who, like other immigrants, sought to retain their religions of
origin. Individual families carved out their own religious identities from those brought together
in a single household. Some compromised, identifying with yet another religious group; some-
times husbands and wives maintained separate religious affiliation, perhaps exposing their chil-
dren to both, perhaps just to one, often to none. Many dropped out of organized religion.
No matter how families resolved such issues, new dimensions of pluralism took on increas-
ing importance. The ecumenical movement, primarily among Protestants, contributed to this
diversity. Cooperative endeavors through councils of churches, mergers of denominations within
the same religious family such as the reunion of northern and southern Presbyterians in 1983, and
talks of church union spearheaded by the Consultation on Church Union formed in the early
1960s created the impression that all Protestant bodies were much alike and that denominations
really made little difference, lacking distinctive ways of expressing what Christian faith was. If
labels made no difference, then loyalty to a particular denomination made no difference. In pro-
moting unity among Protestants, the ecumenical movement unwittingly undermined denomina-
tional loyalty.
In addition, social forces unleashed by the civil rights movement and the antiwar efforts
associated with U.S. engagement in Vietnam challenged all forms of authority within American
life, including the authority of religious groups and their leaders. The baby boom generation,
reaching adulthood during that turbulent epoch, more than earlier generations shunned commit-
ment to all social institutions, including religious ones. Reared when denominational loyalty was
eroding, they shunned abiding identification with organized religion. Earlier generations had
drifted away from religious communities in late adolescence and early young adulthood but gen-
erally returned when they wanted to provide their children, a moral anchor. Boomers did not
return in the same proportion. Many, however, identified themselves as spiritual even as they
resisted being called religious.
Robert Wuthnow (1998) has argued that in the second half of the 20th century, Americans
exchanged a religious “home” or center, usually fixed around a tradition or group, for a “quest,”
something more individualistic and idiosyncratic. The subtitle of an article in a popular journal
captured the mood: “Design Your Own God” (Creedon, 1998). Women from the boomer genera-
tion, for example, probed beliefs well beyond those of standard denominations to forge a spiritu-
ality grounded in female experience. Some looked to pagan and pre‐Christian forms of expression,
sparking panic among some Christians that feminist spirituality threatened the integrity of the
churches. For example, women who reject the male orientation of most religious traditions may
gather in forest groves to mark experiences unique to females, from childbirth to menopause;
others celebrate the Goddess through Wiccan rituals.
“Spiritual, but not religious” persons may adopt a hybrid spirituality. Some may practice
forms of meditation associated with traditions such as Zen Buddhism, but still pray and use
Christian symbols in their devotional practice. Others may silently walk the universal man-
dala, found in many traditions, but rarely attend formal worship of any kind. More recently,
some have turned to the Internet to find spiritual guidance and connect with an online religious
community.
While this privatized spirituality gained ground from the 1960s on, some Christian groups,
especially those Protestant denominations and independent congregations inclined to variations
of fundamentalist and Pentecostal expression, were growing (Kelley, 1977). For generations,
scholars had consigned these styles of Christianity to the periphery, mistakenly assuming that
fundamentalism and Pentecostalism attracted only the economically disadvantaged and politi-
cally powerless.
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714.8 New Faces of Pluralism
Fundamentalists, Pentecostals, and other evangelicals had nevertheless enveloped strong
networks, cementing bonds and providing resources to sustain their institutions (Carpenter,
1997). They gathered strength from their conviction that they possessed unquestioned truth, pro-
tected from the cultural attacks on authority of the later 20th century. If other religious groups
confronted internal turmoil over civil rights, Vietnam, feminism, and then gay rights, fundamen-
talism and Pentecostalism offered a refuge, a secure way of looking at the world not battered by
social controversy but buttressed by the certainty that they retained absolute truth. The surge of
fundamentalists and Pentecostals also complicates ongoing efforts to find a single religious base
for American culture; their leaders often propel debates about public education, such as teaching
intelligent design.
Some talk about the “Judeo‐Christian tradition,” an artificial construct, as reflecting the
dominant religious mood in the United States. At the beginning of the 21st century, particularly
after the terrorist attacks of September 2001, many wanted to post the Ten Commandments in
schools and other public buildings, hoping that this amorphous amalgamation of biblical tradi-
tions could still provide social cohesion. Undercutting those efforts were other facets of religious
pluralism, especially the dramatic increase in the number of Americans identifying with religious
traditions such as Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
4.8 New Faces of Pluralism Changes in immigration laws in 1965 spurred a rise in immigration from Latin America, Africa,
and Asia. With them has come fresh interest in religions indigenous to those areas and a new
appreciation of the links between ethnicity and religion. In 1970, for example, just 5 percent
(9.6 million) of the U.S. population was foreign born; by 2013, that figure had increased to
13 percent (40.8 million), one of the highest percentages in a century (Nwosa, Batalova, &
Auclair, 2014). Most striking, perhaps was the change that came to the Sun Belt, which experi-
enced the greatest proportional growth in immigration from Latin America, the Near East, and
Asia, even if total numbers remained relatively small. From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of those
who were foreign born in North Carolina and Georgia, as well as in Nevada, increased by more
than 200 percent (Malone, Baluja, Costanzo, & Davis, 2003). In 2013, the Bureau of the Census
estimated that 7.5 percent of North Carolina’s population was foreign born, 9.7 percent of
Georgia’s, and nearly one‐fifth (19.2 percent) of Nevada’s. In California in 2013, more than one‐
quarter was foreign born (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). In some areas, proportions were higher;
for example, in Whitfield County, Georgia, the heart of the state’s carpet industry, Hispanic
Americans now constitute between one‐third and one‐half of the population, depending on whom
and how one counts, and more than 50 percent of public school students there are Hispanic
(Mahoney, 2002; U.S. Census Bureau, 2013).
Well over 10 million persons of Hispanic origin have entered the the United States legally
or illegally since 2000, bringing the total of those born in Latin America and the Caribbean to
nearly 21.5 million (Camarota, 2007; Gryn & Gambino, 2012). The 2010 census also showed
that Hispanics had surpassed African Americans as the largest ethnic bloc in the nation; by 2013,
estimates suggested that those who identified as Hispanic represented 17.1 percent of the popula-
tion (54.1 million), while those who identified themselves as African American accounted for
13.2 percent (41.7 million). Demographers believe that by midcentury Hispanics will account for
at least 22.5 percent of the population (Day, 2011; U.S. Census Bureau, 2011).
As well, the 2000 census indicated that 8.2 million Americans (4.2 percent of the popula-
tion) were born in Asia (Reeves & Bennett, 2004). Figures reported in the 2010 census showed
an even larger number; by then some 11.6 million Americans (4.4 percent of the population)
were Asian born (Gryn & Gambino, 2012). By 2050, census analysts expect those of Asian
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72 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
background to account for 10.3 percent of the American population (Day, 2011; U.S. Census
Bureau, 2011). None of these estimates includes persons whose background may embrace more
than one ethnic or racial component. Yet clearly, trends in place today will shape American soci-
ety for decades to come.
In most urban areas, Roman Catholic parishes hold some services in Spanish, recognizing
that Hispanic Catholicism brings to the church a rich blend of traditions reflecting Central and
South American cultures. Cuban immigrants in the Miami area, for example, have erected a
shrine to Our Lady of Charity that signals both a particular religious sensibility and a Cuban
nationalism (Tweed, 1997). These immigrants are replicating what Italian and Irish Catholics and
others did more than a century ago by bringing with them the festivals, patron saints, and fusion
of religious and ethnic ways that provide a sense of identity and cultural cohesion.
Numerous Protestant denominations have also launched special ministries to Spanish‐
speaking Americans. Many, especially those in the Pentecostal fold, provide services and pro-
grams building on the spiritual style of Hispanic followers. Theologically, Hispanic Americans
(Protestant and Catholic) tend to be more traditional and conservative in their thinking even as
their practice reveals a dynamic hybrid fusion of Christian and ancient tribal elements. Conse-
quently, within the Christian tradition, it is now impossible to regard Anglo American styles as
normative.
Immigration from Asia continues to swell the ranks of Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims in
the United States. American interest in Asian religious cultures has a long history. In the 19th
century, transcendentalist writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson found Asian religious philoso-
phy appealing, and thousands devoured reports of seemingly exotic Asian religious practices
through letters from missionaries published in popular religious magazines. But, except for a
small number of immigrants from China and Japan on the West Coast, few Americans had first-
hand experience with these religions; even fewer practiced them.
More direct exposure came with the World’s Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in
1893 in conjunction with the Columbian Exposition marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s
first voyage to America. Representatives from numerous religions, including Hindus and
Buddhists, came to Chicago; some, like the Hindu philosopher Vivekananda, remained in the
United States for an extended period, speaking in larger cities and attracting some interest, pri-
marily among intellectuals, in Asian thought. American military involvement in Asia during
World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War introduced thousands to Asian ways of being
religious. Some brought spouses back to the United States who sought to continue the religious
ways that had nurtured them.
The 1960s witnessed the arrival of several Asian religious figures seeking American con-
verts, particularly from among those disenchanted with traditional American religious life
because it seemed mired in racism and torn apart over government policy in Vietnam. The
International Society of Krishna Consciousness, popularly known as Hare Krishna, became a
familiar presence in cities and college towns; thousands were drawn to practices such as
Transcendental Meditation, promoted by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and made fashionable by
celebrities such as the Beatles. A generation later, the Dalai Lama became a symbol of American
interest in Tibetan Buddhism, aided by the devotion of celebrities such as Richard Gere.
While some forms of Buddhism, such as that promoted by the Dalai Lama, and some popu-
lar forms of Hinduism, such as Krishna Consciousness, have primarily attracted American devo-
tees of non‐Asian background, most American Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims come from
families who are doing what Americans have done for centuries—practicing the religion that the
first generation of immigrants brought with them, albeit adapting it to the American context. The
increase in the number of immigrants for whom these traditions represent the heritages they bring
with them when they come to the United States is changing the face of pluralism. Table 4.3
illustrates their relative growth.
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734.8 New Faces of Pluralism
Many challenges thwart efforts to get precise figures for adherents of all religious com-
munities in the United States, especially those whose ranks include recent immigrants. Groups do
not use a common method of counting adherents; often wide disparities exist between numbers
reported by organized religious agencies and those who self‐identify with a group or movement
in surveys. Regardless, trends are apparent. Estimates suggest that the United States was home to
only 30,000 Buddhists in 1900 but nearly 4 million in 2010; to a mere 1,000 Hindus in 1900 but
close to 1.5 million in 2010; to just 10,000 Muslims in 1900 but perhaps (and estimates vary
widely) to between 4.5 million and 6.5 million just over a century later, not counting those affili-
ated with the Nation of Islam (Lippy, 2009; Pluralism Project, 2011; U.S. Census Bureau, 2000;
World Religion Database, 2013). Estimates of the Muslim population are plagued by problems
ranging from the relatively small proportion of U.S. Muslims affiliated with mosques, fears of
prejudice in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the willingness of some Muslims to aban-
don religious practice in the American context.
The Hindu tradition has never actively proselytized; in other cultural contexts, Buddhists
and Muslims have more aggressively sought converts. In the United States, there is relatively lit-
tle association between the various immigrant Buddhist communities and centers catering pri-
marily to American‐born converts. American Muslims are reluctant to proselytize because of
popular negative perceptions of Islam and assumptions that all Muslims advocate international
terrorism. American converts to Islam are more likely to be persons of African descent; they join
a growing number of African immigrants who are also Muslim.
A closer look at American Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims suggests that these traditions
will grow much more rapidly from internal propagation than any Christian or Jewish group will.
In 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a detailed study profiling adher-
ents of all major religious communities in the nation. That survey found that around three‐quar-
ters of all American Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus were under 50 years of age, an indication
that many were in their peak childbearing years and that a much larger proportion were children
and adolescents than was true for the general population. By contrast, just half of mainline
Protestants were under age 50. This internal growth combined with immigration to make Islam
one of the fastest growing religions in the nation. There is little wonder, then, that the historian
of religion Diana Eck (1997) titled her study of these trends A New Religious America: How a
“Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation. Facing prac-
tices and holy days that diverge from those prevalent in a “Judeo‐Christian” culture, schools and
other public institutions must accomodate diversity in order to protect the free exercise of
religion.
Two examples must suffice. First, traditional Muslim practice calls for the devout to pray
five times daily facing in the direction of Mecca; stated times for prayer clash with the standard
workday and school day in the United States. Accommodating them poses challenges. Second,
controversy erupted over the building of mosques and Islamic centers in various communities
in 2010 and 2011. The most widely publicized concerned plans to erect such a center in
New York City, near the former World Trade Center demolished in terrorist attacks in 2001.
■ TABLE 4.3 Estimates of Adherents of Asian Religions
1900 1970 2000 2010
Buddhists 30,000 200,000 2,000,000 3,950,000
Hindus 1,000 100,000 950,000 1,450,000
Muslims* 10,000 800,000 3,950,000 4,500,000+
*Not including the Nation of Islam.
Source: Figures based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and World Religion Database 2013.
Banks_c04.indd 73 31-07-2015 19:30:05
74 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
But other communities also faced turmoil. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for example, residents
sought to block construction of a mosque and educational center on the grounds that the Muslim
imperative to convert and/or subdue non‐Muslims represented a threat to the free exercise of
religion by non‐Muslims. However, courts dismissed the claim and allowed construction
to continue.
Given the globalization that marks contemporary life, trends in the United States need to
be viewed within an international framework. Internal migration within Europe and immigration
from nations once part of Europe’s colonial empires have transformed the religious landscape
there (Modood, 2012). Pluralism, sometimes called multiconfessionalism in Europe, has brought
not only the same challenges to European society as to U.S. society but also some that reflect the
distinctive character of European cultures. For example, France, once the colonial power con-
trolling much of Muslim North Africa, will likely see Muslims accounting for 10.3 percent of its
population by 2030 (Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project, 2011). Since the French
Revolution, France has rigorously kept overt religious influence out of public life more than has
the United States (Lemaire, 2009), despite the American separation of church and state.
Consequently, controversy over whether to allow Muslim females to wear traditional garb not
only in schools but also in most public venues has highlighted the limits of toleration and the
depth of residual prejudice in France (Fredette, 2014). As the Muslim population of Europe
grows at a rate surpassing that expected in the United States, similar tensions will erupt else-
where, spilling over into the schools.
Additional challenges come when schools attempt to offer academic study of world reli-
gions, especially since Americans appear unwilling or uninterested in learning about religions
other than their own (Wuthnow, 2007). Teachers and school boards look askance at materials
written by practitioners, regarding them as uncritical and self‐serving. Adherents often find pres-
entations by scholars skewed, relying heavily on Christian terms to explain ideas that are very
different from any Christian notions. For example, although most Buddhists reject calling the
Buddha a deity or God, some curricular materials make it appear as if the Buddha is the equiva-
lent of God as understood in Christianity. Nonetheless, the new pluralism and the prospects for
the growth of the religions it represents not only have become a hallmark of American spiritual
life but also illustrate the impossibility of regarding a single tradition as normative or perhaps
even culturally dominant.
Alongside the mushrooming pluralism linked to immigration is another significant trend,
the steady increase in the number of Americans who eschew formal religious identity altogether.
Until recently, surveys found that most Americans, when asked, gave themselves a religious
label, whether or not they actually held membership in that group, occasionally attended services
or other events, or had any regular association with the group. The Pew Research Religion and
Public Life Project in 2012 released data indicating that in the previous 5 years, the percentage of
Americans not identifying with a religious group or tradition grew from 15 percent of the popula-
tion to just under 20 percent; for those under 30 years of age, the figure was one‐third. Not all are
atheists or agnostics, although those selecting those self‐descriptions also rose. Most simply do
not identify with any particular religious community (even if more than two‐thirds claim to
believe in God or a higher power). Nearly 90 percent of these “religious nones” also indicate that
they are not looking for any religion with which to identify (Pew Research Religion and Public
Life Project, 2012). Just over one‐third call themselves “spiritual, but not religious” (Fuller,
2001). Clearly, the very character of pluralism has expanded in such a way as to undermine any
assumption that the American people share a common religious base. The question, then, may not
be whether the United States is a Christian nation or even one where a pluralistic religious culture
exercises public influence. The question now is whether it is appropriate to call the United States
a religious nation (Lippy & Tranby, 2013).
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754.10 Resources
4.9 Summary and Educational Implications From the colonial period to the 21st century, America’s religious landscape became ever more
diverse. If the early European invaders brought a range of Christian sensibilities, their efforts to
plant a Christian culture in America always faced challenges. These challenges came from the
Native Americans whose tribal religions once flourished in places where Europeans settled as
well as from enslaved Africans who sustained an African religious consciousness despite the hor-
rors of slavery. They also came from a variety of other groups who promoted alternative ways of
being religious. Diversity marked the American religious experience from the outset.
That diversity received acknowledgment when the Bill of Rights added an amendment to
the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the free exercise of religion. But the questions of what free
exercise means and how to balance the religious sensibilities of the majority with those of many
minorities have challenged the courts ever since. In the 20th and 21st centuries, many challenges
concerned the role of religion in public education.
Immigration has been a major force enhancing religious diversity over the centuries.
Immigration helped cement a Roman Catholic and Jewish presence in American life in the
19th century. By the 21st century, immigration was swelling the ranks of Buddhists, Hindus,
Muslims, and a variety of others who called the United States home. At the same time, the num-
ber of Americans claiming no religious identity or formal affiliation was rising rapidly.
If public education in its early years in the middle third of the 19th century could assume
that most students shared a broadly based evangelical Protestant background, by the end of that
century those assumptions were no longer viable, although they had by no means vanished. By
2010, religious pluralism rendered it impossible for any dimension of the public sector to pre-
sume that a majority shared common beliefs and values—or even a common religious sensibility.
As federal policy steadily moved in the direction of funding “faith‐based initiatives” on a local
level to deal with ongoing social problems, it was increasingly difficult to determine how to dis-
tribute such funds without favoring any one group, how to ensure that recipients were not using
funds to coerce those being helped into aligning with the religious group, and even how to ascer-
tain which groups represented legitimate “faith‐based” entities.
Even more challenging is deciding how to study the religious mosaic that is the United
States without either presuming allegiance to a particular faith tradition or granting any one faith
community a privileged position.
4.10 Resources Jon Butler and Harry S. Stout (1998) have edited a seventeen‐volume series of texts on religion
in American life suitable for classroom use at the secondary level. Published by Oxford University
Press, some are chronological in focus (colonial America, the 19th century, the 20th century),
some treat groups (Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs),
and others deal with topics (African American religion, church and state, immigration, women,
Native American religion, alternative religions). The concluding volume is a biographical supple-
ment and index. All are by leading scholars. The URL for this series is http://www.oup.com/us
/catalog/general/series/ReligioninAmericanLife/?view=usa&sf=all.
Also helpful is the nine‐volume Religion by Region series (2004–2006) produced under the
auspices of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College,
Hartford, Connecticut, and edited by Mark Silk and Andrew Walsh. Published by AltaMira Press,
eight focus on distinctive geographic regions, examining how regional religious cultures and his-
tory have implications for public policy, including education. The final volume examines the role
Banks_c04.indd 75 31-07-2015 19:30:05
76 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life
of region more generally in determining the interplay of religion and public policy. Information
on this series is found at https://rowman.com/Action/ Search/RLA/religion%20by%20reg.
Some materials appropriate for classroom use and for training persons to teach about reli-
gion are available through the Religion and Public Education Project at the California State
University at Chico (www.csuchico.edu/cpur/rpep/).
Also specializing in teaching resources about American religious culture is the Wabash
Center (www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu).
The Pluralism Project at Harvard University has focused primarily on the new diversity
represented by the recent growth of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Its Web site includes not
only state‐by‐state maps but also a directory of religious centers, news summaries, profiles of
groups, and teaching resources (www.pluralism.org).
The most recent demographic profiles appear in the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, part
of the Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project. See http://religions.pewforum.org for a
wealth of data on American religious life released in 2008. Other Pew Research studies augment
this endeavor. Researchers at Hartford Theological Seminary produced the study Faith Communities Today that provides helpful information. The results are accessible at www.fact
.hartsem.edu. In addition, both the World Christian Database and the World Religion Database,
available through Brill, offer online subscription access. Each contains a wealth of demographic
data, by religion and by nation. Both provide regular updates. See www.worldchristiandatabase
.org and www.worldreligiondatabase.org. Using data from them and from Pew studies, Todd
Johnson and Brian Grim have compiled The World’s Religions in Figures published by Wiley‐
Blackwell (2013).
Several initiatives of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) look at the impact of
immigration on American religion from historical and comparative persectives, the role of reli-
gion in public life, and various aspects if Islam in the United States and elsewhere. Especially
helpful is Immigration and Religion in American History: Comparative and Historical Perspectives, edited by Richard Alba, Albert J. Raboteau, and Josh DeWine (2009), a collection
of essays resulting from a consultation on immigration. See www.ssrc.org.
There are also helpful Web sites on particular groups or topics that illustrate the diversity
within American religious life. For articles, information on research collections, and recent pub-
lications, and other resources on African American religious history, for example, see the open
access online journal North Star. For information on accessing, see www.princeton.edu/~jweisenf
/northstar/faq.html.
The Cushwa Center at Notre Dame University offers many resources on U.S. Roman
Catholic life and history (www.nd.edu/~cushwa).
Similarly, the American Jewish Historical Society identifies materials to track the American
Jewish experience (www.ajhs.org).
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
4.1 The principle of separation of church and state is a keystone
of religious freedom in the United States. Investigate how
closely church and state are tied together in the United
States today. For example, can churches receive federal
funding? If so, under what conditions? Can parochial and
other religious schools receive support from public school
districts? If so, what kind of support can they receive, and
what conditions do they need to meet in order to qualify for
support?
4.2 Large numbers of African Americans and European
Americans are members of Protestant churches and share
religious traditions. However, services in African American
and European American churches can be very different.
Visit a Methodist church service and an African Methodist
Episcopal (AME) church service. Compare the services at
the two churches by identifying factors such as the length of
service, the music, and the enthusiasm of the minister.
Discuss your findings with your classmates. An informative
Banks_c04.indd 76 31-07-2015 19:30:05
77References
reference for this activity is The Black Church in the African American Experience (Lincoln & Mamiya, 1990).
4.3 Arrange to visit a local Hindu temple, Muslim mosque, or
Buddhist center. Describe what you see there. How is it dif-
ferent from what you have seen in other religious settings?
How does the space reflect a cultural heritage as well as a
religious identity?
4.4 The media have become a powerful force for disseminating
religious messages that are tied to political positions. Form
a group of approximately five students and identify five dif-
ferent religious television programs to watch over a 1‐month
period. Record key themes that are embedded in the pro-
grams. Analyze the themes and ideas to determine whether
they include political messages. Discuss the extent to which
the paradox discussed at the beginning of the chapter is
being exacerbated by the media.
4.5 Most racial and ethnic groups in the United States are
members of the major faith communities. However, most
faith communities in the United States are segregated.
Investigate churches, mosques, and temples in your com-
munity to find out the extent to which faith communities
are segregated. Interview heads of religious communities.
Ask them why they think faith communities tend to be
made up predominately of one racial or ethnic group. Also
ask them whether they have made efforts to desegregate
their faith communities.
4.6 How has the religious composition of your community
changed since the beginning of this century? How are those
changes reflected in the school population? What chal-
lenges does this change present to curricular development
and to teaching about religion? Prepare a sample outline for
a secondary school elective course in religious studies.
4.7 Religion in the United States is frequently associated with
the roles that men have played in formulating religious
ideas and institutions. However, women have made signifi-
cant contributions to religious life in the United States.
Read the biographies of women religious leaders, such as
Mary Baker Eddy and Ellen G. Harmon White. Also read
Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Church, 1880–1920 (Higginbotham, 1993). Discuss how
gender has influenced the lives of women in the church.
4.8 How does social class intersect with religion? Are religious
congregations primarily composed of people from the same
social‐class background? How do different religious organ-
izations respond to low‐income people? How do low‐
income people in your community feel about religious
organizations? Study these questions by dividing the class
into groups.
R E F E R E N C E S
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New York: New York University Press.
Butler, J., & Stout, H. S. (Eds.). (1998). Religion in America: A reader.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Camarota, S. A. (2007). Immigration to the United States, 2007. Center for
Immigration Studies. Retrieved September 11, 2008, from www.cis.
org/articles/2007/ backl007/html/.
Carpenter, J. A. (1997). Revive us again: The reawakening of American fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Creedon, J. (1998, July/August). God with a million faces: Design your
own god. Utne Reader, pp. 42–48.
Day, J. C. (2011). Population profile of the United States. Retrieved
May 17, 2011, from www.census.gov/population/www/pop‐profile/
natproj.html.
Eck, D. (1997). A new religious America: How a “Christian country” has become the world’s most religiously diverse nation. San Francisco:
Harper.
Fredette, J. (2014). Constructing Muslims in France: Discourse, public iden- tity, and the politics of citizenship. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Fuller, R. C. (2001). Spiritual but not religious: Understanding unchurched America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gryn, T., & Gambino, C. (2012). The foreign born from Asia: 2011.
American Community Survey Briefs. Retrieved August 25, 2014, from
www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr11‐06.pdf.
Herberg, W. (1960). Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An essay in American reli- gious sociology (rev. ed.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday
Higginbotham, E. B. (1993). Righteous discontent: The women’s move- ment in the Black church, 1880–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Johnson, T., & Grim, B. (2013). The World’s religions in figures: An intro- duction to international religious demography. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley‐
Blackwell.
Kelley, D. M. (1977). Why conservative churches are growing (2nd ed.).
New York: Harper.
Lemaire, E. (2009). Education, immigration, and citizenship in France. In
J. A. Banks (Ed.), The Routledge international companion to multicul- tural education (pp. 323–333). New York and London: Routledge.
Lincoln, C. E., & Mamiya, L. M. (1990). The Black church in the African American experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Lippy, C. H. (2009). Introducing American religion. London and New
York: Routledge.
Lippy, C. H., Choquette, R., & Poole, S. (1992). Christianity comes to the Americas, 1492–1776. New York: Paragon House.
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Lippy, C.H., & Tranby, E. (2013). Religion in contemporary America.
London and New York: Routledge.
Mahoney, P. (2002, July 26). Study says Hispanic buying power rising.
Chattanooga Times Free Press. Retrieved May 16, 2003, from www
.timesfreepress.com/2002/july/26jul/disposableincomehispanic.html.
Malone, N., Baluja, K. E, Costanzo, J. M., & Davis, C. J. (2003). The for- eign‐born population: 2000 (Census 2000 Brief C2KBR‐34).
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and
Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau.
Mayhew, J. (1749). Seven sermons. Boston: Rogers & Fowle.
Miller, R. T., & Flowers, R. B. (Eds.). (1987). Toward benevolent neutral- ity: Church, state, and the Supreme Court (3rd ed.). Waco, TX: Baylor
University Press.
Modood, T. (2012). Post‐immigration ‘difference’ and integration: The case of Muslims in Western Europe. London: The British Academy.
Retrieved from http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.82423!/fileMan-
ager/Triq%20Modood.pdf.
Nwosa, C., Batalova, J., & Auclair. G (2014). Frequently requested statistics on
immigrants and immigration in the United States. Migration Policy
Institute. Retrieved August 25, 2014, from www.migrationpolicy.org
/article/frequently‐requested‐statistics‐immigrants‐and‐immigration
‐united‐states#1.
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Raffaele, M. (2005, December 21). Judge rules “intelligent design” can’t
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part
79
3 Social, economic, and political conditions for women have improved substantially since
the women ’ s rights movement emerged as part of the civil rights movement of the 1960s
and 1970s. However, gender discrimination and inequality still exist in schools and in
society at large. In 2013, the ratio of women ’ s to men ’ s earnings, for all occupations, was
82 percent (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014 ). The status of women in the United
States in the last three decades has changed substantially. More women are now work-
ing outside the home than ever before, and more women are heads of households.
In 2013, 57.2 percent of women worked outside the home (U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2014 ); and 19.5 percent of U.S. households were headed by women (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2015 ). An increasing percentage of women and their dependents con-
stitute the nation ’ s poor. Some writers use the term feminization of poverty to describe
this development. In 2013, 53 percent of families below the poverty level in the United
States were headed by women (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015 ).
The first three chapters in Part 3 describe the status of women in the United
States, the ways in which schools perpetuate gender discrimination, and strategies that
educators can use to create equal educational opportunities for both female and male
students. As Sadker and Zittleman point out in Chapter 5 , both males and females are
harmed by sex stereotypes and gender discrimination. Tetreault, in Chapter 6 , describes
how male perspectives dominate school knowledge and how teachers can infuse their
curricula with perspectives from both genders and thereby expand their students ’
thinking and insights. Pollard, in Chapter 7 , describes how race, gender, class, and
disability are interlocking variables that need to be understood together rather than as
separate and discrete categories. She argues that it is essential for teachers to compre-
hend the ways in which these variables interact in order to create gender‐equitable
classrooms and schools.
Mayo, in Chapter 8 , examines the role of queer studies and sexual and gender
minorities in multicultural education. She asks classroom teachers to grapple with issues
such as the privileging of heterosexism within schools and society, the invisibility of gay
students and their families in the curriculum, and the reason it is essential for students to
study the positive aspects of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual (LGBTQ)
communities and cultures. Mayo believes that to fully implement multicultural educa-
tion, LGBTQ students must experience civic equality, social justice, and recognition
(Gutmann, 2004 ) in the classroom and on the schoolyard.
Gender
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80 PART III Gender
R E F E R E N C E S
Gutmann, A. (2004). Unity and diversity in democratic multicultural education: Creative and destructive tensions. In
J. A. Banks (Ed.), Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives (pp. 71–98). San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass/
Wiley.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2014). Women in the labor force: A databook, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov
/opub/reports/cps/women‐in‐the‐labor‐force‐a‐databook‐2014.pdf.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2015). Poverty status in the past 12 months by household type by number of related chil dren under
18 years. Retrieved from http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_
5YR_B17012&prodType=table.
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81
chapter B
le n d I
m ag
es /G
et ty
I m
ag es
Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today ’ s Classroom David Sadker and Karen Zittleman *
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. List and describe key historic and legal developments in women ’ s struggle for
educational opportunity.
2. Describe the current status of gender equity in schools in the United States.
3. Identify specific areas in curricula and instruction in which gender bias is likely to exist.
4. Discuss some of the major trends in the literature on gender equality in U.S. schools.
5. Describe strategies to create gender‐equitable classrooms.
A sage once remarked that if fish were anthropologists, the last thing they would discover would
be the water. We are all like those fish, swimming in a sea of sexism, but few of us see the water,
the gender bias that engulfs us. Sexism in schools is a major influence on children in urban, sub-
urban, and rural America, in wealthy and poor communities, and in communities that are diverse
as well as those that are homogeneous. In short, gender is a demographic that binds all schools
and challenges all educators. Yet a cultural shortsightedness, coined “gender blindness,” makes it
difficult for educators to see how sexism influences virtually every aspect of how we teach and
learn (Scantlebury, Kahle, & Martin, 2010 ). As a result, they lack the perspective and tools neces-
sary to challenge sexism in school.
* Myra Sadker coauthored earlier versions of this chapter. Myra died in 1995 while undergoing treatment for breast cancer. To
learn more about her work, visit www.sadker.org.
5
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82 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom
Many teachers, parents, and students are confused about gender equity in schools. They are
not alone. We recently received a call from a young reporter who wanted to speak about our work
“in making women superior to men.” The reporter viewed gender bias in school as males versus
females. We do not. Gender bias short‐circuits both boys and girls, and both move forward when
gender restrictions are removed.
This chapter provides a context for understanding gender bias in school. It includes (1) a
brief historical overview of women’s struggle for educational opportunity, (2) an update of the
progress made and yet to be made in ensuring gender equity in schools, (3) an analysis of gender bias
in curricula, (4) insights into gender bias in instruction, (5) a view of today’s trends and challenges
concerning gender issues in school, and (6) some practical suggestions for creating gender‐
equitable classrooms.
5.1 The Hidden Civil Rights Struggle For centuries, women fought to open the schoolhouse door. The education of America’s girls was
so limited that less than one‐third of the women in colonial America could even sign their names.
Although a woman gave the first plot of ground for a free school in New England, female chil-
dren were not allowed to attend the school. In fact, women were commonly viewed as being
mentally and morally inferior to men, relegated to learning only domestic skills. Not until the
1970s and 1980s did they win the right to be admitted to previously all‐male Ivy League colleges
and universities, yet today single‐sex schooling is once again gaining momentum. It is rare indeed
that such a monumental civil rights struggle—so long, so recent, and influencing so many—has
remained so invisible. Let us take a brief look at this hidden civil rights struggle.
During the colonial period, dame schools educated very young boys and girls (with few
exceptions, White boys and girls) in the homes of women who had the time and desire to teach.
Girls lucky enough to attend such schools would learn domestic skills along with reading (so that
they could one day read the Bible to their children). Such schools also taught the boys how to
write, and prepared them for more formal education. Girls graduated to the kitchen and the sew-
ing area, focusing on their futures as wives and mothers.
With a new democracy came new ideas and the promise of more educational opportunities
for females. Elementary schools gradually opened their doors to females, and for the families
financially able, secondary schools in the form of female seminaries became possible. Seminaries
provided a protected and supervised climate melding religious and academic lessons. In New
York, Emma Hart Willard battled to establish the Troy Female Seminary, and in Massachusetts,
Mary Lyon created Mount Holyoke, a seminary that eventually became a noted women’s college.
Seminaries often emphasized self‐denial and strict discipline, considered important elements in
molding devout wives and Christian mothers. By the 1850s, with help from Quakers such as
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Myrtilla Miner established the Miner Normal School for Colored Girls in
the nation’s capital, providing new educational opportunities for African American women.
While these seminaries sometimes offered a superior education, they were also trapped in a para-
dox they could never fully resolve: They were educating girls for a world not ready to accept
educated women. Seminaries sometimes went to extraordinary lengths to reconcile this conflict.
Emma Willard’s Troy Female Seminary was devoted to “professionalizing motherhood.” (Who
could not support motherhood?) But en route to reshaping motherhood, seminaries reshaped
teaching.
For the teaching profession, seminaries became the source of new ideas and recruits. Seminary
leaders such as Emma Hart Willard and Catherine Beecher wrote textbooks on how to teach and
how to teach more humanely than was the practice at the time. They denounced corporal punishment
and promoted more cooperative educational practices. Because school was seen as an extension of
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835.1 The Hidden Civil Rights Struggle
the home and another arena for raising children, seminary graduates were allowed to become
teachers—at least until they decided to marry. More than 80 percent of the graduates of Troy Female
Seminary and Mount Holyoke became teachers. Female teachers were particularly attractive to
school districts—not only because of their teaching effectiveness but also because they were typi-
cally paid one‐third to one‐half the salary of male teachers. By the end of the Civil War, a number
of colleges and universities, especially tax‐supported ones, were desperate for dollars. Institutions
of higher learning experienced a serious student shortage due to Civil War casualties, and women
became the source of much‐needed tuition dollars. But female wallets did not buy on‐campus
equality. Women often faced separate courses and hostility from male students and professors. At
state universities, such as the University of Michigan, male students would stamp their feet in pro-
test when a woman entered a classroom, a gesture some professors appreciated.
While an economic necessity for many colleges, educating women was not a popular idea,
and some people even considered it dangerous. In Sex in Education, Dr Edward Clarke (1873), a
member of Harvard’s medical faculty, argued that women attending high school and college were
at medical risk. According to Dr Clarke, the blood destined for the development and health of their
ovaries would be redirected to their brains by the stress of study. Too much education would leave
women with “monstrous brains and puny bodies . . . flowing thought and constipated bowels”
(pp. 120–128). Clarke recommended that females be provided with a less‐demanding education,
easier courses, no competition, and rest periods so that their reproductive organs could develop. The
female brain was too small and the female body too vulnerable for such mental challenges. He
maintained that allowing girls to attend places such as Harvard would pose a serious health threat
to the women themselves, with sterility and hysteria potential outcomes. It would take another cen-
tury before Harvard and other prestigious men’s colleges would finally admit women.
Clarke’s ideas constructed some powerful fears in women. M. Carey Thomas, future presi-
dent of Bryn Mawr College and one of the first women to earn a PhD in the United States, wrote of
the fears created by writers like Clarke. “I remember often praying about it, and begging God that
if it were true that because I was a girl, I could not successfully master Greek and go to college, and
understand things, to kill me for it” (cited in Sadker & Zittleman, 2016, p. 147). In 1895, the faculty
of the University of Virginia concluded that “women were often physically unsexed by the strains
of study” (cited in Sadker & Zittleman, 2016, p. 147). Parents, fearing for the health of their daugh-
ters, would often place them in less‐demanding programs reserved for females or would keep them
out of advanced education entirely. Even today, the echoes of Clarke’s warnings resonate—some
people still see well‐educated women as less attractive, view advanced education as “too stressful”
for females, or believe that education is more important for males than for females.
There were clear racist overtones in Clarke’s writing. The women attending college were
overwhelmingly White, and education delayed marriage and decreased childbearing. As a result,
while women of color were reproducing at “alarming” rates, wealthy White women were choos-
ing college rather than motherhood. The dangers to the White establishment were clear.
By the 20th century, women were winning more access to educational programs at all levels,
yet gender‐segregated programs were still the rule. Although they attended the same schools as
males, females often received a segregated and less‐valuable education. Commercial courses pre-
pared girls to become secretaries, and vocational programs channeled them into cosmetology and
other low‐paying occupations. With the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972,
females saw significant progress toward gaining access to educational programs, but not equality.
Title IX became law as the women’s movement gained momentum, yet it applies to males
as well as females. The opening section of Title IX states:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
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84 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom
While most people have heard of Title IX in relation to sports, it reaches far beyond the athletic
field. Every public school and most of the nation’s colleges and universities are covered under
Title IX, which prohibits discrimination in school admissions, counseling and guidance, com-
petitive athletics, student rules and regulations, and access to programs and courses, including
vocational education and physical education. Title IX also applies to sex discrimination in
employment practices, including interviewing and recruitment, hiring and promotion, compensa-
tion, job assignments, and fringe benefits.
In recent years, Title IX enforcement has been sporadic, and the future and strength of this
critical law is by no means ensured. For example, recently the federal government changed Title
IX to allow for gender segregation through the creation of single‐sex schools and classes, a move
that may well limit learning opportunities for girls and boys. Some even believe that Title IX is
no longer needed and that gender bias has been eradicated. Statistics tell us otherwise.
5.2 Report Card: The Cost of Sexism in Schools The following is a report card you will not find in any school, yet these statistics document how
gender inequities continue to permeate schools and society and shortchange students.
Boys and schools. Poor school achievement, especially in the language arts and writing, over-
diagnosis and referral to special educational services, bullying, disciplinary problems, and
violence remain common school problems plaguing boys. While many lump all boys into a
single category, this is misleading. White, Asian, and wealthy and middle‐class boys are per-
forming relatively well, but low‐income students, English‐language learners, and Black,
Hispanic, and Native American boys are not. Many believe that the socialization of boys into
tough and competitive roles sets the stage for such school clashes and that class and race can
exacerbate academic problems (Jenson, 2013; Rivers & Barnett, 2011).
Girls and schools. Girls receive higher report card grades, have fewer disciplinary problems,
and are more likely than boys to become valedictorians and go on to college. Gender socializa-
tion may explain in part why girls appear to do so well in school. Girls are expected to please
others, and working hard at school is part of that. Teachers appreciate students who follow
directions and do not cause problems, and this is one reason girls receive better report card
grades than boys. But these higher grades carry a large, hidden cost as docile and compliant
children may grow into adults with lower self‐esteem and less independence. More than a
third of students in grades 3–12 hold the view that “people think that the most important thing
for girls is to get married and have children” (Sadker & Zittleman, 2016).
Academic attitudes. Boys often view reading and writing as “feminine” subjects that threaten
their masculinity. Many boys, especially minority and low‐income boys, view school as irrel-
evant to their futures. College men have fewer intellectual interests and poorer study habits
than college women. They enjoy reading books less, take fewer notes, study less, and play
more. Despite their lower effort, lower grades, and lower likelihood of completing a college
degree, men evaluate their academic abilities higher than those of women (Jenson, 2013;
Kimmel, 2014).
Dropouts. More than a million students drop out each year. In fact, one in four boys—often
African American, Hispanic, and Native Americans, those who are English‐language learners,
or those from low‐income families—will fail to graduate from high school in 4 years. While
media attention focuses on such male dropouts, when girls leave school, they are less likely
than boys to return to earn their high school diploma or general education degree (United
States Department of Education, 2014a).
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855.2 Report Card: The Cost of Sexism in Schools
Athletics. Participation in school athletics is at record levels for boys and girls. More than
4.5 million boys engage in a high school sport. Before Title IX, fewer than 300,000 high
school girls played competitive sports; today, 3 million girls compete, but they are only about
40 percent of all high school athletes. Girls’ teams typically have less visibility and status than
male teams and are often denied the same benefits, like adequate facilities and financial sup-
port (National Federation of State High School Associations, 2014).
Sexual harassment. You may be surprised to learn that boys are the targets of sexual harass-
ment almost as frequently as girls: Nearly four out of five students of both genders report
being harassed at school or online. Sexual harassment is not an accidental jostle on the way to
class, an encouraging hug, or a show of affection. Sexual harassment is unwelcome behavior
of a sexual nature that occurs in person or electronically. Harassment ranges from sexual com-
ments and gestures, to inappropriate touch, to rape. The most common sexual harassment
against boys takes the form of “gay‐bashing” or questioning their sexuality, while girls experi-
ence verbal and physical harassment, including unwanted touching. The consequences of
sexual harassment are troubling: students fear attending school, withdraw from activities and
friends, and suffer sleep and eating difficulties. More than half of students sexually harassed
do not share the abuse with anyone, and only 9 percent report harassment to an adult at school.
(Rhinehart, Doshi, & Espelage, 2014; Sadker & Zittleman, 2016).
Bullying. One‐third to a half of America’s children report being victims of bullying. In a typi-
cal classroom of 20 students, 2 or 3 come to school every day fearing being bullied, harassed,
or worse. The most likely targets are gay students or students perceived as gay. Males are more
likely to bully others and be victims of physical bullying, while females frequently experience
verbal and psychological bullying often through sexual comments or rumors (United States
Department of Health and Human Services, 2014).
Self‐esteem. As girls go through school, their self‐esteem often plummets, and the danger of
depression increases. In middle school, girls rate popularity as more important than aca-
demic competence or independence. Eating disorders among females in schools and col-
leges are rampant and increasing. Some boys are now also displaying body‐image issues,
resorting to dieting and steroid abuse. Interestingly, female and male African American
students report a stronger sense of self and do not suffer as much from depression, eating
disorders, and body‐image issues as do other groups (National Eating Disorders Coalition,
2014).
College enrollments. Men had been the majority of college students from the colonial period
to the early 1980s. Today, women are the majority. Yet it is not White men who are missing
from the college ranks, but minority and low‐income men. In fact, more women and men
attend college today than ever before. Moreover, men still constitute the majority of students
at a number of celebrated colleges and in prestigious academic programs, while women are
the majority at the less prestigious two‐year community colleges (United States Department
of Education, 2014a).
College majors. Women earn the majority of degrees in education, psychology, biological sci-
ences, communications, and veterinary medicine. In law, women and men have reached parity
in degree attainment. Males dominate areas such as business, computer science, and engineer-
ing. Males also earn more medical and dental degrees than females (United States Department
of Education, 2014a).
While female enrollment in many math and science courses has dramatically increased, the
connection between girls and science and math remains tenuous. A survey by the Society of
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86 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom
Women Engineers found that 75 percent of American girls have no interest in pursuing a
career in science, math, or technology. Why? They perceive these subjects as cold, imper-
sonal, and with little clear application to their lives or to society. Sexual harassment is
another limiting factor to female advancement in the sciences. Seventy‐five percent of
women in science graduate programs, such as biology, geology, and archaeology, report
being harassed or assaulted at field sites (Aschwaden, 2014).
Earnings. Women earn less at every level of education attained. The median annual earn-
ings of a female high school graduate are often one‐third of that of her male counterpart.
One year after college graduation, a female of any racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group
earns less than a White male with the same college degree. Female physicians and sur-
geons earn 40 percent less per year than their male counterparts, and female lawyers earn
25 percent less than male lawyers; female teachers earn 20 percent less than men, and
female computer engineers earn 15 percent less than their male peers (Rivers & Barnett,
2013).
In the past decades, great progress has been made by males and females in battling sexism.
(Although for minority boys and girls and those with low socioeconomic status, the situation is
less encouraging.) But as the preceding statistics remind us, progress can be slow, and gender
inequities are still a very real part of school life.
For the typical classroom teacher, gender equity emerges as a continuing challenge on at
least two levels. To help you tease out the subtle biases that persist in classrooms, we focus on
two central areas of classroom life: the curriculum and student–teacher interaction.
5.3 Gender Bias in Today’s Classroom: The Curriculum Few things stir up more controversy than the content of the curriculum. Teachers, parents, and
students seem to be intuitively aware that schoolbooks shape what the next generation knows and
how it behaves. In this case, research supports intuition. Students spend as much as 80–95 percent
of classroom time using textbooks, and teachers make a majority of their instructional decisions
based on these texts (Flinders & Thornton, 2012). When children read about people in nontradi-
tional gender roles, they are less likely to limit themselves to stereotypes. When children read
about women and minorities in history, they are more likely to believe that these groups have
made important contributions to the country. As one sixth grader told us, “I love to read biogra-
phies about women. When I learn about what they’ve done, I feel like a door is opening. If they
can do great things, maybe I can, too.” But what if your identity is misrepresented, misremem-
bered, or just plain missing from the school curriculum?
In the 1970s and 1980s, textbook companies and professional associations, such as the
American Psychological Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, issued
guidelines for nonracist and nonsexist books, suggesting how to include and fairly portray differ-
ent groups in the curriculum. While yesterday’s stark sexist texts are thankfully gone, subtle bias
persists. No matter the subject, the names and experiences of males continue to dominate the
pages of schoolbooks. Men are seen as the movers and shakers of history, scientists of achieve-
ment, and political leaders. Studies on curriculum from around the world also find that both
males and females are depicted in gender‐stereotyped ways.
Studying history is a journey through time, but a journey with few women. In telling the
story of our national history, current social studies texts include five times more males than
females For example, curricula rarely mention female soldiers who also fought in the
Revolution, or those women who made their contributions on the home front. During war,
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875.3 Gender Bias in Today’s Classroom: The Curriculum
women were left to care for their families and manage businesses and farms on their own. In
fact, women from Abigail Adams in the Revolutionary War to Rosie the Riveter in World
War II were a disposable labor force, hired when the nation needed them and fired when the
war was over. Little if anything is said in textbooks about the second‐class treatment women
faced (Bloomberg, 2009).
A review of today’s elementary basal readers found that male characters outnumbered
females two to one. But this male dominance comes with a price: Males are still strikingly bound
by traditional standards. For example, in a story from a fifth‐grade book, the display of male
aggressiveness is noteworthy: A boy wants to be in charge of the fair project; he is the biggest and
looks at his raised fist while glancing at the other children to signify that no one is to argue. No
one does. In other stories, the adult males are shaking their fists and shouting at other males, often
chasing them. Unfortunately, it is often little boys causing the trouble, a double impact of out‐of‐
control youths and angry men (Bloomberg, 2009).
These lessons in gender bias extend beyond the pages of academic texts; they are rein-
forced by popular, award‐winning children’s books read daily in classrooms and nightly at home.
Studies of distinguished children’s books—American Library Association award winners,
Caldecott selections, and top‐selling children’s picture books—revealed that these children’s
tales tell twice as many male‐centered tales as female, and illustrations depict 50 percent more
males. Females are not the only ones often missing from the pages of children’s literature—so are
fathers. When present, fathers are presented as stoic, hands‐off parents, rarely seen hugging or
feeding their children. Mothers are shown more often as affectionate caregivers capable of
expressing a range of emotions from happiness to sadness (Hamilton, Anderson, Braoddus,
& Young, 2006; McCabe, Fairchild, Grauerholz, Pescosolido, & Tope, 2011).
Although female characters appear in roles such as doctors, lawyers, and scientists, these
researchers also discovered that occupational stereotyping is still common in children’s books.
Women were given traditional jobs 10 times as often as nontraditional ones. For example, the
lead adult female character in one book is a flight attendant, a maid in another, and a librarian in
yet another. Males in children’s books remain in traditional roles as well. Boys are presented as
fighters, adventurers, and rescuers. They are also shown to be aggressive, argumentative, and
competitive. A passage in Johnny and Susie’s Mountain Quest highlights the rigid roles of a brave
boy and a helpless girl: ‘“Oh, please help me, Johnny!’ cried Susie. ‘We’re up so high! I’m afraid
I’m going to fall’” (Hamilton et al., 2006).
How can teachers and students detect gender bias in books? The following are descriptions
of seven forms of bias that emerge in today’s texts. These forms of bias can also help identify
prejudice related to gender as well as to race, ethnicity, the elderly, people with disabilities, gays
and lesbians, and limited‐English speakers. Learning these forms of bias develops a useful criti-
cal reading skill.
5.3.1 Invisibility: What You Don’t See Makes a Lasting Impression
When groups or events are not taught in schools, they become part of the null curriculum. Many
of today’s textbooks continue to give minimal treatment to women, depriving students of infor-
mation about half of the nation’s population. When we ask students to name 10 famous women
from American history, most cannot do it (Sadker, Sadker, & Zittleman, 2009, Sadker & Zittleman,
2016). A similar case of invisibility can be made for African Americans, Hispanics, Asian
Americans, Native Americans, and those with disabilities, gays and lesbians, and males in parent-
ing and other roles nontraditional to their gender.
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88 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom
5.3.2 Stereotyping: Glib Shortcuts
When rigid roles or traits are assigned to all members of a group, a stereotype that denies indi-
vidual attributes and differences is born. Examples include portraying all African Americans as
athletes, Mexican Americans as laborers, and women only in terms of their family roles.
5.3.3 Imbalance and Selectivity: A Tale Half Told
Curricula sometimes present only one interpretation of an issue, situation, or group of people,
simplifying and distorting complex issues by omitting different perspectives. A description of
suffragettes being given the vote omits the work, sacrifices, and physical abuse suffered by
women who won the right to vote.
5.3.4 Unreality: Rose‐Colored Glasses
Curricular materials often paint an illusionary picture of the nation. Our history texts often ignore
class differences, continuing racial discrimination, and ongoing sexism. For example, when the
nuclear family is described only as a father, mother, and two children, students are being treated
to romanticized and sanitized narratives. In fact, this family structure is in the minority today, as
many families have one parent, same‐sex parents, grandparents, or no children.
5.3.5 Fragmentation: An Interesting Sideshow
A textbook may place information about women in a special box or insert, separating the discus-
sion from the main narrative. For example, many of today’s texts include special inserts high-
lighting certain gender topics, such as “Famous Women Scientists” or “Ten Women in History to
Remember.” Such isolation presents women and gender issues as interesting diversions, but not
part of the mainstream of history, literature, or the sciences.
5.3.6 Linguistic Bias: Words Count
Language can be a powerful conveyor of bias in both blatant and subtle forms. The exclusive use
of masculine terms and pronouns, ranging from our forefathers, mankind, and businessman to the
generic he, denies the full participation and recognition of women. More subtle examples include
word orders and choices that place males in a primary role, such as “men and their wives” or
separate the world into two genders, like “boys and girls.”
5.3.7 Cosmetic Bias: Pretty Wrapping
Cosmetic bias offers an “illusion of equity.” Beyond the attractive covers, photos, or posters that
prominently feature diversity, bias persists. For example, a math textbook might feature a glossy
pull‐out of female mathematicians or a cover with photos of mathematicians of diverse races. But
these attractive features mislead the reader, who will encounter little content in the text about the
scientific contributions of women or people of color.
Until publishers and authors eliminate gender bias, it will be up to the creativity and com-
mitment of teachers and parents to fill in the missing pages. Children enjoy exciting, well‐written
books, and such books can include characters from diverse races, ethnic groups, religions, social
classes, and both genders. But equitable materials are not enough to create a nonsexist educa-
tional environment. Attention must also be given to instruction.
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895.4 Gender Bias in Today’s Classrooms: Student–Teacher Interaction
5.4 Gender Bias in Today’s Classrooms: Student–Teacher Interaction
You probably remember this unspoken rule classroom ritual of getting the teacher’s attention. If you
wanted to speak, raising a hand might be your first move, but waving your hand would signal that
you really wanted to talk. Eye contact with the teacher was always a good idea, but a few strategi-
cally placed grunts could work miracles in getting attention. Once called on, you got to speak, your
needs were met, and the teacher’s needs were met as well. By calling on the eager and willing stu-
dents, the teacher moves the lesson along at a good pace. Most teachers call on students who want
to talk, leave the others alone, and everybody is comfortable. So what’s the problem?
Although it sounds awfully good, the purpose of school is not to make everyone comfort-
able. Schools are for education, for learning new and sometimes uncomfortable skills. Talented
teachers know that if they select only students who quickly volunteer, reticent students will be
relegated to the sidelines. In this topsy‐turvy world, the students who need a little more time to
think—because they are by nature thoughtful, because English is a new language, because their
cultural background encourages a slower response, or because they are shy—become spectators
to rapid classroom exchanges. Females lose out, children of color lose out, English‐language
learners are left behind, and shy boys are silenced.
The gendered nature of classroom interactions can be subtle and is often ignored. Watch
how boys dominate the discussion in this upper elementary class about presidents.
The fifth‐grade class is almost out of control. “Just a minute,” the teacher admonishes.
“There are too many of us here to all shout out at once. I want you to raise your hands, and then
I’ll call on you. If you shout out, I’ll pick somebody else.”
Order is restored. Then Stephen, enthusiastic to make his point, calls out.
Stephen: I think Lincoln was the best president. He held the country together during the war.
Teacher: A lot of historians would agree with you.
Kelvin [seeing that nothing happened to Stephen, calls out]: I don’t. Lincoln was okay, but my
Dad liked Reagan. He always said Reagan was a great president.
Jack [calling out]: Reagan? Are you kidding?
Teacher: Who do you think our best president was, Jack?
Jack: FDR. He saved us from the Depression.
Max [calling out]: I don’t think it’s right to pick one best president. There were a lot of good ones.
Teacher: That’s a terrific insight.
Rebecca [calling out]: I don’t think the presidents today are as good as the ones we used to have.
Teacher: Okay, Rebecca. But you forgot the rule. You’re supposed to raise your hand.
Teachers are involved in as many as a thousand interactions with students a day, and they are
often unaware of inequities in these exchanges. It is not unusual for a few students to monopolize
classroom interaction. The fast pace of classroom exchanges leads many teachers to call on the
first person to raise a hand. When this happens, it is an open invitation for male dominance.
Studies show that male students frequently control classroom conversation. Males receive
more teacher attention—both positive and negative—than do females. Teachers ask males both
more factual (lower‐order) and thoughtful (higher‐order) questions. They give males more pre-
cise directions on how to accomplish tasks for themselves or when they are confused. Boys call
out and answer more questions more often than girls. They receive more praise for the intellectual
quality of their ideas. They are also criticized more publicly and harshly. They are the heart and
center of interaction. Some researchers emphasize that low‐achieving males get most of the nega-
tive attention while high‐achieving boys get more positive and constructive academic contacts.
However, no matter whether they are high or low achievers, female students are more likely to
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90 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom
receive less instructional time, less help, and less positive and negative attention (Beaman,
Wheldall, & Kemp, 2006; Berekashvili, 2012; Sadker, Sadker, & Zittleman, 2014).
In the social studies class about presidents, we saw boys as a group grabbing attention
while girls as a group were left out of the action. Not being allowed to call out like her male
classmates during the brief conversation about presidents will not psychologically scar Rebecca;
however, the system of silencing operates covertly and repeatedly. It occurs several times a day
during each school week for 12 years and even longer if Rebecca goes to college; most insidious
of all, it happens subliminally. This micro‐inequity eventually has a powerful cumulative impact.
Researchers observed hundreds of classes and watched as girls typically raised their hands, often
at a right angle, arms bent at the elbow—a cautious, tentative, almost passive gesture. At other
times, they raised their arms straight and high, but they signaled silently. The educator Diana
Meehan (2007) calls this phenomenon the “girl pause”: If a teacher asks a question, a girl likely
pauses, doubting her knowledge or, worse, her right to speak out loud. She wonders, “Do I know
this?”
Moreover, gender and race intersect to create inequitable interaction patterns. A three‐year
study of elementary and secondary schools found that White males were most likely to be
involved in classroom discussions, followed by males of color and White females. Students least
likely to receive teacher time and attention were females of color. Researchers have correlated the
treatment girls experience in school with social and psychological difficulties. As girls go through
school, for example, their self‐esteem plummets, and the danger of depression increases.
Furthermore, in middle and secondary school, girls rate popularity as more important than aca-
demic competence or independence (Sadker & Zittleman, 2016).
Classroom management issues have been shown to be steeped in gendered expectations,
contributing to these inequitable teacher–student interaction patterns. Studies show a strong link
between male aggression and the male stereotype, the role boys are expected to play in society.
Since boys are stereotyped as more physically aggressive than girls and more difficult to control,
researchers have observed that teachers more closely monitor males in the classroom and often
overreact to even the potential of male misbehavior. Males are disciplined more harshly, more
publicly, and more frequently than females, even when they violate the same rules. Such dispari-
ties are readily detected by students, who report that even innocent boys are often targeted
unfairly by teachers and that girls are able “to get away with” inappropriate and hurtful behavior.
Females very often become “invisible members of our classrooms” (Okun, 2014: Rivers &
Barnett, 2011; Zittleman, 2007).
An important factor contributing to male dominance of teacher–student interactions and
classroom management issues is the widespread gender segregation that characterizes classrooms.
Occasionally teachers divide their classrooms along gender‐segregated lines in groups, work and
play areas, and seating; more frequently, students gender‐segregate themselves. Drawn to the sec-
tions of the classroom where the more assertive boys are clustered, the teacher is physically posi-
tioned to keep interacting with male students and to be geographically farther away from female
students. Such inequities detract from learning and a sense of security for all students. Differences
in teacher–student interactions are more than a counting game of who gets the teacher’s attention
and who does not. Teacher attention is a vote of high expectations and commitment to a student.
5.5 Trends and Challenges
5.5.1 The Boy Crisis
Remember when your elementary school teacher would announce the teams for the weekly spell-
ing bee? “The boys against the girls!” There was nothing like a gender showdown to liven things
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915.5 Trends and Challenges
up. A spate of recent books and articles takes us back to the “boys versus girls” fray, but this time
with much higher stakes.
The “boy crisis” has become a major media event, with frightening tales of boys falling
behind girls in academic achievement and at risk for failure. Scroll through the titles and sub-
titles of recent books, and you will read that “the rise of women has turned men into boys,” that
boys “no longer have what it takes to succeed in school”, and that we may even be seeing “the
end of men” (Rivers & Barnett, 2013). Some have interpreted girls’ progress in school to mean
that boys are in crisis, as though life is a zero‐sum game and if one group advances, another
must topple.
The media picture of boys that has emerged is as familiar as it is one dimensional: antsy
and unable to sit for long; often learning disabled; hardwired differently than girls; unable to read
and disliking books; unhappy taking orders from women in school; able to focus on sports, com-
puters, and video games but not on academics; a constant source of discipline problems in class;
a potential grade repeater; perhaps one day a dropout; certainly someone less and less likely to
enter a college classroom. Other boys—quiet boys, unathletic boys, thoughtful boys, caring boys,
gay boys, and middle‐ and upper‐class boys acing their schoolwork and going on to the Ivy
League—all disappeared overnight from the media consciousness.
Is the reality as grim as this picture suggests? Not really. If you look at studies carefully,
you will see that we are in the midst of a crisis that is affecting some boys, but not all boys. When
considering differences among boys, rather than just differences between boys and girls, boys
who are achieving well are different. They are more likely to come from families where a highly
educated father is involved. These fathers help boys understand that academic achievement is
desirable for economic and social well‐being. Overall, among nonpoor, suburban, White, Asian,
and academically elite students, boys are doing well. In fact, most boys are doing better today
than they were a decade or two ago (DiPrete & Buchmann, 2013).
Boys overall do quite well on most high‐stake tests. They outperform girls on the SAT and
GRE, and their performance on other tests such as the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP)—the nation’s “report card”—has improved in recent years. Girls do test better
in NAEP reading and writing, and boys often test better in NAEP math and science, but many of
these gaps are narrowing. More boys take advanced high school classes in calculus, chemistry,
and physics. Crime and substance‐abuse rates are down among boys (United States Department
of Education, 2014a).
While females are now the majority in college, more men are attending than ever before.
Once they enter the labor market, males continue to outearn and are promoted more often than
their female counterparts. When men and women graduate with the same credential (high school
diploma, college degree, or graduate degree), men earn significantly higher incomes (Rivers &
Barnett, 2013).
While the “boy crisis” is a myth, there are legitimate concerns about some boys’ achieve-
ment. Perhaps the worst thing about the “boy crisis” is that it has distracted us from boys (and
girls) who are really in need. Let us take a moment to focus on the differences between males in
general and at‐risk males.
Black, Hispanic, Native American, English‐language learners, and special needs males as
well as socioeconomically disadvantaged boys of all races are the ones at academic risk. These
boys are far more likely to be grade repeaters than White or Asian boys (or than girls from any
group). More than 90 percent of middle‐ to higher‐income males typically graduate from high
school, while only about half of low‐income boys do. Although more boys than girls drop out of
high school, more Black, Hispanic, and Native American girls drop out than either White or
Asian boys. When girls drop out, they are more likely to be unemployed, earn lower wages, and
be on public support than male dropouts (Rivers & Barnett, 2013; United States Department of
Education, 2014b).
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92 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom
Equally troubling, Black, Hispanic, and special needs students—especially males—are
suspended and expelled at much higher rates than their peers. Students of color make up nearly
three‐fourths of students involved in school‐related arrests or incidents involving police. They are
also three times more likely than their White peers to be suspended or expelled. Studies show that
suspensions and expulsions do nothing to improve the school climate, while increasing the risk
that children will experience long‐term social and academic problems. Children who are removed
from school are at heightened risk for low achievement, being held back, dropping out or becom-
ing permanently entangled in the “schools‐to‐prison” pipeline. Revealing another pattern of dis-
crimination, gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are more likely to be punished than their straight
peers (United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, 2014). Are minority stu-
dents committing more infractions, or are they receiving tougher punishment for similar inci-
dents? Research on school discipline shows that minority students from the socioeconomic class
are no more likely to misbehave than other students. While most school districts are acutely
aware of these racial disparities in discipline, they continue unabated (Lewin, 2012; New York Times Editorial Board, 2014). Such inequity reflects institutional racism and sexism.
While some males face significant challenges, academic and social, there are no data to
suggest that boys are destined to fail in school. But those decrying the “boy crisis” are persistent
and offer a reason for the boy problem: feminized, coeducational schools. To fix this problem,
these critics say, we need to abandon coeducation and reestablish all‐boy classes and schools
(Rivers & Barnett, 2011; Sadker & Zittleman, 2016).
5.5.2 The Rebirth of Single‐Sex Education
At the beginning of both the 20th and 21st centuries, gender in school was center stage. In the
early 1900s, doctors argued that girls’ fragile anatomy was endangered by too much education
and that too much learning could lead to insanity and sterility. Today biology is once again an
issue. This time voices proclaim that biology created two different learners, girls and boys, and
that trying to educate the two sexes in the same classroom is a disservice to both. Coeducation,
once seen as a beacon of democracy and equality, is now often accused of being a barrier to effec-
tive teaching and learning (Rivers & Barnett, 2011; Sadker & Zittleman, 2016). Today, more than
750 public schools across the nation have at least one single‐sex classroom (Eliot, 2014).
In response to the growing popularity of single‐sex classes, the Department of Education
(2014c) established guidelines on how public schools can provide boys‐only or girls‐only instruc-
tion while remaining in compliance with Title IX. To offer single‐sex classes or extracurricular
activities, schools must: (1) have a sound educational reason for doing so, such as improving
academic achievement, (2) ensure that enrollment in a single‐sex class is completely voluntary,
and (3) offer a similar coed option on the same subject.
Is single‐sex education a good idea? If you look to research for your answer, you will be
disappointed. A decade or two ago, there was some excitement when studies suggested that
females in single‐sex schools demonstrated strong academic achievement and self‐esteem, high
career goals, and less sex‐role stereotyping (AAUW, 1998; Datnow & Hubbard, 2002). But the
excitement proved premature. Many believe that single‐sex schools did not create these results,
but simply attracted girls with high academic goals and strong self‐esteem. Others interpreted the
studies to mean that these schools are excellent and just happened to be single‐sex. Perhaps it is
less likely that single‐sex schooling is responsible for this strong female performance and more
likely that the small class sizes, skilled teachers, strong academics, involved parents, and a selec-
tive admission process are the real reasons for success (Eliot, 2014; Halpern, 2011; Rivers
& Barnett, 2011).
The research on boys’ performance in single‐sex education is even less supportive. Fewer
studies on boys have been done, and the results conflict. On the positive side, some studies
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935.5 Trends and Challenges
indicate that in single‐sex environments, more boys enroll in nontraditional courses such as
poetry or art and that boys with low socioeconomic backgrounds may develop better work habits.
But studies also report that all‐male educational environments fan the flames of misogyny and
sexism, producing boys and men who look down on girls and women. Moreover, the research
does not offer any strong evidence that academic learning is any better in all‐male schools and
may, in fact, harm boys’ success (Eliot, 2014; Halpern, 2011; Moller, Forbes‐Jones, Hightower, &
Friedman, 2008; Rivers & Barnett, 2011).
A Washington, D.C., middle‐school teacher shares his firsthand experience with single‐sex
education:
At first, I felt there were some real advantages to separating the girls and boys. There was certainly
less teasing, which had gotten out of hand the year before. So I saw the separation as having marginal
advantages. But over time, each gender developed other discipline issues. Cliques of girls began teas-
ing each other. They replaced the boys as the discipline problem. Boys really began acting out. They
actually got goofier. Then there was a second problem: boys struggling with their sexual identity
really lost out. Some of these boys had girls as their best friends, and when the separate classes began,
they literally lost their best friends. They were now isolated in an alpha male environment. They were
treated harshly and ridiculed. The third problem was sheer numbers: there were more girls in these
classes than boys. The girls’ classes got much bigger. The girls got less individualized attention. So
what I thought at first would be a help for girls really failed them. It was not a good idea.
I pride myself in not being an ideologue. I do not like it when people get stuck in one camp or the
other. Show me something that works, and I want to find out why and how we can use it. But this did
not work.
(Sadker & Zittleman, 2016, p. 37)
So how different are boys and girls? Do they have different ways of learning? That is what Janet
Hyde at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison wanted to find out. Using a sophisticated meta‐
analytic statistical procedure, she reviewed studies on how boys and girls are similar and differ-
ent. Are boys more aggressive than girls? Are they better at math and science? Do girls have
stronger verbal and fine motor skills? Are girls more nurturing than boys?
What she found surprised many: There are precious few educationally relevant gender dif-
ferences. So, Hyde (2005) settled on a gender similarities hypothesis: Rather than demonstrating
separate learning styles and needs, males and females are in fact more alike than different. In
short, more educational differences exist within the genders than between the genders. Other
studies confirm Hyde’s finding and show that the greatest challenges in educational achievement
have less to do with gender and more to do with race, ethnicity, and economic status (Eliot, 2010;
Rivers & Barnett, 2011).
Hyde’s work did reveal a few exceptions to the gender similarities hypothesis. In some
cases, her findings were counterintuitive: Males exhibited slightly more helping behaviors
than females, while self‐esteem levels for adult men and women were quite similar. Hyde also
found a couple of educationally relevant differences: Boys are more aggressive and have a better
ability to rotate objects mentally. But the reason for these few differences is not clear. Are they
due to nature or nurture, or a combination of the two? After all, socialization plays a big role in
our culture.
For example, researchers at the University of Michigan followed more than 800 children
and their parents for 13 years and found that traditional gender stereotypes greatly influence
parental attitudes and behaviors related to children’s interest in math. Parents provided more
math‐supportive environments for their sons than for their daughters, including buying more
math and science toys. Parents, especially fathers, held more positive perceptions of their sons’
math abilities than of their daughters’ (Davis‐Keen, 2007).
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94 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom
Lise Eliot (2010, 2014), a neuroscientist at the Chicago Medical School, believes that such
early socialization contributes to gender differences in learning. She describes how the many
hours boys clock with Legos, baseball, and video games help develop spatial skills, such as tar-
geting and mental rotation, skills not taught in school. Such spatial skills figure prominently in
subjects like physics, trigonometry, calculus, and engineering, subjects in which many boys
excel. Girls, by contrast, are encouraged more than boys to read for pleasure outside school. Eliot
contends that it is this practice, rather than any genetic or hormonal difference, that best predicts
gender differences in reading achievement. This socialization may also explain why boys tend to
struggle in subjects like English, literature, and writing. Boys’ underachievement may be driven
by stereotypes: what boys think it means to be a man is often at odds with succeeding in school.
Clearly, socialization can be a powerful influence on academic success.
Yet many U.S. public schools continue to create single‐sex classrooms and even single‐sex
schools. Why? Some schools do it to raise test scores because they believe that boys and girls
learn differently. Others argue that dividing the genders removes sexual distractions and is a good
behavior management strategy. Another reason is the persistent gap between research and popu-
lar culture. As we have previously explored, trendy books and media pundits pronounce that boys
and girls have different brains and different hardwiring and need to be taught differently and
separately. This feeds into society’s conventional view that “men are from Mars and women are
from Venus.” Parents and educators are told that boys learn best through physical games, tough
competition, harsh discipline, and shorter lessons. On the other hand, girls, they are told, are
genetically more placid and conforming, relational, and collaborative in nature and prefer a
calmer learning atmosphere. Such notions fit easily into traditional belief systems but are not
supported by research, which shows there are no important intellectual or psychological differ-
ences between females and males that require unique teaching approaches (Eliot, 2010, 2014;
Hyde, 2005; Rivers & Barnett, 2011).
Importantly, our understanding of how nature and nurture influence gender roles is changing.
We typically view genetics and learning styles as pretty much fixed from birth, but recent research
shows that it is more complicated than that. The brain, for example, rather than being fixed, is like
a muscle that can be developed and changed by our experiences. The ability of our brain to change
itself and create new neural pathways is called neuroplasticity (Doidge, 2007). We are reminded of
this whenever we see quiet boys who love reading or music, or girls who soar in math or on the
athletic field. For teachers, this is exciting news. It means that if we offer a variety of challenging
and involving activities in our classes, we can not only maintain student interest but also help stu-
dents grow and cultivate their brains. On the other hand, if we teach to a single learning style or use
stereotypes in our teaching, we limit the brain’s possibilities. Therefore, teachers are wise to encour-
age all their students, girls and boys, to develop their brains by exploring different learning styles,
incorporating both competitive and cooperative activities, integrating both personal connections
and active learning, and focusing on the arts as well as traditional subjects.
Generalizing a pedagogy based on a student’s gender will surely miss many students who
do not fit neatly into a fixed gender mold. The same thing can be said of sexuality. Basing peda-
gogy on the assumption that all students are heterosexual is bound to miss students who do not
fit into that mold either.
5.5.3 Supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students (LGBT)
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, or straight (LGBT) refers to a person’s sexual orientation, an innate char-
acteristic that determines whom one is attracted to sexually. Transgender refers to a person’s
gender identity—a person’s innate sense of being male, female, or somewhere in between. Many
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955.6 Strategies for Creating Gender‐Fair Classrooms
school practices assume that all people are heterosexual and either male or female. A typical cur-
riculum reflects this assumption in subtle and not‐so‐subtle ways. Literature such as Romeo and
Juliet, math word problems such as “David bought Karen one dozen roses . . .,” and electing a
homecoming king and queen are obvious examples of assumed heterosexuality for all. However,
some schools are altering these practices: inviting same‐sex couples to the prom, providing gen-
der‐neutral or individual bathrooms and locker rooms for transgender students, and including
LGBT people and perspectives in the curriculum (McCollum, 2010).
More and more gay students are coming out of the closet earlier, often in middle school,
and finding support among peers and teachers. Others find no support and liken school to a war
zone. These different responses to LGBT students reflect our national cultural division. A num-
ber of states have laws preventing teachers from even mentioning the word homosexual or man-
dating that homosexuality be presented in exclusively negative terms in the classroom. Other
school districts recognize LGBT people in their nondiscrimination policies, sending a clear mes-
sage that no student, parent, or school employee will be discriminated against because of their
sexual orientation or gender identity. There is a growing number of gay‐straight alliances (GSAs),
student clubs that provide a safe space for LGBT students and their allies. GSAs sometimes stir
controversy, but the 1984 Federal Equal Access Act states that if schools allow any noncurricular
clubs, then they have to allow them all, including GSAs (DeWitt, 2012).
Depending on where you teach, you may or may not be able to include LGBT issues in
your teaching. But wherever you teach, you can ensure that democratic norms of equality are
followed and that all students are respected regardless of individual differences. Students do not
have to agree that “it’s okay to be gay,” but they should understand that it’s not okay to discrimi-
nate against those who are gay. By providing a safe place for all students, teachers can create
nurturing classrooms where every child can learn and every family is welcome.
5.6 Strategies for Creating Gender‐Fair Classrooms Teachers have the power to make an enormous difference in the lives of students. The following
suggestions consist of ways to make your own classroom nonsexist.
1. If the textbooks and media that you are using are biased, you may wish to confront this bias
rather than ignore it. Discuss the issue directly with your students. It is entirely appropriate
to acknowledge that instructional materials are not always perfect. Teach them about the
forms bias take from stereotyping to cosmetic bias. By engaging your students in the issue,
you help them to develop critical literacy skills.
2. Ask your students to list famous men and women. Do they have an equal number of women
and men? More women? More men? Does the list include individuals of diverse racial and
ethnic backgrounds? Individuals with diverse sexual orientations? Discuss with them what
their lists teach us. What groups are missing from their lists? How can we learn more about
those “missing” Americans?
3. Analyze your seating assignments to determine whether there are pockets of racial, ethnic,
class, or gender segregation in your classroom. Make certain that you do not teach from one
area of the room, focusing your time and attention on one group of students while ignoring
another group sitting in another part of the room. When your students work in groups, create
groups that reflect diversity. Monitor these student groups to ensure equitable participation
and decision‐making.
4. Do not tolerate the use of harmful words, bullying, or harassment in your classroom. Do not
say “boys will be boys” to excuse sexist comments or behaviors. Nor are racist or antigay
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96 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom
comments to be ignored, laughed at, or tolerated. As a teacher, you are the model and the
norm setter: If you do not tolerate hurtful prejudice, your students will learn to honor and
respect one another.
5. Continue your reading and professional development in gender equity. Be discerning and
remember that research publications are less susceptible to political agendas than the popu-
lar media or politically funded “think tanks.” And be careful that your rights or those of your
colleagues are not violated by gender discrimination.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
5.1 The chapter lists seven forms of gender bias that you can
use when evaluating instructional materials: (a) invisibility,
(b) stereotyping, (c) linguistic bias, (d) imbalance, (e) unre-
ality, (f) fragmentation, and (g) cosmetic bias. In your own
words, define each form of bias. Examine a sample K‐12
textbook or technology‐based instructional program in your
teaching area and determine whether it contains any of
these forms of gender bias. Are there forms of bias reflected
against any other groups? Give three examples of how
teachers can supplement instructional materials to eliminate
the seven forms of gender bias.
5.2 Observe lessons being taught in several classrooms that
include boys and girls and students from different racial and
ethnic groups. Create a seating chart and count the interac-
tions between the teacher and each student. Did the ways in
which the teachers interacted with males and female students
differ? If so, how? Did the teachers interact with students
from various ethnic groups differently? If so, how? Did you
notice any way in which gender, race, and socioeconomic
status combined to influence how teachers interacted with
particular students? If so, explain.
5.3 Why do you think single‐sex schools are making a come-
back? Do you think this trend toward single‐sex schooling
should be halted or supported?
Check out the requirements of Title IX. Prepare a brief list
to remind yourself of some of the ways in which the law is
designed to ensure gender equity. (A good place to start is
“I Exercise My Rights” at http://www.titleix.info/.)
5.4 After reading this chapter, do you think there are some ways
in which you can change your behavior to make it more
gender‐fair? If yes, in what ways? If no, why not?
R E F E R E N C E S
American Association of University Women (AAUW). (2008). Where the girls are: The facts about gender equity in education. Washington, DC:
Author.
Aschwaden, C. (2014). “Harassment in science, replicated.” New York Times (August 12, 2014), p. D1.
Beaman, R., Wheldall, K., & Kemp, C. (2006). Differential teacher atten-
tion to boys and girls in the classroom. Educational Review, 58(3),
339–366.
Berekashvili, N. (2012). The role gender‐biased perceptions in teacher‐
student interactions. Psychology of Language and Communication,
16(1), 39–51.
Bloomberg, R. L. (2009). The invisible obstacle to educational equality:
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chapter
98
Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault
It ’ s time to start learning about things they told you you didn ’ t need to know . . .
learning about me, instead of learning about them, starting to learn about her instead
of learning about him. It ’ s a connection that makes education education .
— (a student of European and African American ancestry)
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define and describe Feminist Phase Theory and name its major characteristics.
2. Define and describe Male‐Defined Curriculum and name its major characteristics.
3. Define and describe Contribution Curriculum and name its major characteristics.
4. Define and describe Bifocal Curriculum and name its major characteristics.
6
F u se
/G et
ty I
m ag
es
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996.2 Male‐Defined Curriculum
5. Define and describe Women’s Curriculum and name its major characteristics.
6. Define and describe Gender‐Balanced Curriculum and name its major characteristics.
This student’s reflection on her education that opens this chapter signals a twin transformation
that is pushing us to rethink our traditional ways of teaching. The first is that students in our classrooms
are increasingly more diverse; the second is that traditional course content has been enriched by the
new scholarship in women’s studies, cultural studies, and multicultural studies. It is in the classroom
that these transformations intersect, and it rests on the teacher to make education “education” for this
student and for the majority who believe their education was not made for them—women of all back-
grounds, people of color, and men who lack privilege because of their social class—by bringing the
two aspects of the transformation together. The current challenges to classroom teachers are not only
to incorporate multiple perspectives into the curriculum but also to engage in pedagogical practices
that bring in the voices of students as a source for learning rather than managing or controlling them.
6.1 Feminist Phase Theory One of the most effective ways I have found to set a frame for envisioning a gender‐balanced, mul-
ticultural curriculum while capturing the reforms that have occurred over the past 40 years is feminist phase theory. Conceptually rooted in the scholarship on women, feminist phase theory is a classifi-
cation system of the evolution in thought about the incorporation of women’s traditions, history, and
experiences into selected disciplines. The model I have developed identifies five common phases of
thinking about women: male‐defined curriculum, contribution curriculum, bifocal curriculum, women’s curriculum, and gender‐balanced curriculum. A gender‐balanced perspective—one that is
rooted in feminist scholarship—takes into account the experiences, perspectives, and voices of
women as well as men. It examines the similarities and differences between women and men and
considers how gender interacts with such factors as ethnicity, race, culture, and class.
The language of this system or schema, particularly the word phase, and the description of
one phase and then another suggest a sequential hierarchy in which one phase supplants another.
Before reviewing the schema, please refrain from thinking of these phases in a linear manner;
envision them as a series of intersecting circles, or patches on a quilt, or threads in a tapestry that
interact and undergo changes in response to one another. It is more accurate to view the phases
as different emphases that coexist in feminist research. The important thing is that teachers,
scholars, and curriculum developers ask and answer certain questions at each phase.
The following section identifies key concepts and questions articulated initially at each
phase, using examples from history, literature, and science; it then discusses how the phases
interact and undergo changes in response to one another. The final part of this chapter shows
teachers grappling with the intersection of changes in the disciplines and changes in the student
population and presents four themes of analysis: mastery, voice, authority, and positionality. The
chapter concludes with specific objectives, practices, and teaching suggestions for incorporating
content about women into the K‐12 curriculum in social studies, language arts, and science.
6.2 Male‐Defined Curriculum Male‐defined curriculum rests on the assumption that the male experience is universal, is repre-
sentative of humanity, and constitutes a basis for generalizing about all human beings. The
knowledge that is researched and taught, the substance of learning, is knowledge articulated by
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100 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy
and about men. There is little or no consciousness that the existence of women as a group is an
anomaly calling for a broader definition of knowledge. The female experience is subsumed under
the male experience. For example, feminist scientists have cited methodological problems in
some research about sex differences that draws conclusions about females based on experiments
done only on males or that uses limited (usually White and middle‐class) experimental popula-
tions from which scientists draw conclusions about all males and females.
The incorporation of women into the curriculum has not only taught us about women’s
lives but has also led to questions about our lopsided rendition of men’s lives in which we pay
attention primarily to men in the public world and conceal their lives in the private world.
Historians, for example, are posing a series of interesting questions about men’s history: What do
we need to unlearn about men’s history? What are the taken‐for‐granted truths about men’s his-
tory that we need to rethink? How do we get at the significant masculine truths? Is man’s primary
sense of self defined in relation to the public sphere only? How does this sense relate to boyhood,
adolescence, family life, recreation, and love? What do the answers to these questions imply
about the teaching of history?
Feminist scholarship—like African American, Native American, Chicano/Latino, and
Asian American scholarship—reveals the systematic and contestable exclusions in the male‐
defined curriculum. When we examine curriculum through the lens of this scholarship, we are
forced to reconsider our understanding of the most fundamental conceptualization of knowledge
and social relations in our society. We understand in a new way that knowledge is a social con-
struction created by individual human beings who live and think at a particular time and within a
particular social framework. All works in literature, science, and history, for example, have an
author, male or female, White or ethnic or racial minority, elite or middle class or occasionally
poor, with motivations and beliefs. The scientist’s questions and activities, for instance, are
shaped, often unconsciously, by the great social issues of the day (see Table 6.1). Different
perspectives on the same subject will change the patterns discerned.
■ TABLE 6.1 Male‐Defined Curriculum
Characteristics of Phase
Questions Commonly Asked
about Women in History
Questions Commonly Asked
about Women in Literature
Questions Commonly Asked about
Women in Science
The absence of women is not noted.
There is no consciousness that the male experience is a “particular knowledge” selected from a wider universe of possible knowledge and experience. It is valued, emphasized, and viewed as the knowledge most worth having.
Who is the author of a particular history? What is his/her race, ethnicity, religion, ideological orientation, social class, place of origin, and historical period?
How does incorporating women’s experiences lead to new understandings of the most fundamental ordering of social relations, institutions, and power arrangements?
How can we define the content and methodology of history so it will be a history of us all?
How is traditional humanism, with an integrated self at its center and an authentic view of life, in effect part of patriarchal ideology?
How can the objectivist illusion be dismantled?
How can the idea of a literary canon of “great literature” be challenged?
How are writing and reading political acts?
How do race, class, and gender relate to the conflict, sufferings, and passions that attend these realities?
How can we study language as specific discourse, that is, specific linguistic strategies in specific situations, rather than as universal language?
How do scientific studies reveal cultural values? What cultural, historical, and gender values are projected onto the physical and natural world?
How might gender be a bias that influences choice of questions, hypotheses, subjects, experimental design, or theory formation in science?
What is the underlying philosophy of an androcentric science that values objectivity, rationality, and dominance?
How can the distance between the subject and the scientific observer be shortened so that the scientist has some feeling for or empathy with the organism?
How can gender play a crucial role in transforming science?
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1016.4 Bifocal Curriculum
6.3 Contribution Curriculum Early efforts to reclaim women’s rightful place in the curriculum involved searching for missing
women within a male framework. Although it was recognized that women were missing, men
continued to serve as the norm, the representative, the universal human being. Outstanding
women emerged who fit this male norm of excellence or greatness or conformed to implicit
assumptions about appropriate roles for women outside the home. In literature, female authors
were added who performed well within the masculine tradition, internalizing its standards of art
and its views on social roles. Great women of science who made it in the male scientific world,
most frequently Marie Curie, for example, were added.
Examples of contribution history can be seen in U.S. history textbooks. They now include
the contributions of notable American women who were outstanding in the public sphere as rul-
ers or as contributors to wars or reform movements to a remarkable degree. Queen Liliuo‐kalani,
Hawaii’s first reigning queen and a nationalist, is included in the story of the kingdom’s annexa-
tion. Molly Pitcher and Deborah Sampson are depicted as contributors to the Revolutionary War,
as is Clara Barton to the Civil War effort. Some authors have also included women who conform
to the assumption that it is acceptable for women to engage in activities outside the home if they
are an extension of women’s nurturing role within the family. Examples of this are Dorothea Dix,
Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mary McLeod Bethune (Tetreault, 1986).
The lesson to be learned from understanding these limitations of early contribution history
is not to disregard the study of notable women but to include those who worked to reshape the
world according to a feminist reordering of values. This includes efforts to increase women’s
self‐determination through a feminist transformation of the home; to increase education, political
rights, and women’s rights to control their bodies; and to improve their economic status.
A history with women at the center moves beyond paying attention to caring for the unfor-
tunate in the public sphere to examining how exceptional women influenced the lives of women
in general (see Table 6.2). Just as Mary McLeod Bethune’s role in the New Deal is worth teaching
to our students, so is her aggressive work to project a positive image of African American women
to the nation through her work in African American women’s clubs and the launching of the
Afro‐American Woman’s Journal (Smith, 2003).
6.4 Bifocal Curriculum In bifocal curriculum, feminist scholars have made an important shift from a perspective that
views men as the norm to one that opens up the possibility of seeing the world through women’s
eyes (Gornick & Moran, 1971; Millett, 1970). This dual vision, or bifocal perspective, generated
global questions about women and about the differences between women and men. Historians
investigated the separation between the public and the private sphere and asked, for example,
how the division between them explains women’s lives. Some elaborated on the construct by
identifying arenas of female power in the domestic sphere. Literary critics tried to provide a new
understanding of a distinctively female literary tradition and a theory of women’s literary creativ-
ity. These critics sought to provide models for understanding the dynamics of female literary
response to male literary assertion and coercion (Showalter, 1977). Scientists grappled with defi-
nitions of women’s and men’s nature by asking how the public and private, biology and culture,
and personal and impersonal inform each other and affect men and women, science, and nature.
Scholars have pointed out some of the problems with bifocal knowledge. Thinking about
women and men is dualistic and dichotomized. Women and men are thought of as having differ-
ent spheres, different notions of what is of value in life, different ways of imagining the human
condition, and different associations with nature and culture. But both views are valued. In short,
women are thought of as a group that is complementary but equal to men; there are some truths
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102 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy
for men and there are some truths for women. General analyses of men’s and women’s experiences
often come dangerously close to reiterating the sexual stereotypes scholars are trying to over-
come. Because many people believe that the public sphere is more valuable than the private
sphere, there is a tendency to slip back into thinking of women as inferior and subordinate
(Christian, 1980; Lerner, 1979; Rosaldo & Lamphere, 1974).
The generalized view of women and men that predominates in the bifocal curriculum often
does not allow for distinctions within groups as large and as complex as women and men.
Important factors such as historical period, geographic location, structural barriers, race, pater-
nity, sexual orientation, and social class, to name a few, clearly make a difference. Other common
emphases in the bifocal curriculum are the oppression of women and the exploration of that
oppression. Exposes of woman hating in history and literature are common. The emphasis is on
the misogyny (the hatred of women) of the human experience, particularly the means men have
used to advance their authority and to assert or imply female inferiority. The paradoxes of
women’s existence are sometimes overlooked with this emphasis on oppression. For example,
although women have been excluded from positions of power, a few of them as wives and
daughters in powerful families were often closer to actual power than were men. If some women
■ TABLE 6.2 Contribution Curriculum
Characteristics of
Phase
Questions Commonly Asked
about Women in History
Questions Commonly
Asked about Women in
Literature
Questions Commonly Asked
about Women in Science
The absence of women is noted. There is a search for missing women according to a male norm of greatness, excellence, or humanness. Women are considered exceptional, deviant, or other. Women are added into history, but the content and notions of historical significance are not challenged.
Who are the notable women missing from history and what did they and ordinary women contribute in areas or movements traditionally dominated by men, for example, during major wars or during reform movements, such as abolitionism or the labor movement?
What did notable and ordinary women contribute in areas that are an extension of women’s traditional roles, for example, caring for the poor and the sick?
How have major economic and political changes such as industrialization or extension of the franchise affected women in the public sphere? How did notable and ordinary women respond to their oppression, particularly through women’s rights organizations?
Who were outstanding women who advocated a feminist transformation of the home, who contributed to women’s greater self‐determination through increased education, the right to control their bodies, an increase in their political rights, and the improvement of their economic status?
What did women contribute through the settlement house and labor movements?
Who are the missing female authors whose subject matter and use of language and form meet the male norm of “masterpiece?”
What primary biological facts and interpretations are missing about major female authors?
Who are the notable women scientists who have made contributions to mainstream science?
How is women’s different (and supposedly inferior) nature related to hormones, brain lateralization, and sociobiology?
Where are the missing females in scientific experiments? What is the current status of women within the scientific profession?
How does adding minority women to the history of science reveal patterns of exclusion and recast definitions of what it means to practice science and to be a scientist?
How is the exclusion of women from science related to the way science is done and thought about?
What is the usual pattern of women working in science? How is it the same as or different from the pattern of notable women?
How do our definitions of science need to be broadened to evaluate women’s contributions to science? Do institutions of science need to be reshaped to accommodate women? If so, how?
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1036.5 Women’s Curriculum
were dissatisfied with their status and role, most adjusted and did not join efforts to improve
women’s status. Too much emphasis on women’s oppression perpetuates a patriarchal framework
presenting women as primarily passive, reacting only to the pressures of a sexist society. In the
main, it emphasizes men thinking and women being thought about.
Women’s scholarship from the 1970s through the present (Collins, 2000; Goldberger, Tarule,
Clinchy, & Belenky, 1996; Schmitz, Butler, Guy‐Sheftall, & Rosenfelt, 2004) has helped us see that
understanding women’s oppression is more complex than we initially thought. We do not yet have
adequate concepts to explain gender systems founded on a division of labor and sexual asymmetry.
To understand gender systems, it is necessary to take a structural and experiential perspective that
asks from a woman’s point of view where we are agents and where we are not, where our relations
with men are egalitarian and where they are not. This questioning may lead to explanations of why
women’s experiences and interpretations of their world can differ significantly from those of men.
Furthermore, the concepts with which we approach our analysis need to be questioned.
Anthropologists have pointed out that our way of seeing the world—for instance, the idea of
complementary spheres for women (the private sphere) and men (the public sphere)—is a product
of our experience in a Western, modern, industrial, capitalistic state with a specific history. We
distort our understanding of other social systems by imposing our worldview on them (Atkinson,
1982). Feminist critics are calling for rethinking not only categories such as the domestic versus
the public sphere and production and reproduction but also gender itself (Butler, 1993).
One of the most important things we have learned about a bifocal perspective is the danger
of generalizing too much, of longing for women’s history instead of writing histories about
women. We must guard against establishing a feminist version of great literature and then resist-
ing any modifications or additions to it. We have also learned that the traditional disciplines are
limited in their ability to shed light on gender complexities, and it becomes apparent that there is
a need for an interdisciplinary perspective (see Table 6.3).
6.5 Women’s Curriculum The most important idea to emerge in women’s scholarship is that women’s activities, not men’s,
are the measure of significance. What was formerly devalued—the content of women’s everyday
lives—assumes new value as scholars investigate female rituals, housework, childbearing, child
rearing, sexuality, friendship, and studies of the life cycle. For instance, scientists investigate how
research on areas of interest primarily to women—menstruation, childbirth, and menopause—
challenge existing scientific theories.
Historians document women’s efforts to break out of their traditional sphere of the home in a
way that uses women’s activities, not men’s, as the measure of historical significance. These activities
include women’s education, paid work, and volunteer work outside the home, particularly in wom-
en’s clubs and associations. Of equal importance is the development of a collective feminist con-
sciousness, that is, of women’s consciousness of their own distinct role in society. Analyses begun in
the bifocal phase continue to explore what sex and gender have meant for the majority of women.
As scholars look more closely at the complex patterns of women’s lives, they see the need
for a pluralistic conceptualization of women. Although thinking of women as a monolithic group
provides valuable information about patterns of continuity and change in the areas most central
to women’s lives, generalizing about a group as vast and diverse as women leads to inaccuracies.
The subtle interactions among gender and other variables are investigated. Historians ask how the
particulars of race, ethnicity, social class, marital status, and sexual orientation challenge the
homogeneity of women’s experiences. Third World feminists critique hegemonic “Western”
feminisms and formulate autonomous geographically, historically, and culturally grounded femi-
nist concerns and strategies (Mohanty, 2003).
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104 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy
Feminist scholars have helped us see the urgency of probing and analyzing the interactive
nature of the oppressions of race, ethnicity, class, and gender (Collins, 2000; Hune & Nomura,
2003; Kesselman, McNair, & Schniedewind, 2002; Ruiz & DuBois, 2000; Saldivar‐Hull, 2000).
We are reminded that we can no longer take a liberal reformist approach that does not probe the
needs of the system that are being satisfied by oppression (Acuña, 2004; Louie & Omatsu, 2001;
Shorris, 2001; Weatherford, 1992). We have to take seriously the model of feminist scholarship
that analyzes women’s status within the social, cultural, historical, political, and economic con-
texts. Only then will issues of gender be understood in relation to the economic needs of male
dominance and capitalism, both of which undergird such oppressions.
Questions about sex and gender are set within historical, ideological, and cultural contexts,
including the culture’s definition of the facts of biological development and what they mean for
individuals. Researchers ask, for example, why these attitudes toward sexuality are prevalent at
this time in history. What are the ways in which sexual words, categories, and ideology mirror the
organization of society as a whole? What are the socioeconomic factors contributing to them?
How do current conceptions of the body reflect social experiences and professional needs?
Life histories and autobiographies shed light on societies’ perceptions of women and their
perceptions of themselves. Women’s individual experiences are revealed through these stories
and contribute to the fashioning of the human experience from the perspective of women. Scholars
find it necessary to draw on other disciplines for a clearer vision of the social structure and
■ TABLE 6.3 Bifocal Curriculum
Characteristics of Phase
Questions Commonly Asked
about Women in History
Questions Commonly Asked about
Women in Literature
Questions Commonly Asked about Women
in Science
Human experience is conceptualized primarily in dualist categories: male and female, private and public, agency and communion. Emphasis is on a complementary but equal conceptualization of men’s and women’s spheres and personal qualities.
There is a focus on women’s oppression and on misogyny. Women’s efforts to overcome the oppression are presented.
Efforts to include women lead to the insight that the traditional content, structure, and methodology of the disciplines are more appropriate to the male experience.
How does the division between the public and the private sphere explain women’s lives?
Who oppressed women, and how were they oppressed?
What are forms of power and value in women’s world?
How have women been excluded from and deprived of power and value in men’s sphere?
How do gender systems create divisions between the sexes such that experience and interpretations of their world can differ significantly from men’s?
How can we rethink categories like public and private, productive and reproductive, sex and gender?
Who are the missing minor female authors whose books are unobtainable, whose lives have never been written, and whose works have been studied casually, if at all?
How is literature a record of the collective consciousness of patriarchy?
What myths and stereotypes about women are present in male literature?
How can we critique the meritocratic pretensions of traditional literary history?
How can we pair opposite‐sex texts in literature as a way of understanding the differences between women’s and men’s experiences?
How is literature one of the expressive modes of a female subculture that developed with the distinction of separate spheres for women and men?
How can feminist literary critics resist establishing their own great canon of literature and any additions to it?
How have the sciences defined (and misdefined) the nature of women? Why are there so few women scientists? What social and psychological forces have kept women in the lower ranks or out of science entirely?
How do women fit into the study of the history of science and health care?
How do scientific findings, originally carried out on males of a species, change when carried out on the females of the same species?
How do the theories and interpretations of sociobiology require constant testing and change to fit the theory for males and females with regard to competition, sexual selection, and infanticide?
How do the networks of associations and disjunctions of the science/ gender system— between public and private, personal and impersonal, and masculine and feminine—inform each other and affect men and women, science and nature?
*What are the structural barriers to women in science?
*New questions generated by feminist scholars.
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1056.5 Women’s Curriculum
culture of societies as individuals encounter them in their daily life.Similarly, there are calls for
new unifying frameworks and different ways to think of periods in history and literature in order
to identify concepts that accommodate women’s history and traditions. There is also a more com-
plex conceptualization of historical time. The emphasis in much history is on events, units of time
too brief to afford a sense of structural change. Structural changes are changes in the way people
think about their own reality and the possibilities for other realities. L’Ecole des Annales (1982)
in France (a group of historians who pioneered the use of such public records as birth, marriage,
and death certificates in historical analysis) has distinguished between events and what they call
the longue dureé. By this, they mean the slow, glacial changes, requiring hundreds of years to
complete, that represent significant shifts in the way people think.
Examples of areas of women’s history that lend themselves to this concept are the structural
change from a male‐dominated to an egalitarian perspective and the transformation of women’s
traditional role in the family to their present roles as wives, mothers, and paid workers outside the
home. Also important is the demographic change between 1800 and 1990 in the average number
of children per woman of childbearing age from seven to fewer than two (see Table 6.4).
■ TABLE 6.4 Women’s Curriculum
Characteristics of Phase
Questions Commonly Asked about
Women in History
Questions Commonly Asked
about Women in Literature
Questions Commonly Asked
about Women in Science
Scholarly inquiry pursues new questions, new categories, and new notions of significance that illuminate women’s traditions, history, culture, values, visions, and perspectives.
A pluralistic conception of women emerges that acknowledges diversity and recognizes that variables besides gender shape women’s lives—for example, race, ethnicity, and social class.
Women’s experience is allowed to speak for itself. Feminist history is rooted in the personal and the specific; it builds from that to the general.
The public and the private are seen as a continuum in women’s experiences.
Women’s experience is analyzed within the social, cultural, historical, political, and economic contexts.
Efforts are made to reconceptualize knowledge to encompass the female experience. The conceptualization of knowledge is not characterized by disciplinary thinking but becomes multidisciplinary.
What were the majority of women doing at a particular time in history?
What was the significance of these activities? How can female friendships between kin, mothers, daughters, and friends be analyzed as one aspect of women’s overall relations with others?
What kind of productive work, paid and unpaid, did women do and under what conditions?
What were the reproductive activities of women? How did they reproduce the American family?
How did the variables of race, ethnicity, social class, marital status, and sexual preference affect women’s experience?
What new categories need to be added to the study of history, for instance, romance, housework, childbearing, and child rearing?
How have women of different races and classes interacted throughout history?
What are appropriate ways of organizing or periodizing women’s history? For example, how will examining women’s experiences at each stage of the life span help us to understand women’s experiences on their own terms?
What does the concept of a women’s sphere—for example, domesticity and family, education, marriage, sexuality, and love—reveal about our culture?
How can we contrast the fictional image of women in literature with the complexity and variety of the roles of individual women in real life as workers, housewives, revolutionaries, mothers, lovers, and so on?
How do the particulars of race, ethnicity, social class, marital status, and sexual orientation, as revealed in literature, challenge the thematic homogeneity of women’s experiences?
How does literature portray what binds women together and what separates them because of race, ethnicity, social class, marital status, and sexual orientation?
How does the social and historical context of a work of literature shed light on it?
How do the cultural dualisms associated with masculinity and femininity permeate scientific thought and discourse?
How do women’s actual experiences, as compared to the physician’s analysis or scientific theory, challenge the traditional paradigms of science and of health care systems?
How does research on areas of primary interest to women, for instance, menopause, childbirth, and menstruation/estrus, challenge existing scientific theories?
How do variables other than sex and gender, such as age, species, and individual variation, challenge current theories?
How do the experiences of female primates and the variation among species of primates—for example, competition among females, female agency in sexuality, and infanticide—test the traditional paradigms?
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106 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy
6.6 Gender‐Balanced Curriculum This phase continues many of the inquiries begun in the women’s curriculum phase, but it also
articulates questions about how women and men relate to and complement one another. Conscious
of the limitations of seeing women in isolation and aware of the relational character of gender,
researchers search for the nodal points at which women’s and men’s experiences intersect.
Historians and literary critics ask whether the private, as well as the public, aspects of life are
presented as a continuum in women’s and men’s experience.
The pluralistic and multifocal conception of women that emerged in the women’s curricu-
lum phase is extended to human beings. A central idea in this phase is positionality (Alcoff, 2003;
Haraway, 1997; Harding, 2004), which means that important aspects of our identity (e.g., our
gender, race, class, and age) are markers of relational positions rather than essential qualities.
Their effects and implications change according to context. Recently, feminist thinkers have seen
knowledge as valid when it comes from an acknowledgment that the knower’s specific position in
any context is always defined by gender, race, class, and other variables (Code, 1991). Drawing
on the latest science and scholarship, some scholars argue that race and ethnicity are not things
that people or groups have or are, but rather sets of actions that people do (Moya & Marcus, 2010).
Scientists ask explicit questions about the invention and reinvention of nature. For exam-
ple, they ask questions about the meanings of the behavior and social lives of monkeys and apes
and male–female relations in animals and inquire about how such variables as age, species, and
individual variation challenge current theories. They also explore contemporary technoscience—
its stories and dreams, facts and delusions, institutions and politics, and scientific advances
(Haraway, 1991, 1997).
Accompanying this particularistic perspective is attention to the larger context, for exam-
ple, the interplay among situation, meaning, economic systems, family organization, and political
systems. Thus, historians ask how gender inequities are linked to economics, family organization,
marriage, ritual, and politics. Research scientists probe how differences between the male and
female body have been used to justify a social agenda that privileges men economically, socially,
and politically. In this phase, a revolutionary relationship comes to exist between those things
traditionally treated as serious, primarily the activities of men in the public sphere, and those
things formerly perceived as trivial, namely, the activities of women in the private sphere.
This new relationship leads to a recentering of knowledge in the disciplines, a shift from a
male‐centered perspective to one that includes both females and males. Studying the dynamics of
gender sheds light on masculinity and the implications of gender studies for men. The new field
of men’s studies investigates the origins, structures, and dynamics of masculinity (Kimmel,
Hearn, & Connell, 2005). Men’s studies investigates how men can participate in feminism as full
and equal partners, respecting gender differences while sharing a common vision with women for
an oppression‐free future (Schacht & Ewing, 2007). This reconceptualization of knowledge from
a feminist perspective works toward a more holistic view of the human experience.
Feminist scholars have cautioned against moving too quickly from a women’s curriculum
to a gender‐balanced curriculum. As the historian Gerda Lerner (1979) observed, our decade‐
and‐a‐half‐old investigation of women’s history is only a speck on the horizon compared to the
centuries‐old tradition of male‐defined history. By turning too quickly to studies of gender, we
risk short‐circuiting important directions in women’s studies and again having women’s history
and experiences subsumed under those of men. It remains politically important for feminists to
defend women as women in order to counteract the male domination that continues to exist. The
French philosopher Kristeva (cited in Moi, 1985) and, more recently, Butler (2004) push us to
new considerations when they urge women (and men) to recognize the falsifying nature of mas-
culinity and femininity, to explore how the fact of being born male or female determines one’s
position in relation to power, and to envision more fluid gender identities that have the potential
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1076.7 Changes in Traditional Ways of Teaching
■ TABLE 6.5 Gender‐Balanced Curriculum
Characteristics of Phase
Questions Commonly Asked
About Women in History
Questions Commonly Asked
About Women in Literature
Questions Commonly Asked
About Women in Science
A multifocal, gender‐balanced perspective is sought that weaves together women’s and men’s experiences into multilayered composites of human experience. At this stage, scholars are conscious of positionality.
Positionality represents the insight that all women and men are located in historical contexts—contexts defined in terms of race, class, culture, and age as well as gender—and that they gain their knowledge and their power from the specifics of their situations.
Scholars begin to define what binds together and what separates the various segments of humanity.
Scholars have a deepened understanding of how both the private and the public form a continuum in individual experience. They search for the nodal points at which comparative treatment of men’s and women’s experience is possible.
Efforts are made to reconceptualize knowledge to reflect this multilayered composite of women’s and men’s experience. The conceptualization of knowledge is not characterized by disciplinary thinking but becomes multidisciplinary.
What is the knower’s specific position in this historical context?
How is gender asymmetry linked to economic systems, family organizations, marriage, ritual, and political systems?
How can we compare women and men in all aspects of their lives to reveal gender as a crucial historical determinant?
Are the private as well as the public aspects of history presented as a continuum in women’s and men’s experiences?
How is gender a social construction? What does the particular construction of gender in a society tell us about the society that so constructed gender?
What is the intricate relation between the construction of gender and the structure of power?
How can we expand our conceptualization of historical time to a pluralistic one that conceives of three levels of history: structures, trends, and events?
How can we unify approaches and types of knowledge of all social sciences and history as a means of investigating specific problems in relational history?
How does the author’s specific position, as defined by gender, race, and class, affect this literary work?
How can we validate the full range of human expression by selecting literature according to its insight into any aspect of human experience rather than according to how it measures up to a predetermined canon?
Is the private as well as the public sphere presented as a continuum in women’s and men’s experiences?
How can we pair opposite‐sex texts in literature as a way of understanding how female and male characters experience “maleness” and “femaleness” as a continuum of “humanness?”
How do the variables of race, ethnicity, social class, marital status, and sexual orientation affect the experience of female and male literary characters?
How can we rethink the concept of periodicity to accentuate the continuity of life and to contain the multitude of previously ignored literary works, for example, instead of Puritanism, the contexts for and consequences of sexuality?
How can we deconstruct the opposition between masculinity and femininity?
What explicit questions need to be raised about the invention and reinvention of nature? What is the meaning of male–female relations in animals?
How do variables such as age, species, and individual variation challenge current theories?
What are the limits to generalizing beyond the data collected on limited samples to other genders, species, and conditions not sampled in the experimental protocol?
How have sex differences been used to assign men and women to particular roles in the social hierarchy?
How have differences between the male and female body been used to justify a social agenda that privileges men economically, socially, and politically?
to liberate both women and men to a fuller personhood (see Table 6.5). Of particular interest to
teachers is the work of Thorne (1993), who draws on her daily observations in the classroom and
on the playground to show how children construct gender and experience gender in the school.
6.7 Changes in Traditional Ways of Teaching Feminist scholarship has helped us understand that all knowledge, and therefore all classroom
knowledge, is a social construction. This insight affirms the evolving nature of knowledge and
the role of teachers and students in its ongoing construction. For me, the term pedagogy applies
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108 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy
not just to teaching techniques but also to the whole classroom production of knowledge; it
encompasses the full range of relationships among course materials, teachers, and students. Such
broadened conceptualizations of pedagogy challenge the commonly held assumptions of the
professor as a disinterested expert, the content as inherently “objective,” and the method of
delivery as irrelevant to the message (Hooks, 1994). To educate students for a complex, multi-
cultural, multiracial world, we need to include the perspectives and voices of those who have not
been traditionally included—women of all backgrounds, people of color, and females and males
who perceive their education as not made for them. The anthropologist Renato Rosaldo (1994)
has captured well how diverse classrooms contribute to new constructions of knowledge and
change relationships among teachers and students:
The question before us now is . . . how to teach more effectively in changed classroom environments. The new classrooms are not like the old ones. . . . In diverse classrooms, the question of “The Other” begins to dissolve. Who gets to be the we and who gets to be the other rotates from one day to the next, depending on the topic of discussion. And before long the stable us/them dividing line evaporates into a larger mix of differences and solidarity. (p. 405)
Feminist teachers are demonstrating how they transform courses through their attention to cultural,
ethnic, and gender diversity and give concrete form to the complexity of the struggles over knowl-
edge, access, and power (Hooks, 1994; Maher & Tetreault, 1994, 2001; Weiler, 1988). In The Feminist Classroom, Maher and I (Maher & Tetreault, 2001) show how all students may benefit
from, and how some are even inspired by, college courses transformed by their professor’s attention
to cultural, ethnic, and gender diversity. We have found that the themes we used to analyze teaching
and learning in 17 classrooms on 6 campuses across the country apply to elementary and secondary
classrooms as well. The four themes—mastery, authority, voice, and positionality—all relate to
issues present in today’s classroom. Although all four deal with reconstituted relationships between
new students and new disciplinary frameworks, the themes of mastery and authority focus on
knowledge and its sources as well as on the voice and positionality of the students themselves.
Mastery has traditionally meant the goal of an individual student’s rational comprehension
of the material on the teacher’s and expert’s terms. Women (and other marginalized groups) must
often give up their voices when they seek mastery on the terms of the dominant culture. We found
classrooms undergoing a shift away from unidimensional sources of expertise to a multiplicity of
new information and insights. Students were no longer mastering a specific body of material, nor
were they emphasizing subjective experiences that risk excluding students from a wealth of
knowledge. Rather, they were struggling through or integrating often widely various interpreta-
tions of texts, scientific research, and social problems. These teachers redefined mastery as inter-
pretation, as increasingly sophisticated handling of the topics at hand, informed by but not limited
to the students’ links to the material from their own experience. For example, a Japanese American
student reread an Emily Dickinson poem about silences and invisibilities to comment on her
gender and ethnic marginality:
I couldn’t help thinking of the idea of a mute culture within a dominant culture. A “nobody” knowing she’s different from the dominant culture keeps silent. . . . But to be somebody! How dreary! How public! So when you become a somebody and buy into the dominant culture, you have to live in their roles. A silly example: It’s like watching a Walt Disney movie as a child where Hayley Mills and these other girls dance and primp before a party singing “Femininity,” how being a woman is all about looking pretty and smiling pretty and acting stupid to attract men. As a child I ate it up, at least it seemed benign. But once your eye gets put out and you realize how this vision has warped you, it would split your heart to try and believe that again, it would strike you dead.
(Maher & Tetreault, 1994, pp. 104–105)
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1096.7 Changes in Traditional Ways of Teaching
Students were stretched by such broadenings of interpretative frameworks and indeed became
authorities for one another. A White male student in the same class said:
I could read Dickinson a thousand times and probably never try to relate to that because it just would never make an impression on me, but having the girls in that class interested in that particular topic, “How does that relate to me as a woman?” then I sit back and I think that’s a really good question. Although I’m male I can learn how women react to women’s texts as opposed to maybe the way I react to it or the teacher reacts to it.
(Maher & Tetreault, 1994, p. 108)
The teachers in our study consciously used their authority to give students responsibility for their
own learning (Finke, 1993). Students and professors became authorities for one another to the
extent that they were explicit about themselves as social and political actors with respect to a text
or an issue (Tetreault, 1991). The teachers also struggled with reconceptualizing the grounds for
their own authority, both over the subject matter and with students, because their traditional
positions as the sole representatives of expertise were called into question by these multiple new
sources of knowledge. These professors shared a sense of their authority as being grounded in
their own experiences and in their intellectual engagement with feminist scholarship and other
relevant fields.
As important as the rethinking of the disciplines is the power of expression that these new
forms of knowledge, coming from the students’ questions as well as from new topics, give to women
and to other previously silenced groups. We explored the effects on students through our theme of
voice, which is frequently defined as the awakening of the students’ own responses. However, we
came to think of these classrooms as arenas where teachers and students fashion their voices rather
than “find” them as they produce relevant experiences to shape a narrative of an emerging self.
Our fourth theme is positionality, which is defined in the section on gender‐balanced cur-
riculum. Positionality helps us to see the multiple ways in which the complex dynamics of differ-
ence and inequality, which come from outside society, also operate powerfully inside the
classroom itself. Much of our emphasis in the past three decades has been on the consequences
of sexism and racism on females and on students of color. We have learned much about how
universalizing the position of maleness leads to intellectual domination.
Some educators and theorists argue that we need to become conscious in similar ways
about the effects of universalizing the position of Whiteness (Frankenberg, 1993,1997; Mcintosh,
1990; Morrison, 1993; Tatum, 1997). For example, how does the norm of Whiteness or maleness
shape the construction of knowledge in classrooms? How do those assumptions contribute to the
intellectual domination of groups? Why is it that when we think of the development of racial
identity in our students, we think primarily of students of color rather than of White students?
What happens in classrooms where Whiteness is marked, revealed as a position? In our culture,
the presumptions of Whiteness or maleness act to constrict voice by universalizing the dominant
positions, by letting them float free of “position.”
Maher and I revisited data presented in The Feminist Classroom to examine how assumptions
of Whiteness shape the construction of knowledge as it is produced and resisted in the classroom
(Maher & Tetreault, 1997). We saw how the dominant voices continue to call the tune—that is, to
maintain the conceptual and ideological frameworks through which suppressed voices are dis-
torted or not fully heard. We saw more clearly the ways in which a thorough pedagogy of position-
ality must entail an excavation of Whiteness in its many dimensions and complexities. Understanding
all of the ways in which positionality shapes learning is a long, interactive process.
The lessons that follow attempt to model teaching that is constructed to reveal the particu-
lar and the common denominators of human experience. These sample lessons are organized by
the subject areas of language arts, mathematics and science, and social studies, but they can be
adapted to other subject areas as well.
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110 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy
Sample Lessons
Language Arts
Memoirs that Speak to Adolescents
Suggested Activities
Memoirs can contribute greatly to students’ understanding of the human experience. Those that
have contributed to mine include The Road from Coorain (Ker Conway, 1989), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Angelou, 1969), The Liar’s Club (Karr, 1995), Hunger of Memory (Rodriquez,
1982), Autobiography of a Face (Grealy, 1994), This Boy’s Life (Wolff, 1989), and Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White (Staples, 1994). As students read the memoir selected, ask them
to keep a learning log that links their emotional connections to the memoir with their intellectual
analysis. Instruct your students to select a passage that puzzles or engages them or triggers a
strong emotional reaction, and next to paraphrase the passage they have chosen in order to under-
stand what it means, or, in a sense, to master it (Maher & Tetreault, 1994).
Ask students to then look at the passage again to become conscious of what cannot be
captured by paraphrase as well as any concerns or questions that escaped them before. Finally,
have them place the passage in the context of the entire text, using the following questions:
Where does it happen? Are there other passages that relate to it? That contradict it? That confirm
it? That raise more questions about it? How does the memoirist’s gender, race, or ethnicity shape
their experiences? After students write a summary of where this procedure has taken them, their
summaries can be used as the basis for class discussions or students’ formal papers. This process
require students to reengage with the text repeatedly and to engage in continuous reinterpretation
of the text rather than to think they have arrived at final mastery.
Mathematics and Science
Statistics Illuminates Gender Differences: The Academy Awards (Oscars) and UC Berkeley Admissions
Created by Lauren Shareshian
Oregon Episcopal School, Portland, Oregon
Suggested Activities
Sometimes statistics illuminates differences between males and females, as demonstrated by an
example in which students are asked to compare the average age of Academy Award Winners for
males and females (Figures 6.1 and 6.2):
Age of Academy Award Winners for Males
Actor Film Date of Birth Date of Award Age
81 Daniel Day‐Lewis There Will Be a Blood
April 29, 1957 February 24, 2008 50 years, 301 days
82 Sean Penn Milk August 17, 1960 February 22, 2009 48 years, 189 days
83 Jeff Bridges Crazy Heart December 4, 1949
March 7, 2010 60 years, 93 days
84 Colin Firth The King’s Speech
September 10, 1960
February 27, 2011 50 years, 170 days
85 Jean Dujardin The Artist June 19, 1972 February 26, 2012 39 years, 252 days
86 Daniel Day‐Lewis Lincoln April 29, 1957 February 24, 2013 55 years, 301 days
87 Matthew McConaughey
Dallas Buyers Club
November 4, 1969
March 2, 2014 44 years, 118 days
FIGURE 6.1
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111Sample Lessons
females
female = 33
male = 43
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
males
FIGURE 6.3 The Oscar Ages for All Winners between 1929 and 2014
Age of Academy Award Winners for Females
Actor Film Date of Birth Date of Award Age
82 Kate Winslet The Reader October 5, 1975
February 22, 2009 33 years, 140 days
83 Sandra Bullock The Blind Side July 26, 1964 March 7, 2010 45 years, 224 days
84 Natalie Portman Black Swan June 9, 1981 February 27, 2011 29 years, 263 days
85 Meryl Streep The Iron Lady June 22, 1949 February 26, 2012 62 years, 249 days
86 Jennifer Lawrence
Silver Linings Playbook
August 15, 1990
February 24, 2013 22 years, 193 days
87 Cate Blanchett Blue Jasmine May 14, 1969 March 2, 2014 44 years, 292 days
FIGURE 6.2
After students have reviewed the chart, ask them to calculate the median age of women and
men winning (Figure 6.3). (33 for women and 43 for men.)
From these data, students see that statistics helps to illuminate a difference between the median
age of women and men when they win Academy Awards or Oscars. They can formulate hypotheses
about why the median age of women is lower than men when they receive Academy Awards.
On the other hand, sometimes statistics helps us to see that there really is not a difference
between males and females, even when at first it appears that there is (Figure 6.4).
What is going on here? Women actually got accepted to both programs more often than
men! What happened was that women applied in large numbers to schools with very low admis-
sion rates (medicine and law). Men tended to apply to schools with higher admission rates (engi-
neering and science). When the average was taken, the women had a much lower rate overall, but
the average did not really make sense. Simpson’s Paradox occurs when we unfairly average over
different groups (Figure 6.5).
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112 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy
Social Studies
Winning the Vote
Suggested Activity
Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, on June 4,
1919. Organize the class into teams to research various aspects of this then controversial piece of
legislation. Teams might focus on early efforts in the 19th century, the role and tactics of moder-
ates such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association and militants, the Woman’s
Party. What strategies did each group employ and why? What was the role of African American
women in this effort? What arguments did opponents of women’s suffrage put forth?
Name and discuss five ways, over the last one hundred years, that giving women the right
to vote has made a difference? What women’s issues today engender opposing positions such as
the one around suffrage? What difference does it make today that women have the vote? Imagine
a future presidential election. How would it be different if women did not have the vote?
Program A:
Admit Deny Total
Man 512 313 825
Woman 89 19 108
Total 601 332 933
Given that you were a male, you had a 512/825=62% chance of being admitted. Given that you were a female, you
had an 89/108=82% chance of being admitted.
Males had a harder time getting admitted to Program A.
Program B:
Admit Deny Total
Man 138 279 417
Woman 131 244 375
Total 269 523 792
Given that you were a male, you had a 138/417=33% chance of being admitted. Given that you were a female, you
had a 131/375=35% chance of being admitted.
Males had a harder time getting admitted to Program B.
FIGURE 6.5 Chances of Being Admitted to Programs for Men and Women
Admit Deny Total
Man 650 592 1242
Woman 220 263 483
Total 870 855 1725
Given that you were a male, you had a 650/1242=52% chance of being admitted.
Given that you were female, you had a 220/483=46% chance of being admitted. Yes, there is possible discrimination
at work. But wait . . . let us look more closely at both programs.
FIGURE 6.4 Admission Decisions for Two Graduate Programs at the University of California, Berkeley
The following display gives the admissions decisions for the two largest graduate programs at UC Berkeley. Is there evidence of gender discrimination?
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113References
S U M M A R Y
This chapter has illustrated how women’s studies is challenging
male domination of curricular content. The evolution of that chal-
lenge is illuminated by understanding the different emphases that
coexist in male‐defined, contribution, bifocal, women’s, and
gender‐balanced curricula. We now have a conceptual framework
for a curriculum that interweaves issues of gender with ethnicity,
culture, and class. This framework acknowledges and celebrates a
multifocal, relational view of the human experience.
The idea of the phases of feminist scholarship as a series of
intersecting circles, or patches on a quilt, or threads on a tapestry
suggests parallel ways to think about a class of students. Each
student brings to your classroom a particular positionality that
shapes his/her way of knowing. Your challenge as a teacher is to
interweave the individual truths with course content into complex
understandings that legitimize students’ voices.
With the authority of the school behind it, this relational knowl-
edge has the potential to help students analyze their own social,
cultural, historical, political, and economic contexts. The goal of
relational knowledge is to build a world in which the oppressions of
race, gender, and class—on which capitalism and patriarchy
depend—are challenged by critical citizens in a democratic
society.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
7.1 What is a gender‐balanced, multicultural curriculum?
7.2 What is feminist phase theory?
7.3 Define and give an example of each of the following phases
of the feminist phase theory developed and described in the
chapter: (a) male‐defined curriculum, (b) contribution cur-
riculum, (c) bifocal curriculum, (d) women’s curriculum,
and (e) gender‐balanced curriculum.
7.4 What problems do the contribution and bifocal phases have?
How do the women’s curriculum and gender‐balanced
curriculum phases help solve these problems?
7.5 The chapter states that “knowledge is a social construction.”
What does this mean? In what ways is the new scholarship
on women and on ethnic groups alike? In what ways does
the new scholarship on women and on ethnic groups
challenge the dominant knowledge established in society
and presented in textbooks? Give examples.
7.6 Examine the treatment of women in a sample of social stud-
ies, language arts, mathematics, or science textbooks (or a
combination of two types of textbooks). Which phases or
phase of the feminist phase theory presented in the chapter
best describe(s) the treatment of women in the textbooks
you examined?
7.7 What is the longue durée? Why is it important in the study
of social history, particularly women’s history?
7.8 Research your family history, paying particular attention to
the roles, careers, and influence of women in your family’s
saga. Also describe your ethnic heritage and its influence on
your family’s past and present. Share your family history
with a group of your classmates or workshop participants.
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Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools Diane S. Pollard
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define gender equity and list examples of it.
2. List, describe, and compare the ways that gender intersects with other diversity variables.
3. Explain why gender equity is important in educational and learning environments.
4. List strategies for supporting gender equity for diverse populations.
Equity is usually defined as fair and equal treatment among groups. Gender equity is often
assumed to be fair and equal treatment between girls and boys and men and women. However,
gender equity can also mean the attainment of equal outcomes for females and males even if the
treatment required to obtain those outcomes is different. In homogeneous societies, it may be
possible to discuss gender equity as a single issue. However, in heterogeneous, multicultural
societies, inequities often exist around race and ethnicity as well as gender. In the past, research-
ers and practitioners often treated equity issues as either‐or situations; that is, as if one could be
discriminated against on the basis of either gender or race/ethnicity. Furthermore, efforts to over-
come or compensate for past or present discrimination or inequalities were often treated in the
same manner. For example, in the past few decades, it was not unusual to see attempts to increase
diversity in education or workplaces described as outreach to women or minorities, as if these
two groups were mutually exclusive. The categorization of women and minorities as separate and
distinct groups ignores the reality that many of us are members of both categories, not to mention
others, such as those related to our disabilities, sexualities, and socioeconomic statuses.
7
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116 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools
Furthermore, the ways in which others treat us as well as the ways in which we perceive and cope
with our realities are related not only to our gender but also to the positions we occupy with
respect to race or ethnicity, disability status, sexuality, and other statuses.
Discussions of gender equity have undergone major changes during the past 30 years. Two
of those changes are discussed here. First, there is a recognition that our experiences are shaped by
multiple statuses that intersect with one another. In other words, a person can be female, African
American, and disabled, but these positions are not additive; that is, they do not automatically
indicate only accumulations in discrimination based on gender plus race plus disability. Rather
these statuses interact with one another in ways that result in unique experiences for various groups.
Second, there is increased recognition that individuals occupying multiple statuses should not be
discussed only as victims of discrimination. Rather, occupation of these statuses provides opportu-
nities for individuals to demonstrate strengths in coping with and resisting marginalization as well.
Both of these views focus on ways in which various statuses intersect to shape experience.
This focus reflects changes in conceptions of gender and gender equity that are related to a
greater understanding of the complexities of gender as it intersects with other statuses such as race,
ethnicity, disability, and sexuality. This more complex perspective on gender equity is particularly
relevant to multicultural societies where individuals from various sociocultural groups interact.
Human beings tend to routinely categorize other people on the basis of group membership. It has
been argued that this helps us to negotiate the world (Tajfel, 1972). Furthermore, there is evidence
that children become aware of gender and ethnic differences before the age of six (Waillet &
Roskam, 2012). All cultures organize their members by gender, and there are some commonalities
around gender that can be found across cultures. However, some of the ways in which gender is
conceptualized and implemented vary not only from one cultural group to another but also within
groups. This chapter focuses on issues of gender equity as it is conceptualized and implemented
among diverse populations, particularly in the United States. In addition, this chapter discusses the
implications of these various conceptualizations of gender equity for education and suggests strat-
egies that educators can use to support gender equity among diverse student populations.
7.1 Evolution of Thinking about Gender Equity In the past, discussions about gender equity focused on obtaining equality in treatment and out-
comes for women and girls. During the 1970s and 1980s, as well as into the 1990s, there was con-
siderable discussion of gender equity, especially in education. Much of this work was characterized
as women’s equity because it concerned obtaining equal access and treatment for women and girls
in schools as well as in the workplace. In addition, much—although not all—of the impetus for this
push for women’s equity came from White women. During this time, major accomplishments were
made in obtaining access to educational and work opportunities for women. However, it was often
assumed that the issues and arguments raised were of similar concern to all women and girls regard-
less of their racial or ethnic background or other status indicators, such as disability and sexuality. It
is true that there are some issues around gender equity that transcend sociocultural and other back-
ground status characteristics—such as having equality in access to schooling and work opportuni-
ties and demanding equal resources in classrooms and work sites. However, individuals from non‐White
groups began to question the assumption that all of the issues raised by White women were equally
relevant across diverse populations. In addition, differential treatment between women of color and
White women persisted. Furthermore, the focus on women did not take into account the idea that
some men, particularly men of color, were also the victims of inequities related to gender.
One early line of questioning came from African American women. For example, the soci-
ologist Patricia Hill Collins (2000) argued that Black women’s unique history of subjugation and
marginalization in the United States as a result of slavery and continuing racial discrimination led
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1177.2 Intersections of Gender and Other Statuses
them to hold a different perspective on gender and gender equity than did White women.
According to Collins, because Black women had to contend with both male domination and
White domination, they were subject to oppression from White women as well as both White and
African American men and had to constantly struggle against both. In addition, it has been argued
that African American women have had to fight against negative stereotypes and denigrating
images that continue to be perpetrated in American society (Oesterreich, 2007).
In addition to African Americans, women of other ethnic groups also began to question the
assumption that gender equity had the same meanings and emphases across cultures. Latina,
Asian and Pacific Islander, and Native American women wrote about the ways in which their
perspectives on gender and gender equity were shaped by their cultural origins. Furthermore, as
these cultural differences were explored in greater depth, it became evident that in some cases,
gender‐equity issues applied to men and boys as well as women and girls. For example, Kenyatta
(2012) argued that African American males as well as females have been subjected to gender
stereotyping and inequitable treatment. Similarly, male members of other marginalized ethnic
groups are also perceived and treated negatively within the large societal context.
Other examples of the complexities related to understanding gender and gender equity in
multicultural societies can be identified. For instance, Kosciw, Byard, Fischer, and Joslin (2007)
asserted that among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people, gender equity
involves struggles against both sexism and homophobia. Furthermore, among these groups
gender‐equity issues are related to not only sexual orientation (e.g., LGBT/straight) but also
gender identity (e.g., male/female) and gender expression (e.g., masculine/feminine).
Still another example of intersections of gender with other statuses is evident in writings by
American Muslim women (Haddad, Smith, & Moore, 2006; Karim, 2009). These writers indi-
cated that for Muslim women, particularly in the United States, gender intersects not only with
race and religion but also with native‐born versus immigrant status. Furthermore, these writers
argued that Muslim women, like those of other marginalized groups, must often contend with
strong negative stereotypes about Muslims in general along with the role and status of Muslim
women. Bhatti (2011) noted that male Muslim students, studied in England, also confronted
negative expectations.
In summary, during the past 25–30 years, thinking about gender equity has evolved. Rather
than conceptualizing gender equity in terms of a specific set of issues germane to all women,
writers, educators, and activists have come to understand that in addition to gender, we are all
affected by our statuses with respect to race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, disability, and other
variables. Furthermore, all of these statuses intersect, resulting in variations in the meanings of
gender and gender equity among and within different groups, including both women and men.
These variations, in turn, have implications for supporting gender equity among diverse groups.
7.2 Intersections of Gender and Other Statuses
7.2.1 Concepts of Gender
Webster’s New World Dictionary defines gender as “the fact or condition of being a male or a
female human being, especially with regard to how this affects or determines a person’s self
image, social status, goals, etc.” (Neufeldt & Guralnik, 1994, p. 561). This definition indicates
that gender is related not only to biological sex but also to how one’s sex is perceived by self and
others as well as to how females and males are socialized in a society or cultural group.
Since gender has a sociocultural component, it should not be surprising to learn that it
has been defined differently by various groups. For example, Calhoun, Goeman, and Tsethlikai
(2007) noted that different Native American nations had their own definitions of appropriate male
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118 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools
and female roles and that they taught these roles to their children. Furthermore, these authors
noted that in many Native American nations, gender roles were defined in ways that might be
considered non‐normative by contemporary American standards. For example, Calhoun and her
colleagues noted that historically in many Native American nations women held powerful societal
roles—in some cases more powerful than men. However, these writers noted that these percep-
tions of gender were undermined by colonization and by the imposition of an educational system
that negated these Native perspectives and imposed a norm of male domination over women.
On a slightly different note, several writers have argued that definitions of gender were
imposed on African Americans through the system of slavery. For example, Isom (2007) argued
that initial perceptions of Africans as “savages” by Europeans were carried over into the American
slave system that defined African American men as brutal, aggressive, incompetent, and hyper-
sexual. Many of these stereotypes continue to be perpetrated today through popular media.
Similarly, Ladson‐Billings (2009) argued that African American women had gender identities
imposed on them in slavery that have continued into the present. Some of these gender stereo-
types include “Mammy,” the stereotype of a women who takes care of others’ children while
neglecting her own; “Sapphire,” the projection of African American women as evil and conten-
tious; and “Jezebel,” the perception of Black women as sexually amoral.
A third example of imposed perspectives on gender is described by Haddad and colleagues
(2006). These writers argued that Muslim women have been portrayed either as oppressed or as pros-
titutes and that these images have been perpetuated by colonialism, Christian missionaries, and popular
culture. These same sources paint a picture of Muslim men as generally violent and misogynist.
Despite these concepts of gender imposed on women and men from marginalized groups by
those with power and privilege, there have been attempts to oppose these stereotypes and recognize
how gender is implemented in diverse groups. For example, in Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill
Collins (2000) argued that many Black women resisted stereotypes and defined themselves rather
than allow others to define them. For example, in a study of African American girls, Koonce (2012)
argued that they use language, particularly loud talking, as a mechanism to resist perceived hostility
and disrespect. Other examples of this resistance can be found in the biography of Sojourner Truth;
the fiction of Toni Morrison; and the political activism of African American women such as Eleanor
Holmes Norton, the current congressional representative from Washington, D.C.
Similarly, Karim (2009) and Haddad and colleagues (2006) rejected stereotyped portrayals
of Muslim women. Instead they introduced the concept of Islamic feminism, which Karim (2009)
defined as “. . . ideas of gender justice and activism within a framework of faith . . . and acknowl-
edging multiple structures . . . [that] frame Muslim womens’ lives” (p. 18). They also noted that
Muslim women have served as activists and scholars making a case for gender equity.
Calhoun and colleagues (2007) described two myths that are commonly voiced regarding
gender among Native Americans. The first is that gender issues do not exist because these socie-
ties are idealistically egalitarian, while the second portrays women as the passive victims of
overbearing, dominating men. These authors indicated that while neither is valid, the second
myth is belied by the fact that Native American women have held activist roles both within their
groups and in efforts to fight colonization from without.
These examples demonstrate efforts by women in diverse groups to resist stereotypes and
define concepts of gender in ways that make sense within their particular cultural milieu.
7.2.2 Gender and Diversity
I have already provided some examples of how gender identity intersects with racial or ethnic
identity. In particular, I have discussed how the historical and contemporary treatment of particu-
lar racial, ethnic, or religious groups in American society has affected how they are perceived as
males and females by outsiders as well as their attempts to develop their own concepts of gender
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1197.2 Intersections of Gender and Other Statuses
and gender equity relevant to their particular groups. However, there are additional factors that
have an impact on gender and perceptions of gender equity.
For example, Asher (2008) and Crosnoe and Turley (2011) suggested that not only ethnic-
ity but also immigrant status can intersect with gender roles. Asher noted that there is a tendency
to discuss immigrants monolithically when, in fact, they represent multiple cultural orientations.
Furthermore, these orientations are somewhat fluid as immigrants strive to take on the identity of
hyphenated Americans. Crosnoe and Turley (2011) identified gender differences in what is
termed an “immigrant paradox” (p. 129), which is a tendency for immigrant children to outper-
form their native peers in school even when faced with high levels of economic and social disad-
vantage. Furthermore, this tendency was found to be stronger among Asian than Latin immigrant
youth. However, these authors also noted that this paradox is stronger for boys than for girls.
Although they do not have an explanation for this sex difference among immigrant populations,
it could have implications in future research on gender‐equity issues.
Gender also intersects with disability. For example, Mertens, Wilson, and Mounty (2007)
reported that some issues around gender equity are quite different for women with disabilities as
compared to their peers without disabilities. For example, while women without disabilities may
be fighting to obtain equal access to educational or work opportunities, women with disabilities
may be fighting to obtain equity in these areas along with equity around rights of childbearing
and parenting. In addition, these authors noted that girls with disabilities have less access to
resources, fewer educational opportunities, and poorer employment outcomes than boys. On the
other hand, boys, especially African American boys, tend to be overidentified for special educa-
tion, while girls tend to be underidentified.
There are other intersections between gender, disability, and race that have implications for
gender equity. For example, Petersen (2009) conducted a study of African American women with
disabilities who had successfully completed high school. These women reported that they had to
develop strategies to resist multiple stereotypes—including those of African Americans, women
in general, and people with disabilities—in order to move on with their education. Marginalized
by these stereotypes, these women had to work hard to get their teachers to view them as indi-
viduals rather than as representatives of a generalized category.
The intersection of gender with other statuses has important implications for the assump-
tions we make about individuals. For example, research and popular writings about African
American males tend to focus on negative experiences such as school failure and involvement with
the criminal justice system. As a result, Harradine, Coleman, and Winn (2014) argue that teachers
often overlook their academic potential. It has been argued that more research on academic success
within this group could counteract negative assumptions (Harper & Davis, 2012; Henfield, 2012).
7.2.3 Within‐Group Heterogeneity
In the United States, racial and ethnic groups are very broadly defined. These broad definitions
tend to overlook or blur differences that may exist within particular racial or ethnic groups. In
addition, groups such as individuals with disabilities and people who identify as LGBT are often
categorized without regard to the racial and/or ethnic differences among them. Furthermore, this
lack of attention to within‐group differences may have implications for how gender equity
is implemented. For example, as Calhoun and colleagues (2007) noted, there were more than
100 Native nations before colonization in America. In some, gender roles were equal, in others
women had more power than men, and in still others men had more power than women. Thus,
one cannot make overall generalizations about gender and gender equity among Native Americans.
Similarly, Spencer, Inoue, and McField (2007) noted that Asian Americans are often viewed
as a monolithic group. Furthermore, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders are often referred to as the
“model minority,” particularly with respect to education and achievement. This characterization
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120 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools
of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders can be viewed as an attempt to account for evidence that
some Asian American students outperform all other groups, including Whites, on some measures
of achievement. Thus, Asian Americans were categorized as distinct from other groups of color
who appeared to demonstrate lower measures of performance on the same measures. However,
Spencer and her colleagues (2007) identified 15 different specific Asian groups and 8 different
Pacific Islander groups. Furthermore, these authors found wide variations among these groups as
well as between girls and boys within these groups in achievement performance and outcomes.
While some groups of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders do attain high levels of achievement,
others struggle academically. Ignoring these within‐group differences will have negative effects
for some students and a negative impact on gender equity for others.
Similarly, Ngo (2006) argued that much of the research on Asian Americans has ignored
Southeast and South Asian American students, including, for example, those from Vietnam,
Laos, and Cambodia. Ngo argued that in part because of their relatively recent immigrant status,
these students are marginalized. Furthermore, Ngo suggested that gender issues among these
students have also been ignored and need to be studied more extensively.
Recently, some researchers have begun to study within‐group differences among African
American males and females. Some studies have focused on differences in barriers faced, such as
African American females’ underrepresentation in STEM fields (Farinde & Lewis, 2012) or
African American males’ marginalization by schools (Dyce, 2013). Other research has investigated
different ways in which African American males and females cope with or resist barriers in educa-
tion. For example, Allen (2013) found that middle‐class African American males used a combina-
tion of resistance and accommodation to cope with barriers in school. Another area has focused on
differences between American‐born African Americans and immigrants from the Caribbean and
Africa. For example, Seaton, Caldwell, Sellers, and Jackson (2008) found differences between
African American and African Caribbean youth in perceptions of discrimination. They found that
both African American and African Caribbean males reported discrimination more often than did
both groups of females. However, they also found that perceptions of high levels of discrimination
seemed to have a more negative psychological effect on the Caribbean youth.
Research on intragroup heterogeneity has increased over the past few years. Findings from
current studies suggest that individuals construct complex identities based on their interpretations
of gender, racial/ethnic, and other statuses such as disability and sexuality. These studies can help
educators move beyond simplistic concepts of gender and race to help support equity among and
within diverse groups.
This section has provided some examples of intersections between gender and other sta-
tuses that individuals inhabit, including race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, and immigrant status.
It is important to note that these examples are not intended to be exhaustive. For example, I have
not included socioeconomic status—or what some call social class—in this discussion because
of space constraints. However, it has been argued that socioeconomic status is a powerful force
and its intersections with other statuses needs to be assessed in terms of the impact on educational
aspirations and outcomes (Perry, Link, Boelter, & Leukefeld, 2012). In addition, religious and
other ethnic statuses not mentioned here may have implications for the ways in which we view
gender and gender equity. Research on gender across diverse populations is relatively recent.
I expect increased knowledge in the future will help educators to better understand the nuances
of gender in multicultural societies.
7.2.4 Gender Equity and Diversity: Implications for Education
Researchers have indicated that gender equity is an important aspect of schooling in at least two
ways. First, educators need to work to make sure that schools and classrooms are operating in
ways that promote equity between females and males. Second, it is important to help students
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1217.3 Teacher Perceptions and Expectations
learn to behave in ways that support gender equity in society. Over the years, not only has the
United States become more clearly multicultural, we have also begun to realize that we are part
of a diverse global community. Schools need to prepare students to function effectively in such
communities. As indicated earlier, there is increasing recognition that considerations of gender
equity must include cultural diversity. In this section, I focus on gender equity among diverse
populations within the context of schools. First, I discuss teacher perceptions of gender as they
relate to diverse groups. Next, I provide some information on the gender‐related experiences of
students from diverse populations. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for supporting
and promoting gender equity among students from different cultural backgrounds.
7.3 Teacher Perceptions and Expectations Because the teacher is the organizer and leader of the classroom, the teacher’s perceptions and
expectations of various students are of utmost importance. Several studies have demonstrated
that a teacher’s expectations can have an impact on students’ behavior and performance, particu-
larly with respect to attitudes toward gender as well as race and ethnicity (Irvine, 1990; Sadker &
Zittleman, 2009). In addition, other students observe and learn from the teacher’s behavior. This
can, in turn, shape their attitudes and behavior toward diverse groups. Unfortunately, sometimes
teachers are not aware of the messages they convey through their attitudes, comments, or behav-
iors toward various groups of students. These attitudes, comments, and behaviors are particularly
important because while student populations have become increasingly multicultural, the teacher
population is predominately White and increasingly female. Yoon (2011) notes that these teach-
ers construct classrooms that reflect a White, female, and middle‐class orientation. This orienta-
tion by teachers may create a climate in which students of color may feel excluded.
In another study, DeCastro‐Ambrosetti and Cho (2011) documented how teachers’ percep-
tions of students’ physical appearance including race and gender shaped their expectations. For
example, Asian males and females were seen as academically successful, while African American
and Latina females were viewed as most likely to become parents. In another study, of preservice
and experienced K–12 teachers, Llamas (2012) found that White students were viewed with
greater respect than other students.
Several studies have shown that teachers hold negative perceptions of both African American
girls and boys. For example, in their chapter in the Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education, Welch, Patterson, Scott, and Pollard (2007) noted that African American
males are often viewed as “criminals in the making” and “inherently evil” by their teachers
(p. 473). On the other hand, these authors noted that many teachers view African American girls
as “hypersexual” (p. 473). Furthermore, teachers focus more on African American girls’ social
behavior rather than their academic work. African American girls and boys are both viewed nega-
tively; however, the particular dimensions vary by gender. In either case, these perceptions tend
to focus on these particular students as less educable and more problematic in the classroom. In a
study of a low‐performing school district that was populated predominately by African American
students, Lynn, Bacon, Totten, Bridges, and Jennings (2010) found evidence that negative percep-
tions of African American males were held by both African American and White teachers. These
students were perceived as unmotivated and unwilling to engage in school. The teachers tended
to blame the students and their parents for poor academic performance and behavior.
There is also some evidence that teachers’ gender may play a role in their perceptions of
African American students. Taylor, Gunter, and Slate (2001) reported that more male teachers per-
ceived African American girls as behavioral problems in the classroom than did female teachers.
Wyatt, Oswalt, White, and Peterson (2008) investigated preservice teachers’ attitudes
toward gay men and lesbians. Over 300 students completed an attitude questionnaire. The results
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122 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools
indicated that overall the students held moderate attitudes toward gay males and lesbians.
However, lesbians were viewed more positively than gay males. Furthermore, the attitudes toward
lesbians and gay males were more positive among student who felt they were more “well informed
and educated on sexuality issues” (p. 178). The authors concluded that more attention needs to be
given to educating preservice teachers on issues related to sexuality and sexual orientation.
Differential perceptions also extend to teachers themselves. For example, Ladson‐Billings
(2009) noted that the popular media consistently portray Black women teachers negatively, while
White women teachers are portrayed positively, often as saviors of unruly African American
students. Furthermore, African American women teachers are often viewed as less competent
than White women teachers. Ladson‐Billings found that these perspectives were exhibited by
some of her education students.
These studies indicate that teachers can enter classrooms with deep‐seated negative predis-
positions toward students from cultures other than their own and in some cases even toward stu-
dents from backgrounds similar to theirs. Some teachers may not even be aware of their attitudes
and beliefs or may assume that their perceptions are normative. It should not be surprising to find
that these attitudes are often displayed in teacher behaviors toward different groups of students.
These teacher behaviors significantly influence the classroom experiences of their students.
7.4 Classroom Experiences of Females and Males from Diverse Populations
In classrooms, the intersections of gender with race and/or ethnicity are highly evident in students’
depictions of their experiences. In many cases, these reflect attempts not only to resist stereotyp-
ing and discriminatory behaviors directed toward them but also to manage and assert their own
gendered and cultured identities as they attempt to achieve the academic goals of schooling.
One issue concerns whether or not students even remain in schools that they may perceive
as nonsupportive or even hostile to them. Gender intersects with other statuses here. For example,
Greene and Winters (2006) studied high school graduation rates in the 100 largest school districts
in the United States. These authors found overall gender and racial differences in graduation rates
that were not unusual. Specifically, they reported that high school graduation rates were higher
for White students than for students of color and higher for females than for males. However,
when looking at the intersections of gender and race or ethnicity, these authors found different
patterns among different groups. Among African Americans in 2003, 59 percent of females
and 48 percent of males graduated; among Hispanics, the rates were 58 percent for females and
49 percent for males. Among Asian American high school graduates, 73 percent were female and
70 percent were male; similarly, among White students, 79 percent of females and 74 percent of
males graduated from high school. These data indicate not only that African American and
Hispanic students had lower graduation rates but also that the gender gap in high school gradua-
tion was greater for these groups. Other studies have found that African American males experi-
ence higher suspension rates from school (Butler et al.; 2012, Loosen & Martinez, 2013) and that
African American and Latino males who graduated from high school were less ready for college
than other groups (Villavicencio et al., 2013).
Gardenhire‐Crooks and colleagues (2010) interviewed African American, Latino, and
Native American men who were attending community colleges. They found both similarities and
differences across these three groups in their descriptions of their high school and college experi-
ences. For example, all three groups of men reported experiencing low expectations, stereotyp-
ing, and discriminatory behavior in high school. Their aspirations for higher education were
discouraged, and they were denied access to information and counseling related to preparation
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1237.4 Classroom Experiences of Females and Males from Diverse Populations
for college. However, while African American men felt they were judged negatively on the basis
of race and gender, Latino men reported they were judged on the basis of ethnicity and socioeco-
nomic status. Native American men were more concerned with the issues of balancing their
identities in tribal and mainstream cultures. These issues continued to follow these men when
they enrolled in community colleges. Furthermore, individuals from all three groups reported
receiving little support from faculty or peers on their college campuses. Despite these problems,
the men in this study indicated that they refused to allow these stereotypes and experiences to
have a negative impact on their self‐esteem or their behavior.
An analysis of enrollment and achievement in math courses among high school students
also found differential patterns related to intersections of gender and race/ethnicity (Riegle‐
Crumb, 2006). Using national data, this author found that African American and Latino males
benefited less from taking Algebra I in their freshman year than did White males. Even though all
three groups of males began with the same freshman course, African American and Latino males
ended up taking fewer higher‐level math courses than did White males. Furthermore, this differ-
ence in course sequencing could not be explained by academic performance. In fact, the author
reported that African Americans with high grades in math received less benefit than might be
expected. This pattern was not found for females.
The previous studies provide examples of gender inequities that differentiate the school
experiences among males from different racial and ethnic groups. They point out that more atten-
tion needs to be directed toward understanding these experiences and their impact on students’
educational attainment.
Additional studies indicate that the intersections of gender and race and/or ethnicity are
associated with differential school experiences. Ginorio, Lapayese, and Vasquez (2007) reported
that the intersection of gender and ethnicity led to differential tracking for Latino/a students.
These researchers reported that Latinos/as generally tended to be underrepresented in college
preparatory and gifted programs and overrepresented in remedial and vocational tracks. This pat-
tern has also been found for African American students. However, these researchers noted sex
differences in tracking within the Latino/a group. For example, Latinas were more often recom-
mended for gendered occupations that did not require a college degree, such as cosmetology,
while Latinos were directed toward fields such as automobile mechanics. Rarely were these stu-
dents encouraged to consider nontraditional occupations. These authors also noted that often
Latino/a students internalized these low expectations, accepting them as their own aspirations.
Some studies have also suggested that gender may play a role in Muslim students’ experi-
ences. Bhatti (2011) studied male Muslim students in England and found that although they valued
academic success, they also felt alienated from school. A different perspective is described by Guo
(2011) who discussed difficulties Muslim parents had in communicating their expectations about
gender‐appropriate behavior in areas such as dress and same‐sex activities to school personnel.
Overall, gender and race intersect in ways that have implications for the educational experi-
ences and outcomes of girls and boys of color. For example, Wakiroo and Carter (2010) noted
that, like Whites, girls of color tend to demonstrate higher academic achievement than boys of
color. These authors suggested that minority girls coped with the negative experiences they
encountered in schools in ways that allowed them to achieve academically in spite of these expe-
riences. On the other hand, minority boys’ encounters with these negative experiences led to
less‐positive outcomes. In part, Wakiroo and Carter attributed these gender differences to the
interactions between these students’ attempts to develop and express their sex‐role identities and
the negative reactions that educators and other adults have toward minority males’ sex‐role
expressions. Specifically, Wakiroo and Carter noted, as have others mentioned in this chapter, that
the behaviors exhibited by minority males are often perceived as dangerous. As a result, the ten-
dency is to remove them from the classroom or school through suspending them or making them
“push‐outs.” While not viewed positively, minority females are less likely to be viewed as threats.
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124 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools
Holland (2012) found gender and race differences in students’ social integration at a deseg-
regated high school. African American and Latino males were able to become more socially
integrated than females because of opportunities for participation in sports that were not available
to females.
Gender also intersects with disability to affect students’ school experiences. Mertens and
colleagues (2007) reported that girls with disabilities tend to be tracked into life skills and home
economics curricula, while boys with disabilities are more likely to be tracked into vocational
education curricula. As a result, girls with disabilities have fewer successful employment out-
comes after high school than boys with similar disabilities. Furthermore, Mertens and her col-
leagues reported that while boys tend to be overidentified for special education classes, girls are
often underidentified. Thus, while some boys are misplaced in special education classes, some
girls who may need the resources provided in such classes are denied access to them.
Mertens and her colleagues also noted that gender intersects with race and ethnicity in the
school experiences of students who have disabilities. They reported that African American males
were labeled mentally retarded three times more often than were White males and that they were
labeled emotionally disturbed twice as often as were White males. Furthermore, they pointed out
that once labeled, African Americans—especially males—along with Latinos were more likely
to be placed in restrictive, segregated educational environments than were White males.
In addition to intersections of gender with race and/or ethnicity and with disability, there is
evidence that gender intersects with sexuality in ways that influence students’ experiences in
school. In their review of research related to gender equity and sexuality, Kosciw and colleagues
(2007) noted that LGBT youth are faced with prejudice and discrimination related to heterosex-
ism and homophobia. These authors reported that these negative attitudes toward LGBT youth
are evident even in the early grades. Furthermore, children and adolescents tend to show more
hostile attitudes toward gay males than toward lesbians. Kosciw and his colleagues argued that
this may be attributed to students’ tendencies to support traditional and restricted gender roles.
For students who take on those attitudes, gay males may appear more threatening than lesbians.
However, these authors noted that both LGBT males and females are particularly at risk for being
victims of bullying and other negative school experiences, especially from their heterosexual
peers. However, the specific types of experiences vary by gender. Male students reported being
victims of more physical threats and attacks than females because of their sexuality. However,
females reported more psychological trauma. Gastic (2012) found that heterosexual females
tended to be more supportive of LGBT students than heterosexual males. In addition, the percep-
tions of African American males and females were more differentiated than those of White or
Latino males and females.
Up to this point, the chapter has focused on the implications of diversity for gender equity
in education. Several important trends appear to be evident from studies in this area.
First, data indicate that gender intersects with race, ethnicity, disability, and sexuality in
ways that have an impact on individuals’ experiences as well as others’ perceptions of them. The
specific ways in which these intersections are implemented vary from group to group. In some
cases, gender roles have been defined historically by members of particular cultural groups. In
many others, however, gender roles have been imposed on groups as they were marginalized by
slavery, other forms of discrimination, and colonialism. These imposed gender roles have often
served to maintain the cultural status quo in American society, which marginalizes individuals on
the basis of race, ethnicity, disability, and sexuality.
Second, evidence is continuing to emerge that demonstrates that the intersections of gender
with other statuses are very complex. It is clear that one cannot make assumptions about indi-
viduals based on gender, race, or any other status alone. Furthermore, there is evidence that the
broad racial and ethnic definitions used to categorize people in the United States are not fully
adequate for understanding how categorization by gender is implemented. In addition to race and
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1257.5 Supporting Gender Equity among Diverse Populations
ethnicity, additional inter‐ and intragroup factors, such as ethnicity, immigrant status, disability
status, sexuality, and religion, seem to have implications for both how gender is conceptualized
and expressed and the types of inequities experienced.
Third, it is clear that the intersections of gender with other statuses have implications for
students’ school experiences and outcomes. Unfortunately, for students who occupy statuses out-
side of the dominant mainstream, these experiences and outcomes are often negative. It has long
been evident that schools in the United States have failed to educate students of color, those with
disabilities, and LGBT youth, among other groups, effectively. However, recent research indicates
that gender inequities also exist in terms of how these students are perceived and treated in school.
Finally, demographic changes in the characteristics of both students and educators have
implications for understanding the intersections of gender with other statuses. Specifically, while
both the general and student populations in the United States have become increasingly diverse
in the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the demographic char-
acteristics of educators have not kept pace. On the contrary, the teaching force remains predomi-
nantly White, female, and monolingual.
Given these demographic patterns, if equity is to be advanced in U.S. schools, more informa-
tion is needed that will help teachers and other school staff members support gender equity among
diverse student populations. The final section of this chapter suggests some strategies educators
can use to work effectively to promote equity in a way that recognizes the intersections of gender
with race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, and other important inter‐ and intragroup statuses.
7.5 Supporting Gender Equity among Diverse Populations
As adult role models in schools, educators often provide information about the value of equity
with their overt and covert actions. Unfortunately, in many situations, these adults may in fact
promote inequities among groups. In some cases, this may be evident by openly inequitable treat-
ment of individuals because of their gender, race, disability, sexuality, or a combination of these
variables. In other cases, the adult educator may unintentionally display inequitable attitudes.
A more subtle pattern that promotes inequity may occur when behaviors exhibited by students or
other adults, reflecting prejudice and discrimination, are ignored by the adults at school.
As indicated earlier, issues around gender are intertwined with issues around other statuses,
particularly among groups that have been marginalized. Thus, it is an oversimplification to focus on
one aspect of equity (e.g., gender) without also considering other dimensions that may cause indi-
viduals to be mistreated, such as race, ethnicity, immigrant status, religion, sexuality, and disability.
In this section, four strategies aimed at addressing gender inequities among diverse popula-
tions are suggested for educators. These strategies are not exhaustive or complete. Rather, they
are starting points for teachers and other educators to consider if they want to create classroom
and school environments that not only address gender inequities but also promote equity that
supports differences in gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and other statuses that are
associated with discrimination and exclusion.
7.5.1 Strategy 1: Confronting and Addressing Stereotyping, Discrimination, and Systemic Oppression
As suggested earlier, discussions of topics related to status differences, inequality, and discrimi-
nation are often avoided because they are difficult and uncomfortable to address. In some cases,
this discomfort is related to the teacher’s inability or unwillingness to examine his/her attitudes
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126 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools
toward members of gender, racial, ethnic, or sexual groups different from his/her own. In order
to confront and address stereotyping and discrimination by others, a teacher or other educator
needs to be clear about his/her own perspectives. For example, Zaman (2008), noting that teach-
ers tend to view African American boys as troublemakers, advocated that they be encouraged to
be self‐reflective about their attitudes toward boys, especially boys of color, during their preser-
vice training. Similarly, Asher (2007) suggested that teacher education courses should include
opportunities for preservice students to address issues where gender, race, ethnicity, culture, and
sexuality intersect. Noting that issues such as these often invite silence, Asher argued that courses
that openly address these intersections can serve as models that preservice teachers can then
implement in their classrooms.
Kosciw and colleagues (2007) noted that issues around sexuality are often repressed or
avoided in preservice teacher education. These authors argued that there is a strong need for teacher
training about homophobia and its expression. In addition, teachers need to obtain information
about ways to protect LGBT students from physical and psychological assault. In addition, schools
need to develop clear and unambiguous policies that promote safety for LGBT students and staff.
In addition to reflecting on their own perspectives with respect to gender, diversity, and
equity, teachers also have numerous opportunities to use actual situations as stimuli to help their
students understand how inequities are expressed in society and how equity can be promoted. For
example, Coltrane and Messineo (2000) analyzed how race and gender intersected to promote
stereotyping in television commercials in the 1990s. They found that these commercials tended
to portray “White men as powerful, White women as sex objects, African American men as
aggressive and African American women as inconsequential” (p. 363). Information such as this
could be incorporated into classroom curricula.
Gersti‐Pepin and Liang (2010) also examined mass media in an analysis of its coverage of
a high school’s use of a Native American mascot. They noted that the media coverage reflected
both racism and sexism because Native American women were often erased by these mascots and
men were reduced to objects. They also argued that school personnel need to address how mas-
cots and other denigrating portrayals of groups became part of school policy. Haddad and col-
leagues (2006) suggested that another area where schools need to confront issues around gender
equity among diverse populations has to do with dress codes, particularly when students’ cultures
may require dress that is distinct from that of other students. This issue may become quite com-
plex. For example, some Muslim women and girls are required by their religion to wear a certain
mode of dress. However, some public schools may prohibit attire associated with a specific reli-
gion, arguing that they are required to enforce separation of religion and state.
Examples such as these can provide interesting stimuli for classroom discussions about
cultural differences (and similarities) that intersect with gender as well as attitudes that are often
accepted as normative but that, in fact, can be quite discriminatory. By addressing these and other
instances of difference and stereotyping, teachers can help students understand that equity or
inequity is part of the practice of everyday life. Discussions of these and similar situations can
also help students begin to reflect on their own perspectives with respect to gender and equity
among diverse populations. In addition, Griffin and Jackson (2011) suggest that educators need
to become aware of how privilege and oppression affect their own as well as their students’ lives.
7.5.2 Strategy 2: Obtaining Knowledge about Cultures, Statuses, and Intersections
Several researchers have questioned whether teachers are adequately prepared to work with diverse
populations of students (Douglas, Lewis, Douglas, Scott, & Garrison‐Wade, 2008; Kohli, 2009).
In addition to confronting and addressing evidence of stereotyping, prejudice, and discri mination,
teachers and other educators need to obtain knowledge about how gender is conceptualized among
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1277.5 Supporting Gender Equity among Diverse Populations
diverse groups. For example, Calhoun and colleagues (2007) argued that educators need to read
works written by Native American women scholars in order to understand the historical and con-
temporary roles of gender among these groups in the United States. Similarly, Oesterreich (2007)
noted the tendency of educators to classify African American girls as “at risk” or “in crisis.”
Oesterreich suggested that if teachers familiarized themselves with some of the writings of African
American feminists, they might be able to understand African American girls’ behavior within the
context of African American history, racism, and resilience. Similarly, Kosciw and colleagues
(2007) called for the inclusion of more writings by LGBT individuals in curricula.
In addition to increasing their own knowledge about the intersections of gender with race,
ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and other statuses, teachers can also incorporate literature illustrat-
ing these issues into their curricula. For example, Endo (2009) identified books that address
gender and youth identity among Asian American youth. These books could be incorporated into
adolescents’ reading materials. Similar materials by African American, Latino/a, and Native
American writers could be included among the readings assigned to students.
7.5.3 Strategy 3: Building on Students’ Assets and Strengths
All too often, discussions of gender among students of color and other marginalized groups are
characterized by the use of terms such as plight, crisis, and victim. In addition, often research on
gender as well as race, ethnicity, disability, and sexuality begins with an assumption that White
heterosexual and abled individuals represent the norm against which all others are to be com-
pared. Sanders and Bradley (2005) argue that reliance on this comparison model tends to focus
educators’ attention on deficits rather than on strengths and assets these students might bring to
bear on their situations. Rather than compare girls and women as well as boys and men from vari-
ous cultural groups with a so‐called normative group, or even with each other, educators may be
better served by attempting to understand the social and cultural capital they have learned within
their families and communities and how they attempt to use that capital to cope with schools and
other societal institutions.
Oesterreich (2007) provided an illustration of this asset‐based approach in a case study of
an African American high school senior. This student’s life was framed by some observers as
anchored in poverty and a struggling family situation. Yet an alternative analysis found that this
individual actually used African American women’s history, contemporary hip‐hop, styles of
dress, and her mother’s activism to define herself as a leader fighting for freedom for herself and
her community.
Similarly, Petersen’s (2009) study of African American women with disabilities who had
successfully completed high school found that an important element of their success included
interactions with educators who were able to recognize and support their efforts to resist stereo-
typing and marginalization. Some of the ways the educators built on these students’ strengths
included getting to know them individually and personally rather than as members of a particular
group, encouraging them to become actively engaged in instruction, and providing them with
culturally responsive curricula.
Ginorio and colleagues (2007) called for educators to familiarize themselves with Latino/a
culture so that they can recognize the cultural capital that Latino/a families provide for their chil-
dren. These authors indicated that some of the strengths these students bring to school include a
strong sense of altruism and a collective rather than individualistic orientation. As a result, they
contended, educators can build on these strengths by means of cooperative rather than competi-
tive educational strategies.
Waddell (2011) described a teacher education program in which students were immersed in
a culturally different community for several weeks. This experience helped them overcome a defi-
cit orientation toward students and their families and identify assets within these communities.
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128 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools
Evidence of assets and strengths related to gender as it intersects with other statuses can be
found among all groups. These strengths can become the foundation on which educational skills
can be scaffolded.
7.5.4 Strategy 4: Increasing the Number of Female and Male Teachers Who Represent Diversity in Race, Ethnicity, Disability, Sexuality, and Other Statuses
Welch and colleagues (2007) pointed out a steady disappearance of African American teachers
since the Supreme Court’s Brown decision in 1954. Different factors appear to have contributed
to this phenomenon. On one hand, Marbley, Bonner, McKisick, Henfield, and Watts (2007) sug-
gested that the decline in the number of African American teachers was a consequence of the
1954 Brown decision. African American teachers lost their jobs as African American students
entered predominately White schools. In addition, Ramirez (2009) noted that students of color
have not been choosing to enter the field of education as often as in the past. Welch and col-
leagues (2007) noted that in the 2005–2006 school year, although African Americans constituted
20 percent of the student population, they were only 8 percent of the teaching population. African
American males were conspicuously absent, accounting for only 1 percent of teachers.
Ginorio and her colleagues (2007) also noted a lack of Latino/a teachers. These authors
estimated that Latinos/as constituted only about 5 percent of the teaching population. Furthermore,
in California, a state with a large population from this group, 47 percent of students but only
15 percent of teachers were Latino/a. As with African Americans, male Latino teachers are
noticeably absent (Gomez, Rodriguez, & Agosto, 2008). Flores (2011) found that Latina teachers
provided cultural bridges between schools with their mainstream White orientations and Latino
communities and families.
Increasing the numbers of male and female teachers who represent diversity in race, ethnic-
ity, disability, and sexuality has a number of benefits. These teachers can serve as positive role
models not only for students whose groups they represent but also for White students, who can
learn about the existence of multiple perspectives from them. Furthermore, interactions with
teachers from diverse populations may help all students function more effectively in multicul-
tural societies. In addition, these teachers can often bridge cultural gaps between diverse stu-
dents’ communities and schools because of their knowledge of their own communities. These
teachers also can help White teachers learn about the intersections of gender and culture, particu-
larly the gendered cultural strengths that diverse populations have to offer schools and society
(Ginorio et al., 2007; Gomez et al., 2008; Welch et al., 2007).
7.6 Conclusions For many educators, supporting gender equity in education once meant providing equal access
and outcomes for all boys and girls or women and men. However, research over the past 20–30
years has indicated that gender‐equity issues are considerably more nuanced. Gender is not a
status that stands alone. Nor is it a status that can be added on to or prioritized with respect to
other statuses. Rather, gender intersects with our other statuses, such as race, ethnicity, sexuality,
disability, and religion, to produce unique conceptualizations and implementations of female and
male roles. To make matters more complex, these conceptualizations and implementations can
emanate from groups representing broadly defined statuses (e.g., African Americans or LGBT
groups), from smaller subgroups within a broadly defined group (e.g., specific Native American
nations), or from individuals. These conceptualizations and implementations can be group
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129References
oriented, such as when members of a particular ethnic group socialize their young girls and boys
to take on perspectives that the group deems important. However, these conceptualizations and
implementations may also be individually determined as one attempts to establish an identity and
cope with the external world.
This more complex perspective means that teachers and other educators no longer have the
misplaced luxury of considering gender equity apart from other aspects of equity. Furthermore,
an understanding of gender equity as it intersects with equity regarding other statuses will require
educators to become more knowledgeable about the historical and contemporary experiences of
all the groups that enrich our multicultural society. However, by opening themselves up to new
experiences and perspectives, teachers and educators can enrich themselves as well as their stu-
dents and will become much more competent at creating truly equitable learning environments.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
7.1 Think about your development as a male or female in your
family and school. Identify some instances in which your
gender intersected with other statuses, such as your race,
ethnicity, disability status, or sexuality.
7.2 Interview females and males from groups other than your
own about their experiences in elementary and high school.
What are some similarities and differences around gender
and gender equity?
7.3 Identify a particular form of television programming, for
example, situation comedies, crime shows, or reality shows.
Review several episodes and analyze how gender is por-
trayed in diverse populations.
7.4 Read literature written by females and males from diverse
cultural groups. What are their perspectives on gender and
gender equity?
7.5 Join with some of your peers to identify age‐appropriate
curricula, literature, and activities that represent how les-
sons related to gender and diverse population groups are
conceptualized and implemented in schools.
7.6 Think of some strategies you could use to confront instances
of gender inequity among diverse populations in your class-
room or school.
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chapter
Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education Cris Mayo
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Compare and contrast sexuality and gender identity.
2. List and define the components of the acronym LGBTQ.
3. Discuss ways in which the school can create equity for gender minorities.
4. Discuss the tensions between multiculturalism and the LGBTQ movement.
5. Explain how homophobia and heterosexism can influence the school climate.
Part of the project of critical multiculturalism involves examining the political and social con-
struction of the identities that structure social, political, and educational relations. It may seem
relatively unremarkable that school practices and policies are now increasingly attentive to stu-
dent diversities. However, some categories of identity such as those related to gender identity and
minority sexuality are often not part of the official school curriculum or multicultural education.
Curricula in many areas have yet to adequately address lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) identity
or gender identity, including students who are gender nonconforming, transgender, intersex, or
who are in the process of questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity. Allies of lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students—well as young people growing up in
same‐sex‐partnered families—find the exclusion of information on their families an impediment
to their education and have pushed for inclusion of such issues.
D u b o va
/S h u tt
er st
o ck
.c o m
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1338.1 Sexuality and Gender Identity
The U.S. 2010 Census shows an 80 percent increase in the number of same‐sex‐partnered
households, making up 0.6 percent of U.S. families (Lofquist, Lugalia, O’Connell, & Feliz,
2012). In 2015, there were 35 states where same‐sex marriage was legal. Although the United
States has yet to reach a national consensus on same‐sex marriage, a Gallup poll in 2014 indi-
cated that 55 percent of Americans support same‐sex marriage and that nearly 8 in 10 young
adults favor it (McCarthy, 2014). In some ways, schools have yet to fully catch up to the shifts in
generational attitudes toward LGBTQ people. Recent media coverage of violence and bullying
against LGBTQ youth show continued hostility toward nonconforming sexual orientation and
gender identity but the increasing public attention to rights of LGBTQ youth, adults, and families
shows that progress is being made and can continue to be made. Schools can help.
In multicultural education, the reluctance to address LGBTQ issues is waning, but there
are still conceptual barriers to including sexuality and gender identity in lessons on diversity.
Understanding that identities are intersectional—that they are made up of overlapping and
complex categories—is one way to encourage the inclusion of LGBTQ issues in discussions of
other forms of diversity. The term multiculturalism itself may seem to exclude thinking about
sexuality and gender identity, perhaps because of the belief that culture refers to a group of
people who have overwhelmingly complete similarities to one another. Or there may be the
mistaken assumption that because movements for the rights of LGBTQ people are historically
relatively young, sexuality is a new form of difference and has not yet reached a point of devel-
opment into a distinct culture. Or reluctance to discuss LGBTQ issues in the context of
multiculturalism—or any subject area—may be related to the ongoing controversy and disa-
greement over LGBTQ rights.
Rather than arguing that sexuality creates a distinct culture—though there has been ample
work making similar arguments—it may be better to posit that minority sexuality and gender
expression form multiple kinds of cultures, subcultures, counterpublics, and communities. As a
result of the globalization of capital and representation—and the transnational movement of
people—those cultures, subcultures, counterpublics, and communities are sometimes locally dis-
tinct and sometimes globally similar to one another. These same complications regarding the
concept of culture have been discussed by many multicultural theorists (e.g., Covertino, Levinson,
and Gonzalez in Chapter 2 of this book) and, thus, including the categories of sexual and gender
identity when thinking about diversity in general helps to continue complex understandings of
interrelated and intersecting forms of diversity.
8.1 Sexuality and Gender Identity Sexuality and gender identity are themselves complicated concepts, including both diversity of
sexual partners, gendered bodies and identities, and other related categories of difference increas-
ingly organized under the general term queer and in their own distinct communities. Lesbian, gay,
and bisexual may seem like relatively easy concepts to understand, but even within those catego-
ries there may be racial, cultural, and regional differences, different relationships to normative
gender identity, and differing degrees of politicization of sexual orientation. Despite histories of a
common struggle for rights, different groups that may organize with the LGBTQ movement have
different targets for their political action or different emphases on personal and community needs.
For instance, transgender people—people for whom gender categories are insufficient to express
their identities or people for whom their birth sex does not conform with their gender identity—
may find some common cause with lesbian, gay, and bisexual people but centralize gender iden-
tity above sexual orientation. Gender transgression—that is, activities meant to critique “normal”
gender roles and expectations, including drag performances and political activities—have long
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134 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education
been part of LGBTQ and queer culture but transphobia still continues even within gay and les-
bian communities. In addition, racism, sexism, and classism create divisions within LGBTQ
communities—or contribute to such communities remaining subdivided.
All sexual minorities may be very aware and critical of how gender norms constrain their
lives, but for transgender people gender identity is a central site of political struggle. Some trans‐
people may use medical or other interventions in order to bring their bodies into conformity with
their gender identity, while other gender‐queer transgender people may work to have their bodies
and identities reflect gender complexity that moves beyond the normative binary of female or
male. Transgender young people are making their gender identity known earlier and finding more
support from school districts and parents, but social disapproval remains and attempts to protect
the rights of transgender students have not yet found broad support. Other people also concerned
with the relationship between gender and normative bodies include intersex people. For intersex
people—that is, people with bodies that are not easily categorized by dominant categories of
male and female—medical intervention to “normalize” their bodies without their consent is a key
political issue. Intersex activism reminds the medical establishment, parents, and the broader
community that even young people deserve to be able to give informed consent about an issue so
crucial to self‐identity as gender.
Queer is a concept and identity that works against problematic forms of normalization,
troubling the exclusions that any category of identity may enact. Because the processes of nor-
malization and the pressure to conform to dominant understandings of gender and sexuality
affect people of all sexual and gender identities—including heterosexual and conventionally gen-
dered people—examining the processes of normalization provides all people with a way to criti-
cally engage cultural, political, and educational messages about gender and sexuality. Questioning,
too, is a term used to describe young people in a critical relationship to dominant categories of
identity—and questioning youth report that they feel less supported in public schools than het-
erosexual or LGBTQ youth (Birkett, Espelage, & Koenig, 2009). Students who identify as allies
to LGBTQ youth but are themselves self‐identified heterosexual or cisgendered (i.e., having the
same gender identity as their ascribed gender category) may also find themselves harassed as if
they were LGBTQ themselves.
8.2 LGBTQ Issues and the School Curriculum Increasingly, sexual and gender minorities and their allies are working to see that LGBTQ issues
are represented in school curricula and extracurricular groups. There has been success in some
states, with gender identity and social orientation being included in nondiscrimination laws and
school policies. In California, textbooks will now include LGBTQ history. While there have been
attempts in the last several years to outlaw curricular representations of LGBTQ people and for-
bid teachers to address homophobia and transphobia, those efforts have largely failed. Still,
because LGBTQ rights are not supported by all parents and communities, challenges continue to
be directed against policies aimed at inclusion. In November 2014, for instance, parents in
Vancouver, British Columbia, brought suit against their district’s policy allowing transgender
youth to use the school bathroom reflecting their chosen gender identity, arguing that such policy
violated their children’s right to privacy and their parental rights to raise their children in the
gender they see fit (Chan, 2014). Policy and cultural barriers to addressing minority sexuality and
gender identity remain even when legal prohibitions against representing LGBTQ issues are
lifted. Still, many teachers who know that they are teaching students who are LGBTQ or who are
being raised by lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) parents would like to be able to
make those students feel supported and part of the school community but fear that addressing
issues of minority sexuality will put their jobs at risk. LGBTQ parents also face barriers to their
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1358.3 Overlapping Histories of Multiculturalism and LGBTQ Movements
participation in schools and are concerned that their children are inadequately protected from
harassment (Casper & Schultz, 1999). LGBTQ teachers may be concerned that their identity puts
them at risk in their jobs, especially if they are not protected by antidiscrimination laws and poli-
cies that cover sexual and gender identity. LGBTQ school leaders face the same pressures, yet
research indicates that their experience of their own minority status makes them more concerned
with creating a respectful school environment for students and school community members of all
identities and backgrounds (Capper, 1999).
Incorporating LGBTQ issues into multicultural education is one way to ensure that schools
improve how they address the educational needs of diverse students, families, and communities.
Understanding the political and social histories of minority sexualities and gender identities in
conversation with more well‐known social justice histories can not only help to explain the mul-
ticultural aspects of movements for LGBTQ people but also highlight work against biases of all
forms that still needs to be done within LGBTQ communities and in other movements and com-
munities. At the same time that LGBTQ and related issues need to be made part of education
against bias, the story of bias and limitation is not the only story to be told about sexual‐minority
people, communities, and cultures. Understanding the long histories and varying experiences of
sexuality‐based communities and identities can provide a broader and more complex view of how
sexuality has been one feature in the organization of social relations and identities. Although
examining the story of all differences needs to include looking at the processes of normalization,
oppression, and resistance, it is also important to remember that those pressures are not the only
experience of difference. That people are resilient, creative, responsible, and innovative is as true
for people who have lived lives that do not conform to norms of gender and sexuality as it is
for anyone.
8.3 Overlapping Histories of Multiculturalism and LGBTQ Movements
The modern gay movement usually dates its beginning to a rebellion of bar patrons at the
Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York, on June 28, 1969. Many of the protesters were
young people of color and included lesbian, gay, and transgender people. After years of harass-
ment by police, LGBTQ people decided to fight back, unleashing days of unrest in New York
City and providing a center for the political organizing already begun there and elsewhere.
However, dating the start of any movement is problematic—the 1966 Compton Cafeteria riots
protesting the exclusion of gender‐nonconforming people from that establishment predate
Stonewall and centralize the link between gender transgression and gay liberation (Stryker,
2008). Other important dates and activities are also associated with the beginning of the LGBTQ
civil rights movement. Smaller political advocacy groups or activists starting in the early
20th century challenged the categorization of homosexuality as a psychological disorder. Multiple
small sexual‐ and/or gender‐minority communities developed in various racial, ethnic, gendered,
and geographic locations before Stonewall. But placing the beginnings of the social movement
for sexuality and gender‐identity rights in the diverse context of the Stonewall riot underscores
the importance of understanding minority sexuality as multicultural and part of the history and
future of multicultural education.
Making Stonewall the beginning of the gay liberation movement also centralizes the often
unstable and linked struggles for rights for minority sexualities and genders. Patrons of the
Stonewall Inn included gay men, lesbians, and transgender, transsexual, and transvestite people,
some of whom were gay and some not. As active as transgender people have been in struggles for
gay rights, they have also been excluded by those in the gay rights movement seeking rights for
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136 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education
only a limited, respectable‐appearing segment of the LGBTQ community. Stonewall also stands
as a reminder that even radical movements enact exclusions (Frye, 2002).
Indebted to the civil rights movement, the gay liberation movement often modeled itself on
activism aimed at improving the lives of people of color. This was so in part because some gay
liberation activists were people of color and in part because the civil rights and Black power move-
ments set the standard for activism during the 1960s. Activists in civil rights, Black feminism,
women of color feminism, and Black power groups pushed the gay, women’s, and lesbian move-
ments to be aware of racism, and leaders in various movements urged their members to be critical
of their homophobia (Anzaldúa, 1990; Clarke, 1981, 1983; Combahee River Collective, 1982;
Lorde, 1984, 1988; Smith, 1983). This was by no means a simple process or a Utopian moment;
movements were also energetically split on whether addressing minority sexuality and gender iden-
tity would delegitimize their claims or open them to ridicule. For instance, Betty Friedan, leader of
the National Organization for Women, characterized lesbian involvement in the women’s move-
ment as a “lavender menace” (cited in Brownmiller, 1970, p. 140). Civil rights leaders involved in
the 1963 March on Washington wanted Bayard Rustin removed as the lead organizer of the march
when his homosexuality became known. Only through the intercession of A. Phillip Randolph was
Rustin kept in charge (D’Emilio, 2003), though later he was excluded from prominent roles in the
civil rights movement. The tendency to exclude or ignore LGBTQ members of dominant communi-
ties is also paralleled in minority communities. It continues today through informal messages about
the unacceptability of sexual‐minority identities (Duncan, 2005; Kumashiro, 2001, 2002, 2003) as
well as through political debate in minority communities about HIV/AIDS (Cohen, 1999). LGBTQ
communities are often dominated by Whites and are unwilling to see how Whiteness informs ideas
about who is legitimately LGBTQ or who can easily access LGBTQ community resources and
social spaces. This White dominance may be expressed through overt racism or through implicit
assumptions about what gayness means, leading to an unwillingness to recognize the sexual and
gender identities that emerge within racial and ethnic communities.
Even though there may not always be sustained attention to diversity within groups organ-
izing for social justice, by focusing on moments and strands within movements that acknowledge
their complicity in forms of bias, we can see that multiculturally influenced politics, a politics
attentive to multiple forms of diversity, has been a part of almost every political movement.
Indeed, the historian Herbert Apetheker (1992) has asked why so many histories of social move-
ments are framed as interested only in their own issues and represented as if they were made up
of relatively homogeneously identified people. He asks us to consider how the expectation that
people will work only on their own behalf has limited our contemporary ability to imagine
diversely organized politics. Even at the height of what has come to be known as the heyday of
identity politics, many groups were calling their own prejudices into question and making con-
nections across struggles and identities. The Black Panther founder Huey Newton (1973), for
instance, argued that all movements needed to challenge their biases, including sexism and hom-
ophobia, and learn to work together in common cause. He wrote:
Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various libera- tion movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion. . . . I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homo- sexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own par- ticular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women’s right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppressed people in the society. (p. 143)
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1378.4 Histories of Gay‐Inclusive Multiculturalism and Other Curricular Inclusiveness
Other groups, such as the Black feminist Combahee River Collective, opposed ranking
oppressions. They viewed oppressions as “interlocking,” including race, gender, class, and sexuality
as part of a critique of unequal social relations (Combahee River Collective, 1982). By taking
account of the intersections of categories of identity, it becomes clear that the identities of all
people are multiple. By examining the critiques of the various rights and liberation movements,
we can further understand that all communities are made up of diverse people, not all of whom
are adequately served by community norms or by the political groups that claim to represent
them. Furthermore, forms of gender and sexual identity emerge from within different cultural,
racial, and ethnic traditions and thus push us to understand the importance of place, context, and
relation. Transnational immigration brings diverse understandings of sexual and gender identity
into conversation with dominant versions, and racial and ethnic traditions provide particular
forms of gender and sexual identities and activities that inform, challenge, and mingle with domi-
nant forms (Manalansan, 2003).
8.4 Histories of Gay‐Inclusive Multiculturalism and Other Curricular Inclusiveness
Situating the LGBTQ movement squarely within multiculturalism and the struggle for civil rights
provides a strategy for understanding the need to bring sexuality more firmly into multicultural
education in order to address long‐standing exclusions in education. While not common in all
approaches to multiculturalism, sexual‐minority issues have been incorporated into multicultural
curricula and have been strongly challenged. As newer legislation and curricula seek to limit how
LGBTQ issues can be addressed in schools, remembering earlier links between sexual‐ and
gender‐minority issues and multiculturalism can help remind us of the stakes of such connections.
Controversy broke out in New York City in the early 1990s over the multicultural education teach-
ers’ guide Children of the Rainbow (New York City Board of Education, 1994). The guide included
suggestions for lessons on the diversity of family structures—including gay and lesbian families.
The goal was to help all students feel comfortable and valued in school. While the earlier outcry
over the multicultural New York State social studies standards had mobilized social conservatives
to work against inclusion of lessons on racial diversity, the controversy over the Rainbow curricula
marked a switch in tactics, with social conservatives advocating for the inclusion of so‐called
legitimate minorities but not minority sexual orientation or families (Mayo, 2004a/2007). Children of the Rainbow was not the first time sexual orientation was recognized in New York City’s edu-
cational policy. The New York City Board of Education had included sexual orientation as a pro-
tected class since 1985 (New York City Board of Education, 1994), but Children of the Rainbow
was the first concerted effort to bring sexual‐minority issues into the multicultural curriculum.
California passed a law in 2011 that requires school districts to adopt textbooks on U.S.
history that include lessons on the contributions of LGBTQ people. As schools continue to widen
the range of inclusiveness in curricula, such laws may encourage textbook publishers as well as
educational professionals to widen their understanding of diversity. As LGBTQ families increas-
ingly make their presence and the presence of their children known to schools, schools need to
work to accommodate both children and parents. A recent survey of LGBTQ parents indicates
that they are more involved in school activities than average parents and that they experience
insults from students, other parents, and school personnel (Kosciw & Diaz, 2008). Children of
LGBTQ parents also experience a high rate of harassment because of their parents’ sexuality or
gender identity (Kosciw & Diaz, 2008). In states with gay marriage, gay civil unions, and/or
antidiscrimination policies that cover sexual orientation, courts have been supportive of curricu-
lar inclusion of LGBTQ‐related lessons. These additions to curricula have not been without their
critics. In Massachusetts, four parents objected to their inability to receive prior warning about or
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138 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education
the right to opt out of lessons that taught respect for a variety of families, including lesbian‐ and
gay‐headed households. Courts found that the state had a rational interest in providing students
with citizenship education and education promoting the tolerance of diversity, including LGBT
people, in part because those are included in the educational standards of the state and also
because the state allows gay marriage.
8.5 Challenges to Homophobia and Heterosexism Many of the objections to educating students about LGBTQ, queer, and related issues in multicul-
tural education still remain, arising from the kind of cultural conflicts that sexuality‐ and gender‐
related issues often engender. Not everyone thinks that LGBTQ, queer, and gender‐nonconforming
people should exist or deserve respect. Commonplace derogation of gay people in such phrases as
that’s so gay or epithets such as faggot or dyke indicate that homosexuality is still a focus of disap-
proval. A study conducted by students in five Des Moines, Iowa, high schools found that the aver-
age student hears words insulting gay people 25 times a day (Ruenzel, 1999). The most recent
survey on school climate by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), though,
shows that levels of homophobic taunting are beginning to drop from over 80 percent of LGBTQ
youth reporting verbal harassment 4 years ago to 65 percent reporting it in the 2013 sample
(Kosciw, Greytak, Palmer, & Boesen, 2014). Cultural beliefs and religious texts are often inter-
preted to mean that LGBTQ people are aberrant, sinful, or at the very least unacceptable. Pushing
beyond what seem to be determinative statements from a given culture or faith tradition often
shows a much more complex picture of the situation in which same‐sex affection and partnership
have long played an important role in the culture or in which various gender expressions have
found support in a tradition. It may, of course, be difficult for adherents of particular religious tradi-
tions to see the intensity of same‐sex love and commitment in their texts or to even begin to grapple
with how those positive representations coexist with prohibitions against similar activities.
Further complicating the issue of sexual orientation and gender identity may be the sense
that such forms of diversity and difference come from somewhere else—not from within a par-
ticular cultural tradition but imposed from outside. For instance, current dominant forms of hom-
ophobia may be directed at people who appear to be simply gay but are, in fact, displaying
traditional indigenous identities. Two‐spirit people—that is, people who embody American
Indian traditional practices that defy dominant definitions of gender and sexuality—often find
themselves harassed by those ignorant of the place of third genders and sexualities in indigenous
cultures (Wilson, 1996). A commonplace assumption about homosexuality, not unrelated to the
former example, is that all gay people are White, a belief partially related to the White dominance
in many gay communities and to the inability to see diversity as more than one aspect of identity
at a time. Too often discussions of diversity seem to assume that all people have one identity, not
that they might live complex lives in which their multiple differences intersect and affect
one another.
When we begin to complicate what sexuality means in relation to race, class, gender, dis-
ability, region, and religion, it quickly becomes clear that we need to be thinking not only about
multiple versions and variations of sexual identity but also how different communities and con-
texts shape the life possibilities and definitions of sexual and gender identity of LGBTQ and
gender‐minority people (Bello, Flynn, Palmer, Rodriguez, & Vente, 2004; Blackburn, 2004,
2005; Irvine, 1994; Johnson & Henderson, 2005; Kumashiro, 2004; Leek, 2000; McCready,
2004; Ross, 2005; Sears, 1995; Sonnie, 2000; Wilson, 1996). Minority sexualities and gender
identities—like other differences within communities—are themselves reminders that not all
people in a given culture, race, ethnicity, or other seemingly similar coherent group are the same;
there are differences within communities and subcultures structured around sexual orientation
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1398.6 Challenging Assumptions about LGBTQ People
and gender identity. This may seem an obvious point, but dissent by members of communities
from the sexual and/or gender norms of that community can result in a feeling that community
norms have been disrupted and perhaps even a sense that the nonconformist person is a traitor to
community cohesion. Of course, one can easily reverse the dynamic and wonder why communi-
ties and cultures cannot be more accepting of diversity in their midst. Indeed, that is one of the
central challenges that multicultural education poses to U.S. public schooling: Can we conceive
of educational institutions as welcoming places that recognize difference?
8.6 Challenging Assumptions about LGBTQ People Assumptions about sexual‐minority students need to be carefully analyzed. Schools, like the rest
of the social world, are structured by heterosexism—the assumption that everyone is heterosex-
ual. Curricula, texts, school policies, and even mundane examples (such as illustrations of mag-
nets showing males attracted to females but repulsed by each other) are most often constructed to
reflect heterosexuality as not only the norm but also as the only possible option for students
(Friend, 1995). Heterosexism is also reinforced by homophobia—overt expressions of dislike,
harassment, and even assaults against sexual‐minority people—a practice that members of the
school community often ignore or dismiss as typical behavior based on the heterosexist assump-
tion that either there are no gay people present in school communities, or, if there are, those gay
people ought to learn to expect a hostile environment. While homophobia may possibly be—at
least in some places—less socially acceptable today than it was previously, it is nonetheless the
case that schools are not very supportive places for most LGBTQ, questioning, intersex, and ally
students. The pressure to conform to rigid ideas about proper gender and sexuality is also damag-
ing to heterosexual and gender‐conforming students. Many students of all sexual orientations
have experienced antigay or gender‐identity‐related harassment, so teaching all students to be
respectful of gender and sexuality diversity helps everyone.
Members of school communities may believe that sexuality is not an appropriate topic for
young people. However, there are significant numbers of LGBTQ, and ally students in schools
(as well as significant numbers of sexually aware heterosexual students). Ignoring the issue of
sexuality means neglecting both to provide LGBTQ students with representations that enable
them to understand themselves and to provide examples of ways to counter bias and work toward
engendering respect among those who may not initially be willing to respect LGBTQ students.
Many LGBTQ students report hearing insulting words on a daily basis. According to the 2013
National School Climate Survey of the GLSEN, 55.5 percent of LGBT students reported feeling
unsafe at school (Kosciw et al., 2014). In the same report, 36.2 percent of students reported
physical harassment because of their sexual orientation, while 22.7 percent experienced physical
harassment because of their gender orientation. Physical assault on the basis of sexual orienta-
tion was reported by 16.5 percent of the students, and 11.4 percent reported physical assault
because of their gender identity. Students also reported that they were more likely to hear homo-
phobic comments in the presence of teachers than other forms of biased comments (Kosciw
et al., 2014).
In the 2007 National School Climate Survey, Kevin Jennings, then the executive director of
GLSEN, expressed his frustration with the lack of improvement since the surveys began in 1999:
I quite honestly feel a little depressed by how little things have improved from when we published our first report almost a decade ago. Why is it—when research shows so clearly that there are specific policy and programmatic interventions that will make our schools safer—that so many states and districts do nothing, allowing schools to remain an unsafe space for so many LGBTQ students?
(cited in Kosciw, Diaz, & Greytak, 2008, p. viii)
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140 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education
In the 2009 GLSEN National School Climate Study, researchers found that White, Latino/a, and
multiracial LGBT students felt more unsafe at school compared to Black or Asian students.
Multiracial students also report higher levels of harassment and assault based on sexual orienta-
tion and on gender expression than do other racial groups. Transgender students report feeling
more unsafe at school because of gender identity and sexual orientation than do male or female
students (Kosciw, Greytak, Diaz, & Bartkiewicz, 2010). This experience of feeling unsafe at
schools also extends to young women in general. According to a 2001 study by the American
Association of University Women (AAUW), 83 percent of young women experience sexual har-
assment and 20 percent of them avoid school or certain classes in order to stay away from their
tormentors. Young lesbians, gender‐nonconforming young women, and any young person who is
deemed by a harasser to be acting in gender‐inappropriate ways—including turning down sexual
advances—may all be targets for homophobic and sexist harassment.
The relationship among gender bias, homophobia, and harassment is complicated. On the
one hand, young women of all sexualities experience harassment, including homophobic harass-
ment, if they act in ways that do not fit the norms for women. Therefore, the scope of gender‐ and
sexuality‐related harassment is quite broad for women. Because young men have a narrower
range of acceptable masculine behavior, they, too, are targets for homophobic harassment on the
basis of any gender‐nonconforming behavior or are apt to have any forms of disagreement
devolve into homophobic taunts. The intersections of categories of identity, then, must become
central to how educators think and learn before they can begin to teach their students. These
complex intersections of identity categories also extend to those of race, ethnicity, gender, and
sexuality. As Kosciw and Diaz (2005) put it:
It appears that students most often report being targeted for verbal harassment based on multiple char- acteristics (e.g., being gay and Latino) or perhaps on the intersections of these characteristics (e.g., being a gay Latino). With regard to the more extreme forms of victimization, physical harassment and assault, it appears that sexual orientation alone becomes more salient. For example, the largest number of students of color reported being verbally harassed because of both their sexual orientation and race/ ethnicity, followed by sexual orientation only (44.4% and 35.7%, respectively). However, nearly twice as many students of color reported physical assault because of their sexual orientation alone than reported assault because of both race/ethnicity and sexual orientation (11.7% vs. 6.8%). (p. 62)
While most LGBTQ youth flourish and learn to counter the homophobic challenges they face
and while it is important not only to focus on the challenges but also to stress the strength and
resiliency of all minority youth, it is also crucial to understand that the costs of homophobia and
bias against gender‐nonconforming students can be very high. In February 2008, 15‐year‐old
Lawrence King was murdered by a younger White student who had been part of a group bullying
him for most of the school year. Out to his friends, Larry endured daily taunting. His 12‐year‐old
friend Erin Mings said, “What he [King] did was really brave—to wear makeup and high‐heeled
boots.” Mings hung out with King at E. O. Green. “Every corner he turned around, people were
saying, ‘Oh, my God, he’s wearing makeup today.’” Mings said Larry stood his ground and was
an outgoing and funny boy. “When people came up and started punking him, he just stood up for
himself” (quoted in Saillant, 2008a, 2008b). Larry’s story underscores the strength of young
gender‐nonconforming gay people and the very real dangers they can face in public schools.
Wearing eye shadow to school and trying to be himself in this hostile context, Larry was continu-
ally open to taunting and bullying and tried to keep strong by flirting with his tormentors. Reports
indicate that school officials were aware of the potential difficulties between Larry and his
attacker but did not intervene (Saillant, 2008b).
King’s story not only demonstrates his energy and commitment to living his life but also
stands as a reminder that much homophobia is fueled by bias against gender nonconformity (Gender
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1418.6 Challenging Assumptions about LGBTQ People
Public Advocacy Coalition, 2002). The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (Gender PAC), an
organization dedicated to educating about gender identity, also noted in its 2002 annual report not
only that gender‐nonconforming students were the victims of bullying but also that students who
engaged in school violence had experienced such bullying: “[F]ive of eight assailants in recent
school shooting incidents were reportedly students who had been repeatedly gender‐bashed and
gender‐baited in school” (p. 8). An AAUW (2001) study reported that more than almost anything
else, students do not want to be called gay or lesbian; 74 percent said they would be very upset.
Even students who are not gay report overt homophobic and sexual harassment when they
express support for sexual minorities. As one student put it, after experiencing pornographic
death threats from other students while teachers did nothing to stop them, “Maybe it’s because I
have strong views. I’ve always spoken out for gays and lesbians, for Latinos, for those who get
trampled on in our society. Still, I really have no idea why I was treated with such hostility”
(quoted in Ruenzel, 1999, p. 24). The pressure on straight allies of LGBTQ individuals not to
express their opposition to homophobia may indicate that not supporting gay people is an integral
part of indicating one’s own heterosexuality. As with Sleeter’s (1994) observation that White
people perform their race by expressing racist attitudes, people may perform heterosexuality by
indicating their dislike of or discomfort around homosexuality.
The pressure on all students to conform to a gendered or heterosexual norm is powerful,
especially in the school context, where public knowledge and choices about identity are closely
watched (Thorne, 1995). The public context of 15‐year‐old, Black, gender‐nonconforming Sakia
Gunn’s assertion of her lesbianism when sexually and homophobically harassed on a Newark street
was both an important assertion of her claiming space in her community and the occasion of her
murder by her harasser (“Lesbian Stabbing,” 2003). Her space of assertion was honored by the
Newark community’s outcry against homophobic violence in a mass vigil commemorating Gunn’s
death and life (Smothers, 2004). A year after her killing, the school district that refused to have a
moment of silence for her immediately after her murder allowed the anniversary to be acknowl-
edged by having “No Name Calling Day” (Smothers, 2004). It is important to understand that
homophobic violence and the potential for harassment do structure the lives of sexual minorities.
But the understanding of their identities by Gunn and other young people, their knowledge of the
places to go to find communities that support their gender and sexual identities, and their ability to
express their identities—even in challenging situations—demonstrate that sexual‐ and gender‐
minority youth are actively and creatively involved in making their lives and communities.
Despite what sometimes seems to be an overwhelmingly hostile context in schools, the
concerted efforts of students, teachers, administrators, and other members of the school commu-
nity can shift school climates. As the GLSEN 2009 report shows, schools can make a difference
in the experiences of LGBTQ youth. Students in schools with gay‐straight alliances report hear-
ing fewer homophobic remarks, report seeing staff intervene in bias more often, and were less
likely to feel unsafe in their schools (Kosciw et al., 2010). Students in schools with an inclusive
curriculum also reported lower levels of harassment, higher attendance rates, and more feelings
of connection to their schools (Kosciw et al., 2010). However, progress can be undone without
adequate institutional and teacher support. One of the first gay‐straight alliances to attain the
right to meet in public schools using the federal Equal Access Act disbanded years later because
of continuing community hostility and lack of institutional advocacy and support. That group,
however, was recently reorganized and supported by a unanimous vote by school officials who
were educated about and supportive of antihomophobia projects (American Civil Liberties
Union, 2006). There has been much coverage of the role of the Internet in the harassment that led
to Rutgers student Tyler Dementi’s suicide. The ongoing “It Gets Better” campaign, also Internet‐
based, provides short videos of LGBT and ally adults reassuring young people that there are
adults out there who are supportive or who themselves went through homophobic bullying.
Showing young people that there are numerous prominent and caring people who want to see
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142 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education
them succeed and provide them with information on bullying hotlines and LGBT advocacy
organizations may be one way to help work against the isolation they experience.
Each of these examples points to the need to address homophobia and sexual‐minority
issues through multilevel approaches. Youths are capable of asserting themselves and finding
community with others, but without the institutional support of schools and the interventions of
respectful adults, the struggles they may have to face are all the more daunting. Ensuring that
sexual‐ and gender‐minority youths have space and time to meet together creates one place in
school that addresses their communities. Incorporating LGBTQ and gender‐identity issues into
curricula, teacher education, school leadership programs, and school antidiscrimination policies
is a strategy that reinforces inclusion across the entire institution of education.
Each of these steps requires more than just stopping harassment. It requires thinking criti-
cally about the messages in curricula, the way teachers and administrators talk to students, and
the way school‐based social events are organized. Do representations of historical figures or
communities in the curriculum show a diversity of sexual orientation and gender identity? When
lessons discuss civil rights movements, do they include ones that advocated gender‐ and sexual‐
identity rights? If lessons do include gay liberation and feminism, do those lessons include racial,
ethnic, sexual‐orientation, and gender‐identity diversity? Do lessons on families create openings
for even very young children to see a diversity of families represented in children’s books and
classroom discussions, as well as the diversity of gender identities? Do representations of
romance and sexuality—including everything from sex education to advertisements for dances
and proms—reflect only heterosexuality? Do teachers reinforce heterosexism by referring only
to heterosexual couples, by assuming that everyone has a parent of each gender, by assigning
texts that represent only heterosexuality, or by neglecting to address comments such as “that’s so
gay” with more than a simple prohibition?
8.7 Why Homophobia? Education against homophobia and about sexual‐minority issues needs to grapple with cultural and
traditional objections to sexual‐minority people and communities. Without addressing the deep
cultural, political, and historical obstacles to educating LGBTQ people and educating about them,
progress toward multicultural education and justice will be only half‐hearted at best. While some
religious traditions may be the root of some cultural disapproval of homosexuality, most religious
traditions do not require their adherents to demand doctrinal discipline from those outside their faith
tradition. Given the pervasiveness of homophobia even among people whose discomfort is not
grounded in religious traditions, it is clear that other anxieties also motivate discomfort about
minority sexualities and gender identities. Many religious denominations are very supportive of
sexual and gender minorities. Consequently, the tendency to blame religion for homophobia is an
oversimplification. Denominations supportive of sexual and gender minorities include the Metropolitan
Community Church, Reform Judaism, the United Church of Christ, the Society of Friends
(Quakers), and Unitarianism as well as segments of the Episcopal and Lutheran churches. Individual
congregations of many faiths are also supportive of sexual and gender minorities.
As education against homophobia proceeds, then, it is necessary to find ways both to sup-
port people who are subjected to homophobia and to ask difficult questions about the cultural,
religious, and contemporary roots of or alibis for homophobia. Acknowledging the existence of
multiple cultural, local, and global forms of same‐sex affection and gender variety may be one
starting point. Examining the variety of expressions of tolerance and value of minority identities
within minority and majority cultures may provide insights into the differences that make up even
seemingly coherent and unified cultures and subcultures. These issues should be familiar to
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1438.7 Why Homophobia?
anyone grappling with how to study and educate about any form of identity. But there are particu-
lar features to sex and gender identity that make addressing it challenging.
How much of homophobia is a reflection of cultural attitudes about sex in general, and how
robust is discrimination when sex and youth are connected (Silin, 1995)? How much of homo-
phobia is bias against gender‐nonconforming behavior? Does homophobia reflect a cultural dis-
paragement of femininity, or, as some would put it, is homophobia a weapon of sexism (Pharr,
1997)? We can think here of the use of the word girls to insult young men and what that says
about the pervasiveness of sexism. Does homophobia indicate anxiety about the fragility of the
heterosexual norm? When even slightly gender‐nonconforming behavior or friendship with
someone of the same sex can start rumors and lead to harassment or when people feel compelled
to assert their heterosexuality should doubt arise, we can see the process of normalization work-
ing on everyone. The ease with which such anxieties surface despite a climate of heterosexism
that generally does not allow discussion of queer possibility indicates the haunting presence of
queerness even in the midst of what is generally the unquestioned norm of heterosexuality.
It is important to consider the diverse cultural and political roots of homophobia—to be, in
other words, multiculturally aware of different forms of bias against sexual and gender noncon-
formity. However, there is a danger in letting homophobia define how and why lessons on sexual
minorities are included in school. Institutional and legal restrictions have shaped the lives of
sexual‐minority people, yet it would be a vast oversimplification to say that is the only reality of
their lives. Sexuality, as with any other category of meaning, has a long and varied history—
indeed, histories of identities and subjectivities that bear little resemblance to the categories by
which we currently define sexual identity. As much as their communities and identity formations
were related to restrictions on their ability to live, LGBTQ individuals nonetheless formed cul-
tures, associations, and—like other minorities living in a cultural context shaped by bias—
reshaped their worlds. Tactically, it may be possible to convince people who do not initially want
to include sexual‐minority issues in schooling that to do so would help address the risks that
LGBTQ students face. However, we also need to be careful that LGBTQ issues are not framed as
only risk or deficit. When antihomophobia and multicultural pedagogies—and chapters such as
this one—defensively cite statistics on harassment or provide a panel of LGBTQ people to
describe their difficulties with homophobia, they miss the opportunity to examine the positive
aspects of LGBTQ communities and cultures and the ability of sexual‐minority people to live
lives beyond institutional constraints.
Uprisings such as those at the Stonewall Inn or the Compton Cafeteria underscore the expe-
rience of harassment and exclusion as well as the ability of people to resist. That resistance fur-
ther points to the fact that communities were already organized and understood themselves to
have developed the expectation of respect for one another as members. By focusing on moments
of conflict and the particular people injured by bias, do we imply that those groups and identities
have meaning only because of their clash with the dominant culture? Is the story of oppression
and bias the only way schools are willing to even begin to address sexual and gender minorities?
By focusing only on minority sexualities and the experience of bias, schools neglect to examine
the relationship between the dominant sexuality’s claim to normality and the resultant hetero-
sexism and heteronormativity of the curricula, institutional organizations, and school policies. By
thinking of heterosexism and homophobia as evident only in spectacles of bias—such as homo-
phobic injury, assault, or murder—the everyday forms of heterosexism go unremarked upon, as
does the everyday presence of people who do not conform to gender and sexual norms. If teach-
ers are unwilling to acknowledge and educate about the positive aspects of sexuality, they also
neglect the relationship between sexuality and identity; ignore the place of sexuality in initiating
and sustaining personal, cultural, and community relationships; and reinforce the unacceptability
of educating about sexuality and pleasure.
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144 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education
8.8 Dilemmas of Queer Inclusion In the 1990s, a group of young queer activists calling themselves Queer Nation coined a new
protest chant: “We’re here, we’re queer, get over it, get used to it.” While Queer Nation was imme-
diately challenged for its racism, and groups of people of color such as QueerNAsian split off in
protest, the chant is a reminder that queerness is a challenge to critically assess the meanings of
gender and sexuality. It is also a reminder that centering gender and sexuality can easily lead to
White dominance and the related neglect of the centrality of race and ethnicity to sexuality and
gender. The confrontational politics of visibility spawned during this period stressed not the
exclusions of heterosexism or the biases of homophobia but simply the presence of nonnormative
people, bodies, acts, and communities. One of the central claims of the gay liberation and lesbian
feminist movements was recentered: People of nonnormative gender and sexuality exist; indeed,
the presence of nonnormativeness defines every sexual and gender identity. Furthermore, the
larger conversation about queerness and race was a reminder that the destabilization of one term,
such as sexuality, without adequate thought and action can simply reinforce Whiteness. But the
name “Queer Nation” underscored the tension between a collectivity such as a nation and the
destabilizing function of the term queer.
To queer something means to challenge its core meaning, and queer politics sought to chal-
lenge the claim to normality that structured heterosexuality. Queers of color, continuing to use that
“queering” function, queered the Whiteness of the new term. Young people continue to be engaged
and to use the potential for critique and reconsideration offered by the term queer. By queering
social norms and making those critiques into political projects, queer theory and the work that
sexual‐minority youth and their allies do to improve schools provide a critique of standard attempts
at inclusion—attempts that often leave key categories unexamined—and insist, as the transforma-
tive approaches to multicultural education do, on critiquing the political structure of schools. But
a politics based on visibility can itself be queered: Who is excluded if we privilege visible or leg-
ible differences? How does the pressure to be out in a certain way rely on particular culturally
specific forms of understanding identity or generationally specific forms of political engagement?
Where do other forms of difference appear if the central term is queer and implies “White?”
Even in the absence of help and support from adults in school communities, young activists
of all sexualities and gender identities now engaged in improving their schools are making it clear
that sexuality‐ and gender‐related issues concern everyone. Student‐led groups form alliances
that include diverse identities and people who find labels restrictive, problematic, or insufficient.
These groups work carefully to avoid replicating the same exclusions they have faced. Racial and
ethnic exclusions, though, remain a core problem, even as LGBTQ students and allies work to
teach their communities that homophobia and heterosexism are everyone’s problem.
Gay‐straight alliances expand from addressing homophobia to creating an understanding of
the place of sexual and gender identity in everyone’s life and community. So does the Day of Silence,
an annual event in which students who support education about LGBTQ issues remain silent for an
entire day in school to dramatize the silencing of sexual‐ and gender‐minority students and the lack
of representation of sexual and gender differences in curricula. By focusing on the ties among stu-
dents of all sexual orientations and gender identities, such groups and events shift the focus from the
particularities of student differences to larger coalitional efforts to improve school communities.
Gay‐straight alliances provide students a space for critical engagement with media and
political issues, a space often not provided by the official curricula. As diverse students meet to
queer and question their own self‐definitions, they also need to critically engage with the racial,
ethnic, gender, and sexual exclusions they may unthinkingly replicate (Mayo, 2004b; Miceli,
2005; Perrotti & Westheimer, 2001). Gay‐straight alliances and the Day of Silence, two student‐
centered projects, underscore the place of youths in defining sexuality‐related issues in schools.
As youths begin to form new types of sexual and gender identities—such as queer, questioning,
gender queer, and curious—they challenge adult understandings and educate all of us about new
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1458.9 Seven Things to Do to Improve Education for Students of All Sexual Orientations and Genders
possibilities (Britzman, 1995, 1997; Leek, 2000; Rasmussen, 2004; Talburt, 2004). These criti-
cally important youth‐led activities in public schools remind us that queer projects need to work
to understand how the intersection of race, ethnicity, and gender must remain central in order for
queerness to live up to its potential.
As with any other communities, LGBTQ communities are diversely raced, gendered, classed,
and made up of people with complex and intersecting identities. And as with other diverse com-
munities, LGBTQ communities face the challenges of internal and external homophobia, racism,
sexism, transphobia, classism, and other forms of bias. Indeed, another way to look at LGBTQ
communities is to do so more locally, in which case it becomes clear that LGBTQ people of color
find spaces within their racial and ethnic communities because they value these home commun-
ities—and find more political and social support there than they would in White‐dominated
LGBTQ communities. The segregated nature of U.S. public education contributes to the White
dominance of LGBTQ organizations in schools and communities (McCready, 2004). LGBTQ
youth groups often reflect the racial and ethnic divisions that are crucial forms of support and
belonging, but they are also influenced by bias that is exacerbated by how schools are organized
and where they are situated. That is, even schools with diverse populations are often structured by
internal racial and ethnic segregation. Sexual orientation and gender identity will not only enrich
multicultural education but also benefit LGBTQ communities by enabling young people to be edu-
cated more vigorously to understand and value differences, whether long‐standing or emergent.
8.9 Seven Things to Do to Improve Education for Students of All Sexual Orientations and Genders
1. Understand the complexity of sexuality and gender identity: Do not assume heterosexuality or
enforce gender conformity. Think about your own coming‐out process, whatever your sexual
orientation or preference. Think about your own experiences of enforced gender conformity.
How can these memories and experiences help you to understand your students’ experiences?
2. Think critically about how heterosexism and homophobia have structured all of our under-
standings of ourselves and of our relationships, communities, and education. Use gender‐
neutral terms for parents and gender‐neutral examples and other techniques that make it
clear that you understand that students, parents, school personnel, and other community
members are not all heterosexual.
3. Challenge the implicit and explicit heterosexism, homophobia, and gender conformity in the
curricula and other school‐based practices. Interrupt homophobia, heterosexism, and gender‐
identity prejudice when you see it, and take the opportunity to educate about it. Do not let
harassment continue unchallenged.
4. Understand the intersections among gender, race, sexual orientation, class, and other aspects
of identity. Include references to and images of diverse LGBTQ people in your classrooms.
5. Try to queer your own categories of normal; interrogate them for problematic assumptions
about sexuality, gender, and youth as well as other categories of diversity and difference.
6. Learn about diverse LGBTQ histories and cultures, and understand how heterosexual allies
have been critical to obtaining social justice.
7. Know about community resources for LGBTQ youth, including ally faculty and staff at your
own school. If you are unable to provide the kind of support that LGBTQ students, colleagues,
or parents need, find out who can.
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146 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
8.1 In what ways have movements for social justice recognized
sexual orientation and gender identity? How have they
ignored sexual orientation and gender identity? Why do
LGBTQ issues pose a challenge for social justice movements
and multicultural education? What do LGBTQ issues bring to
social justice movements and multicultural education?
8.2 What can schools do to be more welcoming places for sex-
ual and gender diversity? What assumptions about LGBTQ
students need to be challenged in order for their diversity to
be recognized?
8.3 What is an intersectional approach? How does it help us to
be more aware of the interplay of differences?
8.4 Why is it a problem to think about LGBTQ issues only in
terms of harassment and difficulties in school?
8.5 What would it mean to queer the curriculum?
8.6 How could you as a teacher support the LGBTQ and ally
activities in which your students might be interested?
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part
149
The drastic increase in the percentage of students of color and of language‐minority
students in U.S. schools is one of the most significant developments in education in the
last two decades. This increase results from several factors, including the wave of immi-
gration that began after 1968 and the aging of the White population. U.S. classrooms are
experiencing the largest influx of immigrant students since the beginning of the 20th
century. Nearly 10.2 million new immigrants—legal and undocumented—settled in the
United States between 2000 and 2013. Less than 12 percent came from nations in
Europe. Most came from Mexico, from nations in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean,
and Central America (Camarota & Zeigler, 2014 ).
Demographers predict that if current trends continue, approximately 55 percent of
the nation ’ s school‐age youths will be of color by 2023 (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2013b ). In 2014, the National Center for Education Statistics estimated that
the percentage of students from ethnic minority groups made up more than 50 percent of
the students in prekindergarten through 12th grade in public schools, an increase from
40 percent in 2001 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014a ). In 2011, students
of color exceeded the number of White students in the District of Columbia and in
13 states: Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland,
Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Texas (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2014b ). In 2012, children of undocumented immigrants made up 6.9 percent
of students in kindergarten through grade 12 (Pew Research Center, 2014 ). Approximately
one of every five students lived in a low‐income family in 2013 (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2015 ).
While the nation ’ s students are becoming increasingly diverse, most of the nation ’ s
teachers were White (85.1 percent), female (75.6 percent), and middle class during the
2011–2012 school year. The percentage of teachers of color remains low; in 2011–2012,
they made up only 15 percent of teachers in the United States (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2013a ). The growing racial, cultural, and income gap between teachers and
students underscores the need for all teachers to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills
needed to work effectively with students from diverse racial, ethnic, social‐class, and
language groups. The three chapters in this part of the book describe concepts, knowledge,
and strategies that teachers will find helpful in working with students from diverse groups.
4 Race, Ethnicity, and Language
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150 PART IV Race, Ethnicity, and Language
R E F E R E N C E S
Camarota, S. A., & Zeigler, K. (2014, September). U.S. immigrant population record 41.3 million in 2013. Washington,
DC: Center for Immigration Studies. Retrieved from http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/camarota‐record‐immigrant
‐pop.pdf.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2013a). Number and percentage distribution of teachers in public and private elementary and secondary schools, by selected teacher characteristics: Selected years, 1987–88 through 2011–12.
Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.10.asp.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2013b). Enrollment and percentage distribution of enrollment in public elemen- tary and secondary schools, by race/ethnicity and region: Selected years, fall 1995 through fall 2023. Retrieved from
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.50.asp.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2014a). The condition of education 2014. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov
/pubs2014/2014083.pdf.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2014b). Percentage distribution of enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools, by race/ethnicity and state or jurisdiction: Fall 2001 and fall 2011. Retrieved from http://nces
.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.70.asp?current=yes.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2015). Number and percentage of students in prekindergarten through grade 12 living in poverty, by control of school: 2000 through 2013. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14
/tables/dt14_102.70.asp?curent=yes.
Pew Research Center. (2014, November). Unauthorized immigrant totals rise in 7 states, fall in 14: Decline in those from Mexico fuels most state decreases. Retrieved from http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2014/11/2014‐11‐18_
unauthorized‐immigration.pdf.
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151
chapter iS
to ck
P h o to
/S il
v ia
J an
se n
Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform James A. Banks
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Identify and state reasons why it is important to revise the mainstream‐centric
curriculum so that it reflects the perspectives of diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural
groups.
2. Name the four levels of content integration and describe an example of each level.
3. State ways in which the transformation and social action levels can increase student
learning and motivation.
9.1 The Mainstream‐Centric Curriculum Cultural, ethnic, racial, linguistic, and religious diversity is increasing in the United States as well
as in the nation ’ s schools. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that ethnic minorities will increase
from 37.6 percent of the nation ’ s population in 2013 to 57 percent in 2060. Ethnic minorities
made up 118 million of the total U.S. population of 316 million in 2013 (U.S. Census Bureau,
2012 , 2014 ). Despite the deepening ethnic texture in the United States, the U.S. school, college,
and university mainstream curriculum is organized around concepts, paradigms, and events that
primarily reflect the experiences of mainstream Americans (Banks, 2014 , 2015 ). The dominant,
mainstream curriculum has been challenged and fractured in the last five decades, beginning with
the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Consequently, the mainstream curriculum
and textbooks today are much more multicultural than they were when the civil rights movement
began. Progress has been made, and it should be acknowledged and appreciated.
9
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152 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
An interesting and informative study by Wineburg and Monte‐Sano (2008) about who were
considered the most famous Americans in history by a national sample of high school students is
a significant marker of the changes that have occurred in both the teaching of history and in the
“societal” (Cortés, 2000) or “cultural” curriculum (Wineburg & Monte‐Sano, 2008) since the late
1960s. Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman headed the list. The other seven
individuals on the list—in descending order—were Susan B. Anthony, Benjamin Franklin,
Amelia Earhart, Oprah Winfrey, Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein. Wineburg
and Monte‐Sano found that region had little effect on the students’ responses. However, race was
a powerful factor. African American students were much more likely than White students to name
King, Tubman, Winfrey, and Parks. White students were significantly more likely to name White
figures than were African American students.
The curriculum and societal changes suggested by the Wineburg and Monte‐Sano study
(2008) are encouraging and should be recognized and applauded. However, curricular and soci-
etal reforms have been neither as extensive nor as institutionalized as is needed to reflect the
complex and increasing diversity in the United States and the world. Consequently, the process
of curriculum transformation needs to continue. Curriculum transformation is a process that
never ends because of the changes that are continuing within the United States and throughout
the world (Banks, 2009a, 2009b).
A curriculum that focuses on the experiences of mainstream Americans and largely ignores
the experiences, cultures, and histories of other ethnic, racial, cultural, language, and religious
groups has negative consequences for both mainstream students and students of color. A
mainstream‐centric curriculum is one major way in which racism, ethnocentrism, and pernicious
nationalism are reinforced and perpetuated in schools, colleges, universities, and society at large.
A mainstream‐centric curriculum has negative consequences for mainstream students
because it reinforces their false sense of superiority, gives them a misleading conception of their
relationship with other racial and ethnic groups, and denies them the opportunity to benefit from
the knowledge, perspectives, and frames of reference that can be gained from studying and expe-
riencing other cultures and groups. A mainstream‐centric curriculum also denies mainstream
U.S. students the opportunity to view their culture from the perspectives of other cultures and
groups. When people view their culture from the point of view of another culture, they are able
to understand their own culture more fully, to see how it is unique and distinct from other cul-
tures, and to understand better how it relates to and interacts with other cultures.
A mainstream‐centric curriculum negatively influences students of color, such as African
Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. It marginalizes their experiences and cultures and does
not reflect their dreams, hopes, and perspectives. It does not provide them social equality within
the school, an essential characteristic of democratic institutions (Gutmann, 2004). Students learn
best and are more highly motivated when the school curriculum reflects their cultures, experi-
ences, and perspectives. Many students of color are alienated in school in part because they
experience cultural conflict and discontinuities that result from the cultural differences between
their school and community (Au, 2011; Lee, 2007). The school can help students of color medi-
ate between their home and school cultures by implementing a curriculum that reflects the cul-
ture of their ethnic groups and communities. The school can and should make effective use of the
community cultures of students of color when teaching them such subjects as writing and the
language arts (Au, 2011; Lee, 2007) and the social studies (Loewen, 2010), as well as when
teaching science (Lee & Buxton, 2010) and mathematics (Nasir, Cabana, Shreve, Woodbury, &
Louie, 2014). Research by Cabrera, Milem, Jaquttee, and Marx (2014) indicates that the Mexican
American studies program in the Tucson Unified School District improved the performance of
Mexican American students on standardized tests, as well as their high school graduation rates.
The mainstream‐centric curriculum views events, themes, concepts, and issues primarily
from the perspective of mainstream Americans and Europeans. Events and cultural developments
Banks_c09.indd 152 8/7/2015 6:11:49 PM
1539.2 Public Sites and Popular History
such as the European explorations in the Americas and the development of American music are
viewed from Anglo and European perspectives and are evaluated using mainstream‐centric
criteria and points of view (Au, 2012).
When the European explorations of the Americas are viewed from a Eurocentric perspec-
tive, the Americas are perceived as having been “discovered” by European explorers such as
Columbus and Cortés (Loewen, 2010; Zinn, 1999). The view that Native peoples in the Americas
were discovered by the Europeans subtly suggests that Indian cultures did not exist until they
were “discovered” by the Europeans and that the lands occupied by the American Indians were
rightfully owned by the Europeans after they settled on and claimed them.
When the formation and nature of U.S. cultural developments, such as music and dance, are
viewed from mainstream‐centric perspectives, these art forms become important and significant
only when they are recognized or legitimized by mainstream critics and artists. The music of
African American musicians such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard was not viewed as signifi-
cant by the mainstream society until White singers such as the Beatles and Rod Stewart publicly
acknowledged the significant ways in which their own music had been heavily influenced by
these African American musicians. It often takes White artists to legitimize ethnic cultural forms
and innovations created by Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.
9.2 Public Sites and Popular History Anglo‐centric history is not only taught in U.S. schools, colleges, and universities but is also
perpetuated in popular knowledge in the nation’s parks, museums, and other public sites. Loewen
(1999) describes the ways in which public history in the nation’s historic sites is often distorted
in order to present a positive image of Anglo Americans. The title of his book is Lies across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong.
I have seen several examples of markers in public sites that perpetuate Anglo‐centric views
of American history. The first appears on a marker in a federal park on the site where a U.S. Army
post once stood in Fort Townsend in the state of Washington. With the choice of words such as
settlers (instead of invaders), restive, and rebelled, the author justifies the taking of the Indians’
lands and depicts their resistance as unreasonable.
Fort Townsend A U.S. Army Post was established on this site in 1856. In [the] mid‐nineteenth century the growth of Port Townsend caused the Indians to become restive. Settlers started a home guard, campaigned wherever called, and defeated the Indians in the Battle of Seattle. Indians rebelled as the government began enforcing the Indian Treaty of 1854, by which the Indians had ceded most of their territory. Port Townsend, a prosperous port of entry on Puget Sound, then asked protection of the U.S. army.
(emphasis added)
The second example is in Marianna, Arkansas, my hometown, which is the city center for Lee
County. The site commemorates the lives and achievements of Confederate soldiers from Lee
County and the life of Robert E. Lee, a general of the Confederate Army and a southern hero. The
marker reads in part, “In loving memory of Lee County’s Confederate soldiers. No braver bled
for a brighter land. No brighter land had a cause so grand.” The final example is from a marker in
the Confederate Park in Memphis, Tennessee, which commemorates the life of Jefferson Davis,
president of the Confederate States of America. The marker reads, in part: “Before the war
between the States, he served with distinction as a United States Congressman and twice as a
United States Senator. He also served as Secretary of War of the U.S. He was a true American
patriot.” Describing Davis as a “true American patriot” is arguable.
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154 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
Another interesting and revealing book by Loewen (2005) is Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. In this informative book, Loewen describes communities that
kept out groups such as African Americans, Chinese Americans, and Jewish Americans by force,
law, or custom. These towns are called “sundown towns” because specific minorities had to be
out of the towns before sunset. Loewen found more than 440 of these towns that existed across
the United States.
9.3 Efforts to Establish a Multicultural Curriculum Since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, educators have been trying, in various ways, to
better integrate the school curriculum with multicultural content and to move away from a main-
stream‐centric and Eurocentric curriculum (Banks, 2009a, 2009b, 2014). These have proven to
be difficult goals for schools to attain for many complex reasons. The strong assimilationist ideol-
ogy embraced by most U.S. educators is one major reason (Banks, 2015). The assimilationist
ideology makes it difficult for educators to think differently about how U.S. society and culture
developed and to acquire a commitment to make the curriculum multicultural. Individuals who
have a strong assimilationist ideology believe that most important events and developments in
U.S. society are related to the nation’s British heritage and that the contributions of other ethnic
and cultural groups are not very significant by comparison. When educators acquire a multicul-
tural ideology and conception of U.S. culture, they are then able to view the experiences and
contributions of a wide range of cultural, ethnic, language, and religious groups as significant to
the development of the United States.
Ideological resistance is a major factor that has slowed and is still slowing the development
of a multicultural curriculum, but other factors have also affected its growth and development.
Political resistance to a multicultural curriculum is closely related to ideological resistance.
Many people who resist a multicultural curriculum believe that knowledge is power and that a
multicultural perspective on U.S. society challenges the existing power structure. They believe
that the dominant mainstream‐centric curriculum supports, reinforces, and justifies the existing
social, economic, and political structure. Multicultural perspectives and points of view, in the
opinion of many observers, legitimize and promote social change and social reconstruction.
During the 1980s and 1990s, a heated debate occurred about how much the curriculum
should be Western and Eurocentric or should reflect the cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity in the
United States. At least three major positions in this debate can be identified. The Western tradition- alists argue that the West, as defined and conceptualized in the past, should be the focus in school
and college curricula because of the major influence of Western civilization and culture in the
United States and throughout the world (Ravitch, 1990; Schlesinger, 1998). Afro‐centric scholars
contend that the contributions of Africa and of African peoples should receive major emphasis in
the curriculum (Asante, 1998; Asante & Ravitch, 1991). The multiculturalists argue that although
the West should receive a major emphasis in the curriculum, it should be reconceptualized to
reflect the contributions that people of color have made to it (Nieto, 2012). In addition to teaching
about Western ideals, the gap between the ideals of the West and its realities of racism, sexism, and
discrimination should be taught (Banks, 2009b). Multiculturalists also believe that in addition to
learning about the West, students should study other world cultures, such as those in Africa, Asia,
the Middle East, and the Americas as they were before the Europeans arrived (Gates, 1999).
Other factors that have slowed the institutionalization of a multicultural curriculum include
the focus on high‐stakes testing and accountability that has emerged in the last decade, the low
level of knowledge about ethnic cultures that most educators have, and the heavy reliance on
textbooks for teaching. Many studies have revealed that the textbook is still the main source for
teaching, especially in such subjects as the social studies, reading, and language arts (Au, 2012).
Banks_c09.indd 154 8/7/2015 6:11:49 PM
1559.4 Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content
Teachers need in‐depth knowledge about ethnic cultures and experiences to integrate
ethnic content, experiences, and points of view into the curriculum. Many teachers tell their stu-
dents that Columbus discovered America and that America is a “New World” because they
know little about the diverse Native American cultures that existed in the Americas more than
40,000 years before the Europeans began to settle there in significant numbers in the 16th century.
As Howard (2006) states in the title of his cogent and informative book, We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know.
9.4 Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content
9.4.1 The Contributions Approach
I have identified four approaches to the integration of multicultural content into the curriculum
(see Figure 9.1). The contributions approach to integration (Level 1) is frequently used when a
school or district first attempts to integrate multicultural content into the mainstream curriculum.
The contributions approach is characterized by the insertion of ethnic heroes/heroines and dis-
crete cultural artifacts into the curriculum, selected using criteria similar to those used to select
mainstream heroes/heroines and cultural artifacts. Thus, individuals such as Crispus Attucks,
Pocahontas, Martin Luther King Jr, Cesar Chavez, and Barack Obama are added to the curricu-
lum. They are discussed when mainstream American heroes/heroines such as Patrick Henry,
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Betsy Ross, and Eleanor Roosevelt are studied in the
mainstream curriculum. Discrete cultural elements such as the foods, dances, music, and artifacts
of ethnic groups are studied, but little attention is given to their meanings and importance within
ethnic communities.
An important characteristic of the contributions approach is that the mainstream curri-
culum remains unchanged in its basic structure, goals, and salient characteristics. Prerequisites
for the implementation of this approach are minimal. They include basic knowledge about
U.S. society and knowledge about ethnic heroes/heroines and their roles and contributions
to U.S. society and culture.
Individuals who challenged the dominant society’s ideologies, values, and conceptions and
advocated radical social, political, and economic reform are seldom included in the contributions
approach. Thus, Booker T. Washington is more likely to be chosen for study than is W. E. B.
DuBois or Paul Robeson, and Pocahontas is more likely to be chosen than is Geronimo. The
criteria used to select ethnic heroes/heroines for study and to judge them for success are derived
from the mainstream society, not from the ethnic community. Consequently, use of the contribu-
tions approach usually results in the study of ethnic heroes/heroines who represent only one
important perspective within ethnic communities. The more radical and less conformist individu-
als who are heroes/heroines only to the ethnic community are often invisible in textbooks, teach-
ing materials, and activities used in the contributions approach. Paul Robeson, the singer, actor,
and activist—who was a greatly admired hero in the African American community during the
1940s and 1950s—is invisible in most textbooks, in part because he was a Marxist who advo-
cated radical social, economic, and political change (Balaji, 2007).
The heroes/heroines and holidays approach is a variant of the contributions approach. In
this approach, ethnic content is limited primarily to special days, weeks, and months related to
ethnic events and celebrations. Cinco de Mayo, Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, and African
American History Week are examples of ethnic days and weeks celebrated in the schools. During
these celebrations, teachers involve students in lessons, experiences, and pageants related to the
ethnic group being commemorated. When this approach is used, the class studies little or nothing
about the ethnic or cultural group before or after the special event or occasion.
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156 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
The contributions approach (Level 1 in Figure 9.1) provides teachers a way to integrate ethnic
content into the curriculum quickly, thus giving some recognition to ethnic contributions to
U.S. society and culture. Many teachers who are committed to integrating their curricula with ethnic
content have little knowledge about ethnic groups and curriculum revision. Consequently, they use
the contributions approach when teaching about ethnic groups. These teachers should be encour-
aged, supported, and given the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to reform
their curricula by using one of the more effective approaches described later in this chapter.
There are often strong political demands from ethnic communities for the school to put
their heroes/heroines, contributions, and cultures into the school curriculum. These political
forces may take the form of demands for heroes and contributions because mainstream heroes,
such as Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, are highly visible in the school curriculum. Ethnic
communities of color want to see their own heroes/heroines and contributions alongside those of
the mainstream society. Such contributions may help give them a sense of structural inclusion,
validation, and social equality. Curriculum inclusion also facilitates the quests of marginalized
ethnic and cultural groups for a sense of empowerment, efficacy, and social equality. The school
should help students from ethnic groups acquire a sense of empowerment and efficacy. These
factors are positively correlated with academic achievement (Coleman et al., 1966).
The contributions approach is also the easiest approach for teachers to use to integrate the
curriculum with multicultural content. However, this approach has several serious limitations.
When the integration of the curriculum is accomplished primarily through the infusion of ethnic
heroes/heroines and contributions, students do not attain a global view of the role of ethnic and
cultural groups in U.S. society. Rather, they see ethnic issues and events primarily as additions to
the curriculum and consequently as an appendage to the main story of the development of the
nation and to the core curriculum in the language arts, social studies, arts, and other subject areas.
Teaching ethnic issues by using heroes/heroines and contributions also tends to gloss over
important concepts and issues related to the victimization and oppression of ethnic groups and
their struggles against racism and for power. Issues such as racism, poverty, and oppression tend
Level 4: The Social Action Approach
Level 2: The Additive Approach
Level 3: The Transformation Approach
Level 1: The Contributions Approach
Students make decisions on important social issues and take actions to help solve them.
The structure of the curriculum is changed to enable students to view concepts, issues, events, and themes from the perspectives of diverse ethnic and cultural groups.
Content, concepts, themes, and perspectives are added to the curriculum without changing its structure.
Focuses on heroes, holidays, and discrete cultural elements.
FIGURE 9.1
Banks’s Four Levels of Integration
of Ethnic Content
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1579.4 Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content
to be avoided in the contributions approach to curriculum integration. The focus tends to be on
success and the validation of the Horatio Alger myth that all Americans who are willing to work
hard can go from rags to riches and “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
The success stories of ethnic heroes such as Booker T. Washington, George Washington
Carver, and Jackie Robinson are usually told with a focus on their success, with little attention to
racism and other barriers they encountered and how they succeeded despite the hurdles they
faced. Little attention is also devoted to the process by which they became heroes/heroines.
Students should learn about the process by which people become heroes/heroines as well as
about their status and role as heroes/heroines. Only when students learn the process by which
individuals become heroes/heroines will they understand fully how individuals, particularly indi-
viduals of color, achieve and maintain hero/heroine status and what the process of achieving this
status means for their own lives.
When teaching about the historic election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the
United States in 2008, teachers should help students to understand both his struggles and tri-
umphs (Obama, 2004, 2006). His successful presidential election campaign in 2008 should be
discussed within the context of the racism he experienced as a youth, as a presidential candidate,
and as president. A number of events during the presidential election campaign of 2008 had racial
overtones and were designed to depict Obama as an “Outsider” who would not be an appropriate
president of the United States. These events included falsely claiming that he was a Muslim,
highlighting his relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, attempting to marginalize him
by emphasizing that he had been a community organizer, and linking him with William Ayers—
whom Sarah Palin, the Republican vice‐presidential candidate in 2008, called a “domestic
terrorist.” Michael Massing (2008) concludes about the attacks on Obama, “Amounting to a six‐
month‐long exercise in Swift Boating, these attacks, taken together, constitute perhaps the most
vicious smear campaign ever mounted against an American politician” (p. 26). Some of these
attacks continued when Obama become president, such as the idea perpetuated by the group that
became know as the “birthers.” They claimed that Obama was not born in the United States, was
not a U.S. citizen, and therefore did not qualify to be president of the United States.
The contributions approach often results in the trivialization of ethnic cultures, the study of
their strange and exotic characteristics, and the reinforcement of stereotypes and misconceptions.
When the focus is on the contributions and unique aspects of ethnic cultures, students are not
helped to view them as complete and dynamic wholes. The contributions approach also tends to
focus on the lifestyles of ethnic groups rather than on the institutional structures, such as racism
and discrimination, that significantly affect their life chances and keep them powerless and
marginalized.
The contributions approach to content integration may provide students a memorable one-
time experience with an ethnic hero/heroine, but it often fails to help them understand the role
and influence of the hero/heroine in the total context of U.S. history and society. When ethnic
heroes/heroines are studied apart from the social and political context in which they lived and
worked, students attain only a partial understanding of their roles and significance in society.
When Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks are studied outside the social and political context
of institutionalized racism in the U.S. South in the 1950s and 1960s and without attention to the
more subtle forms of institutionalized racism in the North during this period, their full signifi-
cance as social reformers and activists is neither revealed to nor understood by students.
9.4.2 The Additive Approach
Another important approach to the integration of ethnic content into the curriculum is the addi-
tion of content, concepts, themes, and perspectives to the curriculum without changing its basic
structure, purposes, and characteristics. The additive approach (Level 2 in Figure 9.1) is often
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158 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
accomplished by the addition of a book, a unit, or a course to the curriculum without substantially
changing the curriculum. Examples of this approach include adding a book such as The Color Purple (Walker, 1982) to a unit on the 20th century in an English class, using the film The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (Korty, 1973) during a unit on the 1960s, and showing a film
about the internment of Japanese Americans, such as Rabbit in the Moon (Omori, 2004), during
a study of World War II in a class on U.S. history.
The additive approach allows the teacher to put ethnic content into the curriculum without
restructuring it, a process that would take substantial time, effort, and training as well as a rethink-
ing of the curriculum and its purposes, nature, and goals. The additive approach can be the first
phase in a transformative curriculum reform effort designed to restructure the total curriculum
and to integrate it with ethnic content, perspectives, and frames of reference.
However, this approach shares several disadvantages with the contributions approach. Its
most important shortcoming is that it usually results in viewing ethnic content from the perspec-
tives of mainstream historians, writers, artists, and scientists because it does not involve a restruc-
turing of the curriculum. The events, concepts, issues, and problems to be studied are selected
using mainstream‐centric and Eurocentric criteria and perspectives. When teaching a unit entitled
“The Westward Movement” in a fifth‐grade U.S. history class, the teacher may integrate the unit
by adding content about the Oglala Sioux Indians. However, the unit remains mainstream‐centric
and focused because of its perspective and point of view.
A unit called “The Westward Movement” is mainstream‐ and Eurocentric because it
focuses on the movement of European Americans from the eastern to the western part of the
United States. The Oglala Sioux were already in the West and consequently were not moving
westward. The unit might be called “The Invasion from the East” from the point of view of the
Oglala Sioux. Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux holy man, lamented the conquering of his people,
which culminated in their defeat at Wounded Knee Creek on December 29, 1890. Approximately
200 Sioux men, women, and children were killed by U.S. troops. Black Elk said, “The [Sioux]
nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead”
(Black Elk & Neihardt, 1972, p. 230).
Black Elk did not consider his homeland “the West,” but rather the center of the world. He
viewed the cardinal directions metaphysically. The Great Spirit sent him the cup of living water
and the sacred bow from the west. The daybreak star and the sacred pipe originated from the east.
The Sioux nation’s sacred hoop and the tree that was to bloom came from the south (Black Elk,
1964). When teaching about the movement of the Europeans across North America, teachers
should help students understand that different cultural, racial, and ethnic groups often have vary-
ing and conflicting conceptions and points of view about the same historical events, concepts,
issues, and developments. The victors and the vanquished, especially, often have conflicting con-
ceptions of the same historical event (Limerick, 1987). However, it is usually the point of view of
the victors that becomes institutionalized in the schools and the mainstream society. This happens
because history and textbooks are usually written by the people who won the wars and gained
control of the society, not by the losers—the victimized and the powerless. The perspectives of
both groups are needed to help us fully understand our history, culture, and society.
The people who are conquered and the people who conquered them have histories and
cultures that are intricately interwoven and interconnected. They have to learn each other’s his-
tories and cultures to understand their own fully. White Americans cannot fully understand their
own history in the western United States and in America without understanding the history of
the American Indians and the ways their histories and the histories of the Indians are
interconnected.
James Baldwin (1985) insightfully pointed out that when White Americans distort African
American history, they do not learn the truth about their own history because the histories of
African Americans and Whites in the United States are tightly bound together. This is also true
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1599.4 Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content
for African American history and Indian history. The histories of African Americans and Indians
in the United States are closely interconnected, as Katz (1986) documents in Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage.
The histories of African Americans and Whites in the United States are tightly connected,
both culturally and biologically, as Ball (1998) points out when he describes the African American
ancestors in his White family and as Gordon‐Reed (1997) reveals when she describes the rela-
tionship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, his slave mistress. The additive approach
fails to help students view society from diverse cultural and ethnic perspectives and to understand
the ways in which the histories and cultures of the nation’s diverse ethnic, racial, cultural, and reli-
gious groups are interconnected.
Multicultural history enables students and teachers to understand America’s complexity
and the ways in which various groups in the United States are interconnected (Takaki, 2008).
Sam Hamod describes the way in which diverse ethnic perspectives enrich our understandings
and lead to more accurate versions of U.S. society:
Our dual vision of “ethnic” and American allows us to see aspects of the United States that main- stream writers often miss; thus, our perspectives often allow us a diversity of visions that, ironically, may lead us to larger truth—it’s just that we were raised with different eyes.
(cited in Reed, 1997, p. xxii)
Content, materials, and issues that are added to a curriculum as appendages instead of being
integral parts of a unit of instruction can become problematic. Problems might result when a book
such as The Color Purple or a film like Miss Jane Pittman is added to a unit when the students
lack the concepts, content background, and emotional maturity to deal with the issues and prob-
lems in these materials. The effective use of such emotion‐laden and complex materials usually
requires that the teacher help students acquire, in a sequential and developmental way, the content
background and attitudinal maturity to deal with them effectively. The use of both of these mate-
rials in different classes and schools has resulted in major problems for the teachers using them.
A community controversy arose in each case. The problems developed because the material was
used with students who had neither the content background nor the attitudinal sophistication to
respond to them appropriately. Adding ethnic content to the curriculum in a sporadic and seg-
mented way can result in pedagogical problems, trouble for the teacher, student confusion, and
community controversy.
9.4.3 The Transformation Approach
The transformation approach differs fundamentally from the contributions and additive appro-
aches. In those two approaches, ethnic content is added to the mainstream core curriculum with-
out changing its basic assumptions, nature, and structure. The fundamental goals, structure, and
perspectives of the curriculum are changed in the transformation approach.
The transformation approach (Level 3 in Figure 9.1) changes the basic assumptions of the
curriculum and enables students to view concepts, issues, themes, and problems from several
ethnic perspectives and points of view. The mainstream‐centric perspective is one of only several
perspectives from which problems, concepts, and issues are viewed. Richard White (1991),
a historian of the American West, indicates how viewing it from a transformative perspective can
provide new insights into U.S. history. He writes, “The first Europeans to penetrate the West
arrived neither as conquerors nor as explorers. Like so many others history has treated as discov-
erers, they were merely lost” (p. 5).
It is neither possible nor desirable to view every issue, concept, event, or problem from the
point of view of each U.S. ethnic and cultural group. Rather, the goal should be to enable students
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160 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
to view concepts and issues from more than one perspective and from the points of view of the
cultural, ethnic, and racial groups that were the most active participants in, or were most cogently
influenced by, the event, issue, or concept being studied.
The key curriculum issue involved in multicultural curriculum reform is not the addition of
a long list of ethnic groups, heroes, and contributions but the infusion of various perspectives,
frames of references, and content from different groups that will extend students’ understandings
of the nature, development, and complexity of U.S. society. When students are studying the revo-
lution in the British colonies, the perspectives of the Anglo revolutionaries, Anglo loyalists,
African Americans, Indians, and British are essential for the students to attain a thorough under-
standing of this significant event in U.S. history (see Figure 9.2). Students must study the various
and sometimes divergent meanings of the revolution to these diverse groups to understand it fully
(Gay & Banks, 1975).
In the language arts, when students are studying the nature of U.S. English and proper
language use, they should be helped to understand the rich linguistic and language diversity in the
United States and the ways in which a wide range of regional, cultural, and ethnic groups have
influenced the development of U.S. English (Hudley & Mallinson, 2011). Students should also
examine how normative language use varies with the social context, region, and situation. The
use of Black English is appropriate in some social and cultural contexts and inappropriate in oth-
ers. This is also true of Standard U.S. English. The United States is rich in languages and dialects.
The nation had 54 million Latino citizens in 2013; Spanish is the first language for most of them.
Most of the nation’s approximately 42 million African Americans speak both Standard English
and some form of Black English or Ebonics (Baugh, 2012). The rich language diversity in the
United States includes more than 25 European languages; Asian, African, and Middle Eastern
languages; and American Indian languages. Since the 1970s, languages from Indochina, spoken
Anglo Loyalists Anglo Revolutionaries
African Americans
Native Americans
Political Aspects
Economic
Aspects
Social Aspects
Military
Aspects
Geographical
Aspects
Philosophical/
Humanitarian
Aspects
Europeans (French,
Germans, etc.)
British American
Revolution
FIGURE 9.2
A Multicultural Interdisciplinary Model
for Teaching the American Revolution
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1619.4 Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content
by groups such as the Hmong, Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians, have further enriched
language diversity in the United States (Ovando, 2012).
When subjects such as music, dance, and literature are studied, the teacher should acquaint
students with the ways these art forms as practiced by U.S. ethnic groups have greatly influenced
and enriched the nation’s artistic and literary traditions. For example, the ways in which African
American musicians such as Bessie Smith, W. C. Handy, and Leontyne Price have influenced the
nature and development of U.S. music should be examined when the development of U.S. music
is studied (Burnim & Maultsby, 2006). African Americans and Puerto Ricans have significantly
influenced the development of American dance. Writers of color, such as Langston Hughes, Toni
Morrison, N. Scott Momaday, Carlos Bulosan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Rudolfo A. Anaya, and
Piri Thomas, have not only significantly influenced the development of American literature but
have also provided unique and revealing perspectives on U.S. society and culture.
When studying U.S. history, language, music, arts, science, and mathematics, the emphasis
should not be on the ways in which various ethnic and cultural groups have contributed to main-
stream U.S. society and culture. The emphasis should be on how the common U.S. culture and society emerged from a complex synthesis and interaction of the diverse cultural elements that originated within the various cultural, racial, ethnic, and religious groups that make up U.S. soci- ety. I call this process multiple acculturation and argue that even though Anglo Americans are the
dominant group in the United States—culturally, politically, and economically—it is misleading
and inaccurate to describe U.S. culture and society as an Anglo‐Saxon Protestant culture (Banks,
2015). Other U.S. ethnic and cultural groups have deeply influenced, shaped, and participated in
the development and formation of U.S. society and culture. African Americans, for example,
profoundly influenced the development of southern U.S. culture even though they had very little
political and economic power. One irony of conquest is that those who are conquered often
deeply influence the cultures of the conquerors.
A multiple acculturation conception of U.S. society and culture leads to a perspective that
views ethnic events, literature, music, and art as integral parts of the common, shared U.S. cul-
ture. Anglo American Protestant culture is viewed as only a part of this larger cultural whole.
Thus, to teach American literature without including significant writers of color, such as Maxine
Hong Kingston, Carlos Bulosan, and Toni Morrison, gives a partial and incomplete view of
U.S. literature, culture, and society.
9.4.4 The Social Action Approach
The social action approach (Level 4 in Figure 9.1) includes all elements of the transformation
approach but adds components that require students to make decisions and take actions related to
the concept, issue, or problem studied in the unit (Banks & Banks, 1999). Major instructional
goals in this approach are to educate students for social criticism and social change and to teach
them decision‐making skills. To empower students and help them acquire political efficacy, the
school must help them become reflective social critics and skilled participants in social change.
The traditional goal of schooling has been to socialize students so they would accept unquestion-
ingly the existing ideologies, institutions, and practices in society and the nation‐state (Banks,
2004; Malin, Ballard, Attai, Colby, & Damon, 2014).
Political education in the United States has traditionally fostered political passivity rather
than political action (Hess & McAvoy, 2015). A major goal of the social action approach is to
help students acquire the knowledge, values, and skills they need to participate in social change
so that marginalized and excluded racial, ethnic, and cultural groups can become full participants
in U.S. society and the nation will move closer to attaining its democratic ideals (Banks, 2004).
To participate effectively in democratic social change, students must be taught social criticism
and helped to understand the inconsistency between our ideals and social realities, the work that
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162 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
must be done to close this gap, and how students can, as individuals and groups, influence the
social and political systems in U.S. society. In this approach, teachers are agents of social change
who promote democratic values and the empowerment of students. Teaching units organized
using the social action approach have the following components:
1. A decision problem or question. An example of a question is this: What actions should we
take to reduce prejudice and discrimination in our school?
2. An inquiry that provides data related to the decision problem. The inquiry might consist of
questions such as these:
a. What is prejudice?
b. What is discrimination?
c. What causes prejudice?
d. What causes people to discriminate?
e. What are examples of prejudice and discrimination in our school, community, nation, and
world?
f. How do prejudice and discrimination affect the groups listed in item g? How does each
group view prejudice? Discrimination? To what extent is each group a victim or a per-
petuator of prejudice and discrimination?
g. How has each group dealt with prejudice and discrimination? (Groups: White mains-
tream Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native
Americans)
The inquiry into the nature of prejudice and discrimination would be interdisciplinary and
would include readings and data sources in the various social sciences, biography, fiction,
poetry, and drama. Scientific and statistical data would be used when students investigate
how discrimination affects the income, occupations, frequency of diseases, and health care
within these various groups.
3. Value inquiry and moral analysis. Students are given opportunities to examine, clarify, and
reflect on their values, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings related to racial prejudice and discrimi-
nation. The teacher can provide the students with case studies from various sources, such as
newspapers and magazines. The case studies can be used to involve the students in discus-
sions and role‐playing situations that enable them to express and examine their attitudes,
beliefs, and feelings about prejudice and discrimination. Poetry, biography, and powerful
fiction are excellent sources for case studies that can be used for both discussion and role‐
playing. The powerful poem “Incident” by Countee Cullen (1993) describes the painful
memories of a child who was called “nigger” on a trip to Baltimore. Langston Hughes’s
(1993) poem “I, Too, Sing America” poignantly tells how the “darker brother” is sent into the
kitchen when company comes. The teacher and the students can describe verbally or write
about incidents related to prejudice and discrimination they have observed or in which they
have participated. The following case, based on a real‐life situation, was written by the
author for use with his students. After reading the case, the students discuss the questions at
the end of it.
Trying to Buy a Home in Lakewood Island About a year ago, Joan and Henry Green, a young African American couple, moved from the West Coast to a large city in the Midwest. They moved because Henry finished his PhD in chemistry and took a job at a big university in Midwestern City. Since they have been in Midwestern City, the Greens have rented an apartment in the central area of the city. However, they have decided that they want to buy a house. Their apartment has become too small for the many books and other things they have accumulated during the year. In addition to wanting more space, they also want a house so that they
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1639.4 Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content
can receive breaks on their income tax, which they do not receive living in an apartment. The Greens also think that a house will be a good financial investment.
The Greens have decided to move into a suburban community. They want a new house and most of the houses within the city limits are rather old. They also feel that they can obtain a larger house for their money in the suburbs than in the city. They have looked at several suburban communities and decided that they like Lakewood Island better than any of the others. Lakewood Island is a predominantly White community, which is composed primarily of lower‐middle‐class and middle‐class residents. There are a few wealthy families in Lakewood Island, but they are exceptions rather than the rule.
Joan and Henry Green have become frustrated because of the problems they have experienced trying to buy a home in Lakewood Island. Before they go out to look at a house, they carefully study the newspaper ads. When they arrived at the first house in which they were interested, the owner told them that his house had just been sold. A week later they decided to work with a realtor. When they tried to close the deal on the next house they wanted, the realtor told them that the owner had raised the price $10,000 because he had the house appraised since he put it on the market and had discovered that his selling price was too low. When the Greens tried to buy a third house in Lakewood Island, the owner told them that he had decided not to sell because he had not received the job in another city that he was almost sure he would receive when he had put his house up for sale. He explained that the realtor had not removed the ad about his house from the newspaper even though he had told him that he had decided not to sell a week earlier. The realtor the owner had been working with had left the real estate company a few days ago. Henry is bitter and feels that he and his wife are victims of racism and dis- crimination. Joan believes that Henry is too sensitive and that they have been the victims of a series of events that could have happened to anyone, regardless of their race.
Questions: What should the Greens do? Why? (Reprinted with permission from James A. Banks 2009b.)
(Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies (8th ed., p. 217). Boston: Pearson.)
4. Decision‐making and social action (synthesis of knowledge and values). Students acquire
knowledge about their decision problem from the activities in item 2. This interdisciplinary
knowledge provides them the information they need to make reflective decisions about
prejudice and discrimination in their communities and schools. The activities in item 3
enable them to identify, clarify, and analyze their values, feelings, and beliefs about preju-
dice and discrimination. The decision‐making process enables the students to synthesize
their knowledge and values to determine what actions, if any, they should take to reduce
prejudice and discrimination in their school. They can develop a chart in which they list
possible actions to take and their possible consequences. They can then decide on a course
of action to take and implement it.
9.4.5 Mixing and Blending Approaches
The four approaches for the integration of multicultural content into the curriculum (see
Table 9.1) are often mixed and blended in actual teaching situations. One approach, such as
the contributions approach, can be used as a vehicle to move to other, more intellectually
challenging approaches, such as the transformation and social action approaches. It is unreal-
istic to expect a teacher to move directly from a highly mainstream‐centric curriculum to one
that focuses on decision‐making and social action. Rather, the move from the first to higher
levels of multicultural content integration is likely to be gradual and cumulative. A teacher
who has a mainstream‐centric curriculum might use the school’s Martin Luther King Jr. birth-
day celebration as an opportunity to integrate the curriculum with ethnic content about King
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164 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
■ TABLE 9.1 Banks’s Approaches for the Integration of Multicultural Content
Approach Description Examples Strengths Problems
Contributions Heroes, cultural components, holidays, and other discrete elements related to ethnic groups are added to the curriculum on special days, occasions, and celebrations.
Famous Mexican Americans are studied only during the week of Cinco de Mayo (May 5). African Americans are studied during African American History Month in February but rarely during the rest of the year.
Ethnic foods are studied in the first grade with little attention devoted to the cultures in which the foods are embedded.
Provides a quick and relatively easy way to put ethnic content into the curriculum.
Gives ethnic heroes visibility in the curriculum alongside mainstream heroes.
Is a popular approach among teachers and educators.
Results in a superficial understanding of ethnic cultures.
Focuses on the lifestyles and artifacts of ethnic groups and reinforces stereotypes and misconceptions.
Mainstream criteria are used to select heroes and cultural elements for inclusion in the curriculum.
Additive This approach consists of the addition of content, concepts, themes, and perspectives to the curriculum without changing its structure.
Adding the book The Color Purple to a literature unit without reconceptualizing the unit or giving the students the background knowledge to understand the book.
Adding a unit on the Japanese American internment to a U.S. history course without treating the Japanese in any other unit.
Leaving the core curriculum intact but adding an ethnic studies course, as an elective, that focuses on a specific ethnic group.
Makes it possible to add ethnic content to the curriculum without changing its structure, which requires substantial curriculum changes and staff development.
Can be implemented within the existing curriculum structure.
Reinforces the idea that ethnic history and culture are not integral parts of U.S. mainstream culture.
Students view ethnic groups from Anglocentric and Eurocentric perspectives.
Fails to help students understand how the dominant culture and ethnic cultures are interconnected and interrelated.
Transformation The basic goals, structure, and nature of the curriculum are changed to enable students to view concepts, events, issues, problems, and themes from the perspectives of diverse cultural, ethnic, and racial groups.
A unit on the American Revolution describes the meaning of the revolution to Anglo revolutionaries, Anglo loyalists, African Americans, Indians, and the British.
A unit on 20th‐century U.S. literature includes works by William Faulkner, Joyce Carol Oates, Langston Hughes, N. Scott Momaday, Saul Bellow, Maxine Hong Kingston, Rudolfo A. Anaya, and Piri Thomas.
Enables students to understand the complex ways in which diverse racial and cultural groups participated in the formation of U.S. society and culture.
Helps reduce racial and ethnic encapsulation. Enables diverse ethnic, racial, and religious groups to see their cultures, ethos, and perspectives in the school curriculum.
Gives students a balanced view of the nature and development of U.S. culture and society. Helps to empower victimized racial, ethnic, and cultural groups.
The implementation of this approach requires substantial curriculum revision, in‐service training, and the identification and development of materials written from the perspectives of various racial and cultural groups.
Staff development for the institutionalization of this approach must be continual and ongoing.
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1659.4 Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content
as well as to think seriously about how content about African Americans and other ethnic
groups can be integrated into the curriculum in an ongoing way. The teacher could explore
with the students questions such as these during the celebration:
1. What were the conditions of other ethnic groups during the time that King was a civil rights
leader?
2. How did other ethnic groups participate in and respond to the civil rights movement?
3. How did these groups respond to Martin Luther King Jr.?
4. What can we do today to improve the civil rights of groups of color?
5. What can we do to develop more positive racial and ethnic attitudes?
The students will be unable to answer all of the questions they have raised about ethnic groups
during the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday. Rather, the questions will enable the
students to integrate content about ethnic groups throughout the year as they study such topics as
the family, the school, the neighborhood, and the city. As the students study these topics, they can
use the questions they have formulated to investigate ethnic families, the ethnic groups in their
school and in schools in other parts of the city, ethnic neighborhoods, and various ethnic institu-
tions in the city such as churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, schools, restaurants, and com-
munity centers.
As a culminating activity for the year, the teacher can take the students on a tour of an
ethnic institution in the city, such as the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific Experience
(http://wingluke.org/home.htm) or the Northwest African American Museum (http://naamnw
.org/) in Seattle, Washington. Similar ethnic museums are located in other major cities, such as
Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York. Other ethnic institutions that the students might visit include
an African American or Hispanic church, a synagogue, or a mosque. However, such a tour should
be both preceded and followed by activities that enable the students to develop perceptive and
compassionate lenses for seeing ethnic, cultural, and religious differences and for responding to
Approach Description Examples Strengths Problems
Social Action In this approach, students identify important social problems and issues, gather pertinent data, clarify their values on the issues, make decisions, and take reflective actions to help resolve the issue or problem.
A class studies prejudice and discrimination in their school and decides to take actions to improve race relations in the school.
A class studies the treatment of ethnic groups in a local newspaper and writes a letter to the newspaper publisher suggesting ways that the treatment of ethnic groups in the newspaper should be improved.
Enables students to improve their thinking, value analysis, decision‐ making, and social action skills.
Enables students to improve their data‐ gathering skills.
Helps students develop a sense of political efficacy. Helps students improve their skills to work in groups.
Requires a considerable amount of curriculum planning and materials identification.
May be longer in duration than more traditional teaching units.
May focus on problems and issues considered controversial by some members of the school staff and citizens of the community.
Students may be able to take few meaningful actions that contribute to the resolution of the social issue or problem.
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166 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
them with sensitivity. A field trip to an ethnic institution might reinforce stereotypes and
misconceptions if students lack the knowledge and insights needed to view ethnic and religious
cultures in an understanding and caring way. Theory and research indicate that contact with an
ethnic group does not necessarily lead to more positive racial and ethnic attitudes (Allport, 1979;
Schofield, 2004). Rather, the conditions under which the contact occurs and the quality of the
interaction in the contact situation are the important variables.
9.5 Guidelines for Teaching Multicultural Content The following 14 guidelines are designed to help you better integrate content about racial, ethnic,
cultural, and language groups into the school curriculum and to teach effectively in multicultural
environments.
1. You, the teacher, are an extremely important variable in the teaching of multicultural con-
tent. If you have the necessary knowledge, attitudes, and skills, when you encounter racist
content in materials or observe racism in the statements and behavior of students, you can
use these situations to teach important lessons about the experiences of ethnic, racial, and
cultural groups in the United States. An informative source on racism is Race Frameworks: A Multidimensional Theory of Racism and Education by Zeus Leonardo (2013).
2. Knowledge about ethnic groups is needed to teach ethnic content effectively. Read at least one
major book that surveys the histories and cultures of U.S. ethnic groups. One book that
includes comprehensive historical overviews of U.S. ethnic groups is James A. Banks (2009b),
Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies.
3. Be sensitive to your own racial attitudes, behaviors, and the statements you make about eth-
nic groups in the classroom. A statement such as “sit like an Indian” stereotypes Native
Americans.
4. Make sure that your classroom conveys positive and complex images of various ethnic
groups. You can do this by displaying bulletin boards, posters, and calendars that show the
racial, ethnic, and religious diversity in U.S. society.
5. Be sensitive to the racial and ethnic attitudes of your students and do not accept the belief,
which has been refuted by research, that “kids do not see colors.” Since the pioneering
research by Lasker (1929), researchers have known that very young children are aware of
racial differences and tend to accept the evaluations of various racial groups that are norma-
tive in the wider society (Bigler & Hughes, 2009). Do not try to ignore the racial and ethnic
differences that you see; try to respond to these differences positively and sensitively. A help-
ful and informative book is What if All the Kids Are White? Anti‐Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families, by Louise Derman‐Sparks and Patricia G. Ramsey (2011).
6. Be judicious in your choice and use of teaching materials. Some materials contain both
subtle and blatant stereotypes of groups. Point out to the students when an ethnic, racial,
cultural, or language group is stereotyped, omitted from, or described in materials from
Anglocentric and Eurocentric points of view.
7. Use trade books, films, DVDs, CDs, and recordings to supplement the textbook treatment of
ethnic, cultural, and language groups and to present the perspectives of these groups to your
students. Many of these sources contain rich and powerful images of the experience of being
a person of color in the United States. Numerous books and other instructional materials are
annotated in James A. Banks (2009b), Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies.
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167 Summary
8. Get in touch with your own cultural and ethnic heritage. Sharing your ethnic and cultural
story with your students will create a climate for sharing in the classroom, will help motivate
students to dig into their own ethnic and cultural roots, and will result in powerful learning
for your students.
9. Be sensitive to the possibly controversial nature of some ethnic studies materials. If you are
clear about the teaching objectives you have in mind, you can often use a less controversial
book or reading to attain the same objectives. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker (1982), for
example, can be a controversial book. A teacher, however, who wants his or her students to
gain insights about African Americans in the South can use Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,
by Mildred D. Taylor (1976), instead of The Color Purple.
10. Be sensitive to the developmental levels of your students when you select concepts, content,
and activities related to racial, ethnic, cultural, and language groups. Concepts and learning
activities for students in kindergarten and the primary grades should be specific and con-
crete. Students in these grades should study such concepts as similarities, differences, preju- dice, and discrimination rather than higher‐level concepts such as racism and oppression.
Fiction and biographies are excellent vehicles for introducing these concepts to students in
kindergarten and the primary grades. As students progress through the grades, they can be
introduced to more complex concepts, examples, and activities. (If you teach in a racially or ethnically integrated classroom or school, you should keep the following guidelines in mind.)
11. View your students of color as winners. Many students of color have high academic and
career goals. They need teachers who believe they can be successful and are willing to help
them succeed. Both research and theory indicate that students are more likely to achieve
highly when their teachers have high academic expectations for them.
12. Keep in mind that most parents of color are very interested in education and want their chil-
dren to be successful academically even though the parents may be alienated from the
school. Do not equate education with schooling. Many parents who want their children to
succeed have mixed feelings about the schools. Try to gain the support of these parents and
enlist them as partners in the education of their children.
13. Use cooperative learning techniques and group work to promote racial and ethnic integration
in the school and classroom. Research indicates that when learning groups are racially inte-
grated, students develop more friends from other racial groups, and race relations in the
school improve. A helpful guide is Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous
Classroom (3rd ed.) by Elizabeth G. Cohen and Rachel A. Lotan.
14. Make sure that school plays, pageants, cheerleading squads, publication staff, and other
formal and informal groups are racially integrated. Also make sure that various ethnic
and racial groups have equal status in school performances and presentations. In a multi-
racial school, if all of the leading roles in a school play are filled by White students, an
important message is sent to students and parents of color, whether such a message was
intended or not.
S U M M A R Y
This chapter describes the nature of the mainstream‐centric cur-
riculum and the negative consequences it has for both mainstream
students and students of color. This curriculum reinforces the false
sense of superiority of mainstream students and fails to reflect,
validate, and celebrate the cultures of students of color. Many fac-
tors have slowed the institutionalization of a multicultural curricu-
lum in the schools, including ideological resistance, lack of teacher
knowledge of ethnic groups, heavy reliance of teachers on text-
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168 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform
books, and focus on high‐stakes testing and accountability.
However, the institutionalization of ethnic content into school, col-
lege, and university curricula has made significant progress in the
past 50 years. This process needs to continue because curriculum
transformation is a development that never ends.
Four approaches to the integration of ethnic content into the
curriculum are identified in this chapter. In the contributions approach, heroes/heroines, cultural components, holidays, and
other discrete elements related to ethnic groups are added to the
curriculum without changing its structure. The additive approach
consists of the addition of content, concepts, themes, and per-
spectives to the curriculum with its structure remaining
unchanged. In the transformation approach, the structure, goals,
and nature of the curriculum are changed to enable students to
view concepts, issues, and problems from diverse ethnic
perspectives.
The social action approach includes all elements of the trans-
formation approach as well as elements that enable students to
identify important social issues, gather data related to them, clarify
their values, make reflective decisions, and take actions to imple-
ment their decisions. This approach seeks to make students social
critics and reflective agents of change. The final part of this chap-
ter presents guidelines to help you teach multicultural content and
to function more effectively in multicultural classrooms and
schools.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
9.1 What is a mainstream‐centric curriculum? What are its
major assumptions and goals?
9.2 Examine several textbooks and find examples of the
mainstream‐centric approach. Share these examples with
colleagues in your class or workshop.
9.3 How does a mainstream‐centric curriculum influence main-
stream students and students of color?
9.4 According to the chapter, what factors have slowed the
development of a multicultural curriculum in the schools?
What is the best way to overcome these factors?
9.5 What are the major characteristics of the following appro-
aches to curriculum reform: the contributions approach, the
additive approach, the transformation approach, and the
social action approach?
9.6 Why do you think the contributions approach to curriculum
reform is so popular and widespread in schools, especially
in the primary and elementary grades?
9.7 In what fundamental ways do the transformation and social
action approaches differ from the other two approaches
identified?
9.8 What are the problems and promises of each of the four
approaches?
9.9 What problems might a teacher encounter when trying to
implement the transformation and social action approaches?
How might these problems be overcome?
9.10 Assume that you are teaching a social studies lesson about
the westward movement in U.S. history and a student
makes a racist, stereotypic, or misleading statement about
Native Americans, such as, “The Indians were hostile to
the White settlers.” How would you handle this situation?
Give reasons to explain why you would handle it in a par-
ticular way.
9.11 Since September 11, 2001, and the U.S./British–Iraq War
that began in 2003, there has been an increased emphasis on
patriotism in U.S. society. Some groups have called for
more emphasis on teaching patriotism in the schools. What
is patriotism? Describe ways in which multicultural content
can be used to teach reflective patriotism. A useful refer-
ence for this exercise is A Patriot’s Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love, edited by Caroline Kennedy (2003). It contains selec-
tions by authors from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural
groups. Gwendolyn Brooks, Thomas Jefferson, Langston
Hughes, Gloria Anzaldúa, E. B. White, and Paul Lawrence
Dunbar are among the writers included in this comprehen-
sive and useful collection.
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Allport, G. W. (1979). The nature of prejudice (25th anniversary ed.).
Reading, MA: Addison‐Wesley.
Asante, M. K. (1998). The Afrocentric idea (rev. ed.). Philadelphia: Temple
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Au, K. H. (2011). Literacy achievement and diversity: Keys to success for students, teachers, and schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
Au, W. (2012). Critical curriculum studies: Education, consciousness, and the politics of knowing. New York and London: Routledge.
Balaji, M. (2007). The professor and the pupil: The politics and friendship of W. E. B. Dubois and Paul Robeson. New York: Nations Books.
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chapter
10
Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching Leslie H. Picca and Ruth Thompson‐Miller
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Name and analyze the major factors related to recognizing and combating
individual racism.
2. Define and give examples of backstage racism.
3. Discuss the educational implications of backstage racism.
4. Define and give examples of frontstage racism.
5. Discuss the educational implications of backstage racism.
6. Compare and analyze the ways that White students and students of color write
about racism in their journals as described in this chapter.
Let us start by acknowledging that for most of us, race is an emotionally loaded topic that can
conjure up feelings such as anger, guilt, frustration, and many other neutral or negative emotions.
Rarely does one walk away from a conversation about race, especially about racism, and say,
“I feel really good about that!” We want to challenge that and to empower you, the reader, to
examine ordinary or daily interactions with the goal of improving everyday racial occurrences.
The intent of this chapter is to empower you with tools to recognize and then to combat the issue
of racism in your everyday life. Of course, the macro social structures, such as institutional rac-
ism in education and the legal system, as well as economic disparities, are harder to change.
However, each individual has an opportunity, even an obligation, to attempt to make a difference
on the micro level and bring about change in the racial dynamics of the United States, one person
at a time.
io fo
to /G
et ty
I m
ag es
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172 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching
10.1 Context Much has been written about the changing forms of racial relations, particularly with the election
of the first African American (or biracial) president of the United States. It is popularly believed
that we are now in a postracial society where race and ethnicity are no longer important variables
for access to resources and opportunities for success (D’Souza, 2011; McWhorter, 2006; Tesler &
Sears, 2010). Legal segregation is ancient history for younger Americans (and even for some of
their parents); they were raised after the success of The Cosby Show, with multicultural program-
ming in schools and diverse images in the media (Bonilla‐Silva, 2006; Gallagher, 2003; Jhally &
Lewis, 1992). However, many social scientists suggest that racial relations, and specifically rac-
ism, are still critically significant issues, even in the post‐1960s civil rights era (Coates, 2011;
Dawson & Bobo, 2009; Kaplan, 2011).
There is much social science literature on “modern racism” or “color‐blind racism.” Negative
racial attitudes have not disappeared; they have just gone underground. For example, although
there are social pressures to avoid overtly racist statements, subtle measures and tests in psychol-
ogy and social psychology suggest that a nonracist mask is covering an intact racist core and that
Whites regularly underestimate the extent of their prejudice (Feagin, 2009; Kawakami, Dunn,
Karmali, & Dovidio, 2009). Specifically, many argue that racism is hidden, subtle, and invisible,
even if its consequences are not.
In order to further investigate this underground or subtle racism, the sociologists Leslie
H. Picca and Joe Feagin collected the journals or diaries of more than 1000 college students of
all racial groups from across the United States detailing their everyday racial interactions. The
research presented in this chapter is based on data collected for the book Two‐Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage (Picca & Feagin, 2007). Using journals collected from
626 White college students, the authors examine Whites’ private conversations and conclude that
racism is thriving in White‐only social networks, even if the White students do not always recog-
nize it themselves. Numerous White college students in the sample said that racism was less of a
problem among their generation compared to past generations. Many White students wrote in
their journals something like “racism will die when Grandpa dies,” indicating their belief that
younger people are remarkably different from and more racially accepting than older people.
However, analyzing the journals reveals that this is far from true. “Grandpa’s racism” is still alive
and well—it just looks different for young adults today. Indeed, there is an intergenerational
aspect to backstage racism. The White students’ interactions were “two‐faced,” or remarkably
different when they were in the company of people of color (“frontstage”) compared to when
they were with only other Whites (“backstage”).
10.2 Methodology In order to better understand “underground” or “hidden” racial attitudes, especially in Whites’
everyday racial interactions, data were collected by means of the journal writings of college
students across the United States. Undergraduates were asked to keep a regular journal of
“everyday” interactions that they participated in or observed via participant observation that
revealed racial issues. Students were recruited through personal contacts with instructors who
were teaching courses in disciplines where student journal writing might be expected (such as the
social sciences and humanities). These instructors were encouraged to invite their colleagues
to participate in the study, thus beginning a snowball technique to gather a larger sample size
(Warren, 2002).
Faculty members were provided with a five‐page handout of journal‐writing instructions
for each of their students. The instructions were detailed but flexible enough for instructors to
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17310.3 Journals by White Students
adapt them for their individual classes. Each faculty member decided how the journal writing
would be used in the class, such as for a course assignment or extra credit. Such decisions influ-
enced how long the students were asked to keep a journal and the length required of each journal
entry to merit credit, if any was offered. On average, the students wrote in their journals for a little
more than two weeks (15 entries), and each journal entry averaged one full paragraph, or about
five sentences.
In the journal instructions, students were advised to document and analyze racial interac-
tions, accounts, events, and comments. A summary of the instructions says, “The goal of this
study is to examine what really goes on in our everyday lives with regard to what we think, act,
and say about racial matters. You will be asked to keep a journal of your observations of everyday
events and conversations that deal with racial issues, images, and understandings.” Students were
instructed to submit their journals with a cover sheet that asked for their name (to confirm receipt
of IRB‐approved informed consents) and demographic information; a space was also provided
for students to write comments or reflections. In addition, the instructors were asked to provide
feedback by completing an exit interview (e.g., attempting to assess why some students opted not
to participate in the project).
Although the journal‐writing opportunity was open to members of all racial groups who
gave consent to share their journals, the book Two‐Faced Racism examines only the White stu-
dents. (Thompson‐Miller, Picca, and Feagin are currently in the process of writing a book that
analyzes the more than 400 journals written by students of color.) Of the 626 White students,
68 percent were women and 32 percent were men. The higher rate of women participants should
not be surprising, given that more women tend to take classes in disciplines where journal writing
might be expected (such as sociology or English). The snowball sampling began at a large
university in the Southeast, and the majority of the White students (63 percent) were from five
universities and colleges in that same region. Of the remaining participants, 19 percent were from
the Midwest, 14 percent from the West, and 4 percent from the Northeast.
The accounts of all White students in the sample were read, coded, and analyzed for preva-
lent themes. Analysis and coding of the journals were ongoing throughout the process in order to
ensure that insights, data connections, and data categories were constantly being improved. We
estimate that the 626 White students in the sample provided about 9,000 accounts of racial events.
Considering the very large sample size, we paid particular attention to more substantial accounts
that provided detailed analysis, narrative linkages, informative stories, and a situated context.
(More details regarding the methodology of this project can be found in Picca and Feagin [2007,
pp. 30–41].)
Using student journal writing allows for the collection of rich data; however, there are limi-
tations. For example, journal writing does not provide an opportunity to ask follow‐up questions.
Bearing in mind the methodology limitations, it is important to note that this qualitative project
used a convenient, not representative, sample, and with a very large sample size, the concerns of
validity are lessened. Besides checking the data for internal consistency (within one journal,
across students in the same class, and comparing students across the country), the details were
compared with data from other studies that focus on racial relations among Whites and college
students (e.g., Bonilla‐Silva & Forman, 2000; Myers, 2005).
10.3 Journals by White Students With these vast data, Picca and Feagin (2007) utilized the dramaturgical theoretical framework
most associated with the theorist Erving Goffman (1959). The authors found that White college
students have very different interactions when they are in the presence of people of color (the
frontstage) compared to when they are in the presence of only Whites or those that are assumed
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174 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching
to be White (the backstage). The inclusion of those perceived (or “mistaken”) to be White in
the backstage illustrates the social construction and fluidity of racial categories. The backstage
includes not only White family and friends but also White coworkers, bosses, and strangers.
The authors found conflicting dimensions between the frontstage and backstage, where
Whites would even take careful measures to protect the backstage from the intrusion of people
of color. For example, Whites would whisper certain words and use vague language, body
language, or code language when the backstage was threatened. The following account written
by Becky, a White college student, illustrates the conflicting frontstage and backstage dimen-
sions. Becky describes an interaction with some of her former high school friends, who are
all White:
[My friend] Todd asked how school was going and then asked when I was going to let them come down and visit. I said, “I don’t know guys, one of my suitemates is Black, you would have to be nice to her.” All the guys said, “Black!?!” Like they were shocked that I could actually live with someone of another color. Then David said, “Now why would you go and do that for?” Then they agreed that nothing would be said if they came to visit . . . The conversation was short lived and I wasn’t surprised by their comments or their reactions to Lisa (my suitemate). They are all really nice guys and I think if they came to visit that they would be respectful of Lisa. I know, however, that they would talk and make fun later about me living with a Black girl.
(Becky)
Becky knew there would be a problem with her friends knowing that one of her suitemates was
African American. The initial collective shocked response from her friends illustrates the emo-
tions connected with racism. Her White friends appear to negatively sanction Becky and to hold
her responsible for the race of her suitemate. Becky’s White friends openly admitted that they
would be polite to the African American woman to her face in the frontstage, fulfilling the expec-
tations of a nonracist White public identity. However, in the all‐White backstage, the men can
behave very differently. In a secure all‐White setting, the men can mock Becky and give her a
hard time. The men clearly possess a level of awareness that their backstage interactions are
inappropriate for the frontstage, as they agree not to say anything.
10.3.1 The Frontstage
The frontstage is defined as those social spaces where the White students were in the presence
of people of color. It was notably characterized by a nonracist, color‐blind perspective—where
it does not matter if one is Black, White, green, or polka‐dotted as we are all members of the
human race (Carr, 1997). There were several broad themes prevalent in the frontstage. First,
when around people of color, the White students attempted to prove their tolerance (such
as using extreme politeness, confirming they were not a racist by such actions as deliberately
saying hello to a person of color, or appropriating racial and cultural characteristics). Second,
Whites used avoidance strategies, such as not mentioning racial issues or anything that could
be associated with racial issues, or simply avoided people of color. Third, Whites used defen-
sive strategies, such as defending themselves against perceived threats or defending Whiteness
(such as debunking the stereotype that Whites cannot dance). Fourth, Whites used confronta-
tional strategies, such as overt racist joking (used in an aggressive and hostile manner as well
as a bonding and reciprocal manner). Fifth, Whites described mundane and ordinary interac-
tions; these accounts involved less narrative detail and included some underlying racial mes-
sages (such as the frequency of mentioning that a person “happens to be African American”
while never mentioning that a person “happens to be White,” suggesting a preservation of
color‐blindness).
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17510.3 Journals by White Students
In one example of the frontstage, a White student writes in her journal that she is a resi-
dent assistant at her university residence hall and describes a time when her best friend, who is
African American, came to visit her in the dorm. As they are walking up the stairs, she notes in
her journal:
I started noticing how many people were stopping, and even going out of their way, to say hi to her. There are about 20 resident rooms from the side entrance of the building to the stairwell and every person in the hall at that time, along with some standing or sitting in their rooms, greeted my friend. Because I was leading the way, I knew that they were addressing her and not me. And I believe that each greeting given to her was absolutely genuine . . . When we entered the second floor where I live the same thing happened . . . [My friend] then commented to me when we got to my room, “People sure are friendly here.” When I began to think about it, I realized that this happened every time she came to visit me. The situation leads me to believe that they greeted her the way they did based on her race, because they don’t treat each other or other White strangers the way they have treated and con- tinue to treat my friend. It’s definitely an interesting twist on interactions and behavior based on race. I also think this situation illustrates that our hall would greatly benefit from having minority residents. If not for any other reason, that people might treat one another more courteously.
(Elizabeth)
In this journal account, the White residents are overly nice to the resident assistant’s African
American friend and their performance is apparent to her African American friend. Elizabeth
notes that her mostly White school needs more “minority residents” in order to draw some of
the frontstage social pleasantries into apparently less‐polite backstage realities. She also notes
that the residents are sincerely genuine in their interracial performances. As in other journal
entries by White students, Elizabeth affirms that her residents are “good people.” The White
residents should not be viewed as necessarily manipulative because they were probably genu-
inely interested in expressing an overly positive image to the African American dorm visitor.
Other students wrote about feeling the need to prove to people of color that they are not preju-
diced, as they felt it was assumed that White skin was equated with a racist identity.
A general rule in frontstage interactions is that it is not appropriate for Whites to express
racist sentiments in the frontstage. Most Whites would use a color‐blind perspective, where the
assumption is that race does not matter. Many Whites expressed a fear of appearing racist in
interactions with people of color and would take measures to convey a nonracist ideology. This
frontstage concern to appear color‐blind almost entirely disappears when students are in the
backstage with only other Whites.
10.3.2 The Backstage
The backstage for Whites involves interactions among only those who are White or are per-
ceived to be White. A person whose racial identity is ambiguous or unclear is often asked ques-
tions such as, “So what are you?” or “Where are you really from?” This ensures that the
backstage, where racist comments can be made, is protected. In some instances, the White
space is viewed as sacred space where “the other” does not belong. There are two general
themes in the backstage for Whites: preparing for future frontstage interactions (such as a stu-
dent who informs her grandmother that the appropriate term is Asian, not Oriental) and relax-
ing the frontstage expectation of color‐blindness. These frontstage pleasantries could be
relaxed and openly contradicted where racial and racist interactions were not only tolerated but
often sustained and encouraged. In the White college students’ journals, the most frequent
theme that emerged was telling or hearing racist jokes in White‐only groups. Consider the
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176 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching
following journal entry written by Debbie, who was watching a movie with four White friends
when one of the men made an aggressively racist joke:
When we heard the joke, my one roommate Lillian said she thought that joke was “terrible.” My other roommate Mike said, “It’s true though.” We all yelled at him and said he was the worst, etc., etc. However, none of us was really mad or really offended by what he said and we probably should have been. Instances like this make me realize that people have gotten too used of people making jokes about minorities. We are too willing to accept people making inappropriate comments about minori- ties. 1 feel like I’m so used to people saying jokes like that, that I don’t even take them seriously any- more. The strange thing is that I don’t think any of my friends are actually racist, they just sometimes say inconsiderate things that they don’t really mean.
(Debbie)
Debbie’s comment on how common it is for her friends to tell racist jokes indicates that such
jokes appear to be a part of the socialization of many Whites. Many of the jokes date from the era
of legal segregation and are repeated in White‐only social networks and in private conversations
away from people of color. Because of spatial racial segregation (notably in neighborhoods,
churches, and schools), most Whites say they largely interact only with other Whites, so they do
not worry about “getting caught” telling racist jokes. For many Whites, using racist epithets
among themselves is not a problem; it only becomes a problem if they are said in the wrong con-
text, which indicates that there are acceptable contexts for using racist epithets, such as when the
target is not around.
Like most Whites in the data sample, Debbie clearly recognizes that such racist humor is
wrong, yet no one in her account is offended by the joke. There are no negative consequences for
this action; racism is just part of the fun. In the backstage, there is no deeper acknowledgment
or questioning of why making fun of people of color is considered normal. There is no con-
sciousness about the meaning or consequences of their fun. The “White‐washed education” that
children receive has been attributed to the minimal understanding of our racial past and lack of
comprehension of how this legacy still has immediate effects today (psychologically, physically,
socially, politically, and economically).
Examining the media context that young people are immersed in illustrates the “light‐
hearted” nature of racism. They listen to comedians who joke about racism. The hip‐hop music
that Whites listen to regularly features racist epithets (Hurt, 2006). Comedy and music are power-
ful tools of socialization that can subvert the racial hierarchy; however, with an uninformed audi-
ence, it can be a dangerous method of perpetuating the same old stereotypes. For example,
comedians like Dave Chappelle often utilize racial stereotypes and racist epithets in order to
dismantle their power. However, in their journals, White students would often argue along the lines
of “if Dave Chappelle can say the word nigger, why can’t I?” without recognizing that the social
context matters. As an illustration, in 2005 Dave Chappelle walked away from a multimillion‐
dollar contract because he realized that he was not disempowering, but contributing to, the per-
petuation of negative stereotypes of people of color (particularly African Americans).
In this age of technology, everything is immediate, and there is a limited depth of process-
ing in the media world. This lack of reflection translates into racial interactions and stereotypes,
where jokes are “just jokes.” In the backstage, young people rarely think deeply or critically
about why making fun of people of color is normalized in society. Young Whites do not think
about the consequences of their actions and how they impact people of color. Some scholars think
the responsibility lies with the educational system, specifically the “White‐washed education”
that children receive in school (Loewen, 1995). The distortion of U.S. history, with its lack of
acknowledgment of the contributions made by people of color, is well documented and per-
petuates stereotypical notions (Clarke, 2011; Franklin & Higginbotham, 2010). The educational
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17710.3 Journals by White Students
system provides students with a minimal understanding of our racial past and certainly no com-
prehension of how our racial history still has immediate effects today (Lewis, 2003). However,
White students understand “enough,” as is evident in their behavior change when they are around
people of color.
Debbie claims that her friends who tell racist jokes are not actually racist. Recall that in the
earlier journal entry, Becky makes a similar claim—that her White friends are all “really nice
guys.” Indeed, most Whites in our sample claimed that someone could not be racist if he/she was
a really nice person. For young White Americans, a person who is racist is considered to be a bad
person, such as a Ku Klux Klan member, a skinhead, or some other radical race fanatic; these
White college students are “just having fun.” In addition, for many Whites, a negative comment
is not viewed as a racial slur if it is not said directly to a person of color. Of course, social scien-
tists know that subtle and hidden forms of racism behind the scenes can be just as damaging
(some argue more so) as the overt and in‐your‐face types (see Carter, 2007; Evans‐Campbell,
Lincoln, & Takeuchi, 2007; Williams & Williams‐Morris, 2000; Yamato, 1987). One way in
which White society justifies racism is by reducing it to the actions of a few misguided bigots.
However, the larger and more insidious aspect of racism is that it is systemic and institutionalized
in every social institution in the United States (Feagin, 2009; Grier & Cobbs, 2000). The legacy
of racial relations in the United States affects every major decision a person makes (and how
he/she is treated), such as where you live, whom you marry, what schools you attend, where you
work and shop, the access you have to health care, and interactions with the police (Blank, 2009).
A fundamental part of White privilege is the luxury to take the advantageous experiences of
Whites as the norm and to deny the consequences of current racial injustices (Collins, 2000;
Johnson, 2006).
Certainly, White college students are not inventing racial stereotypes or racist jokes.
They rely on stereotypes that have been passed down through generations and were created (by
Whites) to legitimize slavery, legal segregation, lynchings, rapes, and other atrocities. There is
an intergenerational component that has been inherited by young people, even if they claim to
celebrate diversity. The “fun” for young Whites in a private backstage has real and serious
consequences that reify and perpetuate old racist stereotypes, contributing to and maintaining
contemporary racial hierarchies (as evident in higher education, health care, the legal system,
housing, etc.) that Whites have the privilege to ignore (Collins, 2000). There never has to be
any acknowledgment of how their everyday “micro” interactions sustain the “macro” institu-
tional racism.
On the whole, the accounts from the White college students focused on backstage interac-
tions. In the backstage, expectations of frontstage pleasantries were relaxed and openly racist
interactions were tolerated and often encouraged. In the thousands of narratives collected in this
research project, “racial joking” in the backstage was the most prevalent theme reported. The
backstage is considered a “safe White space” where Whites can relax and temporarily bond with
other Whites at the unintentional expense of people of color. Some White students concluded that
“it must go both ways,” suspecting that students of color sit around telling racist jokes about
Whites. A White student, Samuel, made the following entry in his journal after hearing racist
jokes in an all‐White context:
One of my buddies just told us [a joke] with a racial punch line. It was odd to look at such a normal occurrence as a sociologist, but I realized that everyone was laughing. It was then that I realized how much we take our Whiteness for granted. Then I got thinking whether people of color tell White jokes, and concluded that they must, but that they’re probably about specific white people, like southerners, etc. When I asked my friends what they thought, one said sarcastically, “I’m sure they do; we did oppress them for 150 years!”
(Samuel)
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178 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching
Samuel implies that southerners are considered more racist than residents of other regions based
on the history of slavery and legal segregation in the South. However, this misconception has
been repeatedly refuted by social researchers (Bowser, 2007; Feagin, 2009; Jaspin, 2007). In
addition, Samuel’s friend illustrates either a lack of knowledge about racial history or a tendency
to minimize it as oppression, since the American slave trade and enforced legal segregation lasted
360 years, not 150 years (Clarke, 2011; Franklin & Higginbotham, 2010).
In addition to collecting the narratives of more than 600 White students, we also collected
more than 400 journals written by students of color. The next section describes some of the preva-
lent themes written about by these students, which are strikingly different from the journals writ-
ten by their White peers.
10.4 Journals by Students of Color The narratives in the journals of students of color were vastly different from those in the White
students’ journals. The students of color focused on the differential treatment that they (or their
racial‐minority friends and family) experienced. These accounts of interactions with White profes-
sors, the campus police, and other students (at social gatherings, in the classroom, in restaurants,
in public campus spaces) are alarming. This is particularly true for students of color at historically
and predominantly White institutions. Unlike White students, who can regularly interact in “safe”
White‐only spaces, students of color regularly had interactions with people outside of their racial
and ethnic identity (Feagin, 1991; Moore, 2007). An African American male wrote about his expe-
riences attending a party during the university’s Parents Weekend (which often involves parents
socializing and drinking with the college students):
I went to a house party with my White roommate to link up with my other White roommate and some friends (all White). We arrived at the party and there were about 100 people of all ages drinking and enjoying each other’s company. I didn’t feel out of place at all until this somewhat random person, which was talking to our group of parents and friends, stopped mid‐conversation and asked “are you the token Black person?” I was shocked and had no clue as to how to positively respond. I thought to myself that I can’t be a token Black person because I was there on my own free will. I thought that regardless of me being there, the party would be the same. Even though I was telling myself that I wasn’t the token Black person, I jokingly told them that I was because I didn’t know what else to say that wouldn’t take from or negatively add to the party. I just internalized my feelings and eventually went home.
(Len)
Students of color at predominantly and historically White universities often remarked on being
the only or one of a few racial minorities in their college classes or at parties. Their achievements,
such as college admission, scholarships, and selection into prestigious positions, were often min-
imized and attributed to the fulfillment of a racial quota (Wise, 2005). Instead of being celebrated
for their merit and hard work, students of color often had to contend with an added layer of sur-
veillance (Feagin, Vera, & Imani, 1996; McIntosh, 1998). For example, students of color men-
tioned that their classmates and instructors often expected them to speak on behalf of all members
of their racial community. In class, whenever the topic of race was mentioned, their classmates
would immediately look at them for their reaction. In comparison, the White students rarely
wrote in their journals about being placed in a situation where they were asked to represent all
White people.
As noted previously, White students often made racial jokes in private backstage settings,
but it was not uncommon for them to “slip” and do so in the company of people of color (see
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17910.4 Journals by Students of Color
Picca & Feagin, 2007, ch. 5). The students of color do not ask to be placed in an awkward
situation, yet their reactions can have serious consequences for future racial interactions. Consider
Len’s account of being referred to as the “token Black person” above. Len could have reacted by
getting angry, laughing it off, educating the White person, or simply walking away. Whatever he
did could have had consequences for how White students treat him in the future. Len was “on the
spot”; he wrote that he was shocked at the comment and did not pursue the conversation further.
The subtle and often regular racial insult, or microaggression (Sue, 2010) was unexpected, but
Len had to decide within seconds how to react to the comment.
The psychological and consequently physical toll that these microaggressions have on stu-
dents of color cannot be underestimated. Len’s reaction, no matter what it was, might have had
negative consequences: Confronting the comment might have made him seem “too sensitive”
about racial issues, yet ignoring it or laughing it off might have led to the perception that hurtful
comments are “no big deal” (Frye, 1998). Len also noted that he did not want to disrupt the social
situation, so he internalized his feelings and left. Many scholars have documented the impact of
the additional stress and negative health consequences of dealing with racist interactions
(Feagin & McKinney, 2003; Randall, 2006). Racial jokes have real consequences for people of
color. Historically, African Americans have swallowed the humiliation, shame, pain, anger, and
rage associated with racism. However, research has proven that the internalization of rage associ-
ated with racism contributes to high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, and other debilitat-
ing diseases (Bryant‐Davis, 2007; Bryant‐Davis & Ocampo, 2005).
While many White college students believe racism is not a significant issue at their campus
or nationwide (Feagin et al., 1996), many students of color in our sample wrote painful narratives
of hostile racial interactions. Alex, a biracial man, described the frequency with which he is
referred to with a racist epithet:
This is one of those sad and angry nights for me. Tonight marks the third time since the beginning of the school year that I’ve been called a nigger by a bunch of White students on a Saturday night, or weekend more in general. At first I used to wonder where they actually take the time in their heads to separate me from everyone else by the color of my skin. I used to just blame alcohol consumption for their obvious ignorance and racist attitudes, but I have since stopped trying to make excuses for them . . . Sometimes it seems that if I am around all White people, then I become nothing more than a token Black “exhibit” for their amusement . . . The saddest thing however, is that these people, these COLLEGE STUDENTS are supposed to be the creme de la creme, the future business and political leaders. They are supposed to be the brightest of the brightest, but then again I guess ignorance can’t be masked by book smarts.
(Alex)
The pain and sadness apparent in Alex’s narrative is very different from the lighthearted tone
of many of the White students’ journal entries. In their journals, most Whites reported reserv-
ing racial comments for the backstage, away from the presence of people of color. However,
Alex reminds us that even in the frontstage, people of color may still be confronted with racist
comments, which may increase at certain times of the day or week. Alex notes that the fre-
quency of racist comments increases on evenings and weekends, which are also the times when
college students are more likely to consume alcohol excessively. Indeed, in their journal
entries, many White students cited alcohol use as an excuse for racist comments and interac-
tions. Alcohol is frequently used as an excuse by Whites to downplay racist activity. In Two‐ Faced Racism, Picca and Feagin (2007) discuss “two‐beers racism” (p. 72), where consuming
significant amounts of alcohol can relax the social pressures against openly expressing racist
ideas. While alcohol can loosen inhibitions, it cannot create racist sentiments that are not
already there.
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180 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching
Alex refers to the social construction of racial categories when he wonders why he is sepa-
rated from his peers based just on his skin color. In the social construction of race and ethnicity,
race is not a fixed biological fact but a social agreement. While biology determines our physical
phenotypes, it is society that determines the meanings we give to arbitrary traits, such as skin
color, eye shape, and hair texture. Earlier in his journal, Alex notes that he has one African
American parent and one White parent. He identifies himself as biracial, although he writes that
he is often identified as just a “token Black exhibit.” Alex and Len are both referred to as “tokens”
by their White peers. Alex is also referred to as a “nigger,” one of the harshest of racist epithets,
a term with a long and violent history that is usually reserved for African Americans (Kennedy,
2003). Racial categorizations depend not only on what an individual identifies for him‐ or herself
but also on the identities other people impose. In journal entries, we see students of color grap-
pling with their interactions with Whites and giving Whites the benefit of the doubt as a way to
cope with microaggressions.
We often think of racist individuals who use the n‐word as neo‐Nazi skinheads or unedu-
cated working‐class persons (best characterized by the 1970s Archie Bunker character). Alex
emphasizes that the persons making racial insults are educated college students, who constitute
the next generation of our nation’s leaders. While education is believed to be the great equalizer
of racial relations, many scholars suggest that our nation’s schools maintain and perpetuate racial
inequalities in both structure and content (Lewis, 2003; Loewen, 1995).
In their journals, students of color indicate that they are often assumed to fit the stereotype
of their racial group. Asian students were asked by classmates they did not know to help with
math homework. Latinos were asked if they were in the United States legally. Students of Middle
Eastern descent were referred to as terrorists. Many African American men wrote about the pre-
sumption by other students that they were untrustworthy or their interactions with campus police,
where they were assumed to have engaged in violent crimes. For example, Brian wrote about how
Whites, especially White women, openly avoided interacting with him:
This morning I was walking to my 10:30 a.m. class. I was running a few minutes late and I saw another student, a White female, walking toward me. She was about 50 yards down the street from me on [Main Street]. I saw her look up at me, then she crossed the street and walked on the other side. She walked for about another 20 yards then crossed back to the side she was originally on. Now, I don’t know if that was really that racist but the implication to me was that she was afraid of me.
(Brian)
Brian gives this woman the benefit of the doubt that she was not behaving in a racially motivated
manner, but he senses that she fears him. Other African American males in the sample detailed
the hurt they feel when their fellow students do not feel comfortable walking along the street
next to them. After detailing a similar experience to Brian’s, Todd, another African American
man, wrote, “I tried to come up [with] other possible reasons for her actions [crossing the street
to avoid him, then crossing back after they passed], but the only logical conclusion I can come up
with is that she encountered an African American male, a threat she felt required quick evasive
action.” Brian and Todd are reminded that they are not equal in the minds of their fellow students
but are to be viewed with suspicion and caution.
Students of color wrote that when they confronted their peers about racial stereotypes, they
were labeled as being too sensitive about race or as “playing the race card.” Jordan wrote in her
journal about a recent shopping trip, where a stranger commented on her appearance:
I was buying windshield wipers at Walmart today and this man told me I reminded him of Lucy Liu. It’s been the hundredth time that someone has told me that I look like Lucy Liu. I look nothing like Lucy Liu. [My friend] says I should take it as a compliment because Lucy Liu is hot, but that’s not the
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18110.5 Comparing the Journals Written by Whites and Students of Color
damned point. The only reason why they think I look like her is because I’m Asian and have long black hair. . . . How is it a compliment when it has nothing to do with your “self” and everything to do with your race? I’m sick of being told I look like Connie Chung, Zhang Ziyi, Kaity Tong and the latest edi- tion, Lucy Liu. What sucks is that every time I go off on a tirade about it I get pissed on for having a bad attitude. The same question pops up, “why can’t you take a compliment?” I try to explain that it is not a compliment but people don’t understand why not.
(Jordan)
From the tone of Jordan’s narrative, we get a sense of the frustration she feels. Jordan resists the
assumption that she should see her comparison with an attractive actress as a compliment. We can
speculate that she may be referencing the stereotype of Asian American women as docile and
submissive when she says she gets “pissed on for having a bad attitude” and not agreeing with the
supposed compliment. Jordan’s comparison to the “hot” Lucy Liu references another stereotype
of the “exotic, erotic” sexualization of Asian women (Feng Sun, 2003; Shimizu, 2007). She recog-
nizes that the comparison has less to do with her appearance and more to do with her being
lumped into the category of “Asian woman,” where her individuality is ignored. People of color
are often viewed by those not of their race as “all looking alike,” referred to as the “other‐race
effect” in psychology. This homogeneous view of individuals of other races has been attributed
to having more experience looking at faces of one own’s race (Chiroro & Valentine, 1995).
However, studies also suggest that it relates to prejudice, as more prejudiced individuals are
focused on racial stereotypes and ignore individual differences (Ferguson, Rhodes, & Lee, 2001).
10.5 Comparing the Journals Written by Whites and Students of Color
Comparing the journals written by White students with those written by students of color reveals
striking differences, some of which were noted earlier. Overwhelmingly, the White students
wrote about racially hostile comments that could be made “just for fun” in a private backstage
setting. The parallel was not true for the students of color. While it is true that there are some
accounts of students of color making “anti‐White” comments (as Samuel suggested in his narra-
tive), the nature of the comments are vastly different because they are not nearly as common,
vicious, or damaging. First, the comments are not nearly as frequent as the anti‐Black, anti‐
Latino, anti‐Arab, and anti‐Asian comments we see in the White students’ journals. Many of the
White students reported their surprise at how often they heard racist comments, which often “slip
under the radar” of consciousness unless they pay attention. For the students of color, there was
no parallel reaction; proportionally, very few of them noted derogatory comments about Whites
or other racial group.
Second, the overwhelming majority of anti‐White comments were based on a reaction to a
specific event. For example, one African American woman reported seeing a White woman leave
a public bathroom without washing her hands and commented to her friends that “White people
are dirty.” Although generalizing negative comments to an entire group is never a good thing,
there is a difference between a comment based in direct experiences (as is the case with many
students of color) and common stereotypes ungrounded in direct interaction (as is the case with
many White students) (Hraba, Brinkman, & Gray‐Ray, 1996; Pettigrew, 1985).
Finally, the comments made by students of color lack the institutional support necessary
to have any real negative consequences. The pejorative words used against Whites are not equal to
the pejorative words used against people of color. The stereotypes of Whites (such as that White
people cannot dance or excel at certain sports) do not have nearly as many negative consequences
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182 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching
as the stereotypes of people of color (such as that African Americans are criminal and lazy and
that Latinos are all illegal Mexicans), which have very real and damaging consequences, such as
in the job market or in securing housing and access to health care (Lipsitz, 1995; Mindiola,
Flores‐Niemann, & Rodriquez, 2002). For example, a number of White students wrote in their
journals about instructions they received at work from their White bosses and managers to dis-
criminate against people of color (see Picca & Feagin, 2007, ch. 4), such as not to accept their
employment applications or to monitor them for possible shoplifting. In their journals, none of
the students of color discussed discrimination against Whites, which is not surprising, as people
of color often lack the institutional support to enact it.
Compared to their White peers, many students of color at predominantly White campuses
experience added layers of complexity in their everyday interactions. Most White students do not
have to contend with negative racial stereotypes. (Notably, even “positive” racial stereotypes,
such as the model‐minority myth of Asian Americans, carry negative, and sometimes deadly,
consequences [Chou & Feagin, 2008].) White students’ admission to the university as well as
their subsequent successes and failures are not viewed through the lens of their racial identity.
When a White student receives a scholarship, it is perceived as based on hard work, effort, and
individual accomplishment. The parallel is not true for students of color, who are often presumed
to have received preferential treatment at the expense of White students, even when there is no
evidence to suggest this is true (see Wise, 2005). Students of color, especially on predominantly
White campuses, are all too often reminded that their actions impact, for better or worse, racial
stereotypes. White students can be just individuals, with their race largely ignored. For these
students, using racial stereotypes and racist humor, especially in the backstage, is just fun, with-
out any negative consequences.
10.6 Conclusion and Next Actionable Steps Although we can celebrate the racial progress we have made in the early 21st century, we still
have a lot of work to do. We offer four starting points. First, we need to increase the awareness of
how racial interactions affect everyone and engage in an open dialogue. This can start with some-
thing as simple as asking students to pay attention to their interactions. To account for the nor-
malization of racist interactions, many Whites commented in their journals that they never paid
attention to it until they were asked to keep a daily journal. Numerous Whites said they were
shocked by how often negative comments “slipped under the radar” of consciousness, indicating
that part of White racial identity is the privilege to ignore it. Consider the narrative written by
Kyle, a White male, who ended his journal on this note:
As my last entry in this journal, I would like to express what I have gained out of this assignment. I watched my friends and companions with open eyes. I was seeing things that I didn’t realize were actually there. By having a reason to pick out of the racial comments and actions I was made aware of what is really out there. Although I noticed that I wasn’t partaking in any of the racist actions or comments, I did notice that I wasn’t stopping them either. I am now in a position to where I can take a stand and try to intervene in many of the situations
(Kyle)
Kyle discusses how invisible and normal racist actions and comments can seem; he also acknowl-
edges that now that he is able to recognize this, he can now move on to actively resisting the
racial hierarchy.
Second, we need to be critical of color‐blindness. Color‐blindness is often popularly believed
to be the solution to racism, yet most race scholars disagree. There are at least four reasons why
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18310.6 Conclusion and Next Actionable Steps
color‐blindness works against those interested in racial justice. (1) Color‐blindness ignores the
differences among people that should be celebrated (diversity in customs, appearances, dress,
etc.). (2) Color‐blindness can never exist because there are racial meanings attached to other racial
markers. There are other ways of categorizing race besides what a person looks like. Race affects
every aspect of a person that cannot be ignored: Zip codes, clothing, voice, and even names carry
racial meanings. To illustrate this, two economists (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004) conducted an
experiment in Chicago and Boston using almost 5,000 resumes with either a traditionally White
name (like Emily or Greg) or traditionally African American one (like LaToya or Jamal). They
found a 50 percent gap in callback rates favoring the White names, with a White name yielding as
many more callbacks as an additional 8 years of work experience. Clearly race is simply not just
a matter of how people look. (3) Color‐blindness is typically code for “White.” Numerous scholars
have written about how Whiteness is invisible, expected, and the norm (Johnson, 2006; McIntosh,
1998). Whites will often claim, “I don’t see color; I just see people.” Yet this is true only as long as
the person dresses like a White person, talks like a White person, thinks like a White person, stud-
ies White subjects, and so on. By the same token, Whiteness is also the standard used for evalua-
tion. For example, most college professors are assessed based on their teaching effectiveness. This
is often captured through measures such as student evaluations, which is a seemingly color‐blind
standard. However, empirical research shows that professors of color regularly receive lower
teaching evaluations. Put another way, White professors regularly receive higher teaching evalua-
tions (Messner, 2000). When this is the standard used to evaluate contract renewals, tenure, pro-
motion, and merit pay, Whiteness is rewarded yet never acknowledged in a seemingly color‐blind
measure. The rewards and privileges are invisible to the dominant group. (4) Color‐blindness is
often situational. Whites often practice color‐blindness only in the frontstage, relaxing these stand-
ards in the backstage, as this chapter illustrates.
Third, educators need to be encouraged to become more culturally and racially aware of these
issues. In Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations, Feagin (2000) makes
important points about how individuals can become culturally and racially aware of antiracist strate-
gies and solutions. This can be done by working on one’s own attitudes, stereotypes, and proclivi-
ties, which includes understanding the history of racial oppression in the United States.
Collective forgetting is central to the way in which most Whites have dealt with the history of racism. Most have chosen not to know their history. . . . Learning much about the reality of that history, about its brutality and unjust impoverishment for people of color, and its unjust enrichment for Whites, may be critical to increasing the number of Whites who join in antiracist efforts and movements. (p. 254)
With an awareness of the racial social context, educators can provide support systems for stu-
dents of color. They can listen to their narratives, and although educators may not necessarily
have all the answers, listening is a powerful way to be supportive.
Finally, we need to encourage Whites to hold other Whites accountable. Too often, the
burden of responsibility rests with people of color to educate Whites about racism. Whites need
to recognize that racist comments made in private directly contribute to racial hostilities in the
larger society. There are numerous tools Whites can use to diffuse racist comments, such as using
humor (sarcastically saying, “Gee, I didn’t know you were a racist”) or pleading ignorance (“Can
you please explain that comment to me? I don’t understand what you mean.”). Even to the most
ignorant person, racist jokes are not funny if you have to explain them.
Substantially improving our cultural racial climate, particularly in educational settings,
is critical for many reasons. Taking an other‐oriented approach, it is the decent and fair thing to
do. Even from a self‐interested standpoint, given the competitive global economy that today’s
students will likely enter and the demographic shifts in the United States, it is critical for students
to be prepared to work with people who are not like them. Indeed, one national study indicates
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184 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching
that employers’ highest priority in hiring college graduates is their ability to collaborate with
others in diverse group settings (Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc., 2006). Whether students
adopt the other‐oriented or self‐interested position, it is clear that racial issues and racial diversity
are critically important and that we still have much work to do.
Journal Exercise Keep your own racial journal. The following is a modified version of the journal instructions we
use in our own classes.
Instructions: Often we take for granted issues of race and ethnicity when talking about social
interaction and relationships. These issues are an ever‐present factor of our everyday lives, yet we
often ignore them, talk around them, or only mention them explicitly in jokes or in private
settings. What we say and do in the “backstage” (or private) area is sometimes very different from
what we say and do in the public “frontstage.” This exercise will require you to think beyond your
everyday interactions and to analyze your “everyday world” as a social researcher.
The goal of this assignment is to examine what really goes on in our everyday lives regard-
ing what we think, act, and say about the often taken‐for‐granted issues of race and ethnicity. You
will keep a journal of your observations of everyday events and conversations that deal with the
issues we discuss in class—including scenes you encounter, conversations you take part in or
observe, images you notice, and understandings you gather. The situations you observe do not
need to be negative, derogatory, or discriminatory (i.e., racist) but can occur anytime when race/
ethnicity comes up (or does not come up).
How Do I Do This?
Unobtrusive Participant Observation: In your observations, please use unobtrusive research
techniques so that the person(s) you write about in your journal will not be aware that they are
being studied. In other words, you may not interview anyone you observe as a researcher, but you
may interact with people as you usually would. Please be detailed in your accounts, yet, to ensure
anonymity, it is important that you conceal all identities and disguise all names of persons you
write about. Even though there will be no identifying markers in the journal, please keep your
journal in a safe, private space so that it is not read by others.
Writing Up Your Observations: In your journal, you will be asked to emphasize (1) your observa- tions and (2) your reactions to and perceptions of these everyday events. Please note details, such
as whether you are observing a middle‐aged White female or a teenage Asian American male. It is
helpful to note the approximate age, race, and gender of each person you mention in your journal.
As well as noting what happened, be sure to note where the observations took place, when
it took place (such as a Saturday night or your Tuesday lunch break), and whom you were with.
Often time, place, and the presence or absence of other people critically affect whether people
feel comfortable (or not) talking about these issues.
When writing down your observations, be sure to be detailed in your comments on the way
in which people interact. For example, if someone makes a comment sarcastically or whispers
certain words, be sure to note the sarcasm or volume change. Also, be sure to note the occasions
when certain issues are blatantly ignored. For example:
October 27 Monday night I was with a group of girlfriends (4 White, 1 Latina) watching TV. Sue [not her real name] mentioned another girl, Betty, and was trying to describe to the other girls who Betty is.
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185 Questions and Activities
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
10.1 Consider the chapter in light of other social structures, such
as how gender impacts racial interactions. Do you see any
gender themes? Do you notice these in your own life?
10.2 How can the overall finding of this chapter, a frontstage/
backstage difference in racial interactions, be applied to
other social structures? In other words, is there a frontstage/
backstage for gender relations? For sexual orientation? For
social class? For religion?
10.3 How does the chapter illustrate why color‐blindness is not
the solution to racism?
10.4 Many Whites claim that comments are not racist if they are
not said directly to a person of color. How does the chapter
dispute this claim? In other words, why are racist jokes still
racist even if they are told to only White people?
10.5 The chapter suggests that race is socially constructed, not
biological. What are examples in the chapter that illustrate
this? (Note: In chapter 4 of Two‐Faced Racism, Picca and
Feagin [2007] examine the experiences of racially ambigu-
ous individuals, or individuals who “play” with race, who
present the frontstage and backstage as more fluid spaces,
rather than as discrete and separate.)
10.6 What are steps you can take to combat racism on everyday
levels? Do you see racism in your own life? How and
where?
I should mention Betty is from Korea. Sue described her as kinda short, ponytail, and works out around the same time that we do (which describes just about every girl at our school!!). I don’t know why Sue didn’t mention she is Asian—it would have made describing her a lot easier.
If you find that you have not noticed any issues to write about, write that down as well! Jot down
what you did that day (did you go to the gym, go to class, have lunch with three White friends,
then hit the library?). Often even “no data” are data! Be sure to think critically about what you
observe.
When Should I Write? If you can, you should jot down your notes as quickly as possible after
your observations so the details will be fresh in your mind. You will be surprised at how quickly
you forget key details if you do not jot them down right away. You should make it a point to write
in your journal at least once a day, even to note that you did not observe any events.
How Should the Journal Entries Look? Your initial notes to remind yourself of what you saw
may certainly be handwritten scribbles on small scraps of paper. (You may find it useful to carry
small pads of paper around to jot down notes to yourself.) The journal you submit should be
typed. The entries should be single‐spaced; about a full paragraph to half a page in length is
typical. Commit to keeping a journal for two weeks. Be sure to note the date and time when the
incidents took place.
Often with these issues, people feel afraid to say or do “the wrong thing.” Keep in mind that
there are no “right” or “wrong” responses, so there are no “mistakes” that you can make when
writing in your journal. You will not be graded on your observations or your reactions to your
observations. You will be graded on your narrative detail and your analysis in the summary essay.
Besides the Journal Accounts, What Else Will I Submit? After you have written in your jour-
nal, please reflect back on your experiences in a summary essay: How do your accounts relate to
material we have covered in this course? Within the context of this course, were you surprised by
your experiences? Does race/ethnicity structure and affect your everyday life?
How Will I Be Graded? To receive the maximum credit, you will write at least ten entries plus
a two‐page summary essay. The quality of your work counts. Mediocre work (fewer entries,
less‐detailed analysis, spelling/grammatical errors, etc.) will obviously not warrant full credit.
Again, you will not be graded on “what” you see; rather, you will be evaluated on the quality and
detail of your systematic observations and field notes and, obviously, on your summary essay.
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186 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching
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chapter
Language Diversity and Schooling Manka M. Varghese
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define, compare, and contrast assimilation and transculturation.
2. Define and give examples of segmented assimilation.
3. Compare and contrast the issues related to language that immigrants experienced
at the turn of the 20th century with the experiences of immigrants today.
4. Describe key characteristics of English Learners (ELs).
5. Discuss the effectiveness of different programmatic responses to linguistic diversity in
schools.
6. List the effective ways that teachers can respond to the needs of ELs.
The current demographic shift along with the practitioner and scholarly work that has been con-
ducted by teachers, teacher educators, and researchers in the past 30 years have generated the
understanding that attending to linguistic diversity among students cannot be relegated to special-
ists in schools but must be the responsibility of schools as a whole (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short,
2008 ; Gibbons, 2002 ; Oláh, 2008 ). In fact, Enright ( 2010 ) proposes that “the new mainstream”
in schools consists of culturally and linguistically diverse students (p. 80). This chapter intro-
duces the topic of linguistic diversity with the same assumption—that this is a group of students
who are everyone ’ s responsibility. The information here will be helpful to all those who work in
and with schools.
Immigrants give rise to the largest part of linguistic diversity among students and are also
the fastest‐growing group of students in U.S. schools (Oh & Cooc, 2011 ). In fact, almost all the
growth in the child population of the United States in the past two decades can be accounted
for by children of immigrants (Cervantes & Hernandez, 2011 ; Fortuny, Hernandez, & Chaudry,
M ar
k B
ow d en
/G et
ty I
m ag
es
Banks_c11.indd 188 8/18/2015 11:24:52 AM
18911.1 The Immigrant Population in the United States
2010). Children of immigrants are first‐generation immigrant children born outside of the
United States and second‐generation children born in the United States who have at least one
foreign‐born parent. Many demographers predict that by 2025, approximately 25 percent of
immigrant students enrolled in public schools will have limited proficiency in English
(National Education Association, 2008). At the same time, as regards language diversity, it is
also important to consider cultural and linguistic groups who do not immediately come to
mind; these include African Americans and indigenous populations. Many African Americans
are “bidialectal”—that is, they speak African American vernacular English (Ebonics) and
Standard English—and issues of language diversity have shaped their school experience in
important ways (Alim & Baugh, 2007; Smitherman, 2000). Indigenous groups, such as American
Indians, Alaskan Natives, and Native Hawaiians, contribute significantly to linguistic diver-
sity, representing speakers of about 175 indigenous languages and numerous varieties of
English (Krauss, 1998).
To understand how schools can better meet the needs of linguistically diverse students, we
begin this chapter by examining more closely the linguistically diverse population in the United
States. Then, to understand the legal obligations of schools in meeting the needs of linguistically
diverse students, we examine important events in the legal, policy, and judicial history of linguis-
tically diverse students in the United States. Next, we consider various programmatic responses
to linguistic diversity and their efficacy in meeting the needs of linguistically diverse students.
We conclude with a discussion of how teachers might better respond to the needs of these stu-
dents. We now turn to an examination of one of the primary sources of linguistic diversity—
immigration—and consider how increased immigration has influenced U.S. schools.
11.1 The Immigrant Population in the United States Immigration continues to be the primary source of linguistic diversity in the United States. The
foreign‐born population was 41 million in 2013 and made up more than 13 percent of the popula-
tion, the largest percentage in 80 years (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). Because of restrictive immi-
gration laws, most immigrants who came to the United States between 1880 and 1930 were from
Europe. Changes to immigration law during the 1960s resulted in a steady increase of immigrants
from Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. While immigration has a tremen-
dous influence on all of American life, nowhere has this impact been more keenly felt than in
U.S. public schools.
Historically, immigration to the United States has played a significant role in shaping cur-
rent perceptions of today’s immigrants and, consequently, their reception in schools. The opin-
ions that Americans have about the current wave of immigrants are shaped in part by their views
of the earlier waves of immigrants—perceptions influenced by both fact and fiction. Several key
differences and similarities exist between the experiences of the immigrants who came at the turn
of the 20th century and those who are coming today. Understanding these similarities and differ-
ences is an important way for teachers working with linguistically diverse students to fully under-
stand the reality faced by immigrant populations today.
Despite the common perception to the contrary, the immigrants who came at the dawn of
the last century did not experience universal success in school. In major cities, such as Boston,
Chicago, and New York, the graduation and school continuation rates of southern Italian,
Polish, and Russian Jewish children lagged far behind those of native‐born White students
(Olneck & Lazerson, 1974). The Italian, Jewish, and Irish immigrants of the early 20th century
faced significant social, political, and cultural barriers (Jacobson, 1998). Despite these realities,
today’s immigration debates are often cast in terms of how the earlier immigrants were more
easily absorbed and more beneficial to U.S. society than the Latin American, Asian, and African
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190 Language Diversity and Schooling
immigrants today. The concept of ethnic succession—which explains that new immigrants are
rarely viewed as positively as the groups that came before them—can explain this pattern
(Banks, 2005).
Despite the similarities between “earlier” and “new” immigrants, there are important
differences as well. The current wave of immigration consists of people from several regions
of the world who were not a major part of the last wave of immigration, which occurred in the
late 1800s and the early 1900s. In recent years, scholars from various disciplines have claimed
that world economies and societies have become increasingly interconnected through
advances in technology, media, and mass transit, all of which facilitate the movement of
people, goods, services, and ideas. This new phenomenon has been called globalization,
borderless economies, and the transnational era (Castles, 2003). One of the characteristics of
globalization is the increased flow of people across the planet. While some people voluntarily
migrate in order to improve their lives, others are forced to migrate in order to survive (Suárez‐
Orozco & Suárez‐Orozco, 2003). Social scientists have argued that the role of immigration in
providing both cheap unskilled labor and highly technically skilled labor is a key component
of the new transnational era that the world’s societies have entered (Portes, 1996; Suárez‐
Orozco, 1997).
The back‐and‐forth movement of ideas and goods that characterizes the current transitional
period also parallels the experience of many immigrant students, which has often been cast in
terms of assimilation, whereby immigrants eventually lose contact with their home communities
and are slowly absorbed into their new locality. Departing from the traditional model of assimila-
tion, scholars have argued that immigrants negotiate more complex patterns of social interaction
in their new countries (Itzigsohn, Dore‐Cabral, Hernandez‐Medina, & Vazquez, 1999; Rose, 1997;
Suárez‐Orozco & Suárez‐Orozco, 2003), a process currently being defined as transculturation
(Oh, 2011). In this current transnational era, some immigrant groups continue to have strong ties
with their countries of origin once they reside in their receiving community. These ties influence
immigrant children’s socialization patterns and create social and cultural experiences that span
transnational lines (Mahler, 1998; Oh, 2011; Portes, 1999; Smith & Guarnizo, 1998). Moreover,
immigrants are significantly changing the social context of new communities while also shaping
the social realities in their home countries.
The immigrant family now enters a country that as a whole is economically, socially, and
culturally distinct from the one faced by earlier waves of immigrants. Previous waves of immi-
grants arrived on the eve of a great expansion of the industrial economy. The manufacturing jobs
that were created during the transition to a fully industrialized economy provided a possible
entree for immigrants to the middle class. However, not all immigrants had equal access to the
economy and society. Gordon (1964) explains that earlier waves of immigrants who were mem-
bers of racially diverse groups did not experience the same structural assimilation into U.S. soci-
ety as did European immigrants.
As Suárez‐Orozco and Suárez‐Orozco (2003) argue, today’s economy—characterized by
an hourglass shape—presents unique challenges for immigrant populations. At the top of the
hourglass, highly skilled immigrants are moving into well‐compensated, knowledge‐based
industries at an extremely high rate. At the bottom of the hourglass, immigrant workers accept the
jobs that many U.S.‐born workers are unwilling to take. Immigrants are a large part of the low‐
skilled, low‐paid workers in the service, labor, and agricultural sectors. Unlike the jobs that were
available to previous waves of immigrants, these jobs offer limited prospects for upward mobility
(Suárez‐Orozco & Suárez‐Orozco, 2003).
Immigrants today are also more diverse than ever, exhibiting a significant range in educa-
tional level, social class, and economic capital. Present immigrants are more likely than native‐
born populations to have family members who have graduated from college. At the same time,
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19111.1 The Immigrant Population in the United States
immigrant populations are more likely not to have graduated from high school than are
native‐born populations (Suárez‐Orozco, Suárez‐Orozco, & Todorova, 2008). Another important
aspect shaping the immigrant experience is outside factors that immigrants come into contact
with—the neighborhoods, social networks, and schools—and that are also influenced by the
local and national economy, referred to as the contexts of reception (Suárez‐Orozco & Suárez‐
Orozco, 2003). The varied pattern of potential outcomes for immigrant students, which is also
influenced by their contexts of reception, is further examined in Portes and Rumbaut’s (2001)
discussion of segmented assimilation, which posits three possible outcomes for immigrant fami-
lies: (1) economic success with integration into the middle class, (2) permanent poverty and
integration into the underclass, and (3) economic advancement with the deliberate maintenance
of community values and practices. Each outcome is important to consider in the immigrant
community today. While a full discussion of the factors contributing to segmented assimilation
is beyond the scope of this chapter, it is important for teachers to know that immigrant groups
are demonstrating each outcome; they are not just simply assimilated into mainstream society
as was once assumed. A further discussion of segmented assimilation and the second generation
can be found in Zhou (1997).
According to scholars of immigration, another significant difference is that the more recent
wave of immigrants consists of people of color (Portes, 1996; Suárez‐Orozco & Suárez‐Orozco,
2003). Today’s culturally and ethnically diverse immigrants enter a racialized society that has
historically sorted, classified, and excluded people based on the color of their skin (Omi &
Winant, 1994). It is not as easy to eventually blend into White America as it was for the most
European immigrants of the early 1900s. Racial tensions and structural exclusion in the United
States make assimilation a problematic process for linguistically and ethnically diverse immi-
grants; therefore, the racial categorization of different immigrant groups must also be taken into
account in terms of the differential outcomes for these groups.
Overall, the social, political, and economic difficulties faced by immigrants make reloca-
tion to a new country a very taxing experience. Lucas (1997) describes the experiences of immi-
grant students in U.S. schools as characterized by a number of critical transitions. She points out
that all children experience important transitions in life: childhood to adolescence, home to
school, middle to high school. However, as she correctly notes, immigrant students undergo these
critical passages while adapting to a new language and culture where the rules of participation
and engagement are not always transparent and need to be made so. As an example, consider the
following words uttered by Edgar, a 15‐year‐old immigrant student from Mexico who had been
in the United States for 5 months, in response to a researcher’s request to talk about what he
hoped to accomplish by attending school here:
Cuando eres un inmigrante, muchas puertas están cerradas. Pues, sí, algunas, algunas, están abie rtas—pero están escondidas. Sin ayuda, no puedo encontrarlas.
When you are an immigrant, many doors are closed. Well, yes, some, some are open—but they are hidden. Without help, I can’t find them.
(quoted in Stritikus, 2004, p. 1)
Rather than focusing on his career goals or his educational plans after high school, Edgar
highlighted the limited educational opportunities he believed characterized his new life in the
United States. Although Edgar had been in the country for only a limited period, he had already
developed a keen sense of the social, cultural, and linguistic barriers to his success. Unfortunately,
Edgar’s reality is shared by many immigrant students, for whom the doors of educational oppor-
tunity remain obscured and closed. It is critical to help open these doors for these students.
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192 Language Diversity and Schooling
11.2 Dramatic Increase in Linguistic Diversity in Schools
State educational statistics reveal the number of immigrants in the United States who are receiv-
ing special services to learn English and are classified as English learners (ELs). There has been
a dramatic increase in the number of students classified as ELs since the 1970s. Immigrants from
most nations in the world can be found in school districts throughout the United States. Although
linguistic diversity is a reality throughout the country, the highest populations of EL students are
concentrated in the eight states of California, Texas, Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada,
New Mexico, and Oregon (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics, 2014). Of these, only California and Texas have been historically the most common
places for immigrants to settle. Now almost all states have been affected by immigration, espe-
cially in the last decade (Massey & Capoferro, 2008). Although the exact number is difficult to
calculate, in 2011–2012 EL students accounted for about 9.1 percent, or 4.4 million, of the total
U.S. public school enrollment (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics, 2014). A final important aspect about ELs is that their heterogeneity goes beyond their
ethnic heritage and their language to include, among other aspects, their socioeconomic status,
their generational status (first or second), their literacy levels in their first language, and their
level and quality of prior schooling. Two subgroups that have been a cause of concern for educa-
tors is long‐term ELs, who have been in U.S. schools for 6 or more years and have not exited out
of English as a second‐language programs (Callahan, 2005; Menken, Kelyn, & Chae, 2007) as
well as students who have been reclassified as English‐proficient students but still struggle aca-
demically (Umansky & Reardon, 2014).
11.3 Additional Sources of Linguistic Diversity: Dialect Variation and Indigenous Languages
Immigration is not the sole contributor to linguistic diversity. Along with multiple languages,
dialect variation contributes to our diverse tapestry of language use. A dialect is a variation of a
language characterized by distinct pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Many linguists have
pointed out that the distinction between a language and a dialect is often more political than
linguistic. The famed MIT linguist Noam Chomsky (2000) has often repeated the saying by Max
Weinreich that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. A common but less than perfect
way of distinguishing a language from a dialect is the standard of mutual intelligibility.
Speakers of different dialects are said to be able to understand each other while speakers of
different languages are not. However, what are considered dialects of some languages are so
distinct that speakers cannot understand each other. Chinese has two major dialects, Cantonese
and Mandarin, whose speakers have great difficulty in understanding each other. By contrast,
speakers of the Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, are capable of under-
standing a great deal of each other’s languages. Thus, it is important to note that the distinction
between dialect and language has more to do with political, social, and cultural factors than spe-
cific linguistic differences between the two.
Political and social factors surrounding dialect variation play out in language use in
U.S. schools, where educational practices emphasize the idea that Standard English should be the
dominant variety of language used in all written and oral communication. Many linguists dispute
the idea that a pure or standard form of a language exists in any form but writing. Thus, Standard English often is a term associated with the groups in a society that possess social or political power
(Wolfram, Adger, & Christian, 1998). Because dialect variation tends to be associated with race,
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19311.5 Implementation of Federal Policy
social class, and geographic region, the dialects of groups with less social power tend to be viewed
as inferior or incorrect versions of Standard English. This is the case with Black English (BE)—
also referred to as African American vernacular English—and Black Dialect. Most linguists and
sociolinguists recognize that no matter how BE is defined, it is a rule‐governed language system
linked to the identity of a specific community (Alim & Baugh, 2007; Hudley & Mallinson, 2011;
Labov, 1972; Smitherman, 2000). As Perry and Delpit (1998) write, “I can be neither for Ebonics
nor against Ebonics any more than I can be for or against air. It exists” (p. 17). Speakers of BE are
also most likely speakers of other varieties of English, including Standard English. Thus, speakers
of BE, like other speakers of dialects, are often bidialectal. The educational experiences of speak-
ers of BE and the Oakland school district case are discussed later in this chapter.
Another major source of linguistic diversity in the United States is indigenous populations.
Although a decreasing number of the 175 indigenous languages spoken by more than 550 tribes
are spoken by children, the heritage language is still the primary language for a large number of
indigenous students (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006; McCarty, 2002). Indigenous students do not
have another homeland from which to garner support for learning and maintaining their lan-
guage. The Linguistic Society of America states that only 33 of Indigenous languages are “safe”
in that both adults and children speak it. Therefore, bilingual/bicultural schooling is critical for
indigenous language maintenance, as it is for other linguistic and cultural groups. Most of the
efforts in formal language maintenance for indigenous language groups have been directed at
Hawaiian dialects and the languages of the Navajo and Pueblo nations in the U.S. Southwest.
Attempts to use bilingual education to revitalize these languages have met with modest but
important results (McCarty, 2002).
11.4 Historical and Legal Overview of Language Policy in the United States
This section describes the legal and historical developments related to linguistic diversity and
language education. Understanding the historical evolution of language policy in the United
States as well as the legal milestones for language‐minority students will help us understand the
legal protections for these students and the ambivalent stance that the United States historically
has had toward language policy. Language policies and immigration policies are closely con-
nected, and both matter to the outcomes of immigrant and linguistically diverse students, although
the latter are beyond the scope of this chapter. Overall, language policy in the United States has
leaned toward supporting transition into English rather than supporting other languages and the
rights of their speakers. There have been periods in U.S. history that have been more supportive
of multilingualism than others.
11.5 Implementation of Federal Policy The goal of the Bilingual Education Act (BEA), Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965—signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson—was to provide com-
pensatory education for students who were both economically and linguistically disadvantaged in
schools. The evolution of bilingual education in schools was also a product of the activist Chicano
movement of the Southwest. From 1968 until 2002, Title VII provided funds for different types
of programs for ELs throughout the United States, including transitional bilingual education pro-
grams and two‐way immersion programs; it also provided funding for program evaluators and
researchers investigating these different types of programs. There were 30 two‐way immersion
programs in 1987 and 271 in 2003; most were supported by Title VII monies (Christian, 2008).
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194 Language Diversity and Schooling
A large part of the BEA’s inability to move toward a well‐defined language policy was that
the law did not recommend a particular instructional approach; rather, it provided funding for
development, training, and research of innovative approaches to the education of EL students.
While native language instruction was originally recommended, the BEA did not specify that it
must be used (Wiese & Garcia, 1998). Since its inception, the primary aim of the BEA has been
“providing meaningful and equitable access for English language learners to the curriculum,
rather than serving as an instrument of language policy for the nation through the development
of their native languages” (August & Hakuta, 1997, p. 16). Echoing this, Wiese and Garcia
argue that the BEA has aimed to address equal educational opportunity for language‐minority
students but has not evolved as a language policy. Therefore, the BEA neither legislated for a
particular language policy or instructional approach nor guaranteed the rights of EL students
based on language.
As a result, immigrant students and families have frequently turned to the courts for
redress. The U.S. Supreme Court’s school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education
(1954), the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Title VI), and the 1974 Equal Educational Opportunity Act
(EEOA) have been used as a base to protect these students’ rights. This protection has come
through a safeguard of these students’ other civil rights and their right to equal educational
opportunities (Del Valle, 2003). In the prominent case of Lau v. Nichols (1974), Kinney Kinmon
Lau and 12 Chinese American students, on behalf of about 1,800 Chinese‐speaking students,
filed a class‐action suit against the San Francisco Unified School District, stating that their chil-
dren were not given equal educational opportunities because of the linguistic barriers they faced.
In this landmark case, the San Francisco schools were found to be in violation of the rights of
Chinese students under Title VI and the EEOA. While lower courts disagreed with the parents,
the Supreme Court supported them in Lau v. Nichols (1974) and found that “there is no equality
of treatment merely by providing students with the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and cur-
riculum; for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any mean-
ingful education.”
Lau’s legacy has created important but vague contributions to the improvement of pro-
grams for EL students. Policy guidelines, which were followed by the Office of Civil Rights
(OCR), were put together in the Lau remedies in 1975 for school districts’ compliance with the
Title VI requirements upheld in the Lau decision. These guidelines have required districts to have
a program in place for EL students and for these students to be identified and assessed. While Lau
did not specify any particular programs or polices for EL students, it created momentum for sub-
sequent federal policies and court rulings to protect the specific rights of linguistically diverse
students. Moreover, particulars were fully fleshed out in Castaneda v. Pickard (1981), a federal
district court case that offers a “test” to determine whether the needs of EL students are being met
by policies and programs. This case required that school districts adhere to the following three
areas (see Dabach & Callahan, 2011 for an examination of current issues surrounding this case).
1. Theory. The school must pursue a program based on an educational theory recognized as
sound or at least as a legitimate experimental strategy.
2. Practice. The school must actually implement the program with instructional practices,
resources, and personnel necessary to transfer theory into reality.
3. Results. The school must not persist in a program that fails to produce results.
The Supreme Court ruled in Plyer v. Doe (1982) that states cannot deny a free public edu-
cation to immigrant children because of their immigrant status, whether documented or undocu-
mented. Although this is a federal ruling, states such as Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina,
Alabama, and Arizona all currently have state laws that criminalize the participation of undocu-
mented immigrant students in schools (Oh & Cooc, 2011). Although the constitutionality of such
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19511.6 Language Policy in Recent History
laws is being questioned, they are also being passed by state legislatures, often with widespread
local support. These state laws have become even more of a “hot button” issue because an
estimated 5.5 million children and adolescents have unauthorized parents (Suárez‐Orozco,
Yoshikawa, Teranishi, & Suárez‐Orozco, 2011), and many of them are trying to pursue higher
education in order to get jobs requiring college degrees. Although the Dream Act, which would
make undocumented students eligible for state‐funded financial aid for college, did not pass at
the federal level, currently 16 states have their version of it.
While these requirements may not offer as strong an articulation of EL students’ rights as
some may have hoped, they do offer some legislative protection for EL students and help in creat-
ing effective programs for them. The Lau remedies, the BEA, and Title VI have generally pro-
vided some protection for equal educational opportunities for linguistically diverse students at
the federal level. They also provided federal funding that made possible the inception and growth
of a number of bilingual programs in the United States (Hornberger, 2006; Ruiz, 2004; Wiley &
Wright, 2004).
Similar to the Lau court case, the “Black English case” (1979) (cited in Smitherman,
1981) mandated measures to teach Standard English to children speaking Black English. This
1979 case, Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District, “was as much about educating Black children as about Black English” (Smitherman, 1998,
p. 163). The parents of a group of African American children alleged that the school was not
enabling their children to succeed in a variety of ways, including preventing them from learn-
ing Standard English. The judge ruled that the school had not helped its teachers and person-
nel to respond to the linguistic needs of its African American children. As a result of the
ruling, Black English has also been given legal standing in some districts, such as in Oakland,
California.
11.6 Language Policy in Recent History The mandates of bilingual and bidialectal education have been controversial. Critics have adopted
different arguments, from the historically prevalent charge that such education promotes social
divisiveness to the more recent concerns that students will not learn English if they use their
native language or dialect at school. Other critics have argued that bilingual education simply
does not work (Porter, 1990). For example, when President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981,
he made his views on bilingual education very clear, stating that he understood why teachers who
spoke children’s native languages were needed but also arguing that “it is absolutely wrong and
against American concepts to have a bilingual education program” (cited in Baker, 2001, p. 194).
The proponents of English‐only argue that to preserve the unity of the United States, English
should become the official language (Crawford, 1992). There have been periods in the nation’s
history when administrations have leaned more toward a language‐as‐a‐resource orientation, main-
taining and supporting the teaching of languages other than English, such as President Bill Clinton’s
1994 reauthorization of the BEA. The support or lack of support for a language‐as‐a-resource
orientation at the federal level has depended on the particular administration in office (Wiley &
Wright, 2004).
As in the preceding 200 years, in the early 21st century, the press, politicians, and citizens
have been grappling with the ambivalent attitude toward language. In recent years, the debate has
escalated to a new level with English‐only initiatives, such as the state‐level Unz Initiative in
California, Proposition 227, spearheaded by the millionaire businessman Ron Unz and passed by
California voters in June 1998, outlawing bilingual education in the state. Proposition 227
brought all of the debates on bilingual education under a magnifying lens. The English‐only fac-
tion stressed that bilingual programs were not working and that students were being ghettoized
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196 Language Diversity and Schooling
(although most ELs were not in bilingual programs). Strong proponents of bilingual education,
such as Crawford (1999), have argued that the lack of large‐scale political support has under-
mined its potential effectiveness. In bridging these two factions, Cummins (1999) states, “The
challenge for opponents and advocates is to create an ideological space to collaborate in planning
quality programs for bilingual students” (p. 223). After Proposition 227 was passed in
California, similar laws were enacted in Arizona and Massachusetts (Gándara & Hopkins, 2010).
In 2012, 27 states had active official English laws. However, as a sign of the constant shift in the
political climate, voters will be soon considering repealing Proposition 227 in California through
a referendum.
Many linguists and educators regard the Ebonics debate as being in the same purview as
bilingual education. The Oakland school board decision in 1996 to pass the Ebonics resolution,
which recognized the legitimacy of Ebonics, was also a way for the school district to receive
federal monies reserved for bilingual education and to use them for a Standard English program.
The board resolution stated that the district’s purpose should be to facilitate the acquisition and
mastery of English language skills while respecting and embracing the legitimacy and richness
of different language patterns. The rationale for the decision was that students could benefit from
instruction that used their cultural and linguistic resources. As in the Ann Arbor case two decades
ago (Smitherman, 1981), a large number of African American parents and students protested the
poor academic performance, disproportionate placement in special education, and frequent sus-
pensions of African American students.
Like Proposition 227, the Oakland school board decision resulted in gross misrepresenta-
tions by and biases on the part of the media, the public, educators, and academics. One of the
most frequently stated misconceptions was that the Oakland school district proposed to replace
the teaching of English with Ebonics (Bing & Woodward, 1998).
During the George W. Bush administration in 2002, Title III replaced Title VII (BEA) as
part of a larger school reform measure in the United States known as the No Child Left Behind
Act. Title III carried with it a new name, “Language Instruction for Limited English Proficient
and Immigrant Students.” The word bilingual was deleted from all government offices and leg-
islation, signaling a shift to the assimilationist, English‐first orientation of the 2000–2008 Bush
administration. Even though this new law is more supportive of programs that focus on learning
English, it does not require English‐only programs. Many scholars have argued that there is still
space in the new law for the creation of bilingual programs (Freeman, 2004; Hornberger, 2006).
It is important for teachers to have a grasp of the legal and political trends and policies that
influence the environments of their linguistically diverse students. Teachers who are aware of
such political and social movements can establish historically relevant relationships with their
students and influence programmatic decisions at the school and district levels.
11.7 Programmatic Responses to Linguistic Diversity In this section, we summarize different programmatic options for schools. Central to these
decisions is the role that English and students’ home language will play in instruction. Should
students learn to read in their first language (L1) and then learn to read in their second lan-
guage (L2)? Should recent immigrants be instructed in content‐area classes in their L1 so they
do not fall behind in the critical areas of math, science, and social studies? Or will linguisti-
cally diverse students benefit from instruction provided solely in English? Across the United
States, schools and districts struggle with these questions. Another central question in making
decisions about programs has been how English and subject matter should be provided for
ELs in terms of both instruction and staffing (Dabach & Callahan, 2011; Gibbons, 2002;
Valdés, 2001).
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19711.9 The Bilingual Debate and the Research Context
11.8 Instructional Programs Various instructional programs have been devised and implemented over the last several decades
to meet the educational needs of linguistically diverse students. We describe the five major pro-
gram types that districts and schools have designed and implemented that were identified by
August and Hakuta’s (1997) comprehensive review of the research on linguistic minority
students:
Submersion. Students are placed in regular English‐only classrooms and are given no special
instructional support. This approach is illegal in the United States as a result of the Supreme
Court decision in Lau v. Nichols. However, many EL students find themselves in submersion‐
like settings. A number of these submersion settings are referred to as English immersion
classrooms.
English as a second language (ESL). No instruction is given in a student’s primary language.
ESL is either taught through pullout programs or integrated with academic content throughout
the day. Today, many ESL classes, especially at the secondary level, are sheltered English
classes where both English and subject matter are taught.
Transitional bilingual education (TBE). Students receive some degree of instruction in their
primary language for a period of time. However, the goal of the program is to transition to
English‐only instruction as rapidly as possible, generally within 1 to 3 years.
Maintenance bilingual education (MBE). Students receive instruction in their primary lan-
guage and in English throughout the elementary school years (K‐6) with the goal of develop-
ing academic proficiency in both languages.
Dual‐language programs. Language‐majority and language‐minority students are instructed
together in the same program with the goal of each group achieving bilingualism and
biliteracy.
This list is not exhaustive. However, these programs do not exist in pure forms, and districts
mix and blend aspects of various approaches. Various large‐ and small‐scale studies have exam-
ined the effectiveness of these programs. The authors of the studies have willingly and unwill-
ingly become a part of the great debate about the effectiveness of bilingual education. It is difficult
to determine the exact number of EL students in each of these programs because of the lack of
comprehensive national data. However, most EL students are instructed through ESL approaches
that use little to no native language instruction (Kindler, 2002).
11.9 The Bilingual Debate and the Research Context As bilingual education continued to evolve throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a major split in pub-
lic opinion regarding the program occurred. Baker (2001) explains that some citizens viewed
bilingual education as failing to foster social integration and as a waste of public funds. Many
opponents of bilingual education portrayed Latinos and supporters of bilingual education as
using it for their own political gain (Baker, 2001). Critics of bilingual education have drawn from
two major reviews of bilingual research (Baker & de Kanter, 1981; Rossel & Baker, 1996) to try
to convince schools and districts to move away from bilingual education. Rossel and Baker
(1996) reviewed 72 scientifically methodologically acceptable studies. They concluded that bilin-
gual education was not superior to ESL instruction, particularly in reading achievement. This
study is widely cited by critics of bilingual education. Many researchers have noted, however,
that the review is plagued by many methodological issues. The Rossel and Baker review applied
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198 Language Diversity and Schooling
arbitrary and inconsistent criteria to establish methodologically acceptable studies and inaccurate
and arbitrary labeling of programs (Cummins, 1999). Baker (2001) points out that the study
had a narrow range of expected outcomes for bilingual education in the [research] questions. Only English language and nonlanguage subject areas were considered as the desirable outcome of school- ing. Other outcomes such as self‐esteem, employment, preservation of minority languages, and the value of different cultures were not considered. (p. 246)
Critics of bilingual education have drawn heavily from the work of Rossel and Baker (1996) and
Baker and de Kanter (1981) to influence educational policy. Advocates of bilingual education have
drawn from a body of research that has reached opposite conclusions and supports the use of stu-
dents’ native language in instruction. Willig (1985) conducted a meta‐analysis of 23 of the
28 studies reviewed by Baker and de Kanter. Meta‐analysis is a collection of systematic techniques
for resolving apparent contradictions in research findings by translating results from different stud-
ies to a common metric and statistically exploring relationships between study characteristics and
findings. Employing this technique, Greene (1998) found that an unbiased reading of the scholarly
literature indicates that limited‐English‐proficient students taught using bilingual approaches per-
form significantly better than do students taught using English‐only approaches. In a review of
methodologically acceptable research studies, Slavin and Cheung (2003) found that bilingual
approaches—particularly those that include reading instruction in the native language—are more
effective than English‐only approaches. In a recent longitudinal study of Latino English learners in
a large urban district, Umansky and Reardon (2014) found that students in dual language immer-
sion programs outperformed their peers in English language programs both in their English lan-
guage arts achievement and their English proficiency by the time they reached high school.
11.10 Program Types That Contribute to Successful Educational Practice
Research examining the success or failure of various program types has not completely addressed
the central question of how best to educate culturally and linguistically diverse students. A body of
research has reported detailed studies of what has worked in actual classrooms. Rather than focus
on program models, this research has concentrated on the characteristics of schools and class-
rooms that contribute to successful educational practice for culturally and linguistically diverse
students. In fact, many studies have now shown that most students who are labeled as EL and who
are in ESL classes are denied access in secondary schools to higher level math and science classes
(Callahan, Wilkinson, & Muller, 2010; Kanno & Kangas, 2014). This type of work highlights the
need to examine the way schools are organized, the way instruction is delivered, and what oppor-
tunities to learn exist in whatever program is ultimately chosen (Dabach & Callahan, 2011).
August and Hakuta (1997) provide a comprehensive review of optimal learning conditions
that serve linguistically and culturally diverse student populations and that lead to high academic
performance. Their review of 33 studies indicates that there is a set of generally agreed‐upon
practices that foster academic success. These practices can exist across program types. August and
Hakuta found that the following school and classroom characteristics are likely to lead to aca-
demic success:
A supportive school‐wide climate, school leadership, a customized learning environment, articulation and coordination within and between schools, use of native language and culture in instruction, a balanced curriculum that includes both basic and higher‐order skills, explicit skill instruction, opportu- nities for student‐directed instruction, use of instructional strategies that enhance understanding, opportunities for practice, systematic student assessment, staff development, and home and parent involvement. (p. 171)
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19911.12 Views on Language Learning and Teaching
These findings have been confirmed in other more recent studies, such as those by Corallo and
McDonald (2002) and Marzano (2003). Thus, culturally and linguistically diverse students can
benefit greatly from cognitively challenging and student‐centered instruction that employs their
cultural and linguistic resources. Overall, bilingual programs of different kinds including dual‐
language programs are more likely to be able to do this than English‐only programs because of
their focus on cultural and linguistic inclusivity and quality of academic content as well as lan-
guage and literacy.
11.11 The Lived Reality of Today’s Linguistically Diverse Students
Several studies of students’ everyday experience provide a powerful but painful picture of how
schools meet—or do not meet—the challenge of linguistic diversity. These studies are not meant
as simple critique; they provide an understanding of how much further educators need to go in
meeting the challenge. Valdés (2001) conducted an important study analyzing the manner in
which recent immigrant students are served by schools. Focusing on the way that four Latino
students’ initial experience with U.S. schooling shaped their future possibilities, Valdés found
that the school curriculum for these students focused on English language instruction at the
expense of access to a grade‐level curriculum in key subject areas such as science, social studies,
and math. Valdés describes a significant relationship between the social position of cultural and
linguistically diverse students and families in the broader society and the quality of education
such students receive. The students in Valdés’s research found themselves in “ESL ghettoes,”
which afforded little possibility for academic advancement.
In a study similar to the Valdés (2001) research, Olsen (2008) examined the experiences of
Latino and Asian immigrant students at Madison High School as they attempted to become
“American.” The teachers at Madison High believed that through hard work and perseverance, all
students—regardless of their linguistic and cultural background—could succeed. The teachers
accepted without question the idea of the U.S. meritocracy. Through careful interviews and
observations, Olsen revealed the tensions and contradictions of this view. First, linguistically
diverse students were segregated in the overall school context. They found themselves in low
academic tracks with the most inexperienced teachers. Second, immigrant students felt extreme
pressure to forgo defining elements of their own identities—their culture, language, dress, and
values. School for recent immigrant students was not a wondrous opportunity but a process in
which they found their place in the U.S. racial hierarchy.
Other researchers, such as Toohey (2000) and Valenzuela (1999), have documented how
racism, xenophobia, and pro‐English attitudes are powerful factors that prevent educators from
seeing linguistic diversity as an educational resource. To be sure, there are students who rise
above these challenges, but school practices and policies unfortunately make this difficult. The
next section of this chapter provides a synopsis of classroom‐level issues. It examines what types
of knowledge and skills will help teachers who have English language learners in their
classrooms. The purpose of that section is to synthesize some of the important dimensions of
second‐language acquisition for content‐area and second‐language (ESL and bilingual) teachers
as well as to describe strategies to use in the classroom.
11.12 Views on Language Learning and Teaching This section summarizes what teachers of second‐language learners need to know about language,
language learners, and language learning and teaching. Becoming proficient in a language or
dialect can take on different meanings in various social, academic, and personal settings.
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200 Language Diversity and Schooling
In attempting to make students learning a second language or dialect successful in schools,
scholars have observed that a distinction needs to be made between learning a language socially
and academically (Cummins, 1981; Hakuta, Butler, & Witt, 2000–2001; Valdés, 2001). Therefore,
an important goal for teachers should be to enable students to successfully use academic English
and participate in classrooms with their subject matter (Bartolomé, 1998; Bunch, 2013; Gibbons,
2002; Valdés, 2004), as we mentioned in the discussion on program types. In discussing language
learning and teaching, we focus most of our discussion on teaching academic English and the
language needed for use in content‐area subjects. This is a pressing issue as most states are cur-
rently involved in implementing the Common Core and Next Generation Science standards as
well as new English language proficiency standards that correspond to the language and literacy
demands of these new standards. It is understood now that English learners “must simultaneously
learn how to acquire enough of a second language to participate and learn in academic settings
while gaining an understanding of the knowledge and skills in multiple disciplines through that
second language” (CCSSO, 2012).
11.12.1 Language
Wong Fillmore and Snow (2000) describe the most salient aspects of language that will be help-
ful for teachers of second languages/dialects to know. Language is a complex system of
communication that includes the following major subsystems: pragmatics (sociolinguistic
rules governing language use, e.g., apologizing in a specific language and culture), syntax (rules
of word order in a sentence), semantics (meanings of words and sentences), morphology (rules
of word formation), and phonology (the sound system of a language). At the same time, many
scholars have been debating whether these are the aspects of language that will be helpful for
teachers to understand (Hawkins, 2004; Valdés, Capitelli, & Alvarez, 2011) rather than discipli-
nary language or pedagogical language knowledge (Bunch, 2013), which refers to language
used in specific disciplines and contexts.
11.12.2 Language Learners
A number of learner characteristics can affect second‐language learning and success in an
English‐speaking school setting, such as their socioeconomic status, and their prior experiences
with formal schooling in their first language and English. Here, we provide a discussion of two
of the most salient and controversial ones, such as age and the learner’s first language. Although
these often tend to be described as individual learner characteristics, it is important to note that
such characteristics are shaped by cultural and social contexts.
11.12.3 Age
There has been a push in the United States and several other countries for early schooling in a
second/foreign language because younger children are thought to be better language learners.
Research indicates that younger children show advantages in terms of pronunciation and accent.
Several researchers (Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson, 2001; Johnson & Newport, 1989; Patowski,
1980) also believe that there is a critical period, a time when the brain is more predisposed to
learn all features of a language, not just phonological ones. This belief has been challenged by
others who did not find an advantage to being younger. Snow and Hoefnagel‐Hohle (1978)
found that adolescents and adults learn at a faster rate than do children, especially in the early
stages of language development. Even scholars who have found the data on the critical period
convincing recommend that programmatic decisions should not be based on the age of learners
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20111.13 Language Learning and Teaching
(Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson, 2001). Rather, the research indicates that more attention should be
paid to the quality of the programs and the quantity and quality of exposure to the second/foreign
language than to the age of students.
11.12.4 First Language
Research indicates that all second‐language learners, regardless of their first language, seem to
progress through similar developmental stages of language learning in some areas. For example,
researchers have found that there is a developmental sequence for learners of English as a second
language in question formation, negation, and past tense formation (Lightbown & Spada, 2006).
Learners go through preverbal negation (“I no play”); then learn to insert the negative term with
auxiliary verbs, although not necessarily correctly (“I can’t play,” “He don’t play”); and finally
are able to produce negative sentences correctly (“She doesn’t play”). In addition, there are spe-
cific errors that we can attribute to a learner’s first language. For example, Spanish‐speaking
learners will stay in the preverbal negation stage (“I no like”) longer because of this structure’s
similarity to the Spanish language (“No quiero”). This example demonstrates that the popular
belief that it is easier to learn a second language the more similar it is to the first language is not
necessarily true. In fact, there can be a tendency to revert to the rules of the first language if they
share many similarities. Thus, it is useful for teachers to learn about cross‐linguistic similarities
and differences in terms of different aspects of language, such as phonemes, spelling, writing
systems, and sociolinguistic rules (Wong Fillmore & Snow, 2000).
Overall, whatever the learner’s first language, students who are literate and have had prior
formal schooling in their first language have been found to outperform students who have not had
this experience (August & Hakuta, 1997; Collier, 1987; Cummins, 1984). It is also important that
teachers understand that students’ home languages and varieties are not inferior to those pro-
moted in classrooms. Godley, Sweetland, Wheeler, Minnici, and Carpenter (2006) discuss the
considerable research that shows “strong connections between teachers’ negative attitudes about
stigmatized dialects, lower teacher expectations for students who speak them, and thus lower
academic achievement on the part of students” (p. 31).
11.13 Language Learning and Teaching
11.13.1 Theories of Second‐Language Learning
While many theories have been advanced to explain second‐language learning, three have been
highly influential on second‐language instruction in the schools.
Interactionist theory
Sociocultural theories
Academic and disciplinary language‐based theories
Interactionist Theory
Interactionist theory (Lightbown & Spada, 2006) has widely influenced and been influenced by
research on and teaching in immersion programs in Canada. The basic tenet of this theory is that
both input (Krashen, 1985) and output are crucial for language learning. Teachers who draw on this
theory create tasks for which conversational interactions between speakers are central to the pro-
cess of language learning. This process has been described as the negotiation of meaning, which in
many ways is similar to the process between caretakers and children in first‐language acquisition.
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202 Language Diversity and Schooling
Sociocultural Theories
A number of sociocultural theories in second‐language learning have been recently very
influential—one based on Vygotsky’s work (Lantolf, 2001), one that highlights the significance
of power in language learning (Norton‐Peirce, 1995), and one that emphasizes language ecology
(Van Lier, 2004) by looking at the multiple interactions that take place as language learning
occurs. All of these challenge the notion that language learning goes on solely or even mainly
inside one’s head, asserting instead that it exists and is created in interaction with the whole
world. What has been most influential about all of these theories is that they consider second‐
language learning to exist in a world where ideology and power matter and where the language‐
learning environment must be extremely rich, scaffolded well, and academically based for
students to succeed (Walqui & Van Lier, 2010). Examples of scaffolding include teacher mode-
ling and teacher–student conversations.
Academic and disciplinary language‐based theories
These theories focus explicitly on addressing the language and content learning needs of children
in U.S. schools. One theory that has been most influential pertains to the distinction made between
learning a language socially and academically. Learning another language academically is known
to be a lengthy process that can take from 7 to 10 years (Cummins, 1984), as compared to con-
versational proficiency in a language, which can take from 1 to 5 years. Cummins distinguished
these language‐learning processes with the terms basic interpersonal conversational skills
(BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). Academic language offers few
clues for learners and is therefore much more difficult to learn, while BICS occurs “when there
are contextual supports and props for language delivery” (Baker, 2006, p. 174). Many of us might
be able to converse with a speaker in our second or third language but have difficulty understand-
ing an academic lecture or writing a technical report in that language. This is especially true for
students who start this process in the later grades (Collier, 1987; Cummins & Swain, 1986), stu-
dents who are not literate or academically skilled in their first language, and many students who
come from war‐torn countries.
We should also bear in mind the limitations of the BICS and CALP typologies (Wiley, 1996a).
First, the strict dichotomy between the two is viewed by some scholars as overly simplistic (Edelsky
et al., 1983; Wiley, 1996b). In some cases, as with individuals who can read but not converse in a
second language, CALP can be developed before BICS. There is also danger in viewing BICS as
inferior to CALP. We know that oral conversation can be equally demanding in certain settings.
Second, the notion of academic language is somewhat abstract. In a more recent reworking of this
distinction, Cummins (2000) has attempted to define academic proficiency in more concrete terms,
such as “the extent to which an individual has access to and command of the oral and written aca-
demic registers of schooling” (p. 67). Other attempts to make this concept more useful for teachers
can be found in the national ESL standards (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages
[TESOL], 1997) and the Council of Chief State School Officers’ (2012) framework.
Even if there is still considerable debate about how academic language should be defined
(Valdés, 2004), it has proven to be a significant starting point for those who have advocated for a
functional and content‐based or disciplinary language approach to language learning (Bunch,
2013; Gibbons, 2002; Schleppegrell, Achugar, & Oteiza, 2004). All of these approaches can be
best described as understanding language learning for English Learners as “directly related to
disciplinary teaching and learning and situated in the particular (and multiple) contexts in which
teaching and learning take place” (Bunch, 2013, p. 302).
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20311.13 Language Learning and Teaching
11.13.2 Instructional Methods and Approaches
All these theories have provided a significant set of guidelines for creating optimal language‐
learning environments. Proponents of these theories have attempted to influence teachers and
methods in several ways, including encouraging teachers to (1) make verbal input comprehensi-
ble at a level that is slightly beyond the learner’s level (e.g., using visuals, and paraphrasing);
(2) create conversation‐based activities (e.g., problem‐solving activities) that generate a low anxi-
ety level; (3) set up tasks so that learners are forced to talk and listen to each other (e.g., through
jigsaw activities); (4) scaffold language and content instead of merely simplifying tasks; and
(5) have teachers think through the quality of language needed for students to participate in aca-
demic tasks, in particular content areas.
Much of this understanding is currently focused on how students need to be acquiring
academic language and subject‐specific knowledge in several ways. Programmatically, students
can attain subject‐specific knowledge through instruction in their primary language or through
richer and more sustained collaborations between content‐area teachers and English language
specialists. When these strategies are used, ESL pullout classes do not focus exclusively on
decontextualized skills and language. In many cases, content‐area teachers will need to be trained
in making language and content more accessible to EL students or to collaborate with EL spe-
cialists to do so.
Content‐based instruction (CBI), in which language is taught in conjunction with academic
subject matter, is one approach that can be used (Snow, Met, & Genesee, 1989).
One example of CBI is specifically designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE),
often called sheltered instruction. A comprehensive program of sheltered instruction that has
gained wide recognition is the sheltered instruction observation protocol (SIOP) (Echevarria
et al., 2008). Another is the cognitive academic language learning approach (CALLA), which
focuses on developing language, content, and learning strategies (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994).
A more recent method that is becoming widely adopted is guided language acquisition design
(GLAD) (Brechtel, 2001). Many of these methods are used in a large number of school districts
across the United States. The resource list at the end of this chapter provides more information
for mainstream teachers, including additional references for these methods.
Scholars advocating for a disciplinary language approach have suggested various methods
for teacher professional development, such as using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to
help teachers identify the main features of language in specific content areas and mainly in writ-
ten texts (Gebhard, 2010; Schleppegrell et al., 2004). These kinds of approaches are significantly
more time consuming and complex but have become more widely attempted. They have also
been a response to what these researchers and professional development providers see as the gaps
in traditional sheltered instruction and content‐based instruction which do not include enough
of a focus on “linguistic structures that characterize academic language” (Aguirre‐Muñoz, Park,
Amabisca, & Boscardin, 2008, p. 298). A summary of these approaches can be found in
Bunch (2013).
11.13.3 Instructional Strategies and Contexts for Learning
The methods that recommend an integration of language and content indicate that teachers should
use strategies similar to those described in the effective programs reported by August and Hakuta
(1997), Corallo and McDonald (2002), and Marzano (2003). These strategies incorporate a
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204 Language Diversity and Schooling
student‐centered, meaning‐based, context‐rich classroom, and a cognitively demanding curricu-
lum. Schleppegrell and colleagues (2004) summarize these strategies:
Typical recommendations for a CBI approach include a focus on disciplinary vocabulary and use of a variety of learning and teaching strategies, especially visual aids and graphic organizers to make meanings clear. . . . Teachers are encouraged to help students comprehend and use the language structures and discourse features found in different subjects and to facilitate students’ practice with academic tasks such as listening to explanations, reading for information, participating in academic discussions, and writing reports. (p. 69)
A successful class for English language learners is one in which the following features are often
present: a high level of noise; students working in groups with hands‐on materials; word walls,
graphic organizers, and displays of student work; teachers modeling strategies; assessment being
used to drive instruction; and high expectations for all students. One example of teacher modeling
is to provide students with explicit instruction in different learning strategies for gaining academic
competence, such as writing a summary (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994). Teachers cannot assume
that students will know how to write a summary; they must either model the necessary steps or
collaborate with an English language specialist to accomplish the task. Cooperative learning situ-
ations (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1986) and complex instruction groups (Cohen & Lotan,
1997) in which students are given different roles in completing a project are examples of effective
group work. In addition, teachers need to learn tools for authentic assessment (O’Malley & Valdez
Peirce, 1996) in order to evaluate students in different ways that facilitate learning.
Although many of the strategies and methods we have described here can be very helpful,
one should bear in mind that a number of scholars—especially those advocating a disciplinary
language approach—have challenged the assumption that they are sufficient to help second‐lan-
guage students succeed, especially students in the higher grades and in gaining language skills
equal to their native English‐speaking peers. Bartolomé (1998), Gibbons (2002), and Valdés
(2004) stress the need to create events in which students have to “address real or imaginary
distant audiences with whom they can assume little shared knowledge” (Valdés, 2004, p. 122)
in order to enable students to “elaborate linguistic messages explicitly and precisely to minimize
audience misinterpretation” (Bartolomé, 1998, p. 66). Bunch (2013) as well as Schleppegrell
and colleagues (2004) discuss the need to delve deeply into discipline‐ specific linguistic chal-
lenges, such as those found in social studies textbooks. In addition, the importance of successful
scaffolding and participation structures cannot be overlooked (Walqui & Van Lier, 2010).
Finally, teachers should always remember that the education of linguistically diverse stu-
dents is situated in larger issues about immigration, the distribution of wealth and power, and
the empowerment of students (Cahnmann & Varghese, 2006; Cummins, 2000; Varghese &
Stritikus, 2005). Thus, effective classroom strategies must be situated in a supportive school and
societal context. Along with the academic focus, teachers should work toward making the class-
room a welcoming and equitable place for students and their families. The cultural and linguis-
tic resources that students bring to school, especially with the involvement of parents and
community partners, should not only be celebrated but integrated and valued in the classroom.
As in other content areas, a question that remains and is currently being asked and studied
is who the best teachers are for these students and how they should be trained and assessed
(Dabach, 2009; Lucas, 2011). At the same time, what is no longer being questioned as much—
also due to the implementation of the new standards—is whether all school staff are responsible
for these students and whether teachers at all grade levels should be gaining such expertise and
training or working in collaboration with language specialists—even co‐teaching—in order to
provide meaningful instruction for these students.
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205 Questions and Activities
11.14 Conclusion This chapter stresses the social, political, and historical realities that influence schooling for lin-
guistically diverse students. It first examines linguistically diverse populations in the United
States and considers how recent trends in immigration have influenced linguistic diversity. To
understand the experiences of immigrant students in schools, the political and economic realities
that drive and shape immigration must be examined. Immigration has changed the look and feel
of schools in every state in the United States. The manner in which schools treat linguistically
diverse students is directly related to the ways in which they are perceived and treated by society.
In the early 21st century, immigrants provide a source of cheap labor as well as workers with
highly developed skills that fuel the U.S. economy. Immigrant communities find themselves
pinched by social and economic pressures. Thus, it is important for teachers to consider how
immigrant populations are viewed and treated by their host country and local communities.
The chapter also considers important legal and political milestones in the evolution of lan-
guage education policy. Past and recent developments in language policy demonstrate the contra-
dictory position of the United States toward linguistic diversity. While we frequently celebrate
our status as a nation of immigrants or as a land of equality, our language policy has continually
attempted to suppress and minimize linguistic diversity. Linguistically diverse students have
rarely seen their languages and cultures promoted at the federal and state levels. Teacher practice
both influences and is influenced by language policy. In order for teachers to support and promote
linguistic diversity, they need to understand how language policy shapes education (Varghese &
Stritikus, 2005).
In addition, the chapter reviews the existing research regarding which programs best serve
the needs of linguistically diverse students. Research indicates that students learn best in meaning‐
centered and intellectually rich environments and that linguistically diverse students have the
maximum potential to succeed when their language and culture are used and developed in instruc-
tion. School practice has not always lived up to this ideal. Finally, this chapter provides the
practical knowledge required to meet the needs of linguistically diverse students.
In nearly every classroom, linguistic diversity shapes the nature of teachers’ work.
Linguistic and cultural diversity is one of the great assets of the United States, yet schooling for
linguistically diverse students continues to be plagued by poor programs, limited resources, and
lack of commitment from policy makers. The success of the U.S. educational system will be
judged, in part, by how well we meet the needs of students from linguistically diverse groups.
You and your colleagues can play a significant role in opening the doors of opportunity for these
students.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
11.1 What did you learn about immigrant students and their
schooling in this chapter? Imagine you are asked to provide
a 30‐minute workshop for grade‐level teachers and staff in
your school. What concepts and principles would you incor-
porate into this workshop?
11.2 In what ways are the challenges facing ELs, African
American students, and indigenous students in schools sim-
ilar and different? What types of practices and activities can
teachers implement in their classrooms that would help
these students?
11.3 What programs and support are provided for ELs in a local
school, and how are these decisions made? Interview
school staff and document their responses to these
questions.
11.4 You are in charge of designing the best possible program
in your school for English language learners. What features
would be part of this program? Why? What aspects of
language and language learning would be useful for
mainstream teachers to know? How can they incorporate
this knowledge when teaching their subject matter?
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206 Language Diversity and Schooling
11.5 Parents and households as well as their relationships with
schools are critical influences on the achievement of immi-
grant students. Interview one parent and, if possible, one
child who has been identified as an EL student. Document
their social and educational experiences before and since
coming to the United States.
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part
211
5 The expansion of rights for students with disabilities was one major consequence of the
civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The Supreme Court ’ s Brown decision,
issued in 1954, established the principle that to segregate students solely because of their
race is inherently unequal and unconstitutional. This decision—as well as other legal
and social reforms of the 1960s—encouraged advocates for the rights of students with
disabilities to push for expanded rights for them. If it was unconstitutional to segregate
students based on their race, it was reasoned, segregating students based on their disabil-
ities could also be challenged.
The advocates for the rights of students with disabilities experienced a major vic-
tory in 1975 when Congress enacted Public Law 94‐142, the Education for All
Handicapped Children Act (Twenty‐fifth Annual Report, 2003 ). This act is unprece-
dented and revolutionary in its implications. It requires free public education for all
children with disabilities, nondiscriminatory evaluation, and an individualized education
program (IEP) for each student with a disability. The act also stipulates that each student
with a disability should be educated in the least restricted environment. This last require-
ment has been one of the most controversial provisions of Public Law 94‐142 (U.S.
Department of Education, 2007 ). Most students who are classified as having disabilities—
about 80 percent—have mild disabilities. The landmark law—the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Public Law 108‐446—was reauthorized in 2004 by
Congress and focuses on the needs of individual students. IDEA helps students with dis-
abilities attend schools in their own neighborhoods—schools that may not have been
open to them previously. More students with disabilities are learning in classes with their
peers, instead of studying in separate buildings or classrooms. Moreover, early interven-
tion programs and services are provided to more than 333,982 eligible infants and tod-
dlers and their families, while about 6.6 million children and youths received special
education and related services to meet their individual needs in fall, 2012 (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2014 ; U.S. Department of Education, 2014 ).
Exceptionality intersects with factors such as race, ethnicity, language, gender,
and sexual orientation in interesting and complex ways. Males and students of color are
more frequently classified as special education students than are females and White
mainstream students. Nearly twice as many males as females are classified as students
with learning disabilities. Consequently, males of color are the most likely group to be
classified as mentally retarded or learning disabled (Cortiella & Horowitz, 2014 ). The
Exceptionality
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212 PART V Exceptionality
higher proportion of males and students of color in special education programs is related
to the fact that mental retardation is a socially constructed category (see Chapter 1).
The chapters in Part 5 describe the major issues, challenges, and promises involved
in providing equal educational opportunities for students with disabilities and for creat-
ing inclusive classrooms and schools.
R E F E R E N C E S
Cortiella, C., & Horowitz, S. (2014). The state of learning disabilities: Facts, trends, and emerging issues. New York: National
Center for Learning Disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.ncld.org/wp‐content/uploads/2014/11/2014‐State‐of‐LD.pdf.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2014). The condition of education 2014. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov
/pubs2014/2014083.pdf.
Twenty‐fifth annual report to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (2003).
Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/osep/25th‐exec‐summ.pdf.
U.S. Department of Education. (2007, May). Final regulations on modified academic achievement standards. Retrieved
from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/modachieve‐summary.html.
U. S. Department of Education. (2014). 36th annual report to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2014. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/osep/2014/parts‐b‐c/36th‐
idea‐arc.pdf.
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213
chapter
12 Im
ag e
S o u rc
e/ G
et ty
I m
ag es
Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities Sara C. Bicard and William L. Heward
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define and give examples of impairment, disability, and handicap.
2. Identify the diagnostic criteria that entitle students to access special education services.
3. Discuss the limitations of thinking of disabilities as socially constructed phenomena.
4. Define and discuss the meaning of least restrictive environment (LRE).
5. Explain how Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1974 and the Americans with
Disabilities Act extended civil rights to people with disabilities.
6. Discuss the ways in which the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) opened
educational opportunities for children with disabilities.
Children differ from one another. Step into any classroom in any school and you will immedi-
ately notice differences in children ’ s height, weight, hair, skin color, and other physical charac-
teristics. Look a bit closer and you will see some obvious differences in their language and
academic and social skills. Closely observe the interactions among students, curriculum, and
instruction and you will begin to see how children respond differently to the lesson and what is
taking place around them.
Children also differ in ways that are not apparent to the casual observer. Differences in the
educational opportunities children receive and the benefits they derive from their time in school
are two examples. The educational implications of gender, race, social class, religion, ethnicity,
and language diversity not only influence how children may respond to curriculum and instruc-
tion but also affect the structure and design of educational systems in general.
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214 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
While diversity in social class, race, culture, and language differences increasingly
characterizes U.S. classrooms, every classroom is also characterized by skill diversity among
students. Some children quickly acquire new knowledge and skills and use what they have
learned in relevant situations. Other children need repeated practice to learn a simple task and
may have difficulty performing the same task the next day. Some children begin a lesson with a
large store of relevant experience and background knowledge; others bring little or no relevant
prerequisite skills or knowledge to the same lesson. Some children are popular and enjoy the
company of many friends. Others are ostracized because they have not learned how to be
friendly. The skill differences among most children are relatively small, allowing them to ben-
efit from the general education program offered by their schools. When the physical, social, and
academic skills of children differ to such an extent that typical school curricula or teaching
methods are neither appropriate nor effective, equitable access to and benefits from education
are at stake.
Like the others in this book, this chapter is not about surface or educationally irrelevant
differences among children. Teachers must have the knowledge and skills to recognize and to be
instructionally responsive to the diversity their students represent. This chapter extends the con-
cept of diversity to include children with disabilities and lays the foundation for teachers to
examine educational equity for learners with diverse skills.
This chapter briefly reviews the history of exclusion and educational inequality experienced
by many students with disabilities in U.S. schools. It also examines the progress made during the
past four decades, paying particular attention to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA), federal legislation that requires that all children, regardless of the type or severity of their
disabilities, be provided a free and appropriate public education. We identify the key features of
this landmark law, some outcomes of its implementation, and barriers that continue to impede true
educational equity for students with disabilities. First, let us take a closer look at the concept of
disability and consider when skill diversity necessitates special education.
12.1 Identification of Students with Disabilities Various terms are used to refer to children with special learning needs. When the term
exceptional is used to describe students, it includes children who have difficulty learning and
children whose performance is advanced. The performance of exceptional children differs
from the norm (either above or below) to such an extent that individualized programs of spe-
cial education are necessary to meet their diverse needs. Exceptional is an inclusive term that
describes not only students with severe disabilities but also those who are gifted and talented.
This chapter focuses on children with disabilities—students for whom learning presents a
significant challenge.
While the terms impairment, disability, and handicap are often used interchangeably, they
are not synonymous. Impairment refers to the loss or reduced function of a certain body part or
organ. A disability exists when an impairment limits a child’s ability to perform certain tasks
(such as walking, speaking, or seeing) in the same way that nondisabled children do. Disability
conditions are defined and classified according to body functions and structure, activity domains,
and participation in the context of environmental and personal factors (World Health Organization,
2007). Handicap refers to the challenges a person with a disability experiences when interacting
with the physical or social environment. A disability does not constitute a handicap unless the
disability leads to educational, personal, social, vocational, or other difficulties for the individual.
For example, a child with one arm who functions successfully in and out of school without spe-
cial support or accommodations is not considered handicapped. Some disabilities pose a handi-
cap in some environments but not in others. The child with one arm may be handicapped (i.e.,
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21512.2 Is Disability a Social Construct?
disadvantaged) when competing with nondisabled classmates on the playground but experience
no difficulties in the classroom. Individuals with disabilities also experience handicaps that have
nothing to do with their disabilities but instead are the result of the negative attitudes and inap-
propriate behavior of others who needlessly restrict their access and ability to participate fully in
school, work, or community activities.
Children who have a higher‐than‐normal chance of developing a disability are considered
at risk. This term is used with infants and preschoolers who, because of difficulties experienced
at birth or conditions in the home environment, may be expected to have developmental problems
as they grow older. Some educators also use the term to refer to students who are having learning
problems in the regular classroom, which put them “at risk” of being identified as disabled and
in need of special education services. Physicians use the terms at risk or high risk to identify
pregnancies in which there is a higher‐than‐usual probability that the babies will be born with a
physical or developmental disability.
A physical, behavioral, or cognitive difference is considered a disability when it adversely
affects a student’s educational performance. Students who meet the diagnostic criteria for any of
the following disability categories are entitled to special education.
Intellectual disabilities (Beirne‐Smith, Patton, & Hill, 2015)
Learning disabilities (Lerner & Johns, 2015)
Emotional or behavioral disorders (Kauffman & Landrum, 2013)
Speech or language impairments (Justice & Redle, 2014)
Hearing impairments (Scheetz, 2012)
Visual impairments (Allman, Lewis, & Spungin, 2014)
Physical and health impairments (Heller, Forney, Alberto, Best, & Schwartzman, 2009)
Autism (Wheeler, Mayton, & Carter, 2015)
Traumatic brain injury (Best, Heller, & Bigge, 2010)
Multiple disabilities (Snell, Brown, & McDonnell, 2016)
Developmental disability (a noncategorical designation for children aged 3–5) (Cook, Klein,
& Chen, 2016)
Regardless of the terms used to refer to students who exhibit diversity in academic, vocational,
and social skills, it is incorrect to believe that there are two distinct kinds of students: those who
are typical and those with disabilities. All children differ from one another to some extent.
Students with disabilities are those whose skill diversity is significant enough to require a spe-
cially designed program of instruction to achieve educational equality. Students with disabilities
are more like other students than they are different from them. All students are alike in that they
can benefit from an appropriate education that enables them to do things they were previously
unable to do and to do these things with greater independence and enjoyment.
12.2 Is Disability a Social Construct? The proposition that some (perhaps all) disabilities are social constructs merits attention in any
discussion of educational equity for exceptional children (Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2010; Forness,
Freeman, Paparella, Kauffman, & Walker, 2012; Smith, 1999; Smith & Mitchell, 2001; Wiley &
Siperstein, 2011). This issue is particularly relevant in a text about multicultural education.
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216 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
Establishing membership criteria for any group is a socially constructed activity because human
beings create the criteria (Banks, 2015). How educational communities respond to the cultural‐,
ethnic‐, gender‐, class‐, and skill‐related attributes children bring to the classroom is more impor-
tant than how they perceive the establishment of membership criteria for any particular group.
Educators’ responses to the diversity that children represent will influence their achievement as
well as professional and societal judgments about that achievement. There is evidence that some
children’s “disabilities” are primarily the result of culture, class, or gender influences that are at
odds with the culture, class, or gender that has established a given category of disability and the
assessment procedures used to make those determinations (Gollnick & Chinn, 2013). As we dis-
cuss later in this chapter, a significant focus of special education litigation and legislation has been
directed at such inequities. Deconstructing the traditional sociopolitical view of exceptionality,
changing social group membership, or passing legislation will not, however, eliminate the real
challenges students with disabilities experience in acquiring academic, self‐help, personal‐social,
and vocational skills. While the criteria for determining the presence or absence of a disability may
entail hypothetical social constructions, the learning challenges created by educational disabilities
do not (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Vaughn, 2014; Heward, 2013; Kauffman & Hallahan, 2005).
Be wary of the idea that disabilities are merely socially constructed phenomena. School‐
age learners with disabilities—those who have pronounced difficulty acquiring and generalizing
new knowledge and skills—are real children with real needs in real classrooms. The notion that
all children who are identified as disabled would achieve success and behave well if others sim-
ply viewed them more positively is romantic ideology seldom promoted by individuals with dis-
abilities themselves or by their parents and families.
Our discussion of students with disabilities and special education’s role in addressing their
needs assumes that a child’s physical, behavioral, or cognitive skill diversity is influenced by, but
also transcends, variables such as ethnicity, gender, and social class. We also assume that the
educational challenges students with disabilities experience represent real and significant barri-
ers to their ability to experience independence and personal satisfaction across the full range of
life experiences and circumstances. While educational equality for children with disabilities
depends upon many factors, explicit, intensive instruction focused on meaningful curricula and
future‐oriented learning objectives is among the most important.
12.3 How Many Students with Disabilities Are There? The most complete and systematic information about the number of students with disabilities in
the United States is found in the U.S. Department of Education’s child count data. The most recent
information available is for the 2011–2012 school year (U.S. Department of Education, 2014):
More than 7 million children with disabilities from birth to age 21 received special education
services during the 2011–2012 school year.
Children with disabilities in special education represent approximately 8.4 percent of the
school‐age population.
About twice as many males as females receive special education.
The vast majority—72 percent—of school‐age children receiving special education have mild
to moderate disabilities such as learning disabilities (40.1 percent), speech and language
impairment (18.2 percent), intellectual disabilities (7.2 percent), and emotional disturbance
(6.2 percent) (see Table 12.1).
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21712.4 How Are Students with Disabilities Classified?
12.4 How Are Students with Disabilities Classified? The classification of exceptional students has been widely debated for many years. Some
educators believe labeling and classifying of exceptional students serve only to stigmatize and
exclude them from the mainstream of educational opportunities (Harry & Klingner, 2007;
Kliewer, Biklen, & Kasa‐Hendrickson, 2006; Shifrer, 2013). Others argue that classification
is necessary to ensure students with disabilities obtain the special education and related ser-
vices that are prerequisite to their educational equality (Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2011;
Kauffman & Badar, 2013; Keogh, 2005). Like most complex questions, there are valid per-
spectives on both sides, with political, ethical, and emotional concerns competing with edu-
cational, scientific, and fiscal considerations (Anastasiou & Keller, 2014; Florian et al., 2006;
McLaughlin et al., 2006). Common arguments for labeling students with exceptional learning
needs are that labels aid in communication, including visibility and advocacy efforts that are
needed to facilitate the structure of funding and resources for research and programs. The
most common arguments against labeling students with exceptional learning needs are that
labels focus on the child’s deficits, may harm the child’s self‐esteem, and evoke low expecta-
tions by others.
Research conducted to assess the effects of labeling has been of little help; most of the
studies contribute inconclusive, often contradictory, evidence. Two important issues are how the
use of categorical labels affects a child’s access to special education services and the quality of
instruction that the child receives as a result of classification.
■ TABLE 12.1 Number of Students Aged 6–21 Who Received Special Education Services
Under the Federal Government’s Disability Categories (2011–2012 School Year)
Disability Category Number Percent of Total
Specific learning disabilities 2,338,273 40.1
Speech or language impairments 1,061,762 18.2
Other health impairments 770,648 13.2
Intellectual disabilities 452,530 7.3
Emotional disturbance 361,325 6.2
Autism 443,994 7.6
Multiple disabilities 124,340 2.2
Developmental delay 123,382 2.1
Hearing impairments 68,922 1.2
Orthopedic impairments 52,504 0.9
Visual impairments 25,731 0.4
Traumatic brain injury 25,108 0.4
Deaf‐blindness 1,325 <0.1
All disabilities 5,823,844 100.0
Source: U.S. Department of Education. (2014). 36th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2014. Washington, D.C. Author.
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218 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
12.5 How Is Eligibility for Special Education Determined? Under current law, a student must be identified as having a disability in order to receive an indi-
vidualized program of special educational services that meet his/her needs. The student must be
labeled and further classified into one of the previously listed disability categories, such as learn-
ing disabilities or visual impairment. Therefore, in practice, membership in a given disability cat-
egory and the corresponding exposure to the potential disadvantages associated with the label is a
prerequisite to receiving the special education services necessary to achieve educational equality.
Kauffman (1999) points out the reality of labels as a necessary first step in serving students
with important differences in behavior and learning: “Although universal interventions that apply
equally to all, regardless of their behavioral characteristics or risks of developing disorders, can
be implemented without labels and risk of stigma, no other interventions are possible without
labels. Either all students are treated the same or some are treated differently. Any student who is
treated differently is inevitably labeled” (p. 452).
12.6 How Does Classification Affect Instruction? The classification of students by categories of exceptionality entails the presumption that stu-
dents in each category share certain physical, behavioral, and learning characteristics that hold
important implications for planning and delivering educational services. It is a mistake, however,
to believe that once identified by a certain disability category, a child’s educational needs and the
manner in which those needs should be met have also been identified. Although written more
than four decades ago, this statement by Becker, Engelmann, and Thomas (1971) is still pertinent
today: “For the most part the labels are not important. They rarely tell the teacher who can be taught
in what way. One could put five or six labels on the same child and still not know what to teach
him or how” (p. 436).
12.7 History of Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
If a society can be judged by the way it treats people who are different, the U.S. educational sys-
tem does not have a distinguished history. Students who are different—because of race, culture,
language, gender, or disability—have often been denied equal educational opportunities. For
many years, educational opportunity of any kind did not exist for many students with disabilities.
Students with severe disabilities were completely excluded from public schools. Before 1970,
many states had laws allowing local school districts to deny access to children whose physical or
intellectual disability caused them, in the opinion of school officials, to be unable to benefit from
instruction (Murdick, Gartin, & Fowler, 2014).
Although students with disabilities were enrolled in school in the United States, perhaps
half of them were denied an appropriate education through “functional exclusion.” They were
allowed to come to school but did not participate in an educational program designed to meet
their special needs. Students with mild learning and behavior problems remained in the regular
classroom but received no special help. Those who failed to make satisfactory progress were
called “slow learners”; if they acted out in class, they were called “disciplinary problems” and
suspended from school (Turnbull, Huerta, & Stowe, 2009).
For students who did receive a program of differentiated curriculum or instruction, spe-
cial education usually meant a separate education in segregated classrooms and special
schools isolated from the mainstream of education. Special education for those students with
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21912.7 History of Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
disabilities often meant a classroom especially reserved for students who could not measure
up in the regular classroom. The following passage exemplified what was too often a common
occurrence.
I accepted my first teaching position in a special education class in a basement room next door to the furnace. Of the fifteen “educable mentally retarded” children assigned to work with me, most were simply nonreaders from poor families. One child had been banished to my room because she posed a behavior problem to her fourth‐grade teacher. My class and I were assigned a recess spot on the opposite side of the play yard, far away from the “normal” children. I was the only teacher who did not have a lunch break. I was required to eat with my “retarded” children while the other teachers were permitted to leave their students.
(Aiello, 1976, p. 14)
As society’s concepts of equality, freedom, and justice have expanded, education’s response to
students with disabilities has changed slowly but considerably over the past several decades.
Educational opportunity has gradually shifted from a pattern of exclusion and isolation to one of
integration and participation. But change has not come easily, nor has it occurred by chance.
Correcting educational inequities for children with disabilities has required judicial authority and
legislative action, both of which can be viewed as an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. All
of the issues and events that helped shape society’s attitudes during the 1950s and 1960s affected
the development of special education, particularly the 1954 landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. This case challenged the common practice at the time of segregating
schools according to the race of the children. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that education must
be available to all children on equal terms and that it is unconstitutional to operate segregated
schools under the premise that they are separate but equal.
The Brown decision that public school education should be provided to African American
and White children on equal terms initiated a period of intense questioning by parents of children
with disabilities who wondered why the same principles of equal access to education did not also
apply to their children. Parents and advocacy groups brought numerous court cases challenging
the exclusion and isolation of children with disabilities. One of the most influential court cases in
the development of educational equality for exceptional students was the class‐action law suit,
Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children [PARC] v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
(1972). PARC challenged a state law that enabled public schools to deny education to children
they considered unable to benefit from attending public school.
The attorneys and parents who represented PARC argued it was neither rational nor neces-
sary to assume the children were uneducable. Because the state could neither prove that the
children were uneducable nor demonstrate a rational basis for excluding them from public school
programs, the court decided that the children were entitled to a free public education. Other court
cases followed with similar rulings: Children with disabilities, like all other people in the United
States, are entitled to the same rights and protection under the law as guaranteed in the Fourteenth
Amendment, which declares that people may not be deprived of their equality or liberty on the
basis of any classification such as race, nationality, or religion (for a summary of these court
cases, see Heward, 2013).
The term progressive integration (Reynolds, 1989) has been used to describe the history of
special education and the gradual but unrelenting progress of ensuring equal educational oppor-
tunity for all children. Of the many court cases involving education for children with disabilities,
no single case resulted in sweeping educational reform. With each instance of litigation, however,
the assembly of what was to become the IDEA became more complete. Together, all of these
developments contributed to the passage of a federal law concerning educational equality for
students with disabilities.
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220 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
12.8 The Individuals with Disabilities Act: A Legislative Mandate for Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
In 1975 Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94‐142).
Since it became law in 1975, Congress has reauthorized and amended Public Law 94‐142 five
times, most recently in 2004. The 1990 amendments renamed the law the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act—most often called by its acronym, IDEA.
A landmark piece of legislation, IDEA changed the face of education in the United States.
It has affected the roles and responsibilities of administrators, teachers, physical educators,
school psychologists, speech‐language pathologists, school nurses, parents, and even students
themselves. The law’s passage marked the culmination of the efforts of many educators, parents,
and legislators to bring together in one comprehensive bill U.S. laws regarding the education of
children with disabilities. The law reflects society’s concern for treating people with disabilities
as full citizens with the same rights and privileges that all other citizens enjoy. The purpose of
IDEA is to ensure the rights of students with disabilities to a free appropriate public education,
including early intervention services, and to provide the necessary supports and oversight for
states, districts, schools, and educators to improve the educational results for students with disa-
bilities (PL. 108‐466, Sec. 601 [d]).
12.8.1 Major Principles of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
IDEA is directed primarily at the states, which are responsible for providing education to their resi-
dents. The majority of the many rules and regulations defining how IDEA operates are related to six
major principles that have remained unchanged since 1975 (Turnbull et al., 2009; Yell, 2016).
Zero Reject
Schools must educate all children with disabilities. The zero‐reject principle applies regardless of
the nature or severity of the disability; no child with disabilities may be excluded from a public
education. This requirement of the law is based on the proposition that all children with disabili-
ties can learn and benefit from an appropriate education and that schools, therefore, do not have
the right to deny any child access to equal educational opportunity. Each state education agency
is responsible for locating, identifying, and evaluating all children, from birth to age 21, residing
in the state who have disabilities or are suspected of having disabilities. This requirement is
called the child find system (P.L. 108‐466, Sec. 303.321).
Nondiscriminatory Identification and Evaluation
IDEA requires that students with disabilities be evaluated fairly. The school or parents can request
that a child be evaluated for special education. If the school initiates the evaluation, parents must
be notified and consent to it, which for special education must be completed within 60 days of
receiving parental consent. Assessment must be nondiscriminatory. This requirement is particu-
larly important because of the disproportionate number of children from non‐White and non‐
English‐speaking cultural groups who are identified as having disabilities, often solely on the
basis of a score from standardized intelligence tests. The intelligence tests that have been used
most often in the identification of students with learning problems were developed based on the
performance of White, middle‐class children. Because of their Anglo‐centric nature, the tests are
often considered to be unfairly biased against children from diverse cultural groups who have had
less opportunity to learn the knowledge sampled by the test items (Venn, 2014). In addition to
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22112.8 The Individuals with Disabilities Act: A Legislative Mandate for Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
being nondiscriminatory, assessment must be multifactored: it must include as many tests and
observational techniques as necessary to fairly and appropriately identify the child’s strengths
and weaknesses. The results of a single test cannot be used as the sole criterion for identification
or placement into a special education program.
Free, Appropriate Public Education
All children with disabilities, regardless of the type or severity of their disability, shall receive a
free, appropriate public education. This education must be provided at public expense—that is,
without cost to the child’s parents. An individualized education program (IEP) must be devel-
oped and implemented for each child with a disability (P.L. 108‐466, Sec. 614[d][l][A]). IDEA
specifies the kinds of information an IEP must include and who is to participate in its develop-
ment. Each IEP must be created by an IEP team consisting of (at least) the child’s parents (or
guardians); at least one regular education teacher of the child; at least one special education
teacher; a representative of the local school district who is qualified to provide or supervise
specially designed instruction and is knowledgeable of the general curriculum and about the
resources of the local education agencies; an individual who can interpret the instructional
implications of evaluation results and other individuals who have knowledge of the child (at
discretion of the parent or the school); and, whenever appropriate, the child (P.L. 108‐466,
Sec. 614 [d][l][B]). Many IEP teams also include professionals from various disciplines such as
school psychology, physical therapy, and medicine.
The IEP is the foundation for the special education and related services a child with a dis-
ability receives. A carefully and collaboratively prepared IEP specifies the child’s present levels
of performance, annual learning goals and short‐term objectives, the instructional interventions
and related services intended to bring about and support that learning, who is responsible for
providing the interventions, and the means of determining the extent to which learning has taken
place (Bateman & Linden, 2012). Essentially, the IEP spells out where the child is, where he/she
should be going, how he/she will get there, how long it will take, and how to tell when he/she has
arrived. Although the IEP is a written document signed by both school personnel and the child’s
parents, it is not a legal document in the sense that parents cannot take their child’s teachers or
school to court if all goals and objectives stated in the IEP are not met. However, schools must be
able to document that the services described in the IEP have been provided in a systematic effort
to meet those goals (Bartlett, Etscheidt, & Weisentstein, 2007; Wright & Wright, 2006; Yell,
2016). IEPs must be reviewed by the IEP team at least annually.
Including all of the mandated components in an IEP is no guarantee that the document
will guide the student’s learning and teachers’ instruction in the classroom as intended by IDEA.
Although most educators agree with the idealized concept of the IEP, inspection and evaluation
of IEPs often reveal inconsistency between required content, what is written in the document,
and what students experience in the classroom (e.g., Bateman & Linden, 2012; Blackwell &
Rossetti, 2014).
Least Restrictive Environment
IDEA mandates that students with disabilities be educated in the least restrictive environment
(LRE). Specifically, the law states that:
to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public or private institutions or other care facilities, [will be] educated with children who are not disabled, and that special classes, separate schooling or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment [may occur] only when the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.
(P.L. 108‐446, Sec. 612[a][5][A])
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222 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
The LRE requirement continues to be one of the most controversial and least understood aspects of
IDEA. During the first few years after the passage of IDEA, some professionals and parents errone-
ously interpreted the law to mean that every child with disabilities, regardless of type or severity,
had to be placed in a general education classroom. Instead, the LRE component of IDEA requires
that each child with a disability be educated in a setting that most closely resembles a regular class
placement in which his/her individual needs can be met. Although some people argue that any deci-
sion to place a child with a disability in a special class or school is inappropriate, most educators
and parents realize that placement in a regular classroom can be overly restrictive if the child’s
academic and social needs are not met. LRE is a relative concept; the least restrictive environment
for one student with a disability would not necessarily be appropriate for another. Therefore, two
students who have the same disability should not necessarily be placed in the same setting.
Children with disabilities need a wide range of special education and related services.
Today, most schools provide a continuum of services—that is, a range of placement and service
options to meet the individual needs of students with disabilities. The continuum can be depicted
symbolically as a pyramid, with placements ranging from least restrictive (regular classroom
placement without special supports) at the bottom to most restrictive (special schools, residential
programs, and hospital or homebound programs) at the top (see Figure 12.1). Typically, the more
severe a child’s disability, the greater is the need for more intensive and specialized services. As
noted, however, the majority of students who receive special education services have mild disa-
bilities; hence, the pyramid’s progressively smaller size at the top shows that more restrictive
settings are required for fewer students.
Approximately four of five students with disabilities receive at least part of their education
in regular classrooms with their nondisabled peers. Many of these students, however, spend part
of each school day in a resource room where they receive individualized instruction from a spe-
cially trained teacher. Approximately one of every seven students with disabilities is educated in
a separate classroom in a regular public school. Special schools and residential facilities provide
the education for less than 4 percent of children with disabilities, usually students with the most
severe disabilities (see Table 12.2).
Placement of a student with disabilities should not be viewed as all or nothing at any one
level on the continuum or as permanent. IDEA instructs the IEP team to consider the extent to
which the student can be integrated effectively in each of three dimensions of school life: the
general academic curriculum, extracurricular activities (e.g., clubs), and other school activities
(e.g., recess and mealtimes). The IEP team may determine that total integration is appropriate in
one dimension and partial integration is better suited for another dimension (Turnbull et al.,
2009). The continuum concept is intended to be flexible, with students moving from one place-
ment to another as dictated by their individual educational needs. The IEP team should periodi-
cally review the specific goals and objectives for each child—it is required to do so at least
annually—and make new placement decisions if warranted.
Neither IDEA nor the regulations that accompany it specify exactly how a school district is
to determine LRE. After reviewing the rulings on litigation in four LRE suits that have reached the
U.S. courts of appeals, Yell (2016) concluded that the courts have held that IDEA does not require
the placement of students with disabilities in the regular classroom but fully supports the continuum
of services.
Although the continuum‐of‐services model represents well‐established practice in special
education, it is not without controversy. A number of specific criticisms have been leveled at this
approach to providing services to exceptional students. Some critics have argued that the con-
tinuum overly legitimizes the use of restrictive placements, implies that integration of persons
with disabilities can take place only in least restrictive settings, and may infringe on the rights of
people with disabilities to participate in their communities (e.g., Ryndak et al., 2014).
The relative value of providing special education services to students with disabilities
outside the regular classroom—especially in separate classrooms and schools—has been hotly
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22312.8 The Individuals with Disabilities Act: A Legislative Mandate for Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
contested for many years (e.g., Giangreco, 2007; Lloyd & Lloyd, 2014; Mitchell, 2004; Obiakor,
Harris, Mutua, Rotatori, & Algozzine, 2012; Taylor, 2004). Virtually all special educators, how-
ever, support the responsible inclusion of students with disabilities in which systematic modifi-
cations in curriculum and instruction enable meaningful progress toward IEP goals (Fuchs,
Fuchs, & Stecker, 2010; Kochhar‐Bryant, 2008; McLeskey & Waldron, 2011; Schwartz, 2005).
Due Process Safeguards
IDEA acknowledges that students with disabilities have important legal rights. The law makes
clear that schools may not make decisions about the educational programs of children with dis-
abilities in a unilateral or arbitrary manner.
Due process is a legal concept that is implemented through a series of procedural steps
designed to ensure fairness of treatment among school systems, parents, and students. Specific
due process safeguards were incorporated into IDEA because of past educational abuses of chil-
dren with disabilities. In the past, special education placements were often permanent, void of
periodic review, and made solely on the basis of teacher recommendations. Furthermore, students
Homebound or hospital
Student receives special education and related services at home or in a hospital program.
Residential school
Student receives special education and related services from specially trained staff in a residential facility in which children receive care or services 24 hours a day.
Separate school
Student receives special education and related services under the direction of a specially trained staff in a specially designed facility (day program).
Separate classroom
Student attends a special class for most or all of the school day and receives special education and related services under the direction of a special education teacher.
Resource room
Student is in the general education classroom for the majority of the school day but goes to a special education resource room for specialized instruction for part of each school day.
General education classroom with supplementary instruction and services
Student receives a prescribed program under the direction of the general education classroom teacher and also receives instruction and related services within the general education classroom from the special educator and/or a paraeducator.
General education classroom with consultation
Student receives a prescribed program under the direction of the general education classroom teacher, who is supported by ongoing consultation from the special educator(s).
General education classroom
Student receives a prescribed program under the direction of the general education classroom teacher.
L e a s t
N e e d
f o
r S
p e c ia
ll y D
e s ig
n e d
In s tr
u c ti
o n
& S
u p
p o
rt s
M o
s t
N u
m b
e r o
f S tu
d e n
ts
F e w
M a n
y
FIGURE 12.1 Continuum of Alternative Placements for Students with Disabilities
Source: From W. L. Heward. (2013). Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education (10th ed., p. 70). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice‐Hall. Used by permission.
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224 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
with severe and profound disabilities were automatically excluded from public schools and
placed in residential programs where curriculum and instruction were often very poor. The fact
that children from minority cultural groups were disproportionately placed in special education
programs was another factor in mandating the due process procedures.
Key elements of due process as it relates to special education are parents’ right to the
following.
Be notified in writing before the school takes any action that may alter the child’s program
(testing, reevaluation, change in placement).
Give or withhold permission to have their child tested for eligibility for special education
services, reevaluated, or placed in a different classroom or program.
See all school records about their child.
Have a hearing before an impartial party (not an employee of the school district) to resolve
disagreements with the school system.
Receive a written decision following any hearing.
Appeal the results of a due process hearing to the state department of education (school dis-
tricts may also appeal).
Parent and Student Participation and Shared Decision‐Making
IDEA recognizes the benefits of active parent and student participation. Parents not only have a
right to be involved in their child’s education but also can help professionals select appropriate
instructional goals and provide information that will help teachers be more effective in working
■ TABLE 12.2 Percentage of Students Aged 6 Through 21 Served in Six Educational Environments
(2011–2012 School Year)
Disability Category
General
Classroom
Resource
Room
Separate
Classroom
Separate
School
Residential
School
Homebound or
Hospital
Specific learning disabilities 67.2 24.6 6.3 0.5 0.1 0.1
Speech or language impairments 86.6 5.5 4.3 0.3 <0.1 0.2
Other health impairments 64.0 22.2 9.7 1.6 0.2 0.8
Intellectual disabilities 17.1 26.6 48.7 6.2 0.4 0.5
Emotional disturbance 44.1 17.8 20.3 13.0 1.8 1.1
Autism 39.5 18.1 33.2 7.7 0.5 0.3
Multiple disabilities 13.1 16.2 46.2 19.0 1.7 3.3
Developmental delay 62.4 19.5 16.5 0.8 0.1 0.2
Hearing impairments 57.8 16.4 12.6 8.2 3.4 0.2
Orthopedic impairments 54.8 16.2 21.6 4.5 0.2 1.7
Visual impairments 64.7 13.0 11.0 5.8 3.5 0.6
Traumatic brain injury 49.0 22.3 20.1 5.2 0.6 1.9
Deaf‐blindness 21.5 11.5 34.0 19.8 7.9 2.8
All disabilities 61.5 19.5 13.8 2.9 0.3 0.4
Source: U.S. Department of Education. (2014). 36th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, 2014. Washington, D.C. Author.
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22512.8 The Individuals with Disabilities Act: A Legislative Mandate for Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
with their children. As noted, parents (and, whenever appropriate, students) are to take an active
role as full members of the IEP team; their input and wishes must be considered in determining
IEP goals and objectives, placement decisions, and related service needs (e.g., sign language
interpreting and special transportation). Of course, parents cannot be forced to participate and
may waive their right to do so.
12.8.2 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Another important law extending civil rights to people with disabilities is Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Public Law 93‐112). This regulation states, in part, that “no other-
wise qualified handicapped individual shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from
the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination in any program
or activity receiving federal financial assistance” (U.S.C. § 794[a]). This law, worded almost
identically to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which prohibited discrimination based on race,
color, or national origin), expands opportunities to children and adults with disabilities in educa-
tion, employment, and various other settings. It calls for the provision of “auxiliary aides for
students with impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills” (e.g., interpreters for students who
are deaf) and architectural accessibility (U.S.C. § 794[a]). This requirement does not mean that
schools, colleges, and employers must have all such aides available at all times or provide a
completely barrier‐free environment; it simply mandates that no person with disabilities may
be excluded from a program because of the lack of an appropriate aide or accessibility to
programs.
12.8.3 The Americans with Disabilities Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act (P.L. 101‐336) was signed into law on July 26, 1990.
Patterned after Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA) extends civil rights protection to persons with disabilities in private‐sector employment,
all public services, and public accommodations, transportation, and telecommunications. ADA
requires that public accommodations, including school buildings, athletic stadiums, and school
transportation, be accessible to students with disabilities.
12.8.4 The No Child Left Behind Act
Another landmark piece of federal legislation that affects students with disabilities is the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001, which was later renamed the No Child Left
Behind Act (NCLB) (P.L. 107‐110). The intended purpose of NCLB is to improve the academic
achievement of all children, particularly those from low‐income families (Cortiella, 2006). The
goal of NCLB is for all children to achieve ambitious goals in reading and math. All children are
to be taught by teachers who are highly qualified in their subjects and use curricula and instruc-
tional methods validated by rigorous scientific research. The emphasis on scientifically proven
curricula and instruction offers the promise of effective instruction in the early grades, which
could reduce the number of children who require special education, in particular because of read-
ing problems. Schools that do not make adequate yearly progress toward achieving state goals for
test scores, including those scores of students with disabilities, are initially targeted for assistance
and then subject to corrective action and ultimately restructuring. NCLB has engendered strong
support and stiff objection in the educational community and fueled fierce political debate.
Significant changes to the law are almost a certainty when Congress next reauthorizes the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
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226 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
12.9 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities: Progress Made but Challenges Remain
What impact has IDEA had? The most obvious effect is that students with disabilities are receiv-
ing special education and related services that before the law’s passage were not available. But
access to education is only one aspect of the law’s impact. Perhaps the law has had its most dra-
matic effect on students with severe disabilities, many of whom had been completely denied the
opportunity to benefit from an appropriate education. No longer can schools exclude students
with disabilities on the premise that they are uneducable. IDEA is based on the presumption that
all students can benefit from an appropriate education, and it states clearly that the local school
has the responsibility to modify curriculum content and teaching methods according to the needs
of each student. In essence, the law requires schools to adapt to the needs of students rather than
allowing schools to deny educational equality to students whose characteristics are inconsistent
with or inconvenient to traditional school norms and expectations. This has led to a dramatic
increase in the number of special education teachers, support staff, pre‐ and in‐service teacher
training programs, and research since the passage of IDEA.
IDEA has contributed positively to the education of students with disabilities, but signifi-
cant barriers remain to full educational equality for exceptional students in the United States.
If a truly appropriate educational opportunity is to be a reality for students with disabilities,
U.S. schools must (1) bridge the research‐to‐practice gap with regard to effective instruction;
(2) improve collaboration between special and regular educators; (3) provide more and better
early intervention programs for young children with disabilities; (4) improve postschool out-
comes for young adults with disabilities; and (5) ensure that students with disabilities from
diverse backgrounds receive appropriate and culturally relevant education.
12.9.1 Effective Instruction
IDEA’s mandates multifactored evaluations, IEPs, due process, and placement in the LRE have
enhanced educational equality for students with disabilities. However, none of these mandated
practices teach. True educational equality for children with disabilities can be achieved only
through effective instruction.
Properly implemented, special education is not a slowed‐down, watered‐down version of
general education. Special education is a systematic, purposeful approach to teaching students with
disabilities the academic, social, vocational, and personal skills they will need to live independent,
satisfying, and productive lives, and to do it more effectively and efficiently than could be accom-
plished by general education alone. Effective teaching is much more than simply assigning some-
thing to be learned. An important responsibility of all teachers, especially special educators, is
ensuring that the instruction they deliver is measurably effective in meeting the needs of their stu-
dents. When this occurs, the education that students with disabilities receive will be truly special
(Heward, 2003).
Special education can be nothing more or less than the quality of instruction provided by
teachers. Teachers are ultimately responsible for providing effective instruction to exceptional
students. With this responsibility come several obligations. Working collaboratively with their
general education colleagues and parents, special educators must (1) target instructional objec-
tives that will improve the quality of students’ lives in school, home, community, and workplace;
(2) use research‐validated methods of instruction; (3) continually evaluate the effectiveness of
instruction with direct measures of student performance; and (4) change an instructional program
when it does not promote achievement and success.
Teachers must demand effectiveness from their instructional approaches. For many years,
conventional wisdom fostered the belief that it takes unending patience to teach children with
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22712.9 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities: Progress Made but Challenges Remain
disabilities. We believe this view is a disservice to students with special needs and to the
educators—both special and general education teachers—whose job it is to teach them. Teachers
should not wait patiently for exceptional students to learn, attributing lack of progress to some
inherent attribute or faulty process within the child, such as intellectual disability, learning disa-
bility, attention‐deficit disorder, or emotional disturbance. Instead, the teacher should use direct
and frequent measures of the student’s performance as the primary guide for modifying instruc-
tion in order to improve its effectiveness. This is the real work of the educator.
To increase the likelihood that instruction is effective, special education must bridge the
research‐to‐practice gap regarding instructional practice in the classroom (Heward & Silvestri,
2005; Parsons et al., 2013). Contrary to the contentions of some, special education research has
produced a significant and reliable knowledge base about effective teaching practices (e.g.,
Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2011; Spooner, Knight, Browder, & Smith, 2012). While there is
a significant gap between what is relatively well understood and what is poorly understood or not
understood at all, the more distressing gap may be between what research has discovered about
teaching and learning and what is practiced in many classrooms. For example, scientific research
has helped us discover a great deal about the features of early reading instruction that can reduce
the number of children who later develop reading problems (Simmons, 2015), how to enhance
the success of students with severe disabilities when learning new skills (Spooner & Browder,
2015), and the components of secondary special education programs that can increase students’
success in making the transition from school to work (Test, 2012), but the education that many
students with disabilities receive does not reflect that knowledge (Cook & Odom, 2013; Dunlap,
Kaiser, Hemmeter, & Wolery, 2012; Heward, 2003; McLeskey & Waldron, 2011).
12.9.2 General and Special Education Partnership
Traditionally, general and special education have been viewed as separate disciplines, each serv-
ing a different student population. Today, the concept of “your kids” and “my kids” is gradually
being replaced by that of “our kids,” and general and special education teachers are becoming
partners in meeting the needs of all learners.
Mainstreaming has traditionally been thought of as the process of integrating students with
disabilities into regular schools and classes. Today, the term inclusive education is changing not
only the language of special education reform but also its intent (see Chapter 14). Inclusive edu-
cation can be successful only with full cooperation of and collaboration among those people
responsible for the educational programs of students with disabilities (Smith, Polloway, Patton,
& Dowdy, 2012). Although IDEA does not specifically mention mainstreaming or inclusion, it
creates a presumption in favor of regular classroom placement by requiring that educational ser-
vices be provided in the LRE, which in turn necessitates cooperation between general and special
educators.
The effects of IDEA on general education are neither entirely clear nor without contro-
versy. This dissonance is further complicated by the tone and content of many discussions about
how special education can or should be reformed while ensuring that the best interests of students
with disabilities are appropriately served (Finn, Rotherham, & Hokanson, 2001; Fuchs et al.,
2010; Gallagher, Heshusius, Iano, & Skrtic, 2004; Lloyd & Lloyd, 2014; McLaughlin, 2010).
What is clear, however, is that the entire educational community has the responsibility to do the
best job it can in meeting the needs of children with diverse skills. In the final analysis, issues of
labeling, classifying, placing, and teaching assignments are secondary to the quality of instruc-
tion that takes place in the classroom.
Improved collaboration between special education and general education is important for
not only the 12 percent of school‐age children with disabilities who receive special education
but also the estimated additional 10–20 percent of the student population who are struggling
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228 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
learners. A system of early intervention for students whose performance suggests they are at
risk for school failure is response to intervention (RTI). The Individuals with Disabilities
Education Improvement Act of 2004 (Public Law 108‐446) also allows local education agen-
cies to use RTI to identify students with learning disabilities. When implemented properly, RTI
embodies scientific, research‐based interventions in tiers of intensity and frequent progress
monitoring to make instructional decisions and determine whether a student has learning dis-
abilities. Most of this process occurs in general education. The authorization of RTI confirmed
the importance of the collaboration between general education and special education. Both
special and general educators must develop strategies for working together and sharing their
skills and resources to prevent these millions of students, who are at risk, from becoming fail-
ures of our educational system.
12.9.3 Early Intervention
The years from birth to school age are critical to a child’s learning and development. The typical
child enters school with a large repertoire of cognitive, language, social, and physical skills on
which to build. For many children with disabilities, unfortunately, the preschool years represent
a long period of missed opportunities. Without effective instruction, most young children with
disabilities do not acquire many of the skills their nondisabled peers seemingly learn without
effort. Without early intervention, many children with disabilities fall further and further behind
their nondisabled peers, and minor delays in development often become major delays by the time
the child reaches school age.
As with special education of school‐age exceptional students, federal legislation has played
a major role in the development of early intervention programs. When Congress enacted Public
Law 99‐457, the Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986, it reaffirmed the basic
principles of the original law and added two major sections concerning early intervention
services.
P.L. 99‐457 required each state to show evidence of serving all 3-to 5-year old children
with disabilities in order to receive any preschool funds. The second major change brought
about by P.L. 99‐457 is the availability of incentive grants to states for developing systems
of early identification and intervention for infants and toddlers with disabilities from birth to
age two. The services must be planned by a multidisciplinary team that includes the child’s
parents and must be implemented according to an individualized family services plan (IFSP)
that is similar in concept to the IEP for school‐age students with disabilities (P.L. 108‐466,
Sec. 636).
Researchers realize the critical importance of early intervention for both children who are
at risk and those who have been diagnosed with a disability, and most agree that the earlier inter-
vention is begun, the better (Guralnick, 2005; Division for Early Childhood, 2014). Fortunately,
many educators are working to develop the programs and services so desperately needed by the
increasing numbers of babies and preschoolers who have been or are at risk for developing dis-
abilities (Cook et al., 2016). Early intervention is necessary to give these children a fighting
chance to experience educational equality when they enter school.
12.9.4 Transition from School to Adult Life
If the degree of educational equality afforded to students with disabilities is to be judged, as we
think it should be, by the extent to which they can function independently in everyday environ-
ments, then special education still has a long way to go. Evidence from the National Longitudinal
Transition Study‐2 (NLTS2) presents a sobering picture. Only about 60 percent of NLTS2 youth
ages 15–19 reported they considered themselves able to handle challenges or to be “useful and
Banks_c12.indd 228 8/5/2015 1:48:59 PM
22912.9 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities: Progress Made but Challenges Remain
important” (Wagner, Newman, Cameto, Levine, & Marder, 2007). NLTS2 was a 10‐year study of
the experiences of a nationally representative sample of more than 11,000 youth with disabilities
as they moved from secondary school into adult roles. During the first four years after leaving
high school, just 57 percent of NLTS2 youth with disabilities were working for pay outside the
home, 59 percent were living independently, and 60 percent had participated in some form of
postsecondary education (Newman et al., 2011).
Education cannot be held responsible for all of the difficulties adults with disabilities face,
but the results of this and other studies make it evident many young people leave secondary spe-
cial education programs with neither the skills nor the self‐confidence to function in the com-
munity. Many youths with disabilities find all aspects of adult life a challenge (Flexer, Baer,
Luft, & Simmons, 2013). Many special educators today see the development of special education
programs that will effectively prepare students for adjustment and successful integration into the
adult community as the ultimate measure of educational equality for students with disabilities
(Ferguson & Ferguson, 2011; Test, Aspel, & Everson, 2006).
12.9.5 Special Education in a Diverse Society
Many students with disabilities experience discrimination or inadequate educational programs
because their race, ethnicity, social class, or gender is different from that of the majority. Students
from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are overrepresented in special education
programs for students with disabilities (De Valenzuela, Copeland, Qi, & Park, 2006; Sullivan,
2011; Waitoller, Artiles, & Cheney, 2010; Zhang, Katsiyannis, Ju, & Roberts, 2014).
The federal government began requiring states to report the race and ethnicity of students
receiving special education in the 1997–1998 school year. These data continue to show dispari-
ties between the distribution of race/ethnicity within the general population and participation in
special education, particularly for African American students, who are more likely to be over-
represented, and Asian American students, who are more likely to be underrepresented. For
example, although African American students constitute about 14 percent of the general school
population, they make up 27 percent of students classified with intellectual disabilities and 25.4
percent of students with severe emotional disturbance (U.S. Department of Education, 2014)
(see Table 12.3).
The fact that culturally diverse students are identified as having disabilities is not in itself a
problem. All students with a disability that adversely affects their educational performance have
the right to special education and related services. Disproportionate representation is problem-
atic, however, if students have been wrongly placed in special education, are segregated and
stigmatized, or are denied access to needed special education because their disabilities are over-
looked as a result of their membership in a racial or ethnic minority group. Although a student’s
ethnicity or language should never be the basis for inclusion in or exclusion from special educa-
tion programs, the disproportionate numbers of students from culturally and linguistically diverse
backgrounds will require that educators attend to three important issues.
First, the adequacy of assessment and placement procedures must be ensured. Multifactored
assessments must be conducted in ways that will be appropriately sensitive to the student’s cul-
ture and language to ensure that a special education placement is a function of the student’s docu-
mented needs rather than of biased referral and assessment practices (Obiakor, 2007).
Second, providing appropriate support services that are responsive to the cultural and lin-
guistic needs of the student may enhance the child’s educational program. For example, bilingual
aides, in‐service training for teachers, and multicultural education for peers may be necessary to
ensure that the child’s education is meaningful and maximally beneficial.
Third, teachers and other school staff may need to learn about the values and standards of
behavior present in the child’s home. Because most teachers are White (Goldring, Gray,
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230 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities
■ TABLE 12.3 Racial/Ethnic Composition (Percentage) of Students Aged 6 Through 21 Served According to
Disability (2011–2012 School Year)
Disability Category AI AP AA H NH T W
Specific learning disabilities 1.7 1.5 19.5 28.5 0.5 2.2 46.2
Speech or language impairments 1.3 3.2 14.0 24.8 0.2 2.6 53.9
Other health impairments 1.2 1.3 18.1 15.7 0.3 2.8 60.6
Intellectual disabilities 1.4 2.3 27.0 21.6 0.3 0.2 45.3
Emotional disturbance 1.5 0.9 26.4 14.8 0.3 3.4 52.8
Autism 0.8 3.6 13.4 17.7 0.3 2.8 59.9
Multiple disabilities 1.6 2.8 18.8 17.4 0.5 2.0 56.9
Developmental delay 3.4 2.0 21.8 16 0.6 3.5 52.8
Hearing impairments 1.1 5.4 14.6 28.1 0.8 2.2 47.8
Orthopedic impairments 0.9 3.7 12.0 25.9 0.4 2.3 54.8
Visual impairments 1.3 4.0 15.3 23.3 0.8 2.3 53.0
Traumatic brain injury 1.4 2.4 15.3 16.6 0.3 2.6 61.3
Deaf‐blindness 1.7 3.6 10.6 23.3 1.4 2.0 57.3
All disabilities 1.5 2.2 18.7 23.3 0.4 2.8 59.9
Estimated percentage of resident population 0.9 4.4 14.0 22.8 0.2 3.5 54.2
Sums may not equal 100 percent because of rounding.
Note: AI, American Indian/Alaskan; AP, Asian/Pacific Islander; AA, African American (not Hispanic); H, Hispanic; NH, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific
Islander; T, two or more races; W, White (not Hispanic).
Sources: U.S. Department of Education. (2014). 2012 IDEA Part B child count and educational environments. Retrieved from http://ideadata.org
/resource‐library/#public‐data. Snyder, T.D., & Dillow, S.A. (2013). Digest of Education Statistics 2012 (NCES 2014‐015) (Table 20). Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.
& Bitterman, 2013), learning to not only understand but also respect and appreciate the child’s
culture as it is reflected in his or her home will be important for understanding the child’s behav-
ior in the classroom and in communicating with parents (Cartledge, Gardner, & Ford, 2008).
Good intentions or token attempts at cultural sensitivity, of course, will do little to provide an
appropriate IEP for students with disabilities from culturally diverse backgrounds. The instruc-
tional materials that educators use and the methods that they employ while teaching must be
responsive to the differing cultural backgrounds of their students.
Does this mean that a teacher with students from four different cultural backgrounds needs
four different methods of teaching? The answer is both “no” and “yes.” For the first answer, it is
our view that systematic instruction benefits children from all cultural backgrounds. When stu-
dents with disabilities must also adjust to a new or different culture or language, it is especially
important for the teacher to plan individualized activities, convey expectations clearly, observe
and record behavior precisely, and give the child‐specific, immediate feedback during instruc-
tion. When coupled with a respectful attitude, these procedures will increase the motivation and
achievement of most students.
Cultural diversity adds another dimension to the many individual characteristics students
present each day. While the basic methods of systematic instruction apply to all learners, teachers
who will be most effective in helping children with disabilities from culturally diverse back-
grounds achieve success in school will be those who are sensitive to and respectful of their stu-
dents’ heritage and values.
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231 References
1 2 . 1 S U M M A R Y
The task of providing educational equality for students with
markedly diverse skills is enormous. By embracing the challenge,
U.S. schools have made a promise to exceptional students, their
parents, and society. Progress has been made, but significant chal-
lenges must still be overcome if the promise is to be kept. The
views of our society are changing and continue to be changed by
people who believe that our past practice of excluding people with
disabilities was primitive and unfair. As an institution, education
reflects society’s changing attitudes.
Common expressions of humanity and fair play dictate that all
children are entitled to educational equality, but the history of
exclusion and inequality for students with disabilities tells us that
humanity and fair play have not driven a great deal of educational
policy for children with disabilities in the absence of legislation or
litigation. While much progress has been made in achieving edu-
cational equality for students with disabilities, much work remains
to be done.
Educational equality for children with disabilities in the end
must be assessed by the effects of the schooling those children
receive. If educational equality means simply having access to cur-
riculum and instruction in schools and classrooms attended by stu-
dents without disabilities, it has largely been attained. But equal
access alone does not guarantee equal outcomes. Special educa-
tion must ultimately be judged by the degree to which it is effec-
tive in helping individuals with disabilities to acquire, maintain,
and generalize skills that will appreciably improve their lives. New
skills are needed to promote real participation and independence
in the changing school, workplace, and community environments
of the 21st century.
There is a limit to how much educational equality can be leg-
islated. In many cases, it is possible to meet the letter but not
necessarily the spirit of the law. Treating every student with a
disability as a student first and as an individual with a disability
second may be the most important factor in providing true edu-
cational equality. This approach does not diminish the student’s
exceptionality, but instead it might give us a more objective and
positive perspective that allows us to see a disability as a set of
special needs. Viewing exceptional students as individuals tells
us a great deal about how to help them achieve the educational
equality they deserve.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
12.1 Why are both children who have learning disabilities and
those who are gifted considered exceptional?
12.2 In what ways are students with disabilities similar to and
different from other students?
12.3 What are the advantages and disadvantages of labeling and
classifying students with disabilities?
12.4 How did the civil rights movement influence the movement
for educational equality for students with disabilities?
12.5 Analyze a school district/state “report card” to determine
(a) how many students in the district/state receive special
education services; (b) how many of these students are
English language learners, bilingual, males, females, and/or
students of color; and (c) how many students with disabili-
ties receive some or all of their education in the regular
classroom and the portion of the school day in which they
are included in the regular classroom.
12.6 What is an IEP, and how can it benefit students with disa-
bling conditions?
12.7 How does the concept of least restrictive environment
(LRE) influence alternative placements for students with
disabilities?
12.8 Do you think all students with disabilities should be edu-
cated in regular classrooms? Why or why not?
12.9 Why are collaboration and teaming between special educa-
tors and general classroom teachers so critical to the qual-
ity of education experienced by children with disabilities?
12.10 In your view, what is the most critical challenge currently
facing the education of exceptional students?
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chapter*
13
Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools Luanna H. Meyer , Hyun‐Sook Park , Jill M. Bevan‐Brown, and Catherine Savage
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe steps that can be taken to involve parents and establish a strong relationship
between schools and families.
2. Describe promising practices for culturally responsive and inclusive classrooms.
3. Discuss what is meant when special education is described as exclusion.
4. List strategies that can be used to help prevent misdiagnosis and disproportionality.
5. Define and give examples of mainstreaming and inclusion.
Special education emerged alongside the civil rights movement in the United States, representing
the value of equality of educational opportunity for students who were being denied access to high‐
quality schooling to meet their learning needs. Throughout its history, special education has inter-
sected with multicultural education in promoting pedagogical, curricular, and teacher education
reforms that address increasingly diverse student school populations. The relationship between
special and general education provides one measure of the extent to which public education is pre-
paring students for their future adult roles. Special education represents the state ’ s commitment to
meeting diverse needs within the public school system. Yet its very existence has enabled general
educators to maintain beliefs in a mythical mainstream, a “one‐size‐fits‐all” approach to schools,
classrooms, and pedagogy.
* This chapter is dedicated to our colleague and friend, Professor Janette Klingner (1953–2014). We are indebted to her for her
insight and magnificent contributions to knowledge, policy, and practice affecting culturally and linguistically diverse learners.
We were privileged to have known her, and we are grateful that her legacy lives on through those she mentored, taught, cared for,
and supported throughout her professional and personal life.
© C
h ri
st o p h er
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h er
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p h o to
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236 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
Across the United States, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students drop out of
school at high rates, receive disproportionate referrals for special education services, display lower
achievement on standardized tests, incur harsh penalties, and experience high rates of exclusion for
behavior in comparison to White students who speak English as their first language (Cartledge &
Kourea, 2008; Donovan & Cross, 2002). Furthermore, negative beliefs about families of children
from certain non‐White cultural groups have been found to be pervasive (Harry & Klingner, 2006;
Harry, Klingner, & Hart, 2005). Formal inquiries into the quality and quantity of educational services
and supports generally afforded to CLD learners have documented extensive and persisting inequi-
ties in curricula, pedagogy, physical facilities, and resources (Ferri & Connor, 2005; Kozol, 1967).
Finally, multiple factors have resulted in there being a limited availability of educators and teachers
who are skilled in teaching diverse student populations, including inadequate teacher preparation for
diversity and teacher resistance to teaching in schools populated by CLD and low‐income students.
These include the absence of teachers who are themselves CLD and might thus serve as positive role
models for CLD children (Darling‐Hammond, 2004; Peske & Haycock, 2006).
This chapter focuses on the intersections between special education and multicultural
education that require culturally responsive practices for all children. Despite positive language
about special education services designed to better meet student needs, special education prac-
tices often provide a mechanism that enables mainstream educational systems to avoid accom-
modating diverse learners. Troubling patterns of disproportional identification by ethnicity and
failures to engage in culturally responsive educational practices seem intractable, with little
improvement evident despite decades of awareness of the problem. We argue that general edu-
cation must shift from deficit theorizing applied to individuals (special education) and groups
(race and social class) reflected in practices designed for a monoculture mainstream that no
longer reflects the reality of our schools and students. We describe how the relationship between
schools and families can better reflect culture and power sharing that help to meet children’s
needs. Next, we discuss how the preparation of teachers can develop cultural competence, skills
in effective teaching practices, and caring for students as culturally located individuals. Finally,
we describe promising practices for culturally responsive and inclusive classrooms based on
evidence regarding pedagogies and curricula incorporating communal practices and individual
supports that recognize interdependencies as well as independence in learning.
13.1 Special Education as Exclusion Special education once occupied “the high ground of many contemporary educational debates”
located at “the forefront of pedagogical innovation and judicial reform” (Richardson, 1994,
p. 713). Following the passage of federal legislation in the 1970s guaranteeing a free and
appropriate public education to children with disabilities, special education rose to the challenge
of developing diverse instructional strategies and demonstrating meaningful learning even for
children who had once been labeled “uneducable” (Horner, Meyer, & Fredericks, 1986). Special
educators were the reformers, willing to address the complexities of children as they are rather
than as they were supposed to be. This is the generous and idealistic interpretation of the history
and purpose of special education.
13.2 Special Education and Segregation Another less‐benign view of special education was first articulated by Dunn (1968). He argued
that special education was the new, legally sanctioned segregation for children of color and others
who were different, at a time when racial segregation was otherwise illegal. His indictment of the
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23713.2 Special Education and Segregation
disproportionate overrepresentation of African American and other minority groups in special
classes included evidence that such classes were not so very special: Children in the special edu-
cation segregated programs actually did less well academically than similar children who had
remained in general education without special services. Dunn questioned whether special educa-
tion placements were in fact manipulations of policy and practice to resegregate the United States
through new, socially acceptable strategies to separate children by race.
Dunn focused his critique on the diagnosis of “mild mental retardation,” which at the time
accounted for the largest percentage of children labeled as having a disability. This diagnosis was
always subjective and came under attack for unfairly disadvantaging children who were from
non‐White cultures, were living in poverty, or spoke English as a second language. These were
the students disproportionately represented in this category (Mercer, 1973). The diagnosis of
mental retardation became increasingly unpopular; by the 1980s, children with similar character-
istics were more likely than in the past to be labeled as having learning disabilities and emotional/
behavioral disorders. Nevertheless, the overall pattern of overrepresentation of ethnic and cul-
tural minorities in special education had not changed. Children of color—particularly African
Americans—continued to be overrepresented among those receiving services as students with
mild to moderate disabilities throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Argulewicz, 1983; Oswald,
Coutinho, Best, & Singh, 1999; Tucker, 1980; Webb‐Johnson, 1999). Yet students who have CLD
backgrounds continue to be labeled as having disabilities at significantly higher levels and labeled
as gifted and talented at significantly lower levels in comparison to their representation in the
general population. Skiba and colleagues (2008) present overwhelming evidence that “the racial
disparities in special education service remain one of the key indicators of inequity in our nation’s
educational system” (p. 264).
Despite overt discussion of what appear to be new forms of discrimination and exclusion,
patterns remain unchanged in the 21st century (Artiles, Trent, & Palmer, 2004; Hosp & Reschly,
2004; Skiba, Poloni‐Staudinger, Simmons, Feggins‐Azziz, & Chung, 2005). Indeed, Cavendish,
Artiles, and Harry (2015) conclude that “overrepresentation and segregation remain entrenched in
U.S. schools” (p. 8). Low‐income boys who are African American or Native American are those
most likely to be diagnosed as having disabilities such as mental retardation and emotional distur-
bance, and they are least likely to be labeled as gifted and talented (Donovan & Cross, 2002).
Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, and Higareda (2005) found that Hispanic and other students whose first
language is not English are particularly overrepresented in special education in California districts.
These problems reflect schools’ lack of readiness for diversity, including the inappropriate use of
special education to address the needs of the increasing percentage of non‐English‐speaking
immigrant and refugee students arriving in our schools (Klingner, Artiles, & Barletta, 2006).
Disparities in referrals to special education cannot be attributed solely to differences in
socioeconomic status, an explanation that would shift the problem outside the responsibility of
schools, educators, and public education. Large‐scale investigations of the interrelationships
between race and poverty as factors influencing educational outcomes have consistently found
that ethnicity has contributed independently to placement in special education, over and above
the impact of socioeconomic status (Oswald et al., 1999). Where the impact of poverty was sig-
nificant, its “primary effect was to magnify existing racial disparity” (Skiba et al., 2008, p. 273).
Following successive official reports on these challenges by the National Research Council
(Donovan & Cross, 2002; Heller, Holtzman, & Messick, 1982), the reauthorization of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) in 2004 included a number of
changes to reinforce the accountability of state and local education agencies for addressing the
disproportional representation of CLD students by ethnic/racial groups across disability catego-
ries. Significant changes included an emphasis on early identification of at‐risk CLD students in
order to prevent inappropriate referrals to special education by requiring evidence of culturally
responsive teaching and learning in the mainstream.
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238 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
13.3 Strategies to Prevent Misdiagnosis and Disproportionality
Some schools have employed a prereferral system first introduced in the 1970s that has evolved
over time into a variety of models for intervening before attaching a formal special education
label (Ortiz, 2002). The 2004 reauthorization of IDEIA legitimized the response to intervention
(RTI) model for early identification and intervention with at‐risk students in general education
classrooms before referral to special education services (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006). RTI is a multi-
tier prevention system designed to maximize student achievement and reduce behavior prob-
lems by requiring schools to demonstrate that students are being provided with evidence‐based
practices in general education. At each tier of intervention for learning or behavior challenges,
the teacher and/or educational team must document the student’s responses to evidence‐based
strategies. Then the intensity and the nature of interventions are adjusted, depending on student
responsiveness, before identifying students as having learning and other disabilities (Fuchs &
Fuchs, 2006).
The most common model for CLD students is a three‐tier process. At‐risk students are
identified by applying a criterion set by the school (e.g., below the 25th percentile), usually
through either high‐stakes or other assessments identified by the school. Primary prevention, or
Tier 1, requires culturally responsive quality teaching using evidence‐based strategies along with
close monitoring of the at‐risk students in the general education classroom. Progress monitoring
involves evidence‐based comparisons of student outcomes for the CLD student and a “true peer”
with a similar level of language proficiency and cultural and experiential background, not com-
parisons with English‐speaking students. If several true peers are also struggling, this is regarded
as an indication that the instruction provided by the teacher is less than optimal for that group of
CLD students (Brown & Doolittle, 2008). Minor instructional adjustments can be made to meet
the unique needs of CLD students, and close monitoring is continued for targeted CLD students.
Those who do not respond at Tier 1 are provided secondary intervention in general education
settings at Tier 2, such as small‐group tutoring after school. Tier 2 interventions are supplemental
to the general education curriculum and may be provided by either the general education teacher
or specialist staff.
Students who do not respond to both Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions are referred to Tier 3
for more intensive intervention. Tier 3 services include individualized instructional objectives
based on student needs that may be delivered within the general education setting by either a
special education teacher or related service provider. A three‐tier RTI model may allow students
to receive automatic special education services or to go through further assessments to determine
eligibility for special education at Tier 3 (Council for Exceptional Children, 2008; National Joint
Committee on Learning Disabilities, 2011). Klingner and Edwards (2006) describe an alternative
four‐tier model that formalizes an assessment process to qualify for additional special education
services at Tier 4. These RTI models differ from historical practices in education (i.e., a discrep-
ancy model and prereferral) in that teachers are required to provide evidence‐based interventions
to CLD students before referring them to special education (Xu & Drame, 2008).
RTI was proposed as a promising approach to support the learning of CLD students in
general education classrooms that would, in principle, reduce the disproportional representation
of CLD students in special education. The success of RTI in reducing this disproportional repre-
sentation may depend on several factors such as adequate teacher preparation to deliver evidence‐
based instructions that are meaningful to CLD students, positive teacher beliefs and attitudes
toward CLD students, and the availability of sufficient resources including appropriate assess-
ments and evidence‐based curricula (Al Otaiba, Wagner, & Miller, 2014). In studying one
school’s implementation of RTI with CLD students, Orosco and Kilngner (2010) found that,
when these factors were not present to support RTI, teachers failed to deliver evidence‐based
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23913.4 The Monoculture of Mainstream Education
interventions that met CLD students’ cultural and linguistic needs in general education class-
rooms even though the teachers considered themselves to be delivering evidence‐based instruc-
tions. The majority of the teachers in their study still perceived cultural and linguistic differences
as deficits and referred CLD students disproportionally to special education, which defeated the
purpose of adopting RTI as a best practice in working with CLD students. To avoid this pitfall,
Orosco and Klingner (2010) propose several recommendations. First, schools should avoid a
one‐size‐fits‐all approach when implementing evidence‐based strategies in assessment and inter-
vention using RTI. Schools should support teachers in their use of assessment and instructional
strategies shown to be effective with particular CLD students, as strategies designed for English‐
speaking students may not work with CLD students. In addition, schools must provide adequate
training for teachers to deliver evidence‐based instruction grounded in sociocultural theory
(Vygotsky, 1962, 1978). By teaching that builds on students’ social, linguistic, and cultural expe-
riences, teachers can better support learning in contexts that are meaningful to students as well as
being workable in general education classrooms. Finally, schools should create a culture that
nurtures teachers’ positive disposition toward CLD students so that teachers can hold high expec-
tations for their students and support their CLD students in general education classrooms. Such
support would take into account “advocacy‐based” perspectives and a commitment to deliver
equity in education. These supports from schools could help teachers implement RTI in a way
that is meaningful to CLD students in schools.
13.4 The Monoculture of Mainstream Education RTI holds promise for refocusing on general education before referrals to special education, but
this approach still requires that a child be failing before intervention and can rest on assumptions
that it is the child alone who needs to change. Critics have increasingly called for shifting the
focus from assumptions that patterns of disproportionality occur because of deficits in children—
whether these are socioeconomic, linguistic, or developmental—and toward a reexamination of
the culture of a mainstream public school system that marginalizes differences and reinforces
existing disparities. Artiles and Bal (2008) are among those who challenge the present state of
affairs and apparent inability or unwillingness to redress imbalances. They note that researchers,
policy analysts, and educators continue to acknowledge and debate the issues, yet the imbalances
persist. They theorize that the “problem of disproportionate representation” is symptomatic of the
inability of public school systems to accommodate difference. They note the enduring assump-
tion that the mainstream is somehow not different, and they critique the underlying premise that
the person (e.g., a mainstream educationalist) “naming a difference does not have a cultural per-
spective” (Artiles & Bal, 2008, p. 5). They further state:
The issue is not that special education is bad for minority (and majority) students. Rather the chal- lenges are greater: How are differences accounted for in systems of educational support for an increasingly diverse student population? . . . Culture indexed in schools’ or communities’ everyday practices is not considered. (p. 6)
Rather than continuing to attempt to reduce these inequities by fixing and enhancing flawed
referrals, assessments, and attitudes, it can be argued that it is the so‐called mainstream that
requires fixing and enhancing.
What is being increasingly emphasized is the failure of mainstream educators and systems
to acknowledge that a monocultural perspective underpins and drives teacher education,
approaches to pedagogy, curriculum design, classroom organization, school policy, home–school
relationships, and even models of discipline in schools. This monocultural perspective is
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240 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
presumed to be so universal as to be invisible without acknowledgment that schools have been
designed to suit a dominant culture that no longer represents all children or even most children
and their families. This cultural mismatch exists not only in the United States but also in many
other nations, such as Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Germany, and Spain (Artiles & Bal, 2008;
Bishop & Berryman, 2006; Kozleski et al., 2008; Suarez‐Orozco, 2001). The solution requires a
major shift in mindset: Schools are meant to add value to children’s lives, not simply reestablish
educational definitions for society’s shortcomings. If schools cannot function without separating
large numbers of children for “nonmainstream” services outside the general education class-
room, we need to challenge the culture of the classroom as one that is not reflecting the culture
of communities.
Harry and Klingner (2006) have called for increased attention and remediation, to be
applied not to individual students or groups of students but to “school‐based risk” as a major
contributing factor to student failure, exclusion, and rerouting out of general education into spe-
cial education services that segregate. Skiba and his colleagues (2008) conclude that disparities
in special education by race and ethnicity should not be seen as solely a special education prob-
lem but be properly attributed to general education sources of inequity, including curriculum,
classroom management, teacher quality, and resource distribution. The home–school relationship
also contributes to the maintenance of inequities, as will be discussed in the next section.
13.5 Parent Participation and Working with Families Parent participation on behalf of children from CLD groups is widely acknowledged as essen-
tial to effective special education services. IDEIA (2004) mandates parent–professional col-
laboration not only when individualized education plans (IEPs) and individualized family
services plans (IFSPs) are being developed but also throughout the entire special education
process (Salas, Lopez, Chinn, & Menchaca‐Lopez, 2005; Turnbull, Turnbull, Erwin, & Soodak,
2005). The value of parent participation generally was also acknowledged in the Obama admin-
istration’s Blueprint for Reform proposing increased funding to support programs that involve
parents in schooling (Finkel, 2011). Research and practice show that such involvement is a
win‐win‐win situation with positive academic, social, and emotional outcomes for children
when parents are involved (Al‐Shammari & Yawkey, 2008; Howland, Anderson, Smiley, &
Abbott, 2006). Parents also benefit through increased confidence, self‐esteem, and understand-
ing of the school and their child’s education (Gomez & Greenough, 2002; Salas et al., 2005).
Benefits for professionals include increased knowledge of the child, culture, and home circum-
stances; improved parent–professional relationships; and increased parental willingness to
participate in school‐related activities and to volunteer time (Gomez & Greenough, 2002;
Salas et al., 2005).
Nevertheless, the involvement of CLD parents in their child’s special education is signifi-
cantly less than that of their majority‐culture counterparts. These parents are reported to with-
draw from or be passive in school‐based planning and decision‐making, be less involved in IEP
meetings and offer fewer suggestions, have limited knowledge of the special education services
entitlements, and be underrepresented in traditional schooling activities (Geenen, Powers, Lopez‐
Vasquez, & Bersani, 2003; Kim & Morningstar, 2005; Salas et al., 2005). Limited involvement
of CLD parents is reported across the age span from early intervention (Zhang & Bennett, 2003)
to transition from school (Kim & Morningstar, 2005). Many school initiatives aimed at providing
child‐ and family‐centered services and increasing parental participation have resulted in con-
flict, distrust, confusion, and resentment: Parents find themselves confronting an educational
system that purports to seek their involvement but is unyielding and uncompromising when
responding to parent and community values (Callicott, 2003).
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24113.6 Causes of Limited Parental Involvement
13.6 Causes of Limited Parental Involvement Reasons for limited parental involvement in special education are multiple, complex, and inter-
related. Although CLD parents face many of the same issues and struggles as do majority‐group
parents of children with special needs, these barriers are often experienced by CLD parents to a
greater degree. In addition, barriers specific to CLD parents include feeling that they are not
valued and respected by professionals, that they are blamed for their child’s difficulties, and that
their requests for information are ignored (Bevan‐Brown, 2009; Zhang & Bennett, 2003; Zionts,
Zionts, Harrison, & Bellinger, 2003). Parents also report being discouraged from involvement
because of professionals’ negative attitudes and treatment of their children:
The principal at my child’s school once stood over the secretary’s desk in the front office and told me that my child was lazy, disrespectful, and dumb! And she did it right there in front of all the others who were walking around in the front office and in front of my kid. I can’t believe that she is called a “ professional” . . . a professional what?
(quoted in Zionts et al., 2003, p. 45)
Mistrust of professionals was frequently reported, as was feeling disheartened by the ever‐ present
focus on their child’s weaknesses and labeling accompanied by low expectations (Geenen et al.,
2003). Parents were left feeling disenfranchised by ineffective home–school communication
methods and a lack of knowledge about rights, entitlements, and special education policies, pro-
cedures, and services (Geenen et al., 2003). Parents also reported being uncomfortable in the
school environment due to their own negative schooling experiences (Bevan‐Brown, 2009).
There can be culturally based reasons for parental noninvolvement. Parents report being
reluctant to engage with professionals because of majority‐culture ethnocentrism, negative cul-
tural stereotyping, insensitivity to cultural and religious beliefs and family traditions, a propensity
to lump different ethnic groups (e.g., all Polynesians) together, and discriminatory practices. In the
study by Zionts and colleagues (2003), for example, several African American parents “believed
that their children would not have been judged as severely or held to the same expectations if they
had been Caucasian” (p. 47). Cultural deficit thinking can be reflected in undervaluing or ignoring
children’s ethnicity altogether (Bevan‐Brown, 2003, 2009; Murtadha‐Watts & Stoughton, 2004).
It has also been considered justifiable to ignore children’s home language and culture based on
professional views that these are liabilities in the learning process (Chavez‐Reyes, 2010). Salas
and colleagues (2005) maintain that the tendency to problematize diversity instead of seeing it as
a value contributes to “an eradication of the parent‐special education teacher partnership” (p. 52).
Arguably, however, the greatest cause of parental noninvolvement relates to professionals’
limited knowledge of diverse cultures and their failure to understand how their own cultural
beliefs and attitudes influence their teaching and services. Differing cultural concepts, values,
and practices relating to disability provide fertile ground for cultural conflict and misinterpreta-
tion. Parents’ reluctance to participate in their child’s special education is understandable if they
do not believe the child has a special need. For example, Harry and Artiles (2007) note that
majority‐culture perspectives may regard conditions differing significantly from the norm to be
signs of pathology to be treated by scientific and educational methods. However, many CLD
families “may interpret a physical condition as a sign of a spiritual condition or may disagree that
a child’s difficulties in learning are important enough to be labeled as a disability” (p. 34).
Similarly, Zionts and colleagues (2003) note that culture‐based behaviors that vary from teach-
ers’ perceptions of what is “normal” can be misinterpreted, resulting in children being mislabeled
as possessing behavioral or learning problems. These varying conceptions and interpretations of
disability may result in professionals concluding that parents are “in denial” when they question
their child’s labels or when they choose not to become involved in their education.
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242 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
Another area of conflict relates to the values that underpin many special education
programs, interventions, and professional orientations. In their study of transition, Kim and
Morningstar (2005) noted that policies and practices were dominated by Western, middle‐class
values of independence, autonomy, and physical and emotional separation from parents. These
values conflicted with ethnic‐minority values of interdependence, family orientation, and
extended family support, particularly in many Native American, Pacific, and Hispanic families.
Parents from more collectivist cultures will be less likely to support IEP goals and programs that
emphasize individualization and independence from the family.
Differing cultural communication styles and expectations about involvement in their
child’s education can contribute to parent‐professional conflict. The nature and extent of paren-
tal participation in special education reflects majority‐culture norms and ways of operating,
which often assume that all parents understand participation requirements and are comfortable
interacting as expected by professionals. Some parents believe that intervention activities are
the responsibility of teachers and other professionals (Huer, Parette, & Saenz, 2001). This may
be related to beliefs that professionals are the “experts” and that it is disrespectful for parents to
interfere. Even when they disagree with professionals’ opinions and recommendations, parents
may refrain from speaking out because it would be culturally inappropriate to question those
decisions. Salas and colleagues (2005) write, “Many parents may not believe that their partici-
pation is essential and that they should not interfere with professionals such as teachers, and as
a result remove themselves from that process” (p. 55).
A final cluster of cultural reasons for parental noninvolvement is evidenced by recently
immigrated families and those with limited English proficiency. Parental involvement is severely
curtailed when professionals do not speak their language and all documentation, resources, and
communications are in English. Hispanic parents, for example, reported that the lack of bilingual
communication concerning their child’s education was a major barrier to their participation (Kim &
Morningstar, 2005). Because of an acute shortage of CLD professionals in special education, par-
ents frequently find themselves the only minority person attending their child’s IEP meetings.
Finally, there are contextual reasons for parental noninvolvement relating to poverty and its
by‐products (Zionts et al., 2003). The costs involved in accessing services and attending meetings
is prohibitive for some parents who lack transportation and child‐care support. Other barriers
include unfriendly or intimidating meeting and service venues, heavy work commitments,
fatigue, conflicting family responsibilities, lack of resources, poor health care, and inconvenient,
inflexible scheduling of services and meetings (Geenen et al., 2003; Zionts et al., 2003).
13.7 A Mismatch: Special Education and Families The lack of culturally responsive service models, programs, and processes is a deterrent to paren-
tal participation. While there are good intentions behind IDEIA’s requirements for parental
involvement, its due process model reflects majority‐culture values and processes in an IEP pro-
cess based on Anglo legal traditions. Planning and assessment structures, communication meth-
ods, formal IEP meetings that cast parents in a passive role, exclusionary professional jargon and
documentation, and the requirements for signatures all contribute to alienating CLD parents. In
addition, as Zionts and colleagues (2003) point out, a legally based system has the potential to
turn the people involved into rivals. Assessment is completed and an intervention plan is formu-
lated for many children before consultation with their parents, who are then expected to agree
with the plan or be considered adversarial (Murtadha‐Watts & Stoughton, 2004).
Furthermore, the IEP process is time consuming and work intensive. The sheer volume of
paperwork produced can be confusing, overwhelming, and intimidating to parents, particularly
those with limited English proficiency. It may also contribute to professional impatience that
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24313.8 Strategies to Increase Parental Participation
“can translate to parents as a lack of desire to include them in the process” (Murtadha‐Watta &
Stoughton, 2004, p. 7). This is further exacerbated by tightly scheduled meetings, in which strict
adherence to an agenda leaves little time for the lengthy personal interaction and relationship
building that typifies the communication style of some ethnic‐minority cultures. For many immi-
grant, ethnic, and cultural groups (e.g., Pacific Peoples), it is essential that professionals take the
time to get to know the family before launching into program planning (Bevan‐Brown, 2009).
Salas and colleagues (2005) make the point that although U.S. law mandates parental
involvement,
Most districts have discretion over deciding what role they want parents to play, what programs are offered to parents, and what kind of partnership teachers want to have with parents. Unfortunately, when schools and teachers are the primary decision makers concerning the kinds of partnerships they want to have with parents, parents can never be truly empowered. (p. 53)
Parents are further disempowered by the medical model that underpins the special education
system. This model positions professionals as experts, devalues parental knowledge and cultural capi-
tal, and locates learning and behavioral problems within the child and family (Murtadha‐Watts &
Stoughton, 2004). Such circumstances act as disincentives to parental involvement.
13.8 Strategies to Increase Parental Participation The special education literature contains a variety of strategies and programs aimed at increasing
parental participation and improving home–school communication. These range from minor
amendments to IEP processes to large‐scale home–school–community initiatives. Suggestions
include inviting parents to bring extended family, siblings, or community members to support
them at IEP meetings; holding meetings in culturally appropriate, family‐friendly venues; pro-
viding bilingual documentation and translators or asking parents to nominate a suitable person to
translate for them; making meetings more informal; allowing time for small talk; including food;
providing transportation and child‐care facilities; having flexible meeting time schedules; and
recording meetings for absent members for later consideration.
Strategies requiring more input and commitment include involving parents from the outset
of the IEP process and including them in all decision‐making; employing CLD paraprofessionals
or community‐based workers to act as communicators, mediators, and advocates; having transla-
tors or cultural advisors work in partnership with professionals; utilizing telephone interpreter
services; establishing family/community advisory councils or consultative committees from
which both parents and professionals can seek help and advice or present issues; making school
culturally relevant and welcoming to parents by celebrating important cultural days and festivals;
and utilizing person‐centered planning with its emphasis on family input into intervention plans
based on parents’ priorities and perceptions rather than those of the professionals (Bevan‐Brown,
2003; Callicott, 2003).
School‐based initiatives in North America that facilitate parental participation include
Zigler’s Schools for the 21st Century, James Comer’s school‐community approach, and full‐
service schools (Pelletier & Corter, 2005). In these models, the school is the hub of community
activity and the location of a range of services including medical, recreational, budgeting, child‐
care, and preschool services; parent support groups; and language and literacy learning centers.
The Toronto First Duty (TFD) project integrates early childhood care, education, and community
services for CLD families. The model used was thought to be particularly suited to CLD families
because it removed the need for them to locate scattered services, a task requiring “sophisticated
knowledge of the system and its language” (Pelletier & Corter, 2005, p. 36). Findings from the
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244 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
TFD project revealed that CLD parents’ attendance at school events increased significantly and
that large numbers of diverse parents who had participated in the project were on various school
councils. Corter, Patel, Pelletier, and Bertrand (2008) maintain that the evidence supports the
positive impact of service integration on quality of family life as well as parental participation.
13.8.1 Preparation of Professionals for Partnerships with Parents
There is a strong call from both parents and professionals for improved pre‐service, graduate, and
in‐service training to help professionals develop the cultural competence needed to work effec-
tively with CLD parents and families (Bevan‐Brown, in press; Hains et al., 2005; Lam, 2005;
Zionts et al., 2003). While professional development has been identified as contributing to the
extent and quality of professional–parent interaction (Perlman & Fletcher, 2012), significant cul-
tural content in the professional development program was shown to be pivotal to its effective-
ness with a culturally diverse population (Bevan‐Brown et al., 2012). After critically reviewing a
decade of professional development research for inclusive education, Waitoller and Artiles (2013)
add that professional education needs to take a multifocused, intersectional approach that
acknowledges the importance and influence of all forms of difference and the complexity and
compounding nature of their interactions.
Watson and Gatti (2012) describe a promising interprofessional collaborative pilot project
that used reflective consultation to assist early interventionists in developing the skills needed for
effective interactions with culturally diverse families. Zionts and colleagues (2003) reported that
parents in their study suggested that professional training should include empathetic communica-
tion, advocacy, and input from parents who had “already been through the system” (p. 48). They
also recommended that teachers spend time in the neighborhoods and homes of their students to
increase their understanding of the challenges faced by families. This recommendation is reflected
in the Diverse Urban Interdisciplinary Team’s project at the University of Wisconsin. Students
are assigned to families of young children with disabilities from cultures different from their
own. They spend time with the family at home and accompany them on shopping trips, on visits
to the park, or to special events such as family birthday parties three times during a 15‐week
semester (Hains et al., 2005). Valadez and Moineau (2010) describe a similar program at
California State University, San Marcos, in which pre‐service teacher education students design
and deliver a series of culturally appropriate science activities to parents at an ESL Family
Science Workshop. Graduates of this program showed increased confidence in working with
Hispanic families and a commitment to involving parents in their child’s education.
Bevan‐Brown (2009) recommends that teacher education should incorporate (1) an exami-
nation of the teacher’s own culture, biases, and underlying assumptions, as well as the influence
these have on one’s teaching; (2) an investigation of how the majority culture influences a national
education system and the effect this has on CLD children; and (3) a study of minority cultures and
how cultural knowledge can be incorporated into all aspects of the school curriculum. Teachers
graduating from a New Zealand program incorporating these three components demonstrate a
statistically significant increase in overall cultural competence, a finding also supported by forum
posts, assignment tasks, practicum involvement, and postcourse activities (Bevan‐Brown, in press).
13.8.2 Preparation of Parents for Partnerships with Educators
Parent‐to‐parent programs play an important role in connecting parents from similar ethnic back-
grounds, emphasizing and valuing strengths of CLD families, and “teaching new ways for par-
ents to use their strengths to overcome obstacles. Parent support programs with these characteristics
have been shown to increase self‐esteem and provide the skills for dealing with professionals”
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24513.10 Preintervention Culturally Responsive Teaching
(Kim & Morningstar, 2005, p. 100). These programs are especially beneficial for new immigrants
and others who do not have a wide circle of support. Skills to assist parental participation can also
be gained through targeted training sessions. Parents have identified the need for instruction in
parenting and advocacy skills, information and strategies specific to their child’s disability, spe-
cial education laws and services available, ways to find assistance and support, and including
other family members (Zionts et al., 2003).
The need for ongoing research into effective means of increasing parental participation is
critical. Investigation must move beyond measures of parental satisfaction and extent of involve-
ment to focus on significant outcomes. What type of parental involvement leads to improved
outcomes for CLD families and children with special needs? Similarly, research is required to
determine what types of professional and parental training will be most effective in developing
the skills and attitudes needed for these two groups to work in partnership for the benefit of all
concerned.
13.9 Culturally Competent Teachers and Inclusive Pedagogies
Teachers need to become culturally competent if they are to deliver culturally responsive,
evidence‐based, high‐quality teaching for students with disabilities (Cartledge & Kourea, 2008;
Goldenberg, 2008), including (1) creating a nurturing classroom that honors and incorporates the
cultural and linguistic heritages of all student members; (2) making connections with students as
individuals and understanding how context influences their interactions with others; (3) providing
structured communal learning opportunities that enhance and expand the more traditional indi-
vidualistic and teacher‐directed approaches characteristic of mainstream schools; (4) developing
learning skills through dynamic teaching utilizing explicit, intensive, and systematic instructional
techniques combined with brisk pacing, ample academic responding opportunities, and positive
and corrective feedback; (5) utilizing peer‐mediated and peer‐mentoring activities; (6) monitor-
ing at‐risk students frequently while maintaining high expectations and affirming learning for all
students; and (7) providing English language and bilingual support services as needed by chil-
dren for whom English is a second language or one of several languages that may be spoken by
immigrant families. A tremendous gap remains between the evidence‐based strategies described
in the literature and those available and actually being implemented in teacher education and
classrooms. Teachers may not have access to evidence‐based strategies that are effective for
diverse student populations at either pre‐service or in‐service levels.
13.10 Preintervention Culturally Responsive Teaching Beginning teacher education programs and effective professional development should equip
teachers with culturally responsive, evidence‐based strategies (Klingner & Edwards, 2006; Trent,
Kea, & Oh, 2008). Teachers may need access to ongoing professional development and support to
implement such strategies skillfully in their classrooms with diverse learners, who will be different
each year. The Te Kotahitanga professional learning program in Aotearoa, New Zealand, is focused
on preparing general education teachers to teach Maori students—the indigenous population of
New Zealand—who attend mainstream schools. To date, the program has been implemented in
dozens of secondary schools across the country to provide professional facilitation support to
teachers in the classroom (Bishop, 2011; Bishop, Berryman, Wearmouth, Peter, & Clapman,
2012). The facilitators are expert, consultant teachers who carry out systematic observation and
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246 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
feedback sessions with their teacher colleagues. They also organize co‐construction meetings with
teacher teams working together to set priorities and implement practices that will better meet the
educational aspirations of Maori children in mainstream classrooms. This program has been inde-
pendently evaluated, and the findings support its effectiveness in changing teacher pedagogical
practice as well as its positive impact on students (Sleeter, 2011).
Table 13.1 illustrates key features of the effective teaching profile (ETP) reflected in
Te Kotahitanga to prepare secondary teachers to engage in culturally responsive teaching (Bishop &
Berryman, 2006). The two underpinning understandings and the six relationships and interactions
included in this model do not isolate delivery of culturally responsive pedagogies from good teach-
ing. Instead, the ETP incorporates evidence‐based practice for effective teaching and learning with
caring for students as culturally situated individuals. Individual teachers can utilize this model to
identify their own opportunities to become culturally responsive on a day‐to‐day basis rather than
waiting for their schools or districts to provide them culturally responsive curricula or specific
instructions regarding what to do for particular cultural groups.
The ETP is based on two major teacher understandings: (1) rejection of deficit theorizing
as an explanation for student failure and (2) teachers taking agency for enhancing student suc-
cess. Teachers can use a self‐monitoring framework such as the ETP to reflect on their own teach-
ing and alter their practices with CLD students as needed. Bevan‐Brown’s (2003) cultural self‐review is another example of a reflective process that enables teachers to evaluate their own
practice and compare it to concrete teacher and student behaviors. This comparison will enable
them to set priorities for acquiring new skills and understandings.
13.11 Culturally Responsive Interventions Once a student labeled CLD has been referred for special education and other interventions, cul-
turally responsive teaching diminishes further: The myth that “culture doesn’t matter” becomes
even more prevalent as students’ disability identities take precedence. There is also a basic con-
tradiction inherent in special education services that emphasizes individualization of instruction
at the expense of a child’s other identities, including gender, age, language, and culture.
One could argue that key principles in special education are culturally biased; for example,
self‐determination and independent living have been regarded as ultimate goals in North America
for virtually all students with disabilities. These are outcomes of value to Anglo European cul-
tural groups. CLD students from Native American, Asian, Polynesian, Hispanic, and other cul-
tural backgrounds may value the harmony of the family and group over self‐determination on
certain issues, such as favoring interdependence over independence.
Instructional practices in special education have similarly favored adult‐guided models,
including one‐to‐one teaching with a child as the most intensive form of systematic instruction.
For more than two decades, systematic instruction based on applied behavior analysis principles
has been the backbone of successful teaching for students with disabilities. Multiculturalists in
special education have advocated culturally responsive teaching as essential to bridging the gap
between home and school cultures for CLD students (Erickson & Mohatt, 1982; Ladson‐Billings,
2007). The general education classroom assumes that students can learn in a large group, but this
learning is not interdependent as much as it is teacher‐led, with relatively inflexible expectations
for group compliance, not scaffolding of learning. There have been attempts to incorporate cul-
turally responsive practices into special education intervention, but this literature largely focuses
on the home–school relationship rather than illustrating concrete practices for use by teachers
(Harry, 2008; for exceptions, see Cartledge & Kourea, 2008; Goldenberg, 2008).
In contrast to both the large‐group‐focused general education classrooms and the intensive
and individualized approaches characterizing special education, a third generation of inclusive
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24713.11 Culturally Responsive Interventions
communal and collaborative practices could provide an alternative that would empower main-
stream classrooms as well as reduce referrals to special education. Clearly, such classrooms
would be more responsive in reflecting collectivist cultural values such as belonging and caring
for the community rather than only or even primarily individual achievement. Samoan, other
Pacific People, Asian, African American, and Native American students may be more likely to
engage in school activities and enjoy learning in group activities and through peer‐to‐peer inter-
actions. More work is needed on systematic instruction designed for interdependent student
groups to guide and support one another. The integration of best practices in special education
and in multicultural education is the greatest challenge facing educators.
■ TABLE 13.1 The Effective Teaching Profile (ETP)
Relationships and
Interactions Definition Examples of Teacher Behavior
1. Caring for students as culturally located individuals
The teacher acknowledges students’ cultural identities and allows students to “be themselves” through learning interactions that are nurturing and show respect for students’ language and culture.
Incorporates terms in teacher presentations from students’ first language/s Correctly pronounces students’ names References cultural constructs and community activities
2. Caring about student performance
The teacher has high expectations for student learning and participation in classroom learning activities.
Reinforces that all students can be effective learners Gives all students positive and corrective feedback on how to improve Encourages goal setting and praises effective learning behavior, including scaffolding: “You can do this: I’ll help”
3. Managing the class to promote learning
The teacher has classroom management and curricular flexibility skills reflecting both individual and collective roles and responsibilities to achieve positive student outcomes.
Has in place a classwide management system that creates a caring learning community (e.g., Tribes) Redirects off‐task or disruptive behavior in an effective, nonconfrontational way and is a “warm demander”*
After learning activity is introduced, engages personally with individual and small groups of students
4. Interacting with students discursively and co‐constructing knowledge
The teacher promotes student dialogue and debate to share new knowledge and encourage problem solving and higher order thinking.
Incorporates cooperative learning principles and practices in group work Promotes student‐to‐student problem solving rather than primarily teacher‐directed knowledge Solicits students’ local stories, community experiences, and prior knowledge to develop new knowledge
5. Using a range of strategies for teaching and learning activities
The teacher uses different instructional strategies that involve teachers’ and students’ learning through interactions with one another.
Facilitates student‐led inquiry (e.g., students formulate questions rather than answer teacher questions) Uses concept maps, think‐pair‐share, numbered heads together, jigsaw, and role‐playing Links new knowledge and concepts with students’ lives.
6. Promoting educational aspirations within culturally responsive contexts
The teacher makes learning objectives and outcomes explicit and empowers students to make educational decisions within culturally meaningful contexts.
Develops understandings of learning outcomes and engages students in promoting, monitoring, and reflecting on how outcomes lead to future goals Engages students in critical examination of how knowledge reflects cultural perspectives and values Encourages students to reflect on strengths and weaknesses as part of the assessment process, including peer assessments that encourage and develop peer support networks
*For a description of “warm demander” pedagogy for diverse learners, see F. Ware (2006). Warm demander pedagogy: Culturally responsive
teaching that supports a culture of achievement for African American students. Urban Education, 41(4), 427–456.
Source: Adapted from R. Bishop (2011). This illustrates how teachers can ensure that their teaching is culturally responsive to diversity.
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248 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
It will not be a simple matter for teachers to provide culturally responsive assessment and
instruction of CLD students. Teachers will need to acquire expanded skills so that they can incor-
porate visual holistic thinking skills alongside verbal analytic thinking skills for different students.
They will need to create opportunities for group rewards rather than continuing to rely exclusively
on individual reinforcement and recognition. Because students’ learning takes place in sociocul-
tural contexts, educators must learn to collaborate more with families and school communities
toward making education more meaningful and relevant to students’ cultural identities.
13.12 Culturally Situated Schooling and Inclusive Pedagogies
The advancement of quality inclusive schooling began in the 1980s with the integration of stu-
dents with special needs from segregated special schools into their neighborhood schools and
classrooms. Unlike mainstreaming, which is a term describing placement in general education
classrooms without special education supports, inclusion entails providing additional services to
students in regular classrooms. Ultimately, all students—regardless of the extent of their educa-
tional needs—should be fully included and learn alongside their peers, thus “eliminating exclu-
sionary processes from education that are a consequence of attitudes and responses to diversity
in race, social class, ethnicity, religion, gender and attainment” (Vitello & Mithaug, 1998,
p. 147). Booth and Ainscow (2000) describe several critical components of inclusion: (1) the
presence of all students in the general education classroom without the use of withdrawal classes
or other forms of integrated segregation such as ability grouping, (2) student participation in
which each student can engage in meaningful educational experiences, (3) acceptance of students
with special needs as full members of the classroom by teachers and peers, and (4) achievement
within expectations of more academic progress, better social skills, and enhanced emotional
adjustment. Descriptions such as these encourage teachers to take an active role to ensure that
students are included in the learning and teaching activities of the classroom rather than assuming
that inclusion happens through physical proximity alone.
13.13 Quality Inclusive Schools Expecting our schools to accommodate all children in the general education classroom is impera-
tive if we are to create multicultural schools to replace monocultural ones that exclude and sepa-
rate children into groups of those who belong and those who do not. Inclusion therefore requires
emphasis on any learners who are at risk of marginalization, exclusion, or underachievement
(Harry, 2008). Inclusion requires a fundamental shift from attributing educational failure to chil-
dren’s characteristics toward analyzing barriers to participation and learning that are blocking
student opportunity in school (Ainscow, 2007). Ultimately, the goal is to transform the main-
stream in ways that increase the ability to respond to all learners (Meyer, 1997). In inclusive
educational settings, special education is reframed as additional services and supports that
enhance instruction, not as a different curriculum for learners identified as having disabilities and
deficits. In inclusive classrooms, differences are seen as natural and expected, and the purpose of
education is not to eliminate differences but to respond to diversity in ways that enhance all stu-
dents’ growth and development.
Inclusive schools actively challenge discrimination, create welcoming communities where
everyone belongs, and value diversity (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, 1994). There is an extensive international literature that describes the essential
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24913.14 Delivery of Special Education in the Context of General Education
features of quality inclusive schools, including a shared vision across the school community,
teachers who assume responsibility for creating authentic learning communities in the classroom,
and ongoing evaluation in order to address problems as they arise (Avramidis, Bayliss, & Burden,
2000; Meyer, 1997).
13.14 Delivery of Special Education in the Context of General Education
Inclusive schools deliver special education services designed to meet the needs of individual
students in the classroom context, with meaningful participation being seen as central to learning.
Students need interactions with other students and will learn through participation—from their
context, community, and the relationships they develop with others (Meyer, Park, Grenot‐Scheyer,
Schwartz, & Harry, 1998). Teachers who master culturally responsive pedagogies demonstrate
discursive and diverse approaches to teaching and learning associated with high student partici-
pation and positive behavior management (Savage et al., 2011; Sleeter, 2011). Furthermore,
inclusive strategies and techniques that are effective with students with disabilities also increase
the performance of students who are low achievers, average achievers, and gifted (Montague &
Applegate, 2000; Palincsar, Magnusson, Collins, & Cutter, 2001). Recent syntheses of the
research on reading instruction in inclusive settings reveals that techniques such as cooperative
learning and peer‐mediated instruction can result in substantial gains for students with and with-
out disabilities (Doveston & Keenaghan, 2006; Schmidt, Rozendal, & Greenman, 2002).
The approach referred to as universal design for learning (UDL) has focused on developing
strategies responsive to a wide range of students in heterogeneous classrooms (Cawley, Foley, &
Miller, 2003; King‐Sears, 2001; Rao, Ok, & Bryant, 2014). King‐Sears (2008) summarizes three
categories of UDL techniques: (1) Representation—new content is demonstrated and presented in
auditory, visual, and/or tactile ways. Direct instruction of new and complex material incorporates
strategic processes and problem solving. (2) Engagement—students practice independently or in
cooperative learning groups through a variety of activities and opportunities to acquire proficiency
with new content. Feedback to students is delivered in ways that promote student self‐evaluation
and learning how to learn independently. Teachers monitor performance and make instructional
changes based on evidence of learning. (3) Expression—students are allowed choices to show
what they know about new content, with an emphasis on relevance and real‐life examples that are
meaningful and motivating. For example, the teacher may allow students to demonstrate mastery
of new material through projects that can be done individually, in pairs, or in small groups and that
may vary in format, such as giving a presentation or designing a three‐dimensional display. UDL
techniques not only promote social interaction, cooperation, and learning from difference within
the classroom but also create a context in which children can develop positive social
relationships.
Meyer and her colleagues (1998) describe the range of possible social relationships in chil-
dren’s lives influenced by educational practices and the organization of schooling. Their work
highlights the importance of attention to the implementation of inclusive schooling, which is
much more than the physical presence of students with disabilities in the classroom or even the
provision of special education services within the general education environment. They found
that when teachers communicated through actions and words that did not fully include children
with disabilities, children mirrored those social patterns in their peer interactions. Thus, when
teachers emphasized “helping” students with disabilities rather than students working together,
children without disabilities were most likely to either ignore peers with disabilities or treat them
“specially,” much as one would interact with very young children or even playthings (Evans,
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250 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
Salisbury, Palombaro, Berryman, & Hollowood, 1992). When classroom practices supported full
participation in the range of academic and social activities occurring in school, students with
even the most severe disabilities experienced social lives that included both class membership
and friendships (Meyer et al., 1998).
13.15 Inclusive Schools and Teacher Education In a study examining teachers’ attitudes toward including children with special needs, Berry
(2008) reported that teachers who are positive about inclusion are less apprehensive about
whether they will be seen as fair if they accommodate different student needs than are teachers
with negative attitudes about inclusion. Teachers who are positive about inclusion believe that
students with disabilities belong in their classrooms; have confidence in their ability to teach
students with disabilities; and employ teaching strategies that they believe to be effective. Berry
maintained that teacher education programs should have the major responsibility for helping
teachers to develop the attitudes and dispositions necessary for teaching in inclusive contexts.
King‐Sears (2008) argues that these positive attitudes must also be supported by deliberate
instructional actions based on well‐developed lesson planning. Spooner, Baker, Harris, Ahlgrim‐
Delzell, and Browder (2007) found that teachers in graduate courses who received a brief intro-
duction to UDL designed lesson plans accessible to diverse students, whereas the control group
of teachers who received no UDL instruction designed lesson plans with fewer modifications,
alternatives for communication, and activities that involved students. Teachers working in inclu-
sive schools must possess the beliefs, attitudes, skills, and dispositions that will enable them to
be confident, effective teachers with the skills to design and implement inclusive strategic pro-
grams that increase opportunities for all students to learn.
13.16 Managing Inclusive Classrooms Children from nondominant cultures in many Western nations continue to be overrepresented
among those diagnosed as having behavior disorders and emotional disturbance. Furthermore,
children of color are those most likely to be suspended and expelled for behavior considered
unacceptable by schools (Dharan, Meyer, & Mincher, 2012). Monocultural classroom manage-
ment practices have evolved over many decades in schools and become embedded as cultural
rituals in classrooms (Nuthall, 2005). Furthermore, teachers who may themselves be culturally
different from their students make decisions regarding behavior based on their own cultural
expectations, interactions, and interpretations (Kyles & Olafson, 2008). For schools to be inclu-
sive, teachers must acquire cultural competence and skills for culturally responsive practices
appropriate for today’s diverse student population (Cartledge, Singh, & Gibson, 2008).
Even when teachers adopt culturally responsive practices in their classrooms, the wider
school may impose policies and practices that marginalize CLD students in reflecting dominant
cultural perspectives on behavior that advantage students from that cultural background and
effectively discriminate against others. Weinstein, Curran, and Tomlinson‐Clarke (2003) discuss
how the structure and practices of schools—such as uneven distribution of resources, culturally
biased testing, and ability grouping—continue to privilege select groups while disadvantaging
others through low expectations, stigmatization, and even segregation. Wherever certain student
groups are overrepresented in statistics for suspensions and expulsions, school leaders need to be
challenged to examine the school’s norms and values.
The ethos of the school should not represent the institutionalization of societal discrimina-
tion patterns but instead support a context for redressing social inequities and injustice—
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25113.17 Diversity and Caring Communities: Outcomes for the Social Good
something public schooling was meant to do. Current behavior management approaches favor
systematic implementation of an overall framework that has been agreed upon and is transparent
across the school regarding expectations and consequences (Sugai et al., 2005). Internationally,
the restorative practices model has been shown to be both practical and highly effective as a
schoolwide approach that shifts the emphasis from punishment and retribution to processes for
restoration and making amends (Kane et al., 2009; Meyer & Evans, 2014). Restorative practices
approaches are particularly well suited for responding to the values of diverse cultures, including
those of indigenous and other nondominant cultural groups within mainstream settings (Meyer &
Evans, 2012a, 2012b).
13.17 Diversity and Caring Communities: Outcomes for the Social Good
For decades, a growing number of international scholars have argued for and presented evidence
supporting the provision of quality special education services within school communities. With
the introduction of IDEIA in 2004 and widespread acceptance of society’s responsibility to edu-
cate all children, advocacy and research have together progressed toward the development of
schools for all children (Ainscow, 2007). Inclusive education is not the sole domain of special
education but instead represents a social movement opposing educational exclusion (Slee &
Allan, 2005).
The existence and perpetuation of the separation and segregation of students with disabili-
ties inevitably generates (and reflects) several unintended but nonetheless very real negative
outcomes.
1. Efforts to structure general classrooms into homogeneous groups of students with similar learning needs will fail both the children and the educational system. Systems that allow
narrowing of commitment and capacity to serve diverse needs, expect children to fit curric-
ula rather than adapting schooling to meet children’s needs, and institutionalize identifica-
tion of differences through tracking and segregation—whether by ability or race—legitimize
intolerance of differences and tell children that they do not belong. Such practices are dys-
functional as proportionately higher numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse students
and their families join our school communities. Removing children with special needs from
the mainstream turns disabilities into handicaps and drains valuable resources and expertise
from general education. As long as the myth persists that general education classrooms can-
not accommodate needs outside a hypothetical norm, the inevitable result will be a closed
cycle of increasing referrals that continue to exceed the resources of the various special
systems, themselves marginalized and devalued by mainstream systems. When children with
disabilities are segregated from their nondisabled peers, they lose access to mainstream envi-
ronments that enhance their teaching and learning. They become increasingly dependent on
teacher‐directed, highly structured learning and on adults as the source of new knowledge
and support. They must sacrifice the peer relationships and friendships that should be part of
the lives of all children. When natural supports are thwarted and prevented from developing,
persons with disabilities are forced to become more and more dependent on costly profes-
sional and paid services to fill the void.
2. When children with and without disabilities grow up in isolation from one another, everyone loses. Children will “do as I do, and not as I say.” If we model segregation, rejection, and stereotyping by labels in a social system as central to our democratic institutions as the public schools, we have a great deal to answer for when those exclusionary models play out in the domains of daily living. More than half a century ago, Adorno, Frenkel‐Brunswik,
Banks_c13.indd 251 17-08-2015 22:53:42
252 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools
Levinson, and Sanford (1950) maintained that one’s attitudes toward persons who are viewed
as different are part of a consistent pattern affecting all aspects of an individual’s behavior
and beliefs. Their studies of racial prejudice were premised on the theory that cultural
acceptance is associated with democratic principles and that the promotion of cultural
acceptance would thus have broader implications for the greater good of society. The move-
ment to celebrate diversity in education also makes this point while acknowledging the futil-
ity of ignoring the diversity that exists in today’s schools. Learning to acknowledge and
build on individual differences as strengths rather than deficits is consistent with democratic
values and caring schools that support children’s growth and development (Berman, 1990;
Noddings, 2005; Sapon‐Shevin, 2005).
The purpose of a public school system goes beyond simply meeting the needs of individual
children. While important, it should not occur at the expense of the role of the schools in provid-
ing a pathway to a democratic community and the betterment of a nation’s citizenry—all, not just some. Our challenge is, of course, to examine the rhetoric and practices in education with the goal
of reaching a better balance between meeting unique needs and building community.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
13.1 Why, according to the chapter, are students who are cultur-
ally and linguistically diverse overrepresented in special
education classes and programs, especially those for learn-
ing disabilities, mental retardation, and emotional and beha-
vioral disorders? What kinds of solutions could change this
overrepresentation?
13.2 Why is it important for parents of color, low‐income parents,
and parents of different cultures and linguistic backgrounds
to be involved in special education programs for their chil-
dren? How can teachers and other educators ensure that these
parents will be full participants in an educational process that
is culturally responsive to their values and contexts?
13.3 What are the characteristics of an effective teacher who
is culturally responsive? Give specific examples of how
a teacher can demonstrate mastery of the different interac-
tions and relationships needed for culturally effective
teaching.
13.4 The chapter maintains that a commitment to the principles
and practices of inclusive education will not only benefit
special education students but also lead to classrooms and
schools that reflect diversity and can thus better serve all
students with and without disabilities. How might fully
inclusive schools prepare our children for fully inclusive
communities?
13.5 How can the incorporation of a schoolwide positive behav-
ior management system and restorative practices assist in
ensuring that the school is culturally respectful and respon-
sive? What can individual teachers do in their classrooms to
reflect fairness and justice in social and instructional inter-
actions with students?
13.6 What are your own beliefs, skills, and understandings
related to the role of culture in special and inclusive educa-
tion? How can you become a lifelong learner in advancing
your own culturally responsive practices?
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part
6 School Reform and Classroom Assessment
Reforming schools so that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed requires a
new vision by educators who are willing to advocate for and participate in change. The
first two chapters in Part 6 discuss effective ways to conceptualize and implement school
reform within a multicultural framework. In Chapter 14 , Nieto and Bode present and
analyze five conditions that will promote student achievement within a multicultural
perspective. According to Nieto and Bode, schools should (1) be antiracist and antibi-
ased, (2) reflect an understanding and acceptance of all students as having talents and
strengths that can enhance their education, (3) be considered within the parameters of
critical pedagogy, (4) involve those people most intimately connected with teaching and
learning, and (5) be based on high expectations and rigorous standards for all learners.
Cherry A. McGee Banks, in Chapter 15 , discusses ways to involve parents in
schools. She argues that parent involvement is an important factor in school reform and
student achievement and that parents can be a cogent force in school reform. Parents,
perhaps more than any other group, can mobilize the community to support school
reform. Parents have firsthand knowledge about the school ’ s effectiveness and can be
vocal advocates for change. As consumers of educational services, parents can raise
questions that are difficult for professional educators and administrators to raise, such as
“What is the proportion of males of color in special education classes?” and “What is the
ethnic breakdown of students enrolled in higher level math and science classes?”
Conceptualizing and implementing effective assessment should be an integral part
of school reform. Evaluating student progress is one of the most frequent instructional
behaviors performed by teachers. If done effectively, assessment enhances student learn-
ing and performance. Evaluating the progress of students from diverse groups is compli-
cated by factors such as cultural, language, and social‐class differences. In Chapter 16 ,
Taylor and Nolen describe ways in which educators can conceptualize and implement
assessment in ways that will promote learning opportunities for students from diverse
groups.
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258
chapter
School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective Sonia Nieto and Patty Bode
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe the five characteristics of school reform when it has a multicultural perspective.
2. Compare and contrast systemic school reform with a multicultural perspective with other
approaches to school reform.
3. Define antiracism and describe why it should be an element in school reform.
4. Define critical pedagogy and its role in school reform.
Learning is at the heart of schooling. If this is the case, then it makes sense that student learning
be a major focus of school reform efforts. This means that educational policies and practices need
to be viewed in terms of how they affect the learning and academic achievement of students. But
some school policies pay scant attention to whether and to what extent students actually learn.
This has been especially the case in goals espoused in the various reform efforts of the past three
decades that began with the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence
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259School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective
in Education, 1983) and eventually became institutionalized in 2001 through the version of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) called the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
Similarly misguided goals can be seen now in the ongoing push for charter schools, and efforts
to promulgate the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Questions about meaningful learning
and its lifelong effect on students are left unaddressed.
For example, the CCSS initiative, which outlines detailed expectations for K‐12 student
learning in mathematics and English language arts (ELA), has been an effort to align educational
standards across all states. Karp (2014) explains that the CCSS were not conceived or developed
by a democratically representative group of educators and community members. It is worth
remembering that federal law prohibits the federal government from creating national standards,
so the Common Core efforts were framed within the National Governors Association, the Council
of Chief State School Officers, and a private consulting firm, Achieve. Funding from private
industry was poured into the effort, most notably more than $160 million from the Gates
Foundation, which entered into partnership with profit‐making publishers to produce full K‐12
curriculum materials. These publishers also produce the broadest portion of the market of stand-
ardized tests for students in early‐childhood grades all the way through college teacher licensure
programs. Karp’s (2014) research points out that these so‐called public–private partnerships raise
disturbing questions about the influence of private wealth and corporate power in our public
institutions that are assumed to be managed democratically.
While most of the states adopted the CCSS—44 of the 50 as this book goes to press—
political maneuvering has led several states that initially adopted to repeal or replace the CCSS.
The Common Core was launched with the promise to raise student achievement, but the initiative
comes with additional tests in more grades.
These reform efforts often end up punishing schools, teachers, districts, and ultimately
students who have not measured up to norms of success predetermined by politicians, policy
makers, and others who know little about schools. Such reforms were originally enacted to
respond to serious issues plaguing our educational system, including the deplorable history of
educational inequality in the United States. However, there are many flaws in these policies,
including the single‐minded focus on standardized tests as the primary criterion for judging aca-
demic progress and the dismal results this focus has produced.
In the meantime, policy makers continue to implement policies that require longer school
days and years, strict retention policies, placement of schools “on probation,” state takeovers,
privatization, teacher compensation based on student test scores, and more high‐stakes testing;
less attention to pedagogy and curricula have been the result (Abernathy, 2007; Meier & Wood,
2004; Nichols & Berliner, 2007; Rothstein, 2008).
A number of studies indicate that students who are most at risk of receiving an inadequate
education are often the ones most jeopardized by such reform efforts (Berliner & Glass, 2014;
Burris, 2014; Darling‐Hammond, 2006, 2010; Gorski, 2013; Larson, 2014; Orfield, 2014). After
years of these failed policies, Diane Ravitch (2010)—who, as Assistant Secretary of Education in
the administration of George H. W. Bush, touted the benefits and promises of NCLB and its
much‐lauded goal of 100 percent proficiency of every child by 2014—now sees its detrimental
effects. Ravitch (2013) has recanted her “earlier support for what is now known as the reform
agenda” (p. 5). She repudiates the overemphasis on testing and the subsequent punishment of
schools. Furthermore, Ravitch (2013) contends, “What began as a movement for testing and
accountability has turned into a privatization movement” (p. 6).
This chapter rejects decision‐making about student learning based on test scores, and the
private profiteering that has emerged that threatens the foundation of public education. Instead,
this chapter asserts that student learning can be positively influenced by changes in school poli-
cies and practices that raise academic achievement while affirming students’ identities. Two
related assumptions undergird this assertion: (1) Students, families, and teachers bring strengths
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260 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective
and talents to teaching and learning, and (2) a comprehensive and critical approach to multicultural
education can provide an important framework for rethinking school reform that maintains access
to robust public education for all children.
In what follows, we explore the meaning of school reform with a multicultural perspective
and consider implications for student learning. We begin by defining school reform with a multi-
cultural perspective, including how a school’s policies and practices implicitly illustrate beliefs
about who deserves the benefits of a high‐quality education. We do so because certain school
policies and practices may exacerbate the pervasive structural inequalities that exist in society.
We then describe a set of five interrelated conditions for successful school reform within a mul-
ticultural perspective. These conditions are intimately interconnected, but for the purpose of
expediency, we explain the five conditions separately along with implications for increasing
student achievement.
14.1 School Reform with a Multicultural Perspective Many people assume that multicultural education consists of little more than isolated lessons in
sensitivity training or prejudice reduction or separate units about cultural artifacts or ethnic holi-
days. To some it might mean education geared for urban schools or, more specifically, for African
American and Latino students. Conceptualizing reform in this limited and misguided way is not a multicultural perspective, nor is it multicultural education, and it will have little influence on
student learning.
When conceptualized as broad‐based school reform, however, multicultural education can
have a major influence on how and to what extent students learn. To approach school reform with
a multicultural perspective, we need to begin with an understanding of multicultural education
within its sociopolitical context (Nieto & Bode, 2012). A sociopolitical context underscores that
education is part and parcel of larger societal and political forces, such as inequality based on
stratification due to race, social‐class, gender, and other differences. Given this perspective, deci-
sions concerning such practices as ability tracking, high‐stakes testing, native language instruc-
tion, retention, curriculum reform, and pedagogy are all influenced by broader social policies.
As Freire (1985) made clear, every educational decision, whether made at the classroom,
city, state, or national level, is imbedded within a particular ideological framework. Such deci-
sions can be as simple as whether a classroom should be arranged in rows with all students facing
the teacher, in tables with groups of students to encourage cooperative work, or in a variety of
ways depending on the task at hand. Alternatively, these decisions can be as far reaching as elimi-
nating tracking in an entire school system, teaching language‐minority students by using both
their native language and English, or teaching such students by using English only. Embedded
within each educational decision are assumptions about the nature of learning, about what par-
ticular students are capable of achieving, about whose language has value, and about who should
be at the center of the educational process. As stated more extensively elsewhere, Nieto (Nieto &
Bode, 2012) defines multicultural education within a sociopolitical context as
. . . a process of comprehensive school reform and basic education for all students. It challenges and rejects racism and other forms of discrimination in schools and society and accepts and affirms the pluralism (ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, economic, and gender, among others) that students, their communities, and teachers reflect. Multicultural education permeates the schools’ curriculum and instructional strategies as well as the interactions among teachers, students, and families, and the very way that schools conceptualize the nature of teaching and learning. Because it uses critical pedagogy as its underlying philosophy and focuses on knowledge, reflection, and action (praxis) as the basis for social change, multicultural education promotes democratic principles of social justice. (p. 42)
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26114.2 Conditions for Systemic School Reform with a Multicultural Perspective
This definition of multicultural education assumes a comprehensive school reform effort rather
than superficial additions to the curriculum or one‐shot treatments about diversity, such as work-
shops for teachers or assembly programs for students. As such, we use this definition as a lens
through which to view conditions for systemic school reform that can improve the learning of all
students.
14.2 Conditions for Systemic School Reform with a Multicultural Perspective
Failure to learn does not develop out of thin air; it is scrupulously created through policies, prac-
tices, attitudes, and beliefs. In a very concrete sense, the results of educational inequality explain
by example what a society believes its young people are capable of achieving and what they
deserve. For instance, offering only low‐level courses in schools serving culturally diverse and
poor youngsters is a clear message that the students are not expected to achieve at high levels;
similarly, considering students to be “at risk” simply because of their ethnicity, native language,
family characteristics, or social class is another clear sign that some students have been defined
by conventional wisdom as uneducable based simply on their identity. Although it is true that
conditions such as poverty and attendant hardships such as poor health and nutrition may create
obstacles to learning, they should not be viewed as insurmountable obstacles because we have
substantive evidence that some students can achieve despite such roadblocks. More students
achieve to high levels, however, when these obstacles are removed.
As a result, we cannot think about educational reform without taking into account both
micro‐ and macro‐level issues that may affect student learning. Micro‐level issues include the
cultures, languages, and experiences of students and their families and how these are considered
in determining school policies and practices (Cummins, 2000; Nieto, 2010, 2013). Macro‐level
issues include the racial stratification that helps maintain inequality and the resources and access
to learning that schools provide or deny (Conchas & Vigil, 2012; Grant‐Thomas & Orfield, 2009;
Orfield, 2014; Spring, 2013, 2014). Carter and Welner (2014) cite the “opportunity gap” as the
educational disparities that exist across race and associated class lines, noting that intergenera-
tional economic inequality are “highly correlated with skin color, ethnicity, linguistic, and social
class status” (p. 1). Furthermore, Ladson‐Billings (2006b) has argued that the focus on school
performance gaps is misplaced and that what must be considered are the historical, economic,
sociopolitical, and moral components of racial stratification that have accumulated over time,
amounting to what she has dubbed “the education debt” (p. 3). Considering these factors, Gorski
(2013) reviews societal myths and examines biases while asserting effective strategies for teach-
ers working with students and families in poverty, with a strong emphasis on the importance of
collaborating with families.
In addition, how students and their families view their status in schools and society must be
considered. Recent research focuses on students’ perceptions of opportunity structures as well as
their personal assertions of identity. Conchas (2006) points out that linking academic rigor with
strong collaborative relationships among students and teachers plays a significant, positive role
in high achievement for some youths from economically strapped communities. Yet he maintains
that transforming students’ perceptions of the opportunity structure is tied to the larger social and
economic inequality and “its devastating impact on the perceptions of racial minority youth con-
cerning social mobility” (p. 123).
Conditions such as inequitable school financing (Johnson, Zhou, & Nakamoto, 2011),
unrepresentative school governance (Meier & Stewart, 1991), and large class size (Biddle &
Berliner, 2002; Muennig & Woolf, 2007) may play powerful roles in promoting student
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262 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective
underachievement. For example, inequities in school financing have remained quite stable since
Kozol’s (1991) landmark study of more than two decades ago (Darling‐Hammond, 2010). Yet
reform strategies such as longer school days, more rigorous graduation standards, and increased
standardized testing often do not take such issues into account. The evidence is growing, for
example, that school size and class size make a difference in student learning and that these may
also influence students’ feelings of belonging and, thus, their engagement with learning (Carter,
2005; Yosso, 2006). In fact, equalizing just two conditions of schooling—funding and class
size—would probably result in an immediate and dramatic improvement in learning for students
who have not received the benefits of such conditions.
School reform strategies that do not acknowledge such macro‐level disparities are bound to
be inadequate because they assume that schools provide all students with a level playing field
(Berliner, 2009; Grant‐Thomas & Orfield, 2009; Orfield, 2014). The conditions described in this
chapter, while acknowledging these disparities, nevertheless provide hope for school systems in
which such changes as equitable funding or small class size may not occur in the near future.
Rather than wait for these changes to happen, schools and teachers can begin to improve the pos-
sibility for successful student learning by attending to a number of conditions. Five such condi-
tions are described here, which, along with changes in funding and resource allocation, would
help create schools where all students have a better chance to learn (these conditions are described
in greater detail in Nieto, 2010).
14.3 School Reform Should Be Antiracist and Antibiased An antiracist and antibias perspective is at the core of multicultural education. This is crucial
because too often people believe that multicultural education automatically takes care of racism,
but this is far from the reality. In fact, multicultural education without an explicit antiracist focus
may perpetuate the worst kinds of stereotypes if it focuses only on superficial aspects of culture
and the addition of ethnic tidbits to the curriculum.
Addressing racism is critical, yet if not rooted in theory and in student experience, educa-
tors might make erroneous assumptions about students’ racial affiliations and other dimensions
of multiple identities. We have written elsewhere with colleagues (Nieto, Bode, Kang, & Raible,
2008), drawing from Dolby (2000) and other critical and postmodern perspectives, to address the
hybrid nature of contemporary U.S. society. Specifically, we ask how multicultural education
might transcend typically essentialist notions of race and other identities to promote a more
nuanced, critical understanding of multicultural perspectives. Postmodern frameworks of identity
insist that identities and cultures are not static; they shift and evolve according to the context, and
so must curriculum and instruction. Yet, racism remains a stark reality and needs to be addressed
by multicultural education even while contemporary discourse on identities calls into question
the notion of race (Leonardo, 2013). Put simply, race may no longer exist, but institutionalized
racism is alive and well.
Being antiracist means paying attention to all areas in which some students may be favored
over others, including the curriculum and pedagogy, sorting policies, and teachers’ interactions
and relationships with students and their communities. Schools committed to multicultural edu-
cation with an antiracist perspective need to examine closely both school policies and the atti-
tudes and behaviors of their staff to determine how these might be complicit in causing academic
failure. The kind of expectations that teachers and schools have for students (Conchas, 2006; Nieto,
2002–2003; Noguera, 2003, 2008), whether native language use is permitted or punished (Cummins,
2000; Gebhard, Austin, Nieto, & Willett, 2002), how sorting takes place (Burris, 2014; Oakes,
2005), and how classroom organization, pedagogy, and curriculum may influence student
learning all need to be considered.
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26314.3 School Reform Should Be Antiracist and Antibiased
To become antiracist, schools also need to examine how the curriculum may perpetuate
negative, distorted, or incomplete images of some groups while exalting others as the makers of
all history. Unfortunately, many textbooks, children’s books, software programs, audiovisual
media, and Web media are still replete with racist and sexist images and with demeaning portray-
als of people from low‐income communities. Although the situation is improving and the stereo-
types that exist are not as blatant as they once were, there are still many inaccuracies and negative
portrayals (Botelho & Rudman, 2009; Clawson, 2002; Loewen, 2007, 2008).
The images generated by the news and entertainment media demonstrate multiple
examples of how the general public either perpetuates and embrace, or refutes racism and
sexism. This makes a compelling case for developing a more critically literate public through
multicultural education. Most of the heroes or heroines presented as men and women in the
standard curriculum—whether from dominant or nondominant cultures—are “safe;” that is,
they do not pose a challenge to the status quo. Other people who have fought for social jus-
tice are omitted, presented as bizarre or insane, or made safe by downplaying their contribu-
tions. A now‐classic article by Kozol (1975) graphically documents how schools bleed the
life and soul out of even the most impassioned and courageous heroes, such as Helen Keller
and Martin Luther King Jr, in the process making them boring and less‐than‐believable cari-
catures. Also, a powerful book by Kohl (2005) demonstrates how Rosa Parks, the mother of
the civil rights movement, was made palatable to the mainstream by portraying her not as a
staunch civil rights crusader who consciously battled racist segregation but as a tired woman
who simply did not want to give up her seat on the bus. These examples are misleading or
even racist representations of reality.
Through this kind of “safe” curriculum, many teachers are misled to believe that they are
teaching from a multicultural perspective. In such an approach, students from dominant groups
learn that they are the norm, and consequently they often assume that anyone different from them
is culturally or intellectually disadvantaged. On the other hand, students from subordinated cul-
tures may internalize the message that their cultures, families, languages, and experiences have
low status, and they learn to feel inferior. All students suffer as a result of these messages, but
students from dominated groups are the most negatively affected.
The issue of institutional power is also at play here. The conventional notion of racism is
that it is an individual bias toward members of other groups. This perception conveniently skirts
the issue of how institutions themselves, which are much more powerful than individuals, develop
harmful policies and practices that victimize American Indians, African Americans, Asians,
Latinos, low‐income European Americans, females, gays, lesbians, transgender people, and oth-
ers from dominated groups. The major difference between individual racism and institutional
racism and bias is the wielding of power, because it is primarily through the power of the people
who control institutions such as schools that oppressive policies and practices are reinforced and
legitimated (Tatum, 2003, 2007; Weinberg, 1996). That is, when racism is understood as a sys-
temic problem, not just as an individual dislike for a particular group of people, we can better
understand its negative and destructive effects.
We do not wish to minimize the powerful effect of individual prejudice and discrimina-
tion, which can be personally very painful, nor do we suggest that individual discrimination
occurs only in one direction, for example, from Whites to African Americans. No group
monopolizes prejudice and discrimination; they occur in all directions and even within groups.
But interethnic hostility, personal prejudices, and individual biases, while certainly hurtful, do
not have the long‐range and life‐limiting effects on entire groups of people that institutional
racism and bias have.
Testing practices, for example, may be institutionally discriminatory because, as a result
of their performance on these tests, students from culturally and socially dominated groups may
be labeled as inferior (McNeil, 2000; Berliner & Glass, 2014). Rather than critically examining
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264 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective
the tests themselves, the underlying purpose of such tests, or their damaging effects, educational
policy makers often blame the students themselves. In addition, the fact that textbook companies
and other companies that develop tests earn huge profits from test construction and dissemination
is often unmentioned, yet it, too, is a reality (Miner, 2004). Ravitch (2013), once a champion of
testing practices, has become a spokesperson for uncovering the multifaceted ways in which the
testing craze has damaged the U.S. public school system.
An antiracist perspective is apparent in schools when students are permitted and encour-
aged to speak about their experiences with racism and other biases. Many White teachers feel
great discomfort when racism is discussed in the classroom. They are uncomfortable for sev-
eral reasons: their lack of experience in confronting such a potentially explosive issue, the
conspiracy of silence about racism (as if not speaking about it will make it disappear), the guilt
they may feel from being a member of the group that has benefited from racism, the generally
accepted assumption that we live in a color‐blind society, or a combination of these reasons
(Bonilla‐Silva, 2006; Howard, 2006; Sleeter, 1994; Tatum, 2007). According to Pollock (2004),
while seemingly color‐blind, this discourse is in fact highly racialized because the deletion of
race in both classroom practice and policy talk is a deliberate and race‐conscious act. Referring
to this practice as “colormuteness,” Pollock argues that it is an active struggle to mask the per-
ceived or possible relevance of race. She also suggests that true color‐blindness is impossible
in a nation as racialized as the United States. In her edited compilation Everyday Antiracism,
Pollock (2008) advances insights from dozens of educators to make the struggle around issues
of race and racism more visible and audible.
When students are given time and support for expressing their views, the result can be
compelling because their experiences are legitimated and used in the service of their learning.
A number of teachers have written eloquently about the impact of addressing issues of racism
and discrimination in the classroom (Davis, 2005; Irizarry, 2011b; Landsman, 2001; Levin,
2001). Van Ausdale and Feagin (2001) provide compelling evidence of preschoolers’ racialized
views, actions, and language, with a focus on the role of the teacher in antiracist education.
Michie (2005) documented how five teachers in Chicago public schools supported students’
learning through a rigorous academic program with a social justice focus. These educators found
that, rather than shying away from such topics, teachers who directly confront issues of bias can
help students become more engaged, critical, and reflective learners.
In our research on students’ concerns about their education, they mentioned racism and
other examples of discrimination on the part of fellow students and teachers (Nieto & Bode,
2012). Rashaud, an African American high school student in Georgia, said, “Being an African
American student, to me, really it’s kinda’ tense. People are already judging you when you’re
African American” (p. 96). Nadia, a Syrian student in a midwestern college town told us:
[A]fter September 11th it was a little shaky, and I didn’t want to tell people that I was Arabic because you got the weird looks . . . they said, “Are you . . . you kind of look Afghani?” That’s when it’s a bit of a burden, just when you get singled out. People look at you different when they find out you’re Arabic, especially now. (p. 322)
Other students also talked about discrimination on the part of teachers. Christina, a recent
immigrant from Kenya who was a novice learner of technology, mentioned how teachers
expected her to be computer literate and to “get a move on” with her computer assignments.
Similarly, she reacted with astonished humor when the track coach in her school assumed she
would be a strong runner simply because she was from Kenya, even though she had never been
on a track team. Nini, who described herself as racially and ethnically mixed, gave an account
of facing competing expectations from peers in segregated White and Black racial groups as
well as confronting low expectations from teachers who assume, “Oh she’s Black . . . she’s not
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26514.4 School Reform Should Reflect an Understanding and Acceptance of All Students
going to achieve well” (p. 272). Eugene, who was adopted by two gay dads, shared the
perspective of growing up in a loving, secure family while also feeling the pressure to keep his
family “in the closet”:
One time in Spanish class we were doing “family words.” My teacher was talking to everyone about their mother and their father and I did not want to get called on . . . [Another time we had to do a family tree . . . I only put in one of my parents]. (p. 375)
As these examples demonstrate, antiracist and antibias perspectives are essential in schools if all
students are to be given equitable environments for learning. An antiracist perspective is a vital
lens through which to analyze a school’s policies and practices, including the curriculum, peda-
gogy, testing and tracking, discipline, faculty hiring, student retention, and attitudes about and
interactions with families.
14.4 School Reform Should Reflect an Understanding and Acceptance of All Students as Having Talents and Strengths That Can Enhance Their Education
Too often educators believe that students from culturally subordinated groups have little expe-
riential or cultural strengths that can benefit their education. A classic example comes from
Ryan (1972), who coined the expression “blaming the victim” for the tendency to place respon-
sibility on students and their families for their failure to achieve in school. These students,
generally low‐income children of all groups and children of color specifically, are often con-
sidered deficient or “culturally deprived,” a patronizing term popularized in the 1960s
(Reissman, 1962). But Ryan (1972) turned the perspective of “cultural deprivation” on its head
when he wrote:
We are dealing, it would seem, not so much with culturally deprived children as with culturally depriving schools. And the task to be accomplished is not to revise, amend, and repair deficient children, but to alter and transform the atmosphere and operations of the schools to which we commit these children. (p. 61)
Students might be thought of as culturally deprived simply because they speak a language other
than English as their native language or because they have just one parent or live in poverty.
Sometimes they are labeled in this way just because of their race or ethnicity. These notions of
“the culture of poverty” were developed by Lewis (1965) and Harrington (1971/1997) decades
ago. Ladson‐Billings (2006a) notes that the way the concept of “culture” is used by some teach-
ers and students in pre‐service teacher education can exacerbate the problem and perpetuate ste-
reotypes. They might assume, for example, that certain behaviors are “part of their culture” when
students are noisy or parents are absent from open house night. Ladson‐Billings points out that a
growing number of teachers use “culture” as a catch‐all concept for all manner of behaviors and
characteristics when discussing students who are not White, not English‐speaking, or not native‐
born U.S. citizens. A growing body of research points to the most detrimental results of this defi-
cit view in what has come to be called “the school to prison pipeline” (Edelman, 2007; Kim,
Losen, & Hewitt, 2012; Noguera, 2003; Vaught, 2011).
Given such dire results, it is urgent to begin with a more positive and, in the end, more
realistic and hopeful view of students and their families. School reform measures based on the
assumption that children of all families bring cultural and community strengths to their education
would go a long way toward providing more powerful learning environments for a greater
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266 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective
number of youngsters. The research of González, Moll, and Amanti (2005) on incorporating
“funds of knowledge” into the curriculum—that is, using the experiences and skills of all families
to encourage student learning—is a more promising and productive way of approaching families
than is the viewpoint that they have only deficits that must be repaired.
If we begin with the premise that children and their families have substantial talents
that can inform student learning, a number of implications for improving schools follow.
Instead of placing the blame for failure to learn solely on students, teachers need to become
aware of how their own biases can act as barriers to student learning. Teachers also need to
consider how their students best learn and how their own pedagogical practices need to change
as a result. This implies that teachers need to learn culturally responsive ways of teaching all
of their students (Gay, 2004, 2010; Irizarry, 2011a; Irvine, 2003; Ladson‐Billings, 2001,
2006a).
Teachers also need to consider how the native language of students influences their aca-
demic achievement. For this to happen, they need to dispel some of the conventional myths sur-
rounding native language use (Crawford, 2008). For instance, it is common practice in schools to
try to convince parents whose native language is other than English that they should speak only
English with their children. This recommendation makes little sense for at least three reasons.
First, these parents often speak little English themselves, and their children are thus provided
with less‐than‐adequate models of the language. Second, this practice often results in cutting off,
rather than stimulating, communication between parents and children. This kind of communica-
tion is essential for learning as well as for family cohesion. Third, if young people are encouraged
to learn English at the expense of their native language rather than in conjunction with it, they
may lose meaningful ethnic and social connections that help maintain close and loving relations
with family members (Beykont, 2000).
A more reasonable recommendation, and one that would honor the contributions parents
can make to their children’s education, is to encourage rather than discourage them to speak their
native language with their children, to speak it often, and to use it consistently. In schools, this
means that students would not be punished for speaking their native languages; rather, they would
be encouraged to do so, and to do so in the service of their learning (see Zentella, 2005). A rich
communicative legacy, both in school and at home, could be the result (for inspiring examples of
how children can become biliterate “in spite of the odds,” see de la Luz Reyes, 2011).
Another example of failing to use student and community strengths can be found in the
curriculum. A perspective that affirms the talents and experiences of students and their families
can expand the people and roles included in the curriculum. We have written elsewhere (Nieto &
Bode, 2012) about a curriculum in which the first‐grade teachers Susie Secco and Gina Simm
endeavor to make all families visible by honoring the diversity of their lived experiences through
classroom activities, which lead to meaningful, authentic learning.
A further consideration concerning the talents and strengths of students and their families
is what Cummins (1996) has called the “relations of power” in schools. In proposing a shift from
“coercive” to “collaborative” relations of power, Cummins argues that traditional teacher‐centered
transmission models can limit the potential for learning, especially among students from com-
munities whose cultures and languages are devalued by the dominant canon. In a powerful study
of urban high school students becoming critical researchers, Morrell (2008) documented how
students’ experiences, knowledge, and enthusiasm can help engage them in robust learning. He
concluded that a significant outcome of the study was students’ recognition that youth and urban
issues were worthy of serious study and that research can have a social impact. These findings
suggest that using students as collaborators in developing the curriculum can help promote learn-
ing. By encouraging collaborative relations of power, schools can begin to recognize other
sources of legitimate knowledge that have been overlooked.
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26714.5 School Reform Should Be Considered within the Parameters of Critical Pedagogy
14.5 School Reform Should Be Considered within the Parameters of Critical Pedagogy
According to Banks (2009), the main goal of a multicultural curriculum is to help students
develop decision‐making and social action skills. Consequently, when students learn to view situ-
ations and events from a variety of viewpoints, critical thinking, reflection, and action are pro-
moted. Critical pedagogy is an approach through which students and teachers are encouraged to
view what they learn in a critical light, or, in the words of Freire (1970), by learning to read both
“the word and the world” (p. 69). According to Freire, the opposite of a critical or empowering
approach is “banking education,” where students learn to regurgitate and passively accept the
knowledge they are given (p. 53). A critical education, on the other hand, expects that students
will seek their own answers, be curious, and be questioning.
Shor’s (1992) pioneering analysis concerning critical pedagogy is instructive. He begins
with the assumption that because no curriculum can be truly neutral, it is the responsibility of
schools to present students with the broad range of information they will need to learn to read and
write critically and in the service of social justice. Thus, critical pedagogy is not simply the trans-
fer of knowledge from teacher to students even though it may be knowledge that has heretofore
not been made available to them. A critical perspective does not simply operate on the principle
of substituting one truth for another; instead, students are encouraged to reflect on multiple and
contradictory perspectives in order to understand reality more fully. This is essential at the K‐12
level as well as in teacher education (Shor & Pari, 1999, 2000). For instance, learning about the
internment of Americans of Japanese descent and Japanese residents in the United States during
World War II is not in itself critical pedagogy; it becomes so only when students learn the ration-
ale for why this was done, explore why most schools gloss over or actually omit this information
in the curriculum, analyze different viewpoints concerning the situation, and use them to under-
stand the inconsistencies they uncover. They can then begin to understand the role played by
racist hysteria, economic exploitation, and propaganda as catalysts for the internment, and they
can judge this incident through the stated ideals of our nation.
Without a critical perspective, reality is often presented to students as if it were static, fin-
ished, and flat; underlying conflicts, problems, and inherent contradictions are omitted. As we
have seen, textbooks in all subject areas generally exclude information about unpopular perspec-
tives or the perspectives of disempowered groups in society. Few of the books to which students
have access present the viewpoints of people who have built our country, from enslaved Africans
to immigrant labor to other working‐class people, even though they have been the backbone of
society (Bigelow, 2008; Takaki, 2008; Zinn, 2010).
Using critical pedagogy as a basis for school reform results in very different policies for
schools than do traditional models of school reform. Even more important than just increasing
curricular options, critical pedagogy helps to expand teachers’ and schools’ perspectives about
students’ knowledge and intellectual capabilities. The use of critical pedagogy helps students
become agents of their own learning so they can use what they learn in productive and critical
ways. The knowledge they learn can be used to explore the reasons for certain conditions in their
lives and to design strategies for changing them.
Examples can be found in a range of approaches to critical pedagogy that adapt curriculum
for the multicultural K‐12 classroom. We have written elsewhere about case studies of curriculum
units that employ various subject areas, multiple skill sets, scientific investigation, youth‐centered
research, and artistic production. Whether through community research, sociohistorical studies
of specific affiliation groups, expansion of definitions of family, or detracking a math class, we
have found dedicated teachers making learning meaningful (Nieto & Bode, 2012). Recently we
Banksc14.indd 267 17-08-2015 22:57:56
268 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective
worked with teachers in a Springfield, Massachusetts, public school, Springfield Conservatory of
the Arts (SCotA). It is a public, magnet middle and high school that integrates multiple arts
throughout every content area. A vignette of an integrated arts curriculum follows.
14.6 A Study of Identity, Struggle, and Resilience at SCotA
A teacher of English language arts, Mr. Joseph Mastronardi, worked with an art teacher,
Ms. April Wesley, to extend their students’ academic achievement and artistic expansion. They
planned a curriculum to develop the academic prowess of all students of all backgrounds while
examining how a specific group has endured stereotypes and oppression. Using the novel by
Sherman Alexie (2007), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part‐time Indian, the teachers drew from
students’ questions, curiosities, concerns, and even from their prejudices. They developed “big
ideas,” learning objectives, assessments, and activities for a curriculum that was engaging and
rigorous for students of all learning approaches, ethnic groups, racial identities, and languages
(Sleeter, 2005; Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Students engaged in dynamic reading strategies with
the literature by Alexie through means that also met the CCSS and school district goals of close
reading, writing to text, text‐dependent questioning, and advancing text complexity. The students
studied the complicated and multifaceted context of the wide range of contemporary Native
American experiences in tribal communities, on reservations, in urban and rural settings, and in
their own community.
Through visual research of historical photos that uncovered the atrocities endured, and the
determination asserted by Native nations, the students deepened their understandings of how
their own families might relate to the families in the novel and in various native communities
today. In both ELA and in art class they investigated paintings, photographs, installations, and
performance art by contemporary Native American artists such as Richard Hill, Jean LaMarr,
James Luna, and Jaune Quick‐to‐See Smith. These compelling works of art challenged the
students—and will challenge all viewers of the work—to consider prejudices, preconceptions,
assumptions, and social injustices through aesthetic experiences. The meaningful learning
became apparent in the students’ artistic production in art class, where they used paint, collage,
photos, text fragments, and original poetry to express and assert their identities and their struggles
with how others may view them compared to how they see themselves and who they hope to
become. The teachers guided the process of reading and reflection through journal writing and
discussion about the protagonist, Junior, and his determination amidst his struggles against pov-
erty, the disruptions to his school life, and the experiences with systemic, institutional and envi-
ronmental racism and the health challenges faced by his family. The students at Springfield
Conservatory of the Arts demonstrated their authentic learning about this unit in multiple ways.
This was exhibited through their original poetry—which they recorded and presented in a multi-
media slide show of their visually splendid artwork in an all‐school performance event—which
was applauded by their peers and guests.
While a visually dynamic and poetic performance event is a beneficial by‐product of criti-
cal pedagogy and certainly lends to attachment to and engagement with school, it is not its pri-
mary goal. Critical pedagogy listens and responds to students’ needs, questions, and knowledge
to cultivate critical judgment and decision‐making skills they will need if they are to become
productive members of a democratic society. Other accounts of critical pedagogy in action are con-
tained in anthologies, such as the volume edited by Au (2014) Rethinking Multicultural Education: Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice; Rethinking Our Classrooms by Bigelow, Harvey, Karp,
and Miller (2001); Beyond Heroes and Holidays by Lee, Menkart, and Okazawa‐Rey, 2007; and
Banksc14.indd 268 17-08-2015 22:57:56
26914.8 School Reform Needs to Be Based on High Expectations and Rigorous Standards for All Learners
Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching by Menkart, Murray, and View (2004).
Other book‐length accounts of teachers implementing critical pedagogy (Ayers & Ayers, 2011;
Cowhey, 2006; Vasquez, 2004) provide compelling examples of the positive and empowering
influence that teachers’ guidance can have on student learning.
14.7 The People Most Intimately Connected with Teaching and Learning (Teachers, Families, and Students) Need to Be Meaningfully Involved in School Reform
Research on the involvement of families, students, and teachers has consistently indicated that
democratic participation by people closest to learners can dramatically improve student learning.
This is especially true in urban schools and in schools that serve low‐income, African American,
Latino, and immigrant students (Epstein, 2010; Henderson, Mapp, Johnson, & Davies, 2006;
Olsen, 2008), yet these are the people most often excluded from discussions and implementation
of school reform measures.
Cummins (1996) reviewed programs that included student empowerment as a goal and
concluded that students who are encouraged to develop a positive cultural identity through inter-
actions with their teachers experience a sense of control over their own lives and develop the
confidence and motivation to succeed academically. School reform measures that stress the
meaningful involvement of teachers, families, and students look quite different from traditional
approaches. These measures begin with the assumption that these groups have substantial and
insightful perspectives about student learning. Rather than thinking of ways to bypass their ideas,
school reformers actively seek the involvement of students, families, and teachers in developing,
for instance, disciplinary policies, curriculum development, and decisions concerning tracking
and the use of tests. These practices are illustrated in the Boston Teachers Union School, which
embraces teacher innovation and fully integrates the participation of parents and families (Nieto &
Bode, 2012). Similarly, allowing time in the curriculum for students to engage in critical discus-
sions about issues such as whose language is valued in the school can help to affirm the legitimacy
of the discourse of all students.
At the same time, these kinds of discussions also acknowledge the need to learn and become
comfortable with the discourse of the larger society (Delpit, 2006; Delpit & Dowdy, 2008). In
addition, involving families in curriculum development enriches the curriculum, affirms what
families have to offer, and helps students cultivate pride about their cultures, languages, and val-
ues (Nieto & Bode, 2012; Olsen, 2008).
14.8 School Reform Needs to Be Based on High Expectations and Rigorous Standards for All Learners
Many students come to school with experiences and conditions, including speaking a language
other than English or simply belonging to a particular racial or ethnic group, that some teachers
and schools consider obstacles that place them at risk for learning. But beginning with this deficit
perspective leaves teachers and schools with little hope. Rather than viewing language and cul-
tural differences as impediments to learning, they can be viewed as resources that students bring
to their education. Boykin and Noguera (2011) call for asset‐focused factors that build on the
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270 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective
assets students bring to the classroom and provide ways for these assets to flourish. In this way,
instead of using differences as a rationalization for low expectations of what students are capable
of learning, they can be used to promote student learning. In addition, in our society, we have
generally expected schools to provide an equal and equitable education for all students, not just
for those who have no problems in their lives or who fit the image of successful students due to
race, class, or language ability. The promise of an equal education for all students of all back-
grounds in the United States has yet to be realized, as is evident from a number of classic cri-
tiques of the myth of our schools as “the great equalizer” (Mann, 1848/1903), a claim countered
by Bowles and Gintis (1976), Katz (1975), and Spring (1989), among many others. Nevertheless,
the ideal of equitable educational opportunity is worth defending and vigorously putting into
practice.
The difficult conditions in which some students live need not be viewed as insurmountable
barriers to their academic achievement. It is too often the case that society’s low expectations of
students, based on these situations, pose even greater obstacles to their learning. At the same time,
however, we cannot dismiss the tenacious and inspired efforts of many teachers and schools that,
with limited financial and other material resources, teach students who live in dire circumstances
under what can best be described as challenging conditions (Ayers, Ladson‐Billings, Michie, &
Noguera, 2008). For example, some schools are successful with students of color, students living in
poverty, and students who live in difficult circumstances. What makes the difference? Karin
Chenoweth’s book, How It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons from Unexpected Schools (2009), pro-
vides examples from eight schools throughout the nation that were selected for the Education
Trust’s Dispelling the Myth Award, which is given to high‐achieving, high‐poverty, and high‐minority
schools. Chenoweth’s research shines a light on successful school practices such as teachers’ and
administrators’ collaborative work to set standards and goals, as well as their notable, palpable
belief in their students’ capacity to achieve. She describes how schools organize on one goal, that
is, helping students learn a great deal. These schools also focus on eliminating teacher isolation by
providing time for teacher learning through research‐based discussions.
If we are serious about giving all students more options in life, particularly students from
communities denied the necessary resources with which to access these options, then we need to
begin with the assumption that these students are academically capable, both individually and as
a group. Too many students have been dismissed as uneducable simply because they were not
born with the material resources or family conditions considered essential for learning. The con-
ventional attitude that students who do not arrive at school with such benefits are incapable of
learning is further promoted by assertions of race‐based genetic inferiority, an assumption that is
unfortunately still too prevalent (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Murray, 2008).
The success of the Algebra Project is another successful example (Moses & Cobb, 2002).
This project has expanded throughout the country—from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Jackson,
Mississippi, to New Orleans, Louisiana—to young people who had previously been denied
access to algebra because they were thought to be incapable of benefiting from it and yet became
high achievers in math. When they went on to high school, 39 percent of the first graduating class
of the project were placed in honors geometry or honors algebra classes; in fact, none of the
graduates were placed in a low‐level math course. The Algebra Project continues to spread to
other school systems throughout the United States.
Although students’ identities are often perceived to be handicaps to learning by an assimi-
lationist society that encourages cultural and linguistic homogeneity, numerous success stories of
students who use their cultural values and traditions as strengths have been reported in the edu-
cational research literature (Carter, 2005; Conchas, 2006; Lomawaima, 2004; McCarty, 2002;
Nieto & Bode, 2012; Zentella, 2005). This result leads us to the inevitable conclusion that before
fixing what they may consider to be problems in students, schools and society need to change
their own perceptions of students and view them as capable learners.
Banksc14.indd 270 17-08-2015 22:57:56
27114.9 Conclusion
14.9 Conclusion There is no simple formula for increasing student learning. A step‐by‐step blueprint for school
reform is both unrealistic and inappropriate because each school differs from all others in its
basic structure, goals, and human dimensions. Moreover, conditions such as inequitable school
funding and the unequal distribution of resources for learning also help explain why some stu-
dents are successful but others are not. In spite of these challenges, certain conditions can dra-
matically improve the learning of many students who are currently marginalized from the center
of learning because of school policies and practices based on deficit models. If we begin with the
assumptions that students cannot achieve at high levels, that their backgrounds are riddled with
deficiencies, and that multicultural education is a frill that cannot help them to learn, we will end
up with school reform strategies that have little hope for success.
This chapter presented and analyzed five conditions to promote student achievement within
a multicultural perspective.
1. School reform should be antiracist and antibiased.
2. School reform should reflect an understanding and acceptance of all students as having tal-
ents and strengths that can enhance their education.
3. School reform should be considered within the parameters of critical pedagogy.
4. The people most intimately connected with teaching and learning (teachers, parents, and
students themselves) need to be meaningfully involved in school reform.
5. School reform needs to be based on high expectations and rigorous standards for all
learners.
This chapter is based on two related assumptions: (1) Students, families, and teachers bring
strengths and talents to teaching and learning, and (2) a comprehensive and critical approach to
multicultural education can provide an important framework for rethinking school reform. Given
these assumptions, we have a much more promising scenario for effective learning and for the
possibility that schools can become places of hope and affirmation for students of all back-
grounds and situations.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
14.1 What does it mean to say that multicultural education takes
place within a sociopolitical context? What social, political,
and economic factors must be considered when multicul-
tural education is being implemented? How can a consid-
eration of sociopolitical factors help multicultural school
reform be more effective?
14.2 What five conditions does the chapter discuss that are
needed to improve students’ academic achievement? How
are these factors interrelated?
14.3 How does the chapter distinguish between individual rac-
ism and institutional racism? Why is this distinction impor-
tant? Give examples of each type of racism from your
personal experiences and observations.
14.4 What is an antiracist perspective? Why does the chapter
stress that an antiracist perspective is essential for the
implementation of multicultural education? Give specific
examples of antiracist teaching and educational practices
with which you are familiar.
14.5 The chapter briefly describes the concept of incorporating
community knowledge (“funds of knowledge”) into the
curriculum advanced by González and colleagues (2005).
How does this concept help teachers implement multicul-
tural education?
14.6 What is critical pedagogy? How, according to the chap-
ter, can it be used to enrich and strengthen multicultural
education?
14.7 What positive contributions can parents and students make
to create an effective multicultural school? Give specific
examples.
Banksc14.indd 271 17-08-2015 22:57:56
272 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective
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chapter
15
275
B le
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Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement Cherry A. McGee Banks
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. List reasons why parent involvement in schools is important.
2. Name different types of families and describe how they can be involved in schools.
3. Identify and discuss the tensions that can arise when parents and teachers work together.
4. Name and describe steps that can be effective in increasing parent involvement.
5. Describe different ways that parents can be involved in schools.
Sally Jenson was sitting at her kitchen table looking somewhat dejected when her hus-
band Ed came home. He immediately knew something was wrong. Sally explained
that when she asked their 8-year-old daughter June what she did in school, June said
that she got an A on her math test and that it was her turn to help Ms Douglas, her
teacher, with story hour. When Sally asked what story Ms Douglas read to the class,
June eagerly described the book as a nice story about a family with two moms. Sally
quickly changed the subject and told June to get ready for her brother ’ s soccer game.
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276 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
The book Ms Douglas read to the class was Heather Has Two Mommies, by Lesléa
Newman (2009), a lesbian‐themed children’s book. The Jensons were concerned
about the book because it contained ideas that they did not support. For them, a fam-
ily has a mother and father, not two mothers. They decided to meet with Ms Douglas
and the school principal so that the teacher could explain why she read Heather Has
Two Mommies to her class.
At the meeting, the Jensons learned that Ms Douglas encouraged students to
bring their favorite books from home to share during story hour. She reminded the
Jensons that June had brought Little Drummer Boy, by Katherine Davis (1958), a book
based on a popular Christmas song, to class for story hour. Even though the students
in June’s classroom are religiously diverse, they had enjoyed learning why June loved
the book. Heather Has Two Mommies, the book the Jensons were concerned about,
was brought to class by one of June’s classmates, who has two moms. Ms Douglas
explained that two of her goals for story hour were to build community by helping
students learn about their classmates and to appreciate the diversity in their classroom.
Ms Douglas noted that June was one of the first students in the class to share her
thoughts after she finished reading the book. June said, “Heather is a nice girl who
had fun playing with her dog and cat and mommies.” Several other students made
similar comments. Ms Douglas went on to say that she had sent a letter home with
June at the beginning of the school year explaining the story hour activity and inviting
parents to join the class for story hour whenever they could do so. She encouraged
the Jensons to stay in communication with her and extended a sincere invitation to
them to visit her classroom.
The Jensons were not completely satisfied with the outcome of the meeting, but
they left the meeting knowing that Ms Douglas was a fair and caring teacher who
was open to listening to their concerns. Mrs Jenson said that she would visit the class
on a regular basis and stay in touch with Ms Douglas about the books she was read-
ing during story hour. Ms Douglas understood that while it was important for parents
and teachers to have open lines of communication, good communication does not
necessarily eliminate tensions between the home and school. She made sure that she
was following school protocol and she talked with her principal about the books she
was planning to use in story hour. As a result, she knew that her principal supported
her approach to story hour and was prepared to talk with parents about it should they
decide to contact him.
As a result of the Jensons’ visit, Ms Douglas started thinking about invisible barri-
ers, such as values and beliefs, that might limit students’ full access to the curriculum.
The Jensons’ visit helped her to become more sensitive to and aware of the range of
student diversity in her classroom. By showing respect and appreciation for the con-
cerns of parents, Ms Douglas will hopefully have an ally as she learns to work more
effectively with her students.
The diversity of parent and community groups, with their different concerns and issues, illus-
trates one of the important complexities of parent and community involvement in schools
(De Carvalho, 2009). This complexity—which may be reflected in different interaction styles,
expectations, and concerns—complicates but does not negate the need for parent and community
Banksc15.indd 276 17-08-2015 23:04:14
27715.1 Reasons That Parent and Family Involvement in Schools Is Important
involvement in schools (DeSteno, 2000). Educators lose an important voice for school improvement
when parents and community groups are not involved in schools. They can give teachers unique
and important views of their students as well as help the school garner resources that are available
in the community.
In a comprehensive review of research on parent involvement, Henderson and Berla (2002)
found compelling evidence that parent involvement improves student achievement. Parent involve-
ment is also associated with improvements in students’ attendance and social behavior. However, to
capitalize on the benefits of parent and community involvement, involvement strategies must be
broadly conceptualized. Parents should be given an opportunity to contribute to school improve-
ment by working in different settings and at different levels of the educational process (Henderson,
Mapp, Johnson, & Davies, 2006; Hidalgo, Sau‐Fong, & Epstein, 2004). For example, some parents
may want to focus their energies on working with their own children at home. Other parents may
want to work on decision‐making committees. Still others may be able to provide in‐class assis-
tance to teachers. Epstein and her colleagues (2008) have identified six different types of involve-
ment: (1) parenting, (2) communicating, (3) volunteering, (4) learning at home, (5) decision‐making,
and (6) collaborating with the community. Though very different, each type of involvement pro-
vides opportunities for parents to have a positive influence on their children’s school experience.
Community groups and other family members (in addition to parents) can also work with
teachers to reform schools. Many tasks involved in restructuring schools, such as setting goals
and allocating resources, are best achieved through a collaborative problem‐solving structure that
includes educators, parents, other family members, and community members (Ouimette, Feldman, &
Tung, 2006). Family and community members can form what Goodlad (1984) calls “the necessary
coalition of contributing groups” (p. 293). Educational reform needs their support, influence, and
activism. Schools are highly dependent on and vulnerable to citizens, who can support or impede
change. Family members and community leaders can validate the need for educational reform
and can provide an appropriate forum for exploring the importance of education. They can
also extend the discussion on school improvement issues beyond formal educational networks
and can help generate support for schools in the community at large. Family members and community
leaders can help provide the rationale, motivation, and social action necessary for educational
reform.
15.1 Reasons That Parent and Family Involvement in Schools Is Important
Parent involvement is important because it acknowledges the importance of parents in the lives
of their children, recognizes the diversity of values and perspectives within the community, pro-
vides a vehicle for building a collaborative problem‐solving structure, and increases the opportu-
nity for all students to learn in school. Parents, however, are not the only adults who support and
contribute to the care of children. When parents struggle with poverty, incarceration, substance
abuse, mental illness, and other challenges, grandparents and other relatives often become
the children’s primary caregivers (McCallion, Janicki, & Kolomer, 2004). From 1970 to 2013, the
number of grandchildren living in grandparent‐headed households more than doubled, and there
was a 70 percent increase in cases where neither parent was present in the household
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2014c). In 2013, 7.4 million children under 18 years of age lived with their
grandparents, and 4.8 million of them lived in grandparent‐headed households. In some cases, the
child’s mother or father also lived with the grandparent. However, neither a mother nor father was
present for 32.9 percent of the 4.8 million children who lived in grandparent‐headed households.
The information presented in Table 15.1 suggests that parent‐involvement programs should be
conceptualized broadly enough to include grandparents and other family members.
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278 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
Parent and family involvement in schools benefits not only students and teachers but also the
parents and family members themselves (Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA, 2007).
When parents help their children at home, the children perform better in school (Aikens, 2002).
Parent involvement allows parents and teachers to reinforce skills and provides an environment that
has consistent learning expectations and standards. Parents benefit because, through their involve-
ment with the school, they become more knowledgeable about their child’s school, its policies, and
the school staff. Perhaps most important, parent involvement provides an opportunity for parents
and children to spend time together. During that time, parents can communicate a high value for
education, the importance of effort in achievement, and positive regard for their children.
Parents and family members are often children’s first and most important teachers. Students
come to school with knowledge, values, and beliefs they have learned from their parents and in
their communities. Parents directly or indirectly help shape their children’s value system, orienta-
tion toward learning, and view of the world (Caspe, Lopez, & Wolos, 2006/2007). Most parents
want their children to succeed in school. Schools can capitalize on the high value most parents
place on education by working to create a school environment that respects the students’ home
and community (Hidalgo et al., 2004). When schools are in conflict with their students’ home and
community, they can alienate students from their families and communities.
To create harmonious relations among the school, home, and community, parents need
information about the school. They need to know what the school expects their children to learn,
how they will be taught, and the required books and materials their children will use in school.
Most important, parents need to know how teachers assess students and how they can support
their children’s academic achievement. Teachers need to understand their students’ community
and home life. Teachers also need to know about their students’ parents, homes, and communi-
ties. It would be helpful for teachers to have a clear understanding of the educational expectations
parents have for their children, the languages spoken at home, the family’s values and norms, and
how children are taught in their homes and communities. Teachers and principals who know
parents treat them with greater respect and show more positive attitudes toward their children
(Berger, 2015). Teachers generally see involved parents as concerned individuals who support the
school. Parents who are not involved in schools are frequently seen as not valuing education.
■ TABLE 15.1 The Number of Children Living With Grandparents, 1991–2013
1991 4,737,000 children lived with at least one grandparent.
1,099,000 children lived in a family in which neither parent was present (grandparent was householder).
2001 6,187,000 children lived with at least one grandparent.
1,341,000 children lived in a family in which neither parent was present (grandparent was householder).
2004 6,471,000 children lived with at least one grandparent.
1,563,000 children lived in a family in which neither parent was present (grandparent was householder).
2010 5,396,969 children lived with at least one grandparent.
919,429 children lived in a family in which neither parent was present (grandparent was householder).
2013 7,444,000 children lived with at least one grandparent.
1,591,000 children lived in a family in which neither parent was present (grandparent was householder).
Source: Based on data from U.S. Census Bureau (2014c). America’s families and living arrangements: 2014. Retrieved
January 29, 2015, from http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/cps2014.html.
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27915.3 The Changing Face of the Family
15.2 Historical Overview While parent involvement in education is not new, its importance and purpose have varied
over time. In the early part of the nation’s history, families were often solely responsible for
educating children. Children learned values and skills by working with their families in their
communities.
When formal systems of education were established, parents continued to influence their
children’s education. During the colonial period, schools were viewed as an extension of the home.
The school reinforced parental and community values and expectations. Teachers generally came
from the community and often personally knew their students’ parents and shared their values.
At the beginning of the 20th century, when large numbers of immigrants came to the United
States, schools became a major vehicle for assimilating immigrant children into U.S. society
(Banks, 2009). In general, immigrant parents were not welcomed in the schools. Children of immi-
grants were taught that their parents’ ways of speaking, behaving, and thinking were inferior to
those of mainstream Americans. In his study of the sociology of teaching, Waller (1932/1965)
concluded that parents and teachers lived in a state of mutual distrust and even hostility. There were,
however, some notable exceptions.
One such exception was Benjamin Franklin High School (BFHS) in East Harlem, New
York. Leonard Covello, principal at BFHS, instituted a program of intergroup education there in
the 1930s. Parents were welcome at Franklin, and teachers encouraged students to appreciate
their parents’ language, values, and customs. Community groups were also actively involved at
BFHS. Covello saw parent and community involvement as a way to promote democratic values,
reduce prejudice, and increase cross‐cultural understanding and appreciation (Banks, 2005).
As society changed and education became more removed from the direct influence of par-
ents, responsibility for transmitting knowledge from generation to generation was transferred
from the home and community to the school. Formal education was seen as a job for trained
professionals. Schools became autonomous institutions staffed by people who were often stran-
gers in their students’ home communities. Teachers did not necessarily live in their students’
neighborhoods, know their students’ parents, or share their values. Schools were given more and
more duties that traditionally had been the responsibility of the home and community. Schools
operated under the assumption that they were in loco parentis, and educators were asked to
assume the role of both teacher and substitute parent.
In a pluralist society, what the school teaches as well as whom and how the school teaches
can create tensions between parents and schools. Issues ranging from what the school teaches about
the role of women in our society to mainstreaming students with disabilities point to the need for
teachers, parents, and community leaders to work together. However, parents, community leaders,
and teachers do not always agree on meaningful ways to cooperate and partner in the educational
process (Anderson, 2006).
15.3 The Changing Face of the Family Parent/family diversity mirrors student diversity. As the student population becomes more
diverse, parent/family diversity also increases. Involving parents in schools means that teachers
have to be prepared to work with a range of parents, including single parents, parents with special
needs, low‐income parents, parents with disabilities, same‐sex parents, grandparents, and parents
who do not speak English as their first language. Working with parents from diverse backgrounds
requires sensitivity to and an understanding of their circumstances and worldviews (Amatea,
Smith‐Adcock, & Villares, 2006; Chavkin & González, 1995; Kagan, 1995; Pena, 2000; Schneider &
Coleman, 1993).
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280 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
It is especially important that teachers understand and be sensitive to the changing nature
of the ethnic and racial makeup of their students and their students’ parents. The ethnic landscape
of U.S. schools includes an increasing number of Arab, Jewish, Eastern European, and African
students (McFalls, 2007). One of the most significant changes in U.S. immigration in the early
21st century is the increase in the number of immigrants of African descent from African and
Caribbean nations. In 2013, African immigrants constituted 4 percent of all the immigrants to the
United State (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014a). It is important to remember, however, that African
immigrants are not all members of the same race. A small percentage of immigrants from East
Africa are of Asian origin, and a number of immigrants from South Africa are White (Dodson &
Diouf, 2005). In addition, ethnic identity has primacy over racial identity for many African immi-
grants. For example, some immigrants of African descent would identify themselves as Cubans,
Dominicans, Nigerians, Kenyans, Haitians, or Puerto Ricans, not as Blacks or Whites. Their
phenotype, however, might conflict with physical characteristics that traditionally are used to
identify races in the United States. For example, a Cuban American with brown skin may con-
sider himself White because phenotype is not the only factor that is used to identify race in most
Caribbean nations. This can be confusing for Americans, who historically have equated race and
phenotype.
However, even in the United States, the lines between racial groups are becoming blurred.
A growing number of students and parents are members of more than one racial group. Even
though marriage between people from different races is still an exception rather than the rule,
more and more people are marrying interracially. Typically, interracial marriages are between a
White person and a person from a minority racial group. It does not typically involve two people
from different minority racial groups (Lofquist, Lugalia, O’Connell, & Feliz, 2012). In 2013,
approximately 9.4 million people were identified with two or more races (U.S. Census Bureau,
2014b). While this is a relatively small percentage of the U.S. population, the percentage of peo-
ple who are multiracial is more salient when geographic regions and subgroups within the popu-
lation are examined. For example, children are more likely to be multiracial than adults, and
racial groups that have small populations tend to include higher percentages of multiracial peo-
ple. In addition, urban areas tend to have higher rates of interracial marriage than rural areas.
Hawaii has the highest interracial marriage rate (37 percent) in the United States followed by
Oklahoma and Alaska, where interracial marriage is about 17 percent. In Western states, about 11
percent of married couples are interracial and 4 to 6 percent of married couples in the Midwest
consist of spouses of different races (Lofquist et al., 2012). Among all racial groups, Whites and
Blacks have the lowest rate of interracial marriage; American Indians, Hawaiians, and multiracial
individuals have the highest. With respect to gender, interracial marriage is about equal for all
racial groups except African Americans and Asians. African American men are more likely to
intermarry than African American women, and Asian women are more likely to intermarry than
Asian men (Lee & Edmonston, 2005). The increase in the numbers of interracial children, for-
eign‐born children (usually Asian) who are adopted by American families (usually White), and
immigrant children who do not use their phenotype to define their race highlight the importance
of teachers not making assumptions about the racial and ethnic background of their students and
their parents but allowing them to define their own identity.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) parents are another important part of the
school community. The Williams Institute estimates that 3 million LGBT Americans have a child
and as many as 6 million American children and adults have an LGBT parent (Gates, 2013). While
there is a growing body of literature on LGBT students, much less is known about LGBT parents.
The literature that is available, however, indicates that when compared to the general population
LGTB parents more likely to be involved in their children’s school. Using a national sample of K‐12
parents, Kosciw and Diaz (2008) found that 67 percent of LGBT parents compared to 42 percent of
parents in the general population were more likely to have volunteered at their child’s school,
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28115.3 The Changing Face of the Family
participated in parent–teacher conferences or “Back to School Night” events (94 percent vs.
77 percent), and to be members of Parent Teacher Associations (41 percent vs. 26 percent).
Even though LGBT parents are involved in schools, they continue to face barriers that sug-
gest that they are not welcome and respected. In that respect, LGBT parents and students have
similar experiences at school (Kozik‐Rosabal, 2000). Many LGBT parents report feeling uncom-
fortable and excluded by school staff, students, and other parents (Kosciw & Diaz, 2008). In a
study of LGBT parents, Kosciw (2003) found that 26 percent of LGBT parents reported hearing
other parents make negative comments them. In that same study, students with LGBT parents
reported being teased and questioned about their own sexual orientation because they had same‐
sex or transgendered parents. Kosciw (2003) found that parents as well as students harassed other
students who had LGBT parents. The potential for their children being harassed and bullied is of
particular concern to LGBT parents (Greytak, Kosciw, & Boesen, 2013; Kosciw & Diaz, 2008).
Bullying is often associated with school environments where microaggressions, involving the
pejorative use of words like gay, are allowed to fester and result in a hostile school climate
(Shelton & Delgado‐Romero, 2011).
LGBT parents do not always feel welcome at their children’s schools, in part because
teachers also make inappropriate comments about them. Sixteen percent of the LGBT parents
surveyed in a study described by Kosciw (2003) reported that their student’s teacher or child care
provider made negative comments about their sexual orientation. In addition to harassment,
LGBT parents also experience subtle forms of exclusion. Two examples that are particularly
common are being asked to complete school forms that use the terms mother and father instead
of parents and the prevalent use of teaching materials that present two‐parent, heterosexual‐
headed families as the norm (Kosciw et al., 2008).
Schools can help mitigate these problems by creating supportive environments in which
LGBT students and families are understood and respected. The following actions can contribute
to LGBT parents being actively involved in the school community.
Training that provides school personnel with the skills and knowledge to tackle homophobic
bullying.
School policies that make it clear that homophobic attitudes and language will not be
tolerated.
Curricula that include information on LGBT accomplishments, struggles, and issues.
Student clubs such as Gay and Lesbian Alliances.
Diversity in parent and community groups can be a tremendous asset to the school.
However, it can also be a source of potential conflict and tension. Some parents are particularly
difficult to involve in their children’s education. They resist becoming involved for several rea-
sons (Harry, 1992; Walker, 1996). In a national survey, parents indicated that a lack of time was
the primary reason they were not involved in their children’s schools (Clark, 1995). The pressures
of earning a living and taking care of a home and children can result in a great deal of stress. At
the end of the day, some parents just want to rest. Other parents do not believe they have the
necessary educational background to be involved in their children’s school. They feel intimidated
by educators and believe that education should be left to teachers. Still others feel alienated from
their children’s schools because of negative experiences they had in school or because they
believe the school does not support their values (Berger, 2015; Clark, 1995; Rasinski, 1989).
McDermott and Rothenberg (2000) found that parents resisted working with teachers who they
believed did not respect and value their children.
Three groups of parents are frequently underrepresented in school activities: parents with
special needs, single parents, and low‐income parents. These are not the only groups that are
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282 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
underrepresented in school activities; however, their experiences and needs illustrate particular
problem areas. The aforementioned specific groups of parents should not be viewed as an indica-
tion that only parents from these groups are difficult to involve in schools or that all parents from
these groups resist participation in schools. Parents from all groups share many of the concerns
discussed next.
15.4 Parents with Special Needs Parents with special needs include a wide range of individuals. They are found in all ethnic,
racial, and income groups. Chronically unemployed parents, parents with long‐term illnesses,
abusive parents, and parents with substance‐abuse problems are examples of parents with special
needs. As you can see from the list, the concerns are varied, and in some cases they can overlap.
Each requires specific responses. For example, abusive parents require special attention from the
school. Most schools have policies on how to treat suspected cases of child neglect and abuse.
Teachers should be aware of those policies, which should be written down and available to all
school personnel. All states require schools to report suspected cases of child abuse.
Although parents with special needs frequently have serious problems that the school can-
not address, teachers should not ignore the importance of understanding their students’ home
environments. Knowing the difficulties students are coping with at home can help teachers create
school environments that are supportive (Swadener & Niles, 1991). Schools can help compensate
for the difficult circumstances students experience at home. The school, for some students, is the
only place during the day where they are nurtured.
Working with special‐needs families requires district or building support in identifying
places for family referrals and support for students and teachers. Some schools hire outreach
community service workers to provide these kinds of services. Although some special‐needs
parents may resist the school’s help, they need to know that their problems can negatively affect
their children’s success in school. Referring these parents to places where they can receive help
can show students who are in difficult home environments that they are not alone. Most parents
want to feel that they are valued and adequate human beings and that they can help their children
succeed. When they are willing to be involved in school, they do not want to be humiliated
(Berger, 2015).
Some parents with special needs will be able to be actively involved in schools, but many
will be unable to sustain ongoing involvement. An important goal for working with parents with
special needs is to keep lines of communication open. To the extent possible, try to get to know
the parents. Do not accept a stereotypical view of them without ever talking to them. Encourage
parents to become involved whenever and however they are able to participate. Your goal should
be to develop a clear understanding of your students’ home environments so that you can provide
appropriate intervention at school.
Members of the community who are involved in school may be willing to serve as interme-
diaries between the school and uninvolved parents and in some cases as surrogate parents. In an
ethnography of an inner‐city neighborhood, Shariff (1988) found that adults shared goods and
services and provided support for each other. Educators can build on the sense of extended family
and fictive kinship that may exist in some neighborhoods to connect with community support
groups for students whose parents cannot be involved in school. Civic and social community
groups, such as The Links, Inc., and the Boys and Girls Clubs, can also provide support for stu-
dents who do not have the support they need at home.
Working with students whose parents have special needs is complicated and challenging.
However, regardless of the circumstances students confront at home, teachers have a responsibil-
ity to help them perform at their highest level in school. Schools with large numbers of parents
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28315.6 Low‐Income Parents
with special needs require experienced and highly qualified teachers who have district and school
support to help them meet the additional challenges they will face. Traditionally, however, these
schools have many teachers who are relatively new to the field and are not certified in the areas
in which they teach (Darling‐Hammond, 2004).
15.5 Single Parents One of the most significant social changes in the United States in the last 30 years is the increase
in the percentage of children living with one parent. In 2013, 20.3 million children under 18 years
of age lived in households headed by a single parent. Women head most single‐parent families.
Eighty‐six percent of children living with one parent lived with their mother. The number of
single‐parent families is particularly significant in the African American community. In 2013,
more than half of Black children lived with a single mother, compared to 10.4 percent of Asian
children. Among Hispanic children, 27.5 percent lived with a single mother (U.S. Census Bureau,
2014c). Gender is an important factor in single‐parent homes because women tend to earn less
than men. In 2013, 22.7 percent of children living with a single father lived in households with
an income below the poverty level, compared to 45.8 percent of children living with a single
mother. Of children in two‐parent families, 9.5 percent lived in households with incomes below
the poverty level (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014e).
Single‐parent families have many of the same hopes, joys, and concerns about their chil-
dren’s education as two‐parent families. However, because these parents have a lower rate of
attendance at school functions, they are frequently viewed as not supporting their children’s
education. When teachers respond sensitively to their needs and limitations, they can be enthusi-
astic partners with teachers. Four suggestions for working with single parents follow. Many of
these suggestions apply to other groups of parents as well.
1. Provide flexible times for conferences, such as early mornings, evenings, and weekends.
2. Provide baby‐sitting service when activities are held at the school.
3. Work out procedures for acknowledging and communicating with noncustodial parents. For
instance, under what circumstances are noncustodial parents informed about their children’s
grades, school behavior, or attendance? Problems can occur when information is inappropri-
ately given to or withheld from a noncustodial parent.
4. Use the parent’s correct surname. Students will sometimes have different names from their
parents.
15.6 Low‐Income Parents Nationally, the poverty rate increased from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 15.8 percent in 2013. The
number of people in poverty increased from 42.9 million to 48.8 million during the same interval
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2014f). The poverty level is an official government estimate of the income
necessary to maintain a minimally acceptable standard of living. Poverty rates vary by family
type. In 2013, households headed by single women had the highest poverty rate at 30.9 percent,
compared to a rate of 6.3 percent for married couples (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014d).
Even though the number of individuals of color in the highest income brackets has more
than doubled since 1980, race continues to be a salient factor in poverty. The poverty rate in 2013
was 9.6 percent for non‐Hispanic Whites, 27.2 percent for African Americans, 29.2 percent for
American Indians and Alaskan Natives, 10.5 percent for Asians, and 21.3 percent for Native
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284 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders. Most minorities earn less than Whites. However, Asian
Americans earn more than all other groups. In 2013, their median household income was $72,472,
compared to $57,684 for non‐Hispanic Whites, $41,508 for Hispanics, and $37,290 for African
American males. Women in each group earned less than their male counterparts; the female‐to‐
male earnings ratio was 76.5 percent in 2012 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014e).
Low‐income parents are often among the strongest supporters of education because they
often see it as a means to a better life for their children. However, their definition and understand-
ing of “support for education” may be different from that of the school staff. In addition, they are
often limited in their ability to buy materials and to make financial commitments that can enable
their children to participate in activities such as field trips or extracurricular programs. Schools
can provide workbooks and other study materials for use at home as well as transportation for
school activities and conferences. The school can also support low‐income parents by establish-
ing community service programs. For example, students can help clean up neighborhoods and
distribute information on available social services. The school can provide desk space for voter
registration and other services.
Perhaps the most important way for schools to work with low‐income parents is to recog-
nize that they can contribute a great deal to their children’s education. Even though their contribu-
tions may not be in the manner traditionally associated with parent involvement, they can be very
beneficial to teachers and students. The positive values and attitudes parents communicate to
their children and their strong desire for their children to get a good education in order to have a
better chance in life than they had are important forms of support for the school.
15.7 Teacher Concerns with Parent and Family Involvement
Even though teachers often say they want to involve parents, they may be suspicious of them and
not sure what parents expect from them. Some teachers think parents might disrupt their routine,
might not have the necessary skills to work with students, might be inconvenient to have in the
classroom, and might be interested only in helping their own child, not the whole class. Even
teachers who would like to involve parents may not be sure that they have the time, skill, or knowl-
edge to involve parents in the school. Many teachers believe that they already have too much to do
and that working with parents would make their already overburdened jobs more difficult.
Many of these concerns derive from a limited view of the possibilities for parent involve-
ment. Frequently, when parents and teachers think of parent involvement, they think it means
doing something for the school generally at the school or having the school teach parents how to
become better parents. In today’s ever‐changing society, a traditional view of parent involvement
inhibits rather than encourages parents and teachers to work together. Traditional ideas about
parent involvement have a built‐in gender and social‐class bias and can be a barrier to many men
and low‐income parents. Moreover, the ideas tend to focus on parents, not on community groups.
With a national focus on education, more and more community groups are interested in working
with schools. It is not uncommon for schools to have corporate or community sponsors. While
these are generally supportive and cooperative relationships, they are typically linked to the
school district or school, not to specific classrooms. Administrators need to think carefully about
how to involve classroom teachers with these groups.
When parent involvement is viewed as a means of getting support for the school, parents are
encouraged to bake cookies, raise money, or work at the school as unpaid classroom, playground,
library, or office helpers. This form of parent involvement is generally directed at mothers who do
not work outside the home. However, the number of mothers available for this form of involvement
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28515.9 Establish Two‐Way Communication between the School and the Home
is decreasing. In 2013, 69.9 percent of mothers with children under 18 years of age were either
working or looking for work outside the home (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014).
The parent‐as‐helper idea is geared toward parents who have the skills, time, and resources
to become school helpers. While this is a role that many educated, middle‐class parents eagerly
embrace, not all parents want to or feel they can or should do things for the school. Whether
parents are willing to come to school depends largely on their attitude toward school. These atti-
tudes result in part from the parents’ own school experiences.
Cultural perspectives also play an important role in the traditional approach to parent
involvement. To be effective, strategies for parent and community involvement should reflect
what Bullivant (1993) calls the core of the social group’s cultural program, which consists of the
knowledge and conceptions embodied in the group’s behaviors and artifacts and the values the
group subscribes to. When teachers do not understand a group’s cultural program, they may con-
ceptualize parent involvement as a means to help deficient parents become better parents (Linn,
1990). This view of parent involvement is often directed toward culturally different and low‐
income parents (Jennings, 1990). Teachers are presented as more skilled in parenting than par-
ents. Instead of helping parents and teachers work cooperatively, this attitude can create barriers
by suggesting that parents are the cause of their children’s failure in school. Parents and teachers
may even become rivals for the child’s affection (Lightfoot, 1978). Involvement efforts based on
“the parent in need of parenting skills” assume that there is one appropriate way to parent and that
parents want to learn it. Both “the parent as helper” and “the parent in need of parenting skills”
are conceptualizations derived from questionable assumptions about the character of contempo-
rary parents and reflect a limited cultural perspective.
15.8 Steps to Increase Parent and Family Involvement Teachers are a key ingredient in parent and family involvement. They play multiple roles, including
facilitator, communicator, and resource developer. Their success in implementing an effective parent/
community involvement program is linked to their skill in communicating and working with
parents and community groups. Teacher attitudes are also very important. Parents are supportive of
the teachers they believe like their children and want their children to succeed. Teachers who have
a negative attitude toward students will likely have a similar attitude toward the students’ parents.
Teachers tend to relate to their students as representatives of their parents’ perceived status in soci-
ety. Teachers use such characteristics as class, race, gender, and ethnicity to determine students’
prescribed social category. Being aware of this tendency can help teachers guard against it.
Teachers can take five steps to increase parent/community involvement in their classrooms:
(1) establish two‐way communication, (2) enlist support from staff and students, (3) enlist sup-
port from the community, (4) develop resource materials for home use, and (5) broaden the
activities included in parent involvement.
15.9 Establish Two‐Way Communication between the School and the Home
Establishing two‐way communication between the school and the home is an important step in
involving parents (Decker & Majerczyk, 2000). Most parents are willing to become involved in
their children’s education, if they understand what the teacher is trying to accomplish and how
they can help. Teachers should be prepared to engage in outreach to parents, not to wait for them
to become involved. Actively solicit information from parents on their thoughts about classroom
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286 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
goals and activities. When you talk with parents and community members, be an active listener.
Listen for their feelings as well as for specific information. Listed next are seven ways you can
establish and maintain two‐way communication with parents and community members.
1. If possible, have an open‐door policy in your classroom. Let parents know they are welcome
to assist in your classroom. When parents visit, make sure they have something to do.
2. Send home written information about school assignments and goals so that parents are aware
of what is going on in the classroom. Encourage parents to send notes to you if they have
questions or concerns.
3. Talk to parents by phone. Let them know when they can reach you by phone. Call parents
periodically and let them know when things are going well. Have something specific to talk
about. Leave some time for the parent to ask questions or make comments.
4. Report problems to parents, such as failing grades and behavior problems, before it is too
late for them to take remedial action. Let parents know what improvements you expect from
their children and how they can help.
5. Get to know your students’ community. Take time to shop in their neighborhoods. Visit com-
munity centers and attend religious services. Let parents know when you will be in the com-
munity and that you are interested in talking to them.
6. If you teach in an elementary school, try to have at least two in‐person conferences a year
with parents. When possible, include the student in at least part of the conference. Be pre-
pared to explain your curriculum to parents and have books and materials that students use
available for them to examine. Let the parents know in specific terms how their children are
doing in class. Find out how parents feel about their children’s levels of achievement, and let
them know what you think about their children’s achievement levels. Give the parents some
suggestions on what their children can do to improve and how they can help.
7. Solicit information from parents about their views on education. Identify their educational
goals for their children, ways they would like to support their children’s education, and their
concerns about the school. There are a number of ways to get information from parents,
including sending a questionnaire home and asking parents to complete it and return it to
you, conducting a telephone survey, and asking your students to interview their parents. Do
not forget high‐tech solutions for staying in touch with parents. These include school Web
pages, FaceTime, homework hotlines, e‐mail correspondence, videotaped events, and tele-
vised meetings. Be sure to work with local libraries to make sure that parents who do not
own computers will be able to use computers in the library to access the information.
15.10 Enlist Support from Other Staff Members and Students
Teachers need support from staff, students, the principal, and district‐level administrators to
design, implement, and enhance their parent‐involvement activities (Kirschenbaum, 2001). Teachers
generally have some flexibility in their classrooms, but are not always able to determine other
important factors that influence their ability to have a strong parent‐involvement program. For
example, when teachers are consulted about the type and amount of supplies purchased for their
classroom, they should be able to decide whether they want to have enough supplies to be able to
send paper, pencils, and other materials home for parents to use with their children. If the school
cannot provide extra supplies for teachers to send home with students, community groups may be
able to provide them. Also, if teachers are allowed to modify their schedules, they can find free
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28715.10 Enlist Support from Other Staff Members and Students
time to telephone parents, write notes, and hold morning or evening conferences with parents. In
addition, school climate influences parent involvement. Parents will not have positive feelings
about schools where they do not believe they are welcome. School climate, however, is not deter-
mined by the teacher alone. A broad range of individuals, including students, teachers, the prin-
cipal, and the school secretary, influence it. The support of all of these individuals is necessary to
create a welcoming school environment.
Your students can help solicit support for parent and community involvement from school
staff and other students. Take your class on a tour of the school. Ask the students to think about
how their parents would feel if they came to the school. Two obvious questions for students are
these: Is there a place for visitors to sit? Are there signs welcoming visitors and inviting them to
the school office? Ask your students to list things they could do to make the school a friendlier
place for parents and other visitors.
Invite your principal to come to your classroom and discuss the list with your students.
Divide the class into small groups and have them discuss how they would like their parents to
become involved in their education. Ask them to talk to their parents and get their views. Have
each group write a report on how parents can be involved in their children’s education. Each
group could make presentations to students in the other classrooms in the building on how they
would like to increase parent involvement in their school. They could also publish a newsletter on
parent involvement in schools. The newsletter could be sent to the students, parents, and other
schools in the district.
If funds or other forms of support are needed from the district office for parent‐involvement
activities, have the students draw up a petition requesting funding and solicit signatures from
teachers, students, and parents. When all of the signatures have been gathered, they can be deliv-
ered to an appropriate district administrator. The petition could also be used to inform community
groups about school issues and solicit their support.
Building principals and district administrators can give teachers the support they need to do
the following.
1. Help create and maintain a climate for positive parent/community involvement. This can
include supporting flexible hours for teachers who need to be out of the classroom to develop
materials or to work with parents. Teachers can be given time out of the classroom without
negatively affecting students. At the secondary school level, time can be carved out of the
teacher’s schedule by combining homerooms one day a week, by team‐teaching a class, or
by combining different sections of a class for activities such as chapter tests. At the elemen-
tary school level, team‐teaching, release time during periods when students are normally out
of the classroom for specialized subjects such as music and art, and having the principal
substitute in the classroom are ways to provide flexible hours for teachers.
2. Set up a parent room. It could be used for a number of functions, including serving as a com-
munity drop‐in center where parents could meet other parents for a cup of coffee or as a
place for parents to work on school activities without infringing on the teachers’ lounge.
It could also be used as a waiting room for parents who need to see a student or a member of
the school staff.
3. Host parent nights during which parents can learn more about the school, the curriculum,
and the staff.
4. Send a personal note to students and to their parents when students make the honor roll or
do something else noteworthy. Some schools give parents bumper stickers for their cars
announcing their child’s achievements.
5. Develop and distribute a handbook that contains the names and phone numbers of students,
PTA or other parent‐group contacts, and staff. Be sure to get permission before publishing
phone numbers, addresses, and other personal information.
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288 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
6. Ask the school secretary to make sure visitors are welcomed when they come to the school
and that they are given directions as needed.
7. Encourage students to greet visitors and help them find their way around the building.
15.11 Enlist Support from the Community To enlist support from the community, you need to know something about the people, organiza-
tions, and issues in it. The following are some questions you should be able to answer:
1. Are there any drama, musical, dance, or art groups in the community?
2. Is there a senior‐citizen group, a public library, or a cooperative extension service in the
community?
3. Are employment services such as the state employment security department available in the
community?
4. Are civil rights organizations such as the Urban League, Anti‐Defamation League (ADL), or
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) active in the
community?
5. What is the procedure for referring people to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, or the
state department of public assistance for emergency assistance for housing, food, and
clothing?
6. Does the community have a mental health center, family counseling center, or crisis clinic?
7. Are programs and activities for youth—such as Boys and Girls Clubs, Camp Fire USA, Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, and YWCA—available for your students?
As you learn about the community, you can begin to develop a list of community resources and
contacts that can provide support to families, work with your students, and provide locations for
students to perform community service projects. Collecting information about your students’
community and developing community contacts should be viewed as a long‐term project. You
can collect information as your schedule permits and organize it in a notebook. This process can
be shortened if several teachers work together. Each teacher could concentrate on a different part
of the community and share information and contacts.
Community groups can provide support in several ways. They can develop big sister and
big brother programs for students, provide quiet places for students to study after school and on
weekends, donate educational supplies, help raise funds for field trips, set up mentor programs,
and tutor students. Community‐based institutions and groups can also provide opportunities for
students to participate in community‐based learning programs. These learning programs provide
an opportunity for students to move beyond the textbook and experience real life. They give stu-
dents an opportunity to see how knowledge is integrated when it is applied to the real world. They
put students in touch with a variety of people and let them see how people cope with their envi-
ronments. Community‐based learning also enhances career development. It can help students
learn about themselves, gain confidence, and better understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Students can learn to plan, make decisions, negotiate, and evaluate their plans. Here are some
examples of community work students can do:
Paint an apartment for an ill neighbor
Clean alleys and backyards for the elderly
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28915.13 Broaden the Conception of Parent and Community Involvement
Write letters for people who are ill
Read to people who are unable to read
Prepare an empty lot as a play area for young children
Plant a vegetable garden for the needy
Collect and recycle newspapers
Serve on a community council
15.12 Develop Learning Resources for Parents to Use at Home
At home, parents can use many of the learning materials teachers use with students at school to
help students improve their skills. The materials should be in a format suitable for students to take
home and should provide clear directions for at‐home completion. Parents could let the teacher
know how they liked the material by writing a note, giving their child a verbal message for the
teacher, or calling the school. Clark (1995) has written a series of math home‐involvement activi-
ties for kindergarten through eighth grade. The activities are included in booklets and are designed
to help students increase their math skills. Teachers can create similar math home‐involvement
activities that parents can use to reinforce the skills their children learn at school. These kinds of
materials are convenient for both parents and teachers to use.
It is important for teachers to have resources available for parents to use. This lets parents
know that they can help increase their children’s learning and that teachers want their help.
Simply telling parents they should work with their children is not sufficient. Parents need specific
suggestions. Once parents get an idea of what you want them to do, some will develop their own
materials. Other parents will be able to purchase materials or check them out from the library.
You can suggest specific books, games, and other materials for parents to purchase and let them
know where these learning materials are available. Some parents, however, will not have the
financial resources, time, or educational background to develop or purchase learning materials.
With help from your principal or from community groups, you can set up a learning center for
parents. The learning center could contain paper, pencils, books, games, a computer, and other
appropriate resources. The learning center could also have CDs on such topics as instructional
techniques, classroom rules, educational goals for the year, and readings from books. Parents and
students could check materials out of the learning center for use at home.
15.13 Broaden the Conception of Parent and Community Involvement
Many barriers to parent/community involvement can be eliminated by broadly conceptualizing it.
Parents can play many roles, depending on their interests, skills, and resources. It is important
to have a variety of roles for parents so that more of them will have an opportunity to be involved
in the school. It is also important to make sure that some roles can be performed at home as well
as at school. Following are four ways parents and community members can be involved in
schools. Some of the roles can be implemented by the classroom teacher. Others need support
and resources from building principals or central office administrators.
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290 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
15.13.1 Parents Working with Their Own Children
Working with their own children is one of the most important roles parents can play in the educa-
tional process. Parents can help their children develop a positive self‐concept and a positive attitude
toward school as well as a better understanding of how their effort affects achievement. Most par-
ents want their children to do well in school and are willing to do whatever they can to help them
succeed. Teachers can increase the support they receive from their students’ homes by giving par-
ents a better understanding of what is going on in the classroom, by letting parents know what is
expected in the classroom, and by suggesting ways in which they can support their children’s learn-
ing. Teachers can work with parents to support the educational process in these three ways.
1. Involve parents in monitoring homework by asking them to sign homework papers.
2. Ask parents to sign a certificate congratulating students for good attendance.
3. Give students extra points if their parents do things such as sign their report card, attend
conferences, or read to them.
Some parents want a more active partnership with the school. These parents want to help teach
their children. The following are three ways you can help parents work with their children to
increase their learning.
1. Encourage parents to share hobbies and games, discuss news and television programs, and
talk about school problems and events with their children.
2. Send information home on the importance of reading to children and include a reading list.
A one‐page sheet could be sent home stating, “One of the best ways to help children become
better readers is to read to them. Reading aloud is most helpful when you discuss the stories,
learn to identify letters and words, and talk about the meaning of the words. Encourage lei-
sure reading. Reading achievement is related to the amount of reading kids do. It increases
vocabulary and reading fluency.” Then list several books available from the school library
for students to check out and take home.
3. Supply parents with materials they can use to work with their children on skill development.
Students can help make math games, crossword puzzles, and other materials that parents can
use with them at home. Parents should also be encouraged to take their children to the local
library, where they can get their own library card.
15.13.2 Professional Support Person for Instruction
Many parents and community members have skills that can be shared with the school. They are will-
ing to work with students as well as teachers. These people are often ignored in parent‐ and
community‐involvement programs. A parent or community member who is a college professor could
be asked to talk to teachers about a topic that interests the professor or to participate in an in‐service
workshop. A bilingual parent or community member could be asked to help tutor foreign language
students or to share books or magazines written in the person’s language with the class. Parents who
enjoy reading or art could be asked to help staff a humanities enrichment course before or after
school or to recommend materials for such a course. Parents and community members who perform
these kinds of duties could also serve as role models for your students and demonstrate the impor-
tance of education in the community. Review this list and think of how you could involve parents and
community members in your classroom. Parents and community members can do the following.
Serve as instructional assistants
Use carpentry skills to build things for the school
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29115.13 Broaden the Conception of Parent and Community Involvement
Tutor during school hours or after school
Develop or identify student materials or community resources
Share their expertise with students or staff
Expand enrichment programs offered before, after, or during school, such as a program on
great books or art appreciation
Sew costumes for school plays
Videotape or photograph school plays or activities
Type and edit a newsletter
15.13.3 General Volunteers
Some parents are willing to volunteer their time, but they do not want to do a job that requires
specific skills. When thinking of activities for general volunteers, be sure to include activities that
can be performed at school as well as ones that can be performed at home. Some possible activi-
ties include these:
Working on the playground as a support person
Working in the classroom as a support person
Working at home preparing cutouts and other materials that will be used in class
Telephoning other parents to schedule conferences.
15.13.4 Decision‐Makers
Some parents are interested in participating in decision‐making in the school. They want to help
set school policy, select curriculum materials, review budgets, or interview prospective staff
members. Roles for these parents and community members include school board, committee, and
site council members. Serving on a site council is an excellent way for parents to participate in
decision‐making. Site councils are designed to increase parent involvement in schools, empower
classroom teachers, and allow decisions to be made at the school level.
The Comer (1995) model is an effective way to involve parents, classroom teachers, and
other educators in decision‐making. Comer (1997) believes schools can be more effective when
they are restructured in ways that encourage and support cooperation among parents and educa-
tors. Comer did much of his pioneering work on parent involvement and restructuring schools in
Prince George’s County, Maryland, where he implemented two committees: the School Planning
and Management Team (SPMT) and the Student Staff Services Team (SSST).
The SPMT included the school principal, classroom teachers, parents, and support staff.
Consensus was used to reach decisions. The committee also had a no‐fault policy, which encour-
aged parents not to blame the school and educators not to blame parents. The SPMT provided a
structure for parents and educators to create a common vision for their school, reduce fragmenta-
tion, and develop activities, curriculum, and in‐service programs. It also developed a comprehen-
sive school plan, designed a schoolwide calendar of events, and monitored and evaluated student
progress. The SPMT met at least once a month. Its subcommittees met more frequently.
The second committee that Comer implemented was the SSST, which included the school
principal, guidance counselor, classroom teachers, and support staff, including psychologists,
health aides, and other appropriate personnel. Teachers and parents were encouraged to join this
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292 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement
group if they had concerns they believed should be addressed. The SSST brought school personnel
together to discuss individual student concerns. It also brought coherence and order to the
services that students received.
S U M M A R Y
Parent and community involvement is a dynamic process that encour-
ages, supports, and provides opportunities for teachers, parents, and
community members to work together to improve student learning.
Parent and community involvement is also an important component
of school reform and multicultural education. Parents and community
groups help provide the rationale, motivation, and social action nec-
essary for educational reform.
Everyone can benefit from parent/community involvement.
Students tend to perform better in school and have more people
supporting their learning. Parents know more about what is going
on at school, have more opportunities to communicate with their
children’s teachers, and are able to help their children increase
their learning. Teachers gain a partner in education. Teachers learn
more about their students through their parent and community
contacts and are able to use that information to help improve their
students’ academic performance.
Even though research has consistently demonstrated that students
have an advantage in school when their parents support and encour-
age educational activities, not all parents know how they can support
their children’s education or feel they have the time, energy, or other
resources to be involved in schools. Some parents have a particularly
difficult time supporting their children’s education. Three such groups
are parents who have low incomes, single parents, and parents with
special needs. Parents from these groups are often dismissed as
unsupportive of education. However, they want their children to do
well in school and are willing to work with the school when the
school reaches out to them and responds to their needs.
To establish an effective parent/community involvement pro-
gram, teachers should establish two‐way communication with par-
ents and community groups, enlist support from the community,
and have resources available for parents to use in working with
their children. Expanding the ways in which parent/community
involvement is conceptualized can increase the number of parents
and community members able to participate. Parents can play
many roles. Ways to involve parents and community members
include having parents work with their own children, parents and
community members share their professional skills with the
school, parents and community groups volunteer in the school, and
parents and community members work with educators to make
decisions about school reform.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
15.1 Compare the role of parents in schools during the colonial
period and now. Identify and discuss changes that have
occurred and changes you would like to see occur in parent
involvement.
15.2 Consider this statement: Regardless of the circumstances
students experience at home, teachers have a responsibility
to help them perform at their highest level at school. Do you
agree? Why or why not?
15.3 Interview a parent of a bilingual, ethnic‐minority, religious‐
minority, or low‐income student to learn more about the
parent’s views on schools and his/her educational goals
for the child. This information cannot be generalized to all
members of these groups, but it can be an important depar-
ture point for learning more about diverse groups within
our society.
15.4 Consider this statement: All parents want their children to
succeed in school. Do you agree? Why or why not?
15.5 Interview a classroom teacher and an administrator to deter-
mine the views each has on parent/community involvement.
15.6 Write a brief paper about your personal views on the bene-
fits and drawbacks of parent/community involvement.
15.7 Form a group with two other members of your class or work-
shop. One person in the group will be a teacher, the second a
parent, and the third an observer. The teacher and the parent
will role‐play a teacher–parent conference. Afterward, dis-
cuss how it felt to be a parent and a teacher. What can be done
to make the parent and teacher feel more comfortable?
Was the information shared at the conference helpful? The
observer can share his/her view of the parent–teacher interac-
tion. Then change roles and repeat the process.
I N T E R N E T R E S O U R C E S F O R I N F O R M A T I O N O N P A R E N T I N V O LV E M E N T
Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships: http://www.csos.
jhu.edu/P2000/center.htm
National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education: http://www.ncpie.org/
Parents as Teachers National Center: http://www.parentsasteachers.org/
Partnership for Family Involvement in Education: http://www.ed.gov
/pubs/whoweare/index.html
Banksc15.indd 292 17-08-2015 23:04:14
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chapter
16 B
le n d I
m ag
es /G
et ty
I m
ag es
Classroom Assessment and Diversity Catherine S. Taylor and Susan B. Nolen
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Identify and describe critical factors that affect students ’ performance on large‐scale and
classroom‐based assessments.
2. Summarize the ways that publishers, testing companies, and states address the need for
culturally appropriate assessments.
3. Describe key limitations of standardized tests in terms of their ability to accurately
assess students ’ knowledge and skill.
4. Name the factors that affect students ’ willingness to engage in assessment events.
5. Identify and describe classroom assessment practices in which assessment is used as
an integral part of the instructional process to support student learning.
6. Identify and describe classroom assessment practices that allow students to
demonstrate their knowledge and skills in culturally relevant ways.
Assessments are a fundamental part of the daily lives of students. Teachers spend from one‐third
to one‐half of their time in formal and informal assessment‐related activities (Stiggins & Faires‐
Conklin, 1992 ). Students use their performances on assessments to judge many things: their
abilities, their identities as students, the extent to which they “fit” in school, and their chances of
graduating or going to college. When classroom assessments are of poor quality, teachers and
students do not have the information they need to make well‐informed decisions.
Shepard ( 2000 ) described the models that have been used to guide teachers ’ classroom
assessment practices. Her central claim was that early models for classroom assessment use a
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296 Classroom Assessment and Diversity
standardized testing framework to present assessment concepts and skills. This framework
focuses on the development of tests: standardization of assessment tools and processes, use of
objectively scorable test items, sampling from all possible knowledge and skills for purposes of
testing, computation of reliability estimates, as well as other large‐scale testing practices.
Textbook companies, following the models set by large tests, provide standardized end‐of‐unit
and end‐of‐course tests. Teachers of advanced placement (AP) courses often use the students’
performance on the AP exam as part of course grades.
In this chapter, we present an overview of some of the critical factors that affect students’
performance on large‐scale and classroom‐based assessments. We look at these issues through a
multicultural lens. We begin this chapter by examining how publishers, testing companies, and
states address the need for culturally appropriate assessments. We also present research that high-
lights some of the limitations of standardized tests in terms of their ability to accurately assess
students’ knowledge and skills—particularly as students bring their own funds of knowledge to
the assessment space.
We also consider the literature on academic engagement and the factors that affect students’
willingness to engage in assessment events. We present the classroom‐relevant aspects of a frame-
work for assessment developed by Taylor, Darling‐Hammond, Dieckmann, Pacheco, and Sandler
(2012) to foster an assessment experience that encourages students to engage with assessment tasks
and take ownership of their assessment performances. We consider the larger context in which
assessment events—in the classroom, school, district, and state—occur, the messages inherent in
the larger context, and the potential impacts of those messages on students’ performance.
We conclude by recommending practices in classroom assessment that can (1) create a
context wherein assessment is used as an integral part of the instructional process, (2) allow stu-
dents to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in culturally relevant ways, and (3) support stu-
dent learning rather than simply measuring, ranking, and grading students.
16.1 Bias and Sensitivity Issues in Assessment One critical aspect of assessment quality is cultural sensitivity or its inverse, cultural bias. Bias is
not the same as prejudice. Biases are assumptions—accepted until new information contradicts
them. If classroom assessments are to be appropriate for students from diverse cultural backgrounds,
care must be taken to ensure that the assessment content and tasks are free of cultural bias. Knowing
that biases are hard to see, publishers of instructional programs and large‐scale tests develop sys-
tematic processes to minimize bias. They train their writers, artists, and editors to look for and avoid
text or images that promote or demean any group. They watch for over‐ or underrepresentation of
any group. They screen passages, topics, themes, and contexts for potentially offensive materials.
They check for problematic vocabulary and linguistic features, stereotypes, and misrepresentations.
They use guidelines to ensure that diverse perspectives and authors are represented in published
texts (McGraw‐Hill, 1983). Educational publishers convene external review panels, called bias and
sensitivity reviewers, to look for potential sources of bias in content.
Large‐scale test developers are more rigorous in their investigations of potential bias than
their small‐scale counterparts (Educational Testing Service, 2003). Potential sources of bias in edu-
cational assessments are investigated in two ways: through bias and sensitivity review (BSR) panels
and through statistical analyses. Table 16.1 provides a summary of the issues that publishers and
assessment developers include in their BSR panels. The categories and subcategories in Table 16.1
were derived from the guidelines of different states and publishers.
BSR panels review stimulus materials (e.g., reading passages, images, and timelines) and
assessment tasks for any potentially biasing factors that might affect students’ ability to interact
with the material. The care that publishers and test developers take to ensure that educational
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29716.1 Bias and Sensitivity Issues in Assessment
materials are appropriate for diverse learners clearly demonstrates that these issues are important.
When students are confronted with images, stories, or contexts that are upsetting, their perfor-
mance is likely to decrease (Educational Testing Service, 2003). When a writing assignment asks
students to write an essay on a topic that is unfamiliar, the teacher will not know whether low
performance is because of writing skills or the topic of the prompt. If the linguistic structure of a
test item is too complex, students may not know what they are being asked to do. These problems
apply to classroom assessments as well as large‐scale tests.
Despite the fact that teachers use published classroom assessments as their predominant
tools for judging students’ achievement (Madaus, Maxwell, Harmon, Lomax, & Viator, 1992;
Stiggins, 2001), educational publishers rarely collect data to investigate potential bias in textbook
and other published classroom assessments (Beck, 2010; Stiggins, 2001). For standardized tests,
items and tasks are field‐tested and statistical indices flag items that function differently for stu-
dents from different ethnic or gender groups. If there is no bias in a test item or performance task,
students from different backgrounds who have the same total test scores are expected to have the
■ TABLE 16.1 Categories for Bias and Sensitivity Reviews
Categories Subcategories Comments
Respectful and balanced treatment of all individuals and groups
Language Images Roles Problems Values
This involves checking to see whether all individuals and groups are represented in a respectful manner and that stereotypes are not reinforced by word choices, images, social roles, socioeconomic backgrounds, personality characteristics, physical appearances, types of problems, daily activities, careers, behaviors, and values.
Avoid the unfamiliar Linguistic structures Unfamiliar words Social class Obscure or specialized vocabulary Social contexts Culture‐specific knowledge
Problems include any language issues that might work against the student such as complex sentence structures, acronyms, idioms and multi‐meaning words, as well as unfamiliar everyday and professional vocabulary that is irrelevant to the task. This guideline includes social contexts and activities that would be familiar only to those who are part of a particular cultural group or social class.
Avoid controversial issues Social controversies Health issues and problems Sexuality Religion Abuse and violence Death and dying
Topics in any of these subcategories can distract students from the main purpose of an assessment—to show what students know and can do. In courses where these topics are the focus, they would, of course be part of the assessments.
Use appropriate labels Disabilities Ethnic groups Genders Sexual orientation
Publishers provide lists of terms that are appropriate and inappropriate when discussing people in particular socially defined categories.
Banksc16.indd 297 17-08-2015 23:09:07
298 Classroom Assessment and Diversity
same likelihood of performing well on a given item or task. The results of statistical investigations
of bias are routinely presented in the technical reports for large‐scale tests. Test items and tasks
that demonstrate potential bias are carefully reviewed, revised, and sometimes eliminated.
16.2 Lessons Learned from a Bias and Sensitivity Review Panel
No matter how careful assessment developers and publishers may be, unintentional biases can
creep into assessment materials. BSR panels, when property constituted, catch issues that may be
overlooked during development work. However, Ford (1992) noted that the job for reviewers has
become more difficult because of the close attention given to potential sources of bias during the
development process.
In a study observing BSR panels, Taylor (2008) found several key issues that had been
overlooked by assessment developers and that were not represented in published BSR guidelines.
In her study, the BSR panel was reviewing a state’s large‐scale and classroom‐based assessment
materials in multiple subject areas. The panelists were selected by the state to represent diversity
in ethnicity, cultural background, economic status, political orientation, and students with special
needs. Panel members were quite knowledgeable about the groups they represented; some had
been on the BSR panel for several years. Because the assessment contractor and the state had
been quite vigilant in screening the work for obvious biases and sensitivity issues before the
review, the panelists found few of the typical problems for which they had been trained. However,
subtle issues arose in their reviews.
16.2.1 “Othering”
Test developers attempt to reflect the diversity of examinees by using passages written by or
about individuals from diverse backgrounds. However, not all passages reflect diversity in an
appropriate way. For example, the assessment contractor had selected biographical sketches
about famous Americans who represent diverse cultural groups. Unfortunately, all of the famous
people in these passages had to overcome reactions to fundamental aspects of themselves: for
example, disability (e.g., Helen Keller), ethnicity (e.g., Jim Thorpe), and skin color (e.g., Jackie
Robinson). One reviewer commented:
All of these bios are about people who were treated badly for being Black or handicapped or things like that. The bios play up the fact that they triumphed over hate–over being different. In the end, these bios are about how we have to overcome our differences. It’s just another way to put us in an ‘other’ category.
In an attempt to represent the diversity of the state’s population and to highlight the accomplish-
ments of individuals from diverse backgrounds, the assessment contractor had selected passages
that emphasized isolation because of race or disability.
16.2.2 Consistency with Culture
Among the reading passages were legends and folk tales from all over the world. Several of the
Native American legends were in print for the first time. The panelists identified three problems
with the way these legends were handled by the assessment contractor. First, the contractor had
standardized the introduction to all folk tales and legends by calling them folk tales. Native
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29916.2 Lessons Learned from a Bias and Sensitivity Review Panel
American members of the panel found this to be offensive because folk tales are imaginary
stories while legends are believed to be true. Second, the legends had been changed to fit a more
typical Western story structure. Each Native American legend had a conclusion. The reviewers
noted that this was a violation of the original intent of legends—that the lessons to be learned
change as people mature. Finally, the authors of some social studies passages had altered terms
to make them more familiar to students. In a passage describing Native Alaskan lifestyles, the
author had changed the term “first feast” to “barbeque,” a term that changed the significance of
the first meal after a successful hunt. This study shows how important it is for assessment devel-
opers to honor the norms of the cultures from which primary documents are drawn.
16.2.3 Developing Interpretations
It is very common for reading, math, and science tests to have multiple‐choice items asking stu-
dents to identify reasonable conclusions, interpretations, or inferences based on information
presented in text, graphs, or tables. However, interpretations are influenced by background expe-
riences. One of the reading assessments reviewed by the panelists illuminates this issue. The
story was of an African village in which a feral cat was eating the villagers’ chickens. The villag-
ers wanted to kill the cat. A wise young man suggested that they feed the cat instead. By the end
of the tale, the cat was guarding the chickens from other predators.
One multiple‐choice question asked students to draw a conclusion from the story. The cor-
rect answer was that the villagers had learned to be kind to animals. This item generated a great
deal of discussion. One reviewer argued that feeding the cat was not at all kind—that farm cats
keep the rat and mouse population under control; feeding cats worked counter to their functions.
Another reviewer thought that the item writer was missing the point of the story: treating an
enemy with respect. As is apparent from this example, readers bring their prior knowledge and
experiences to bear on how they interpret the messages in a text. Multiple‐choice items do not
allow for diverse but valid text‐based interpretations.
16.2.4 Culturally Inappropriate Tasks
Assessment developers often create templates that can guide their work. Using templates, they
can efficiently generate a large number of items and tasks. Sometimes, templates can backfire.
Taylor (2008) found three examples of ways in which using assessment templates resulted in
culturally inappropriate choices. In the first example, nearly every set of items associated with a
literary passage included an item asking students to summarize the main events of the passage.
A Native American reviewer noted that summarizing Native American legends is not appropriate—
that, as an oral tradition, legends are to be repeated verbatim. A second example involved a math-
ematics item asking students to plan a survey. For the particular item, the focus was on a survey
of students’ fears. Several reviewers noted that showing fear or admitting fear was not culturally
appropriate. Students could lose face or shame themselves and their families. Clearly, using a
standardized item format with a highly charged topic was seen as a violation of cultural norms.
As a final example, the test developers routinely paired boys and girls in many test items in order
to avoid any gender association with a particular activity. In response to a science investigation
scenario in which a boy and girl were partnered to do the investigation, a reviewer noted that, in
his culture, boys and girls should not work together.
As these examples show, lack of understanding of the values and norms of diverse cultures
can result in assessments that are problematic for students. Publishers and assessment developers
follow extensive guidelines to ensure that instructional materials are free from biases and repre-
sent the diversity of students in U.S. schools. These examples show that subtle factors may still
impact the cultural appropriateness of the materials.
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300 Classroom Assessment and Diversity
16.3 Investigating Potential Bias through Statistical Analyses
For a statistical investigation of potential bias, researchers conduct differential item functioning
(DIF) analyses. In a DIF study, an item or task is flagged for DIF if the item or task statistically
“favors” one group over another. In other words, suppose students from two groups have equal
total scores. Despite this equality of performance overall, if there are specific items on which
members of one group score higher than the other, the items or tasks appear to be biased in favor
of that group. DIF studies identify a reference group (usually the economically/socially dominant
group) and a focal group (groups for which there are concerns about test score bias).
Taylor and Lee (2011) investigated DIF in reading items comparing White students (refer-
ence group) with students from Native American, Latino American, African American, and Asian
American backgrounds (focal groups). State data for three grade levels (grades 4, 7, and 10) over
5 years were used in their study. They found a striking pattern in the data. The vast majority of
multiple‐choice items flagged for DIF‐favored White students; the vast majority of open‐
response items flagged for DIF‐favored students from Native American, Latino American,
African American, and Asian American backgrounds. This was particularly true for items ask-
ing students to develop interpretations of text (e.g., draw inferences, interpret characters, draw
conclusions, compare and contrast ideas, determine cause or effect, and so forth). This pattern
in the data was more extreme for older students than for younger students and was more dra-
matic for students from Latino American, African American and Asian American backgrounds
than for other groups. These statistical results would not be surprising to proponents of reader
response theory (Spiegel, 1998):
The making of meaning from reading is a dynamic, reflective, introspective process. Readers don’t discover “the” meaning in a text. In the past, meaning was assumed to reside in the text, but now the reader has replaced the text as the most central element in reading (Purves, 1975). Meaning is made by the reader, not found (Probst, 1981). . . . Meaning is constructed, interpreted, and revised by read- ers themselves, not by literary critics, professors, or even authors. (p. 42)
When reading test items ask students to develop interpretations, it is likely that readers’ prior
experiences will influence their responses to items. For multiple‐choice items, readers must rec-
ognize the predetermined appropriate inference or interpretation; however, for open‐response
items, readers may develop their own inferences and interpretations. According to reader response
theory, even though meaning is personal, it is grounded in text. Multiple interpretations of text
can be valid. Spiegel (1998) wrote, “Because meaning is constructed by unique individuals, multiple
meanings are to be expected and even celebrated. Within any group of peers, many different
interpretations of the same text are likely to, and indeed should, occur” (p. 43).
The fact that individuals differ in their interpretations of text, based on prior experiences,
does not automatically lead to measurable DIF. DIF occurs when examinees in defined groups
(e.g., based on gender, ethnicity, race, and socioeconomic status) differ in systematic ways when
responding to test items. The DIF question is not whether all subgroups within a focal or refer-
ence group think alike but rather whether students in the focal think differently than students in
the reference group.
If multiple‐choice text interpretation items tend to favor White students over students
from other racial or ethnic groups, the inferences, interpretations, analyses, and other thinking
represented in the correct answer choices would appear to be more “correct” for White students
than for students from other groups. This does not suggest that students from Native American,
Latino American, African American, and Asian American backgrounds were unified in their
thinking about text, only that their interpretations of text were not consistent with those of the
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30116.4 The Effects of Engagement on Assessment Performance
multiple‐choice item writers. Taylor and Lee (2011) suggested that one possible explanation
for the pattern was that the item writers were from cultural and economic backgrounds similar
to that of the White students.
Learners’ experiences within their (sometimes multiple) cultures provide them with rich
knowledge that may not be tapped by assessments. These effects are not limited to reading assess-
ments. Saxe’s (1988) work on the mathematical understanding of young street vendors in Brazil
is an early example of this. When asked traditional math problems involving arithmetic opera-
tions, these vendors used daily in their work, they performed poorly. When the same problems
were framed in terms of that daily work, the vendors were quick, accurate, and flexible. In other
words, the item content either elicited or blocked use of well‐learned mathematical knowledge.
Lave (1988) reports similar results for American adults using everyday mathematics in actual
grocery stores as compared to their (apparent) inability to use that same math in story problems
set in grocery stores. Being physically in the store enabled complex cognitions that were not
tapped in the school‐like setting.
Classroom‐based and large‐scale tests have used multiple‐choice items as the main item
type for nearly 100 years. It is possible that this has led to systematic suppression of students’
performances in unknown ways. Taylor and Lee (2011) recommend that reading assessments
balance the use of multiple‐choice and open‐response items and that text interpretation items
primarily be in open‐response format.
16.4 The Effects of Engagement on Assessment Performance
Student engagement has become a significant focus of research, particularly in how engagement
influences students from historically underserved groups. Engagement is a “complex of internal
and external behaviors that are necessary for effective interaction with content” (Moore, 1989,
p. 2). Engagement is critical to students’ willingness to engage with the content and thinking
required to learn (Carini, Kuh, & Klein, 2006; Kuh, 2009) and influences their performances dur-
ing assessment events in ways unrelated to their knowledge, skills, and abilities (Bodovski &
Farkas, 2007; Bryson & Hand, 2007).
Fortunately, students’ engagement has been shown to be responsive to variations in the
learning environment (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004) and can be improved through
changes in teachers’ relationships with students, instructional strategies, and the nature of tasks
and assessments (Dotterer & Lowe, 2011). Although typical strategies for standardizing state and
classroom assessments can work against student engagement, research suggests that several strat-
egies can be used in the classroom to improve diverse students’ engagement in learning and their
performance on assessments.
Contextualizing items can be an effective strategy to assess complex thinking and to deter-
mine whether students can apply and transfer their knowledge (Ahmed & Pollitt, 2007; Boaler,
1993; Haladyna, 1997). Ahmed and Poilitt (2007) found that contextualized items offered a more
engaging background for students to solve problems. In the traditional assessment paradigm,
engagement has not been a goal of testing. Rather, concerns about equity focus on issues of bias
and accessibility. A traditional tactic to avoid bias has been to create highly decontextualized
items. Unfortunately, this has come at a cost. Decontextualized items and tasks decrease stu-
dents’ opportunities to create meaning in the task, as well as their motivation to cognitively invest
in the task, thereby undermining students’ opportunities to adequately demonstrate their knowl-
edge and skills. Caldwell and Goldin (1987) found that abstract math word problems using sym-
bolic objects appeared to be significantly more difficult than those with concrete situations using
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302 Classroom Assessment and Diversity
real objects. Darling‐Hammond and her colleagues (2008) found that students from low‐income,
culturally diverse backgrounds performed more poorly than middle‐class, White students on
decontextualized tasks without immediate relevance.
Students’ abilities to connect to contexts that are relevant and/or personalized to their own
lives appear to improve engagement and performance (Meier, 2008). For example, Walkington
and Sherman (2012) found that personalization increased student performance on algebraic word
problems. They found that students in the experimental group were more able to solve algebraic
word problems that were matched to their self‐reported interests (e.g., sports, music, art, and
games). This suggests that personalization can increase student performance, especially with
more cognitively challenging problems and for struggling students. Equally important in the
Walkington and Sherman (2012) study was the relevance of problems to students’ lives. Problems
relevant to students’ lives appeared to be easier for students to solve than those not connected to
their experiences, even when they were not personalized to an expressed interest. These findings
indicate the importance of relevance in choosing assessment topics, both in terms of tapping prior
knowledge from other contexts and elevating students’ interests. They also suggest possibilities
for improving student performance through personalization when relevance is lacking.
Student engagement may also be improved through instructional and assessment contexts
that support students’ autonomy (Connell & Wellborn, 1991) and their affective engagement (e.g., sense of belonging). Affective engagement has been shown to be the strongest predictor of
achievement for low‐performing students (Connell, Spencer, & Abner, 1994).
Student collaboration has also been found to greatly increase student engagement (Chan &
Leijten, 2012; Cooper & Speece, 1988; Greenwood, 1996; Greenwood, Delquadri & Hall, 1989;
McCormick, Kinzie, & Korkmaz, 2011). This may be both a function of the social benefits of
collaboration—that is, the way in which collaboration may enhance a sense of belonging and
participation—and because collaboration may boost students’ interests and give them more path-
ways to understanding the material through discussing their thinking and through hearing the ideas
of other students. Typically assessment events do not ask for collaboration; rather the hallmark of
traditional models of assessment is the emphasis on assessment of each individual’s performance.
Two major disadvantages to incorporating collaboration into an assessment event are (1) the
demand for individual students’ accountability for their learning, and (2) the need for teachers to
be able to identify individual students’ learning needs so that they can individualize instruction.
Authenticity also affects student engagement and performance. Research by Newmann and
his colleagues found that when students in elementary and middle school classrooms engage in
authentic work, the quality of their academic performance increases (Newmann & Associates,
1996; Newmann, Bryk, & Nagaoka, 2001). Authentic intellectual work involves construction of
knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and value beyond the classroom.
As good teachers know, these ways of engaging students can be used flexibly to support
student learning and performance. If students need to study something that is far from their expe-
rience, they can be engaged by the format of the tasks, the way they are drawn into the work, or
the opportunity they have to collaborate with others.
Stereotype threat is another factor that can influence the engagement of students of histori-
cally underserved groups in assessment events. When students perceive that assessments may
elicit performance that will reinforce a negative stereotype, they may perform more poorly
(Steele, 2010). Steele and his colleagues have tested specific ways of framing and presenting
tasks and tests that have demonstrated significantly higher performance from groups that experi-
ence stereotype threat (girls in math, African Americans on various subject area tests, etc.). These
approaches focus on minimizing competition among students and ensuring that students know
high performance is expected of all students.
Clearly, increasing students’ engagement in assessment events is important when teachers
need to have accurate information to adapt instruction to students’ needs. Classroom teachers
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30316.5 The Social Context of Assessment
have more control over the assessment experiences of students through the types of assessment
tools they use and the messages they give students regarding students’ performances on assess-
ments. Classroom assessments need not be as standardized as state and national tests, and student
choice can be incorporated into assessment events. The following list presents a range of different
strategies that teachers can use to increase students’ engagement in assessment events.
To address potential stereotype threat, assessment events should be introduced and structured
in such a way that students feel their success is valued and expected. Messages can be con-
structed to minimize stereotype threat, such as affirmations about the fact that, while difficult,
the task is one at which students are expected to be able to succeed.
Items and tasks should engage students in valued work that involves the use of authentic dis-
ciplinary thinking and processes, as well as the construction of new knowledge.
Tasks should be relevant to students’ own lives and experiences and have value beyond school.
Whenever possible, the work should be anchored in real‐world contexts within and beyond
school. When their work is placed in academic/theoretical contexts, it should be work worth
doing—work that the student feels is purposeful, interesting, and challenging yet achievable
for the student.
The focus of assessments should be on important, core ideas rather than discrete, abstract bits
of knowledge and/or skill.
Whenever possible, assessment events should provide opportunities for autonomy, agency, and choice. Students should be able to take a role in solving a meaningful problem in a way
that allows them to choose how they will approach the problem and that allows them to make
decisions in the process.
Assessment items and contexts should be familiar and relevant to many students at the age‐
group being tested and should be sensitive to the experiences of nondominant and traditionally
underserved students of diverse backgrounds.
Assessments can offer choices of tasks for students. The tasks may ask for similar understand-
ing and skills but present the information in a variety of contexts so that students can choose
tasks that generate their interests.
Scoring criteria for performance tasks should be constructed to emphasize meaning and cen- tral understandings and minimize aspects of communication that may be associated with
culture and language background, where these are not the focus of the construct.
Scoring criteria should anticipate the diversity and range of possible student responses
to ensure fairness in evaluation, particularly for students of traditionally underserved
backgrounds.
Even with the most culturally appropriate and sensitive assessment practices, all assess-
ment activities occur within a social context. In what follows, we discuss social context factors
that can influence students’ attitudes toward assessments and their performances during assess-
ment events.
16.5 The Social Context of Assessment The social context of assessment, its meaning and purpose in the worlds of schooling and poli-
tics, must also be taken into consideration when examining the relationships between assessment
and diversity. Classroom assessments come to symbolize the values of the teacher: the assumption
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304 Classroom Assessment and Diversity
is that what is important is what is assessed. When students feel classroom activities are
disconnected with assessments that are graded and have potential impacts on their well‐being,
they are likely to disengage from those activities. Similarly, when teachers (and districts) work in
a context of large‐scale, high‐stakes testing, they are likely to create or use assessments that align
with the demands of the large‐scale test, whether or not large‐scale tests capture all or even most
of the important learning outcomes of instruction.
Grades and test scores serve as boundary objects, indicators of learning or competence that
are generated in one context but used in many others. A grade that is intended to represent learn-
ing, effort, or even compliance in the classroom may be used by college admissions boards as
evidence of ability and an indicator of future success. Thus, the artifacts of assessment events
(scores, grades, and other formal evaluations) have multiple meanings and can be used for mul-
tiple purposes. Differences in achievement test scores, for example, may be used politically to
support a critique of the educational system or to reify beliefs in inherent deficits in certain
groups of learners. The “achievement gap,” based on differences in standardized achievement test
scores between different socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, gender, or disability groups, has become
a potent symbol in American society. In this context, students may justifiably perceive large‐
scale, standardized testing as both a symbol and a means of their own marginalization. This can
lead to phenomena such as stereotype threat (Steele, 2010), in which students’ concern—that
their performance might reinforce a stereotype—takes up working memory that is then not avail-
able for processing assessment items, lowering performance.
High‐stakes contexts increase the emotionality of the assessment situation. Teachers have
reported students having physical symptoms of stress (nausea, headache), “freezing” in testing
situations, and otherwise manifesting emotional states during large‐scale testing events that can-
not but interfere with performance (Nolen, Haladyna, & Haas, 1989). This response varies among
schools and classrooms, depending, in part, on the emphasis placed by the school and district on
test performance. With policies like No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top, the emphasis
on standardized test performance has become pervasive in the United States and in other nations
with similar testing policies.
Classroom assessment does not have to elicit negative emotions, even when stakes may
be relatively high for students. When assessment activities are cast as a means for monitoring
student learning, measuring both strengths and weaknesses and used to inform future learning
and instruction, assessment can be seen by students as an important part of the learning pro-
cess. Successful youth coaches, like good teachers, constantly monitor and provide formative
feedback to players that both encourages and challenges them to learn new things, or learn
them better. The sports themselves provide multiple ways for youth to assess their own perfor-
mance in relation to expert play (Nasir, 2011; Nasir & Hand, 2008). In school classrooms, this
can be more difficult. Unlike many sports, models of expert performance in mathematics, sci-
ence, literary analysis, and the like are not readily available to students. Teachers must help
students learn the criteria of competent performance along with the skills and knowledge of
their disciplines if they are to help students develop the ability to self‐assess and progress
autonomously.
16.6 Teacher Assessment Practices The ideas presented above suggest that many strategies are needed to support diverse students
during assessment events. Language complexity should be appropriate for students, potential
sources of bias should be minimized, efforts should be made to increase students’ engagement so
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30516.6 Teacher Assessment Practices
that students truly show what they know and can do and to minimize the influences of high‐stakes
tests on the classroom environment.
Neither teachers nor publishers can eliminate all possible factors that influence students’
performance on classroom assessments. In countries with great diversity, it is difficult to cre-
ate standardized educational materials that will perfectly fit each and every student. However, to
make classroom assessments more appropriate for diverse students, teachers can take several
steps.
First, teachers can create classroom contexts where assessment is seen as a strategy for
supporting learners rather than labeling, grading, or comparing students. Much has been written
about the powerful impact of formative assessment practices on students’ achievement and sense
of well‐being (see, e.g., Black and Wiliam, 1988). In a supportive context, all assessment activi-
ties are focused on valued work (rather than trivial information), students understand the criteria
for high‐quality work, performance expectations are public, and students know how to evaluate
their own work. Teachers can ensure that assignments have relevance to the students’ lives out-
side of school—linking projects and performances to students’ own lives and the communities in
which they live.
Teachers may have to accept that they and the materials used in their classrooms are
biased—maybe a little; maybe a lot. It is difficult to recognize one’s own biases, but working
together, teachers can develop review processes that help them to locate potential sources of bias
in assessment materials.
Teachers can adjust classroom assessments to make them more appropriate for the stu-
dents. One of the simplest adjustments is to remove multiple‐choice answers from any items or
tasks that require higher order thinking skills (such as interpretations, conclusions, and evalua-
tions). Teachers can teach students how to develop responses in which they clearly state their
positions and support them with evidence. Making claims and supporting them with text‐based
evidence are skills consistent with new college and career readiness standards such as the
Common Core State Standards. With practice, students successfully share their own text‐based
interpretations, draw their own conclusions from scientific investigations, and solve mathemati-
cal problems using their own strategies. When students are allowed to do their own thinking, they
can show their knowledge and skills in ways that make sense to them. These tasks also provide
opportunities for students to draw on funds of knowledge outside of school, knowledge related to
their and their families’ experiences in the world outside of school, potentially resulting in more
nuanced and complex analyses (Flores‐Dueñas, 2003; Gonzaléz & Moll, 2005).
Teachers can develop their own assessments so that they can offer students better options
for demonstrating knowledge and skills. Teachers can develop high‐quality assessments that tar-
get the intended learning standards and are appropriate for their own students.
Project‐based assessments and performance assessments are easily adapted to the varying
needs and interests of students. In these performances and projects, if teachers offer students’
choice, students are more likely to be interested in the work and can select options that fit within
their own frames of reference (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
As teachers develop their own culturally relevant assessments, they have the responsibility
to consider three factors: (1) the degree to which the assessments will allow all students to show
what they know and can do related to the learning standards, (2) the relative difficulty of different
assessment choices, and (3) whether the materials, contexts, and expectations of the assessments
are free from bias and are sensitive to contexts that may cause distress to students. A clear sense
of the learning standards and practical experience can help teachers address the first two respon-
sibilities. Teachers can use the categories in Table 16.1 as a resource to check their own and each
other’s assessment materials.
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306 Classroom Assessment and Diversity
S U M M A R Y
This chapter presented some of the challenges educators face
when attempting to make classroom assessments relevant and
appropriate for the diverse students in their classrooms. Publishers
should recognize that classroom assessments merit the same scru-
tiny and care as instructional materials and large‐scale tests.
Through a systematic review process, publishers can improve the
quality of classroom assessments in the short term and learn how
to improve the cultural sensitivity of future assessments. Teachers
can also take steps to adjust and develop assessments so that they
are appropriate for their students. In addition, teachers can use
their understanding of the potentially detrimental impacts of the
social contexts in which assessments take place to create class-
room contexts where assessment tools are culturally appropriate,
relevant to students, and useful for supporting students’ learning.
Q U E S T I O N S A N D A C T I V I T I E S
16.1 What are some of the limitations of standardized tests for
accurately assessing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of
students from diverse groups?
16.2 In what ways do bias and sensitivity review (BSR) Panels
help to reduce cultural bias in standardized tests? Identify
some of the challenges that BSR panels experience when
they try to eliminate bias in standardized tests. Give specific
examples that are described in this chapter.
16.3 Describe strategies that teachers can use in the classroom to
improve the engagement of students from diverse groups in
assessment events.
16.4 Identify ways in which teachers can personalize assess-
ments for students from diverse groups.
16.5 Develop several test questions in math or the social stud-
ies that are authentic for African American and Mexican
American students who live in low‐income inner‐city
communities.
16.6 Interview a teacher who works in a culturally diverse
school and ask her to describe ways in which she tries to
construct classroom tests that are culturally appropriate
and sensitive.
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315
Glossary
African Americans U.S. residents and citi-
zens 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 cultural group. African Americans are
projected to increase from 39.9 million, or
12.6 percent of the population, in 2013 to
61.8 million, or 14.7 percent, in 2060 (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2012 , 2014 ). An excellent one‐
volume encyclopedia on African Americans is
Africana : The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (Appiah &
Gates, 1999 ).
Afrocentric curriculum A curriculum appr-
oach in which concepts, issues, problems, and
phenomena are viewed from the perspectives
of Africans and African Americans. This cur-
riculum is based on the assumption that
students learn best when they view situations
and events from their own cultural perspectives
(Asante, 1998 ).
American Indians See Native Americans and Alaska Natives .
Anglo Americans Americans whose biolog-
ical and cultural heritage originated in England
or Americans with other biological and cul-
tural heritages who have assimilated into the
dominant or mainstream culture in the United
States. This term is often used to describe the
mainstream U.S. culture or to describe most
White Americans. The non‐Hispanic, single‐
race White population is projected to slowly
decrease from 197.4 million in 2013 to 179
million in 2060. In fact, this group is projected
to lose population in the 2030s, 2040s, and
2050s and constitute 43 percent of the total pop-
ulation in 2060, down from 62.4 percent in 2013
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 , 2014 ).
Antiracist education A term used in the
United Kingdom and Canada to describe a pro-
cess used by teachers and other educators to
eliminate institutionalized racism from the
schools and society and to help individuals
develop nonracist attitudes. When antiracist
educational reform is implemented, curricu-
lum materials, grouping practices, hiring poli-
cies, teacher attitudes and expectations, and
school policy and practices are examined and
steps are taken to eliminate racism from these
school variables. A related educational reform
movement in the United States that focuses
more on individuals than on institutions is
known as prejudice reduction (Stephan &
Vogt, 2004 ).
Asian Americans 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 2013
were (in descending order) Chinese, Asian
Indians, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Koreans, and
Japanese. Other groups included Pakistanis,
Hmong, Cambodians, Taiwanese, Laotians,
Thailanders, and Indonesians. The Asian Amer-
ican population is projected to increase from
16 million in 2013 to 34.4 million by 2060. Its
share of the nation ’ s population is expected to
increase from 5.1 to 8.2 percent (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2012 , 2014 ).
Cultural assimilation A phenomenon that
takes place when one ethnic or cultural group
acquires the behavior, values, perspectives,
ethos, and characteristics of another ethnic
group and sheds its own cultural characteris-
tics. (For a further discussion of assimilation of
ethnic groups in the United States since the
1960s, see Alba & Nee, 2003 .)
Culture 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 envi-
ronment. Pluralistic nation‐states such as the
United States, Canada, and Australia are made
up of an overarching culture, called a macrocul- ture , which all individuals and groups in the
nation share. These nation‐states also have many
Banks-b02.indd 315 17-08-2015 22:44:18
316 Glossary
smaller cultures, called microcultures, that differ
in many ways from the macroculture or that con-
tain cultural components manifested differently
than in the macroculture. (See Chapters 1 and 2
for further discussions of culture.)
Disability The physical or mental character-
istics of an individual that prevent or limit that
person from performing specific tasks.
Discrimination The differential treatment of
individuals or groups based on categories such
as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation,
social class, or exceptionality.
Ethnic group A microcultural group or col-
lectivity that shares a common history and cul-
ture, 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 politi-
cal 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 identifica-
tion with their particular ethnic group, whereas
other members of the group have a very weak
identification with it.
Ethnic‐minority group 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 in
their societies. However, the Blacks in South
Africa, who are a numerical majority in their
nation‐state, were often considered a sociolog-
ical minority group by social scientists because
they had little political power until the consti-
tution of the Republic of South Africa was
established in 1996 (Moodley & Adam, 2004).
Ethnic studies The scientific and humanistic
analysis of behavior influenced by variables
related to ethnicity and ethnic group member-
ship. This term is often used to refer to special
school, university, and college courses and
programs that focus on specific racial and eth-
nic 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.
Eurocentric curriculum A curriculum in
which concepts, events, and situations are
viewed primarily from the perspectives of
European nations and cultures and in which
Western civilization is emphasized. This
approach is based on the assumption that
Europeans have made the most important
contributions to the development of the
United States and the world. Curriculum the-
orists who endorse this approach are referred
to as Eurocentrists or Western traditionalists.
European Americans See Anglo Americans.
Exceptional Term used to describe students
who have learning or behavioral characteris-
tics that differ substantially from those of most
other students and that require special attention
in instruction. Students who are intellectually
gifted or talented as well as those who have
disabilities are considered exceptional.
Gender A category consisting of behaviors
that result from the social, cultural, and psy-
chological factors associated with masculinity
and femininity in a society. Appropriate male
and female roles result from the socialization
of the individual within a group.
Gender identity An individual’s view of the
gender to which he/she belongs and his/her
shared sense of group attachment to other
males or females.
Global education A curriculum reform
movement concerned with issues and problems
Banks-b02.indd 316 17-08-2015 22:44:18
317 Glossary
related to the survival of human beings in the
world community. International studies is a part
of global education, but the focus of global edu-
cation is the interdependence of human beings
and their common fate regardless of the national
boundaries within which they live. Many teach-
ers confuse global education and international
studies with ethnic studies, which deal with eth-
nic groups within a particular national boundary,
such as the United States, Canada, or Australia.
Handicapism The unequal treatment of peo-
ple who are disabled and the related attitudes
and beliefs that reinforce and justify discrimina-
tion against people with disabilities. The term
handicapped is considered negative by some
people, who prefer the term disabled. “People
with disabilities” is considered a more sensitive
phrase than “disabled people” because the word
people is used first and given emphasis.
Hispanic Americans Americans who share
a culture, heritage, and language that origi-
nated in Spain. Most of the Hispanics living in
the United States have cultural origins in Latin
America. Many Hispanics in the United States
prefer to use the word Latino rather than
Hispanic, as do the editors of this book.
However, the U.S. Census uses the term
Hispanic. Most Hispanics in the United States
speak Spanish and are mestizos, persons of
mixed biological heritage. Most Hispanics in
the United States have an Indian as well as a
Spanish heritage, and many also have an
African biological and cultural heritage.
More than half the growth in the total pop-
ulation of United States between 2000 and 2013
was due to the increase in the Hispanic popula-
tion. The Hispanic population is projected to
more than double, from 54 million in 2013 to
128.8 million in 2060. Thus, nearly one in three
U.S. residents would be Hispanic (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2012, 2014). The largest groups of
Hispanics in the United States are Mexican
Americans (Chicanos), Puerto Ricans, and
Cubans. In 2013, there were 34.6 million
Mexican Americans, 5.1 million Puerto Ricans
in the mainland United States, 2 million Cubans,
and 12.2 million Hispanics from other nations,
notably Central and South America (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2014).
It is misleading to view Hispanics as one
ethnic group. Some Hispanics believe that the
word Hispanics can help to unify the various
Latino groups and thus increase their political
power. The primary identity of most Hispanics
in the United States, however, is with their par-
ticular group, such as Mexican American,
Puerto Rican American, or Cuban American.
Mainstream American A U.S. citizen who
shares most of the characteristics of the domi-
nant ethnic and cultural group in the nation.
Such individuals are usually White Anglo‐
Saxon Protestant and belong to the middle
class or a higher social class or perceive them-
selves as having middle‐class or higher social‐
class status.
Mainstream‐centric curriculum A curricu-
lum that presents events, concepts, issues, and
problems primarily or exclusively from the
points of view and perspectives of the main-
stream society and the dominant ethnic and
cultural group in the United States: White
Anglo‐Saxon Protestants. The mainstream‐
centric curriculum is also usually presented
from the perspectives of Anglo males.
Mainstreaming The process that involves
placing students with disabilities into the regu-
lar classroom for instruction. They might be
integrated into the regular classroom for part or
all of the school day. This practice was initi-
ated in response to Public Law 94‐142 (passed
by Congress in 1975), which requires that stu-
dents with disabilities be educated in the least
restrictive environment.
Multicultural education A reform move-
ment designed to change the total educational
environment so that students from diverse
racial and ethnic groups, students of both gen-
ders, exceptional students, and students from
each social‐class group will experience equal
educational opportunities in schools, colleges,
and universities. A major assumption of multi-
cultural 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
Banks-b02.indd 317 17-08-2015 22:44:18
318 Glossary
who have different cultural and gender charac-
teristics. See the first chapters in the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education
(Banks & Banks, 2004) and in The Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education (Banks, 2009) for further discus-
sions of multicultural education. The
Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education
(Banks, 2012) also contains many articles
related to multicultural education.
Multiculturalism A philosophical position
and movement that assumes that the gender,
ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity of a plural-
istic society should be reflected in all of the
institutionalized structures of educational
institutions, including the staff, the norms and
values, the curriculum, and the student body.
Native Americans and Alaska Natives U.S.
citizens who trace their biological and cultural
heritage to the original inhabitants in the land
that now makes up the United States. The term
Native American is sometimes used synony-
mously with American Indian. In 2013, the
four largest American Indian tribes were the
Navajo (304,744), the Cherokee (279,419),
the Sioux (126,485), and the Chippewa
(111,939). The Yup’ik (37,441) constituted the
largest group of Alaska Natives. Native
Americans and Alaska Natives are projected to
increase from 2.5 million in 2013 to 6.3 million
by 2060—from 0.8 to 1.5 percent of the total
population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012, 2014).
Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders U.S. citizens who self‐identify as
having Native Hawaiian and/or Pacific Islander
descent. This group comprises Native Hawaiian
(179,489), Samoan (105,235), Guamanian or
Chamorro (63,655), and other Pacific Islanders
(177,371). This population is projected to more
than double, from 0.52 million in 2013 to 1.4 mil-
lion by 2060 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012, 2014).
People of color Groups in the United States
and other nations who have experienced dis-
crimination historically because of their unique
biological characteristics that enabled poten-
tial discriminators to identify them easily.
African Americans, Asian Americans, and
Hispanics in the United States are among the
groups referred to as people of color. Most mem-
bers of these groups still experience forms of
discrimination today. The U.S. Census Bureau
(2012, 2014) projects that ethnic minorities will
increase from 37.6 percent of the nation’s popu-
lation in 2013 to 57 percent in 2060. Ethnic
minorities made up 118 million of the total U.S.
population of 316 million in 2013 (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2012, 2014). Approximately 55 percent
of the nation’s school‐age youths will be of color
by the year 2023 (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2013).
Positionality An idea that emerged out of
feminist scholarship stating that variables such
as an individual’s gender, class, and race are
markers of that individual’s relational position
within a social and economic context and
influence the knowledge that the person pro-
duces. Consequently, valid knowledge requires
an acknowledgment of the knower’s position
within a specific context (see Chapter 6).
Prejudice A set of rigid and unfavorable atti-
tudes toward a particular individual or group
that is formed without consideration of facts.
Prejudice is a set of attitudes that often leads to
discrimination, the differential treatment of
particular individuals and groups.
Race A term that refers to the attempt by
physical anthropologists to divide human
groups according to their physical traits and
characteristics. This has proven to be very dif-
ficult because human groups in modern socie-
ties are highly mixed physically. Consequently,
different and often conflicting race typologies
exist. An excellent book on the social construc-
tion of race that gives a historical perspective
on it is Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race
(Jacobson, 1999).
Racism A belief that human groups can be
validly grouped according to their biological
traits and that these identifiable groups inherit
certain mental, personality, and cultural charac-
teristics that determine their behavior. Racism,
however, is not merely a set of beliefs but is
practiced when a group has the power to enforce
laws, institutions, and norms based on its beliefs
which oppress and dehumanize another group.
Banks-b02.indd 318 17-08-2015 22:44:18
319 Glossary
Three informative references on racism are
Racism: A Short History (Fredrickson, 2002),
Two‐Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage (Picca & Feagin, 2007), and
Education and Racism: A Primer on Issues and Dilemmas (Leonardo & Grubb, 2014).
Religion A set of beliefs and values, espe-
cially about explanations that concern the
cause and nature of the universe, to which an
individual or group has a strong loyalty and
attachment. A religion usually has a moral
code, rituals, and institutions that reinforce and
propagate its beliefs.
Sex The biological factors that distinguish
males and females, such as chromosomal,
hormonal, anatomical, and physiological
characteristics.
Sexism Social, political, and economic
structures that advantage one sex group over
the other. Stereotypes and misconceptions
about the biological characteristics of each sex
group reinforce and support sex discrimina-
tion. In most societies, women have been the
major victims of sexism. However, males are
also victimized by sexist beliefs and practices
(see Chapter 5 for a discussion of sexism).
Social class A collectivity of people who
have a similar socioeconomic status based on
such criteria as income, occupation, education,
values, behaviors, and life chances. Lower
class, working class, middle class, and upper
class are common designations of social class
in the United States. Chapter 3 discusses social
class and how it influences education.
R E F E R E N C E S
Alba, R. D., & Nee, V. (2003). Remaking the American mainstream: Assimilation and contemporary immigra- tion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Appiah, K. A., & Gates, H. L., Jr. (Eds.). (1999). Africana: The encyclopedia of the African and African American experience. New York: Perseus.
Asante, M. K. (1998). The Afrocentric idea (rev. ed.).
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Banks, J. A. (Ed.). (2009). The Routledge international companion to multicultural education. New York &
London: Routledge.
Banks, J. A. (Ed.). (2012). Encyclopedia of diversity in education (4 vols.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.
Banks, J. A., & Banks, C. A. M. (Eds.). (2004). Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed.).
San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass.
Fredrickson, G. M. (2002). Racism: A short history.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jacobson, M. F. (1999). Whiteness of a different color: European immigrants and the alchemy of race.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Leonardo, Z., & Grubb, W. N. (2014). Education and rac- ism: A primer on issues and dilemmas. New York &
London: Routledge.
Moodley, K. A., & Adam, H. (2004). Citizenship educa-
tion and political literacy in South Africa. In
J. A. Banks (Ed.), Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives (pp. 159–183). San Francisco:
Jossey‐Bass.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2013).
Enrollment and percentage distribution of enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools, by race/ ethnicity and region: Selected years, fall 1995 through fall 2023. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs
/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.50.asp.
Picca, L. H., & Feagin, J. (2007). Two‐faced racism: Whites in the backstage and frontstage. New York:
Routledge.
Stephan, W., & Vogt, W. P. (Eds.). (2004). Education pro- grams for improving intergroup relations: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College
Press.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2012, December). U.S. Census Bureau projections show a slower growing, older, more diverse nation a half century from now. Re trieved from
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives
/population/cb12‐243.html.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2014, July). ACS demographic and housing estimates: 2013 American community survey 1‐year estimates. Retrieved from http://factfinder
. census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview
.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_1YR_DP05&prodType=table.
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Banks-b02.indd 320 17-08-2015 22:44:18
321
Contributors
Cherry A. McGee Banks is professor of education at the University of Washington, Bothell. Her
publications include Improving Multicultural Education: Lessons from the Intergroup Education Movement . Professor Banks has served on several national committees and
boards and serves on the executive committee of the Washington Women ’ s Foundation.
James A. Banks holds the Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair in Diversity Studies and is
founding director of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington,
Seattle. His research focuses on multicultural education and diversity and citizenship educa-
tion in a global context. He is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education ,
published by Sage in four volumes in 2012.
Jill Bevan‐Brown is an associate professor of inclusive education at Massey University Institute
of Education, New Zealand. Of Maori heritage, she has a particular interest in the special
education needs of Maori children and has concentrated her writing and research on their
welfare and education.
Sara C. Bicard is associate professor of special education at Auburn University, Montgomery,
Alabama. Her research interests include reading instruction and materials for students with
reading difficulties, active student responding, and inclusive practices.
Patty Bode recently returned to PK‐12 public schools as the magnet resource teacher for inte-
grating arts at Springfield Conservatory of the Arts in Springfield, Massachusetts Public
Schools. Her research focuses on multicultural education, urban art education, and integrat-
ing visual art, dance, music, drama, and media arts in the K‐12 curriculum.
Christina Convertino is assistant professor in sociocultural foundations in the Teacher Education
Department at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her research and teaching focus on the
social, cultural, and organizational contexts of education, with particular attention to spatial
justice, community‐based pedagogies, and youth identities.
Norma González is a professor in language, reading, and culture in the Department of Teaching,
Learning, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona. Her research includes
issues related to anthropology and education and language and language socialization. Her
works include Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms (with Luis Moll and Cathy Amanti).
William L. Heward is professor emeritus of special education at The Ohio State University. His
research interests include increasing the effectiveness of group instruction and the generali-
zation and maintenance of newly learned knowledge and skills. His publications include
Exceptional Children (11th ed.) and Applied Behavior Analysis (2nd ed.) (with John Cooper
and Timothy Heron).
Bradley A. Levinson is professor of education at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he
also has adjunct appointments in anthropology, Latino studies, and Latin American studies.
He specializes in the study of youth, secondary education, citizenship education for democ-
racy, and policy. His most recent books include Beyond Critique: Exploring Critical Social Theories and Education and A Companion to the Anthropology of Education (with Mica
Pollock).
Banks-b03.indd 321 17-08-2015 22:45:23
322 Contributors
Charles H. Lippy is the LeRoy A. Martin Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus
at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. His interests in American religious life range
widely, with an emphasis on current issues. Coeditor of the four‐volume Encyclopedia of Religion in America, he recently coauthored Religion in Contemporary America with Eric
Tranby.
Cris Mayo is professor and associate head in the Department of Education Policy, Organization
and Leadership and director of Online Learning at the College of Education at the University
of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Her publications in queer studies and philosophy of edu-
cation include LGBTQ Youth and Schools: Policies and Practice.
Luanna H. Meyer is professor emerita in education at Victoria University in Wellington,
New Zealand. She has published on inclusive education, achievement motivation, world‐
mindedness, culturally responsive education, the role of the professoriate, and restorative
discipline. She is editor‐in‐chief of Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO) in Education.
Sonia Nieto is professor emerita of Language, Literacy, and Culture, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst. A Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and a Laureate of
Kappa Delta Pi, she has written widely on multicultural education and the education of
students of diverse backgrounds. She has received many awards, including five honorary
doctorates for her research, advocacy, and service.
Susan B. Nolen is professor of learning sciences and human development, University of
Washington, Seattle. Her research focuses on the development of motivation to learn in
social contexts, including teachers’ motivation to learn and their assessment practices. She
coauthored Classroom Assessment: Supporting Teaching and Learning in Real Classrooms. Hyun‐Sook Park is professor of special education in the Connie L. Lurie College of Education
at San Jose State University. Her major research interests are social relationships of students
with disabilities, transition from school to work, global mindedness, special education for
culturally and linguistically diverse students, and research methods.
Leslie H. Picca is department chair and associate professor of sociology at the University of
Dayton. Her coauthored publications in racial relations include the books Jim Crow’s Legacy: The Lasting Impact of Segregation and Two‐Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage. Her academic interests focus on how everyday interactions maintain struc-
tural inequalities.
Diane S. Pollard is professor emerita of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin–
Milwaukee. Her research and writing has focused on intersections of race and gender and
factors underlying the successful academic achievement of African American children.
David Sadker, professor emeritus at American University, is a Courage and Renewal facilitator
and author of numerous books, including Teachers, Schools, and Society and Still Failing at Fairness. He invites readers interested in gender issues, dissertation scholarships, and
teacher awards to visit www.sadker.org, and those interested in personal growth and mind-
fulness to visit www.courageaz.com.
Catherine Savage (Ngāi Tahu) is an educational psychologist and researcher in Christchurch,
New Zealand. Her research interests include culturally responsive behavior support, indig-
enous education, and community participation in educational reform.
Catherine S. Taylor is professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Seattle, and vice
president of Measurement Services for Measured Progress, a not‐for‐profit assessment
provider in Dover, New Hampshire. Her areas of research include validity and bias issues
in large‐scale testing as well as effective implementation of classroom‐based assessment
practices.
Ruth Thompson‐Miller is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Dayton. Her
research specializations are race and ethnicity, mental illness, and the elderly. She received
the American Sociological Association (ASA)–National Institute of Mental Health–Minority
Banks-b03.indd 322 17-08-2015 22:45:23
323Contributors
Fellowship. She is the coauthor of Jim Crow’s Legacy: The Lasting Impact of Segregation. She is the author of chapters in Counseling Psychology, Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations, and Violence Against Women.
Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault is provost emerita at Portland State University. Her most recent
book (with Frances Maher) is Privilege and Diversity in the Academy. She is also the author
(with Frances Maher) of The Feminist Classroom (2nd ed.).
Manka M. Varghese is associate professor of language, literacy, and culture at the University of
Washington, Seattle. Her academic specialization is linguistic minority education, focusing
on teacher education and access to higher education for linguistic minorities in the United
States as well as linguistic minority education in Italy.
Lois Weis is State University of New York Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School of
Education at the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses largely on poor and working‐
class youth and young adults, and the complex role gender and race play in their lives in
light of contemporary global dynamics. Her books include Class Warfare: Class, Race, and College Admissions at Top‐Tier Secondary Schools (with Kristin Cipollone & Heather
Jenkins) and The Way Class Works: Readings on School, Family, and the Economy.
Karen Zittleman has taught in elementary and middle schools and at American University. She
is the coauthor of Teachers, Schools, and Society and Still Failing at Fairness. Her academic
interests focus on educational equity, teacher preparation, and contemplative education. She
also facilitates workshops on entrepreneurism, conscious aging, and purposeful living.
Banks-b03.indd 323 17-08-2015 22:45:23
Banks-b03.indd 324 17-08-2015 22:45:23
325
Index
A
Ability grouping, inequalities produced by, 45–47
Academic achievement and attainment:
achievement gap, 26
and class‐related stratification, 45, 50
and cost of sexism, 84
and culture, 32–35
and expenditures on schools, 43
and family background, 43
and gender, 3
and students ’ languages, 266
Academic and disciplinary language‐based theories, 202
Academic proficiency, 202
Acceptance of all students, 265–266
Acculturation, 29
defined, 29
dissonant, 29
multiple, 161
Achievement gap, 26, 304. See also Academic achieve-
ment and attainment
Acquisition, cultural, 30
Adaptation, culture as, 27–28
Adaptive knowledge, 37
Addams, J., 101
Additive approach:
multicultural curriculum reform, 157–159, 164
Adorno, T. W., 251–252
Advanced Placement (AP) courses, 296
African Americans, 3
ability grouping of, 45–46
academic achievement of, 92
bidialectal, 189
Black English/Ebonics, 160, 189, 193, 195, 196
building on assets/strengths of, 127
classroom experiences of, 122–123
and core culture, 9–10
and cost of sexism, 84
and cultural difference model, 34
defined, 315
with disabilities, 119, 124
distorted history of, 158
ethnic identities of, 280
exclusion and marginalization of, 45
feelings unsafe at school, 140
field sensitivity in, 11
gender definitions imposed on, 118
and gender equity issues, 116–117
graduation rates for, 122
in interracial marriages, 280
as involuntary minority, 34
learning disabled, 15
as microculture, 9
most famous Americans chosen by, 152
music of, 153, 161
obtaining knowledge about, 127
poverty rate for, 283–284
religions of, 61
southern U.S. culture influenced by, 161
in special education, 229
stereotypes of, 117–118, 126
teacher perceptions and expectations of, 121, 126
as teachers, 127
in textbooks, 87
track placement of, 47
within‐group heterogeneity, 120
Afrocentric:
curriculum, 315
scholars, 154
Agency, 30
Ahlgrim‐Delzell, L., 250
Ahmed, A., 301
Aiello, B., 219
Ainscow, M., 248
Alabama, 194
Alaska, 280
Alaskan Natives. See also Native Americans
languages of, 189
poverty rate for, 283–284
teacher relationships with, 36
Alexie, S., 268
Algebra Project, 270
Alger, H., 7
Allport, G. W., 17
Ally students/adults for LGBTQ populations, 139, 141
Amanti, C., 266
“American dilemma,” 8
“American exceptionalism,” 7–8
American Indians. See also Native Americans
in interracial marriages, 280
languages of, 189
poverty rate for, 283
two‐spirit people, 138
American Psychological Association (APA), 86
Americans with Disabilities Act, 225
Anaya, R. A., 161
Andrade, R., 37
Angelou, M., 110
Anglo Americans. See also Whites
defined, 315
teachers, 26, 34
Anthony, S. B., 152
Antibias, in school reform, 262–265
Antiracist educational reform, 262–265, 315
Anyon, J., 48
APA, see American Psychological Association
AP courses, see Advanced Placement courses
Banks-bind.indd 325 8/31/2015 9:33:13 PM
326 Index
Apetheker, H., 136
Apple, M., 48
Arizona:
bilingual education in, 196
English learners in, 192
English‐only legislation in, 33
undocumented immigrant students in, 194
Arkansas, 153
Artiles, A. J., 237, 239, 241, 244
Arum, R., 48
Asher, N., 119, 126
Ashton, D., 53
Asian Americans. See also Chinese Americans
academic achievement of, 92
classroom experiences of, 122
and cost of sexism, 84
defined, 315
English language instruction for, 199
feelings of unsafe at school, 140
and gender equity issues, 117
graduation rates for, 122
in interracial marriages, 280
obtaining knowledge about, 127
poverty rate for, 284
and religious pluralism, 71–72
in special education, 229
teacher perceptions and expectations of, 121
in textbooks, 87
within‐group heterogeneity for, 119–120
Asian cultures, 7
Assets, building on, 127–128
Assimilation:
and cultural deficit model, 33
and establishment of a multicultural curriculum, 154
segmented, 191
Athletics, 85
At risk (term), 215, 261
Attucks, C., 155
August, D., 194, 197, 198, 203
Authenticity, student’s, 302
Au, W., 268
Ayers, W., 157
B
Baby boomers, 70
Backstage racism, 171–185
actionable steps for decreasing, 182–184
comparing journals of students, 181–182
context of, 172
frontstage racism vs., 174–175
and journal keeping, 173–174
research methodology, 172–173
of students of color, 178–181
of White students, 174–178
Bacon, J. N., 121
Baker, C., 195, 197, 198. See also Chinese Americans
Baker, K., 197–198
Bal, A., 239
Baldwin, J., 158
Ball, E., 159
Banks, C. A. M., 45
Banks, J. A., 45, 47, 163, 166, 267
multicultural curriculum approaches, 155–166
Barletta, L. M., 237
Barnett, R. C., 91
Bartolomé, L., 204
Barton, C., 101
Basic interpersonal conversational skills (BICS), 202
BE, see Black English and Ebonics
BEA, see Bilingual Education Act
Becker, W. C., 218
Beecher, C., 82
Belenky, M. F., 9
Bell, A., 49
Bell, E. O., 44
The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray), 16
Benjamin Franklin High School (New York), 279
Berla, N., 277
Bernstein, B., 48
Berry, C., 153
Berry, R., 250
Bertrand, J., 244
Bethune, M. M., 101
Bevan‐Brown, J., 244, 246
Bhabha, H., 31
Bhatti, G., 123
Bias and sensitivity reviewers (BSR):
catch issues, 298
categories, 296, 297
consistency with culture, 298–299
culturally inappropriate tasks, 299
diversity, in other category, 298
interpretations, 299
large‐scale test developers, 296
materials and assessment tasks, 296–297
test item/performance task, 297
BICS, see Basic interpersonal conversational skills
Bidialectal education, 189, 193, 195
Bifocal curriculum, 101–103
Bigelow, B., 268
Bilingual education, 193, 195–198
Bilingual Education Act (BEA), 193, 194
Bisexual. See also Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
and queer
defined, 94–95
Black Dialect, 193
Black Elk, 158
Black English (BE), 160, 193, 195. See also Ebonics
Black Feminist Thought (Collins), 118
“Black,” in U.S. culture, 13, 14. See also African
Americans
Blue laws, 67
Blueprint for Reform, 240
Boas, F., 27
Bode, P., 260, 264, 267
Bonner, F. A., 128
Booth, T., 248
Borderlands, 31
Borderless economies, 190
Boston Teachers Union School, 269
Banks-bind.indd 326 8/31/2015 9:33:13 PM
327Index
Bourdieu, P., 48, 50
Bowen, W. G., 49, 51
Bowles, S., 43, 48, 270
“Boy crisis,” 90–92
Boykin, A. W., 269
Bradley, C., 127
Bridge, T. L., 121
Brint, S., 49
Browder, D. M., 250
Brown, P., 53
BSR, see Bias and sensitivity reviewers
Buddhism, 70–72, 76
Bullivant, B. M., 5, 285
Bullying, 85, 140
Bulosan, C., 161
Bush, G. H. W., 196, 259
Butler, J., 106
Byard, E., 117
C
Cabrera, N. L., 152
Caldwell, C. H., 120
Caldwell, J. H., 301
Calhoun, A., 117–119, 127
California:
bilingual education in, 195
English learners in, 192
English‐only legislation in, 33
LGBTQ history in, 134, 137
undocumented immigrant students in, 194
California State University, 244
CALLA, see Cognitive academic language learning
approach
CALP, see Cognitive academic language proficiency
Calvin, J., 61
Campbell, C. M., 44
Capital, cultural, 29
Carpenter, B. D., 201
Carter, P. I., 123
Carter, P. L., 261
Carver, G. W., 157
Carver, R., 43
Castañeda, A., 9
Catholic Church, 10
CBI, see Content‐based instruction
CCSS, see Common Core State Standards
Chavez, C., 155
Cheung, A., 198
Child find system, 220
Children of the Rainbow, 137
China, groupism in, 7
Chinese Americans, educational achievement of, 34.
See also Asian Americans
Chingos, M. M., 49
Cho, G., 121
Chomsky, N., 192
Christianity:
brought to North America, 60
common themes among sects, 61–62
evangelical Protestantism, 62–63
and homophobia, 142
and religious freedom, 63–66
and religious pluralism, 69–71
Cipollone, K., 51
Citizenship, flexible, 53
Civil, M., 37
Civil rights:
and gay liberation movement, 135–136
and gender bias, 82–84
movement, 3–4, 211, 219
Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42
Clark, B., 49
Clark, C. S., 289
Clark, E., 83
Classroom assessment:
AP courses, 296
BSR, see Bias and sensitivity reviewers
classroom‐based and large‐scale tests, 301
engagement, effects of, 301–303
potential bias, DIF analyses, 300
reading assessments, 301
recommending practices, 296
social context of assessment, 303–304
standardized testing framework, 295–296
teacher assessment practices, 304–305
CLD, see Culturally and linguistically diverse
Clinton, B., 195
Coeducation, 92
Cognitive academic language learning approach
(CALLA), 203
Cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), 202
Cohen, E., 167
Coleman, J., 43
“The Coleman Report,” 43
College enrollments and majors, 85–86
Colleges, see Postsecondary education
Collins, P. H., 116, 118
Colonialism, 118, 124
Color‐blindness, 174, 182–183, 264
Coltrane, S., 126
Columbus, C., 153
Combahee River Collective, 136
Comer, J., 243, 291–292
Common Core Standards, 200
Common Core State Standards (CCSS), 259, 305
Communities of practice, 30
Community support, enlisting, 288–289
Compton Cafeteria riots, 135
Conchas, G. Q., 261
Content‐based instruction (CBI), 203, 204
Content integration, 16
Contexts of reception, 191
Continuum of services, 222, 223
Contributions approach:
multicultural curriculum reform, 155–157, 164
Contributions curriculum, 101, 102
Cookson, P., 51
Cooperative learning, 204, 249
Corallo, C., 199, 203
Cornbleth, C., 48
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328 Index
Correspondence principle, 48
Corter, C., 244
Cortes, H., 153
Covello, L., 279
Crawford, J., 196
Creating culture(s), 28–29
Creationism, 27, 68
Criterion‐referenced tests, 43
Critical pedagogy, 267–268
Crosnoe, R., 119
Cullen, C., 162
Cultural acquisition, 30
Cultural assimilation, 315. See also Assimilation
Cultural capital, 29
Cultural change, 29–30
Cultural deficit models, 32–34, 265–266
Cultural difference model, 33–34
Cultural identity, 31
Culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD):
students, 236, 238–239. See also Special education
Culturally competent teaching, 245
Culturally responsive interventions, 246–248
Culturally responsive teaching:
interventions in, 246–248
and perceptions of culture, 35
preintervention, 245–246
Culturally situated schooling, 248
Cultural modeling, 36
Cultural production, 30
Cultural psychology, 29–31
Cultural relativism, 27
Cultural self‐review, 246
Cultural styles approach, 35
Cultural transmission, 25, 27–29
Culture(s), 5–12, 24–38
as adaptation, 27–28
change in, 28–31
continuity of, 28–30
core, 6
creating, 28–29
critiques of, 31–32
defined, 6, 25–27, 315–316
early origins of, 27
and educational achievement, 32–35
getting to know, 25–26
and group identification, 10–11
and learning in context, 36–37
and learning in the 21st century, 35, 36
meanings and uses of concept, 25–26, 36
micro‐, 8–10
in multicultural societies, 24
and parental involvement, 242
putting culture to work, 25, 35–36
school, 19
substance of, 25
as transmission, 25, 27–29
Culture of poverty, 32
Cummins, J., 196, 202, 266, 269
Curie, M., 101
Curran, M., 250
Curriculum, 98–112. See also Multicultural
curriculum reform
Afrocentric, 315
bifocal, 101–103
contributions, 101, 102
Eurocentric, 316
feminism and, 4
feminist phase theory frame for, 99
gender‐balanced, 99, 106–107
gender bias in, 86–88
honoring diversity in, 266
inclusive, 137, 141
LGBTQ issues in, 134–135
mainstream‐centric, 317
male‐defined, 99–100
manifest vs. latent, 20
women’s, 103–105
Curtis, C. K., 14
Cycles of American history, 6
D
Dalai Lama, 72
Dame schools, 82
Darling‐Hammond, L., 296, 302
Davis, J., 153
Davis, K., 276
Day of Silence, 144
DeCastro‐Ambrosetti, D., 121
Decision making, in social action approach, 161–163
Declaration of Independence, 6
De Kanter, A., 198
Delpit, L. D., 193
Demerath, P., 51
Democracy, 61, 64
Derman‐Sparks, L., 166
Des Moines, I., 138
Dialect variation, 192–193
Diaz, E. M., 140, 280
Dickinson, E., 108–109
Dieckmann, J., 296
Differential item functioning (DIF) analyses, 300
Disability(‐ies), 14, 317. See also Students with
disabilities
of African American women, 119
defined, 214, 316
and gender, 116, 119, 124. See also Gender equity
as social construct, 215–216
Disciplinary language approach, 202–204
Discipline, racial differences in, 92
Discourse, 31
Discrimination, 264, 318
Civil rights movement and, 3
confronting and addressing, 125–126
and contributions approach, 156
defined, 316
in identifying students with disabilities, 220–221
racial, 182
Dissonant acculturation, 29
Diverse Urban Interdisciplinary Teams project, 244
Diversity:
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329Index
and gender equity, 118–119, 125–128
parent/family, 277, 279–282
religious, 60–62, 75
and special education, 229–230
Dix, D., 101
Dolby, N., 262
Dougherty, K. J., 49
Dropouts, 84
Dual frames of reference, 29
Dual‐language programs, 197, 199. See also Bilingual
education
DuBois, W. E. B., 47, 155
Due process, 223–224
Dunn, L., 236
Dynamic, culture as, 31, 35
E
Earhart, A., 152
Earnings, 86
Early intervention programs, 228
Ebonics, 189, 193, 196. See also Black English
Eck, D., 73
Economic inequalities, 44–45, 48
Economy, global, 52–53
Eddy, M. B., 66
Edison, T., 152
Education:
antiracist, 315
bidialectal, 195
bilingual, 193, 195–198
and continuity of culture, 29
and cultural change, 29–31
global, 316–317
inclusive, 227
meaning of “culture” in, 26, 27
multicultural, see Multicultural education
reform efforts, see School reform
schooling vs., 28
Educational achievement, see Academic achievement and
attainment
Educational equality, for students with disabilities,
218–219, 226–230
Educational systems, adaptive/maladaptive, 37
Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, 4,
211, 220
Educators. See also Teachers
demographics of, 125
and parent involvement, 286–287
as role models, 125
Edumetric tests, 43
Edwards, P. A., 238
Effective teaching profile (ETP), 247
Einstein, A., 152
Eisenhower, D. D., 69
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), 193,
225, 259
ELs, see English learners
Eliot, L., 94
Emergent, culture as, 31, 35
Emerson, R. W., 72
Employment:
and class‐related stratification, 45
and globalization, 52–53
of immigrants, 190
postsecondary education as sorting ground
for, 49
Enculturation, 29
Endo, R., 127
Engelmann, S., 218
English as a Second Language (ESL), 197, 198. See also
Bilingual education
English learners (ELs), 192–198
Enlightenment, 64–65
Enright, K. A., 188
Environmental racism, 268
Epstein, J. L., 277
Equality:
as part of U.S. core culture, 6
and school reform, 270
social, 152
for students with disabilities, 218–219, 226–230
Equity:
defined, 115
gender, see Gender equity
women’s, 116
Equity pedagogy, 17
Erickson, F., 20
ESEA, see Elementary and Secondary Education Act
ESL, see English as a Second Language and bilingual
education
Ethnic celebrations, 155
Ethnic content:
in additive approach, 157–159
in contributions approach, 155–157
in social action approach, 161–163
in transformation approach, 159–161
Ethnic group, 316. See also specific groups Ethnic identity, 11, 26
Ethnic institutions, 165
Ethnicity:
and gender, 115, 119. See also Gender equity
and LGBTQ groups, 145
and religious diversity, 61
and special education, 229
Ethnic‐minority group, 316. See also specific groups Ethnic studies, 316
Ethnic succession, 190
ETP, see Effective teaching profile
Eurocentric curriculum, 154–155, 316. See also
Multicultural curriculum reform
Eurocentrism, 27, 316
Europe, 48, 74
European Americans, see Whites
Evangelical Protestantism, 62–63
Everyday Antiracism (Pollock), 318
Evolutionism, 27
Exception (term), 316
Exceptionality, 211–212. See also Students with
disabilities
as social category, 14–15
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330 Index
Exclusion:
negative outcomes of, 251–252
special education as, 236–239
of students with disabilities, 218–219, 223–224
Expansionism, in U.S. core culture, 7–8
Expectations for learners, 269–270
F
Fahey, J., 52
“Faith‐based initiatives,” 75
Families. See also Parent/family involvement
changing nature of, 278–282
LGBTQ, 137
and special education, 242–243
unrealistic presentation of, 88
Feagin, J., 172, 173, 179, 183, 264
Females, see Gender
Feminists, 4, 103
The Feminist Classroom (Maher & Tetreault), 108, 109
Feminism:
pedagogy, 9, 107–109
scholarship, 100, 104, 106–108
spirituality, 70
Feminist phase theory, 99–112
bifocal curriculum, 101–103
contributions curriculum, 101
gender‐balanced curriculum, 106–107
male‐defined curriculum, 99–100
pedagogy, 107–109
sample lessons, 110–112
women’s curriculum, 103–105
Ferguson, A. A., 29
Ferguson, J., 31
Field dependency (field sensitivity), 9
Financial aid, 49
Fischer, S., 117
Flexible citizenship, 53
Florida, 61
Foley, D. E., 29
Ford, D. Y., 15, 298
Ford, M., 296
Fordham, S., 29
Foucault, M., 31
Founding Fathers, 6
Frames of reference, 29
Framework for Understanding Poverty (Payne), 32
France, 45, 74
Frank, C., 37
Franklin, B., 64, 152
Freire, P., 260, 267
Frenkel‐Brunswik, E., 251–252
Friedan, B., 4, 136
Frontstage racism, 172–175
Fuchs, D., 238
Fuchs, L. S., 238
Full‐service schools, 243
Funds of knowledge, 37, 266, 296, 305
G
Gamoran, A., 44, 47, 48
Garcia, E. E., 194
Gardenhire‐Crooks, A., 122
Gastic, B., 124
Gatti, S. N., 244
Gatzambide‐Fernández, R., 51
Gay(s), 13, 95–96. See also Lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer
Gay liberation movement, 135–136, 144
Gay marriage/civil unions, 137
Gay–straight alliances (GSAs), 95, 141, 144–145
Gender:
and academic achievement, 3
assumptions in research on, 127
concepts of, 117–118
contexts for questions about, 104
defined, 117, 316
gender similarities hypothesis, 93
and graduation rates, 122
interaction of race, class, and, 12
and other statuses, 116–118, 122, 124–125
as social construction, 14
of special education students, 211–212
teacher perceptions and expectations of, 121–122
two‐spirit people, 138
Gender‐balanced curriculum, 99, 106–107
Gender bias, 81–96
and the “boy crisis,” 90–92
cost of sexism in schools, 84–86
in current curriculum, 86–88
as hidden civil rights struggle, 82–84
and rebirth of single‐sex education, 92–94
strategies for eliminating, 95–96
in student–teacher interactions, 89–90
and support for LGBT, 94–95
Gender equity, 115–129
among diverse populations, 125–128
and concepts of gender, 117–118
confusion about, 82
and costs of sexism, 84–86
curriculum for, see Feminist phase theory
and diversity, 118–119
evolution of thinking about, 116–117
meanings of term, 115
supporting and promoting, 120–125
within‐group heterogeneity, 119–120
Gender identity:
of African American women, 118
defined, 316
and sexuality, 133–134. See also Lesbian
gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ,
LGBT)
Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, 141
Gender roles, 94
of immigrants, 119
of Native Americans, 117–119
Gender‐role expectations, 13
Gender similarities hypothesis, 93
Gender transgression, 133, 135
Georgia, 71, 194, 264
Gere, R., 72
Germany, immigrant populations in, 45
Geronimo, 155
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Gibbons, P., 204
Giftedness, 15
Gilligan, C., 9, 11
Ginorio, A. B., 123, 127, 128
Gintis, H., 48, 270
Global education, 316–317
Globalization:
changes brought on by, 35
and immigration, 190
and religious pluralism, 74
and social class, 52–53
and transculturation, 31
GLSEN National School Climate Study, 140, 141
Godley, A. J., 201
Goeman, M., 117
Goffman, E., 173
Goldin, G. A., 301
González, N., 37, 266
Goodlad, J. I., 277
Goodman, N., 10
Gordon, B., 47
Gordon, M., 190
Gordon‐Reed, A., 159
Gorski, P., 261
Gould, S. J., 16
Graduation rates:
and class‐related stratification, 45, 51
gender and racial differences in, 122
Grandparents, 277
Greene, J. P., 122, 198
Griffin, R. A., 126
Grim, B., 76
Groups, 10–11. See also specific groups educational needs of, 28
groupism, 7
identification, 10–11
GSAs, see Gay–straight alliances
Guided language acquisition design, 203
Gumport, P., 50
Gunn, S., 141
Gunter, P. L., 121
Guo, Y., 123
Gupta, A., 31
Guralnik, D. B., 117
Gutiérrez, K., 36
H
Haddad, Y. Y., 118, 126
Hakuta, K., 194, 197, 203
Hamilton, M., 87
Hamod, S., 159
Handicap, 214
Handicapism, 317
Handy, W. C., 161
Hansen, J. F., 28, 30
Harassment. See also Bullying
of LGBT people, 141–143
sexual, 85, 139–140
Harrington, M., 265
Harris, A. A., 250
Harry, B., 240, 241
Harvey, B., 268
Hawaii, 11
Heath, S. B., 5, 34
Hemings, S., 159
Henderson, A. T., 277
Henfield, M. S., 128
Henry, P., 155
Herberg, W., 69
Heroes/heroines, 155–157, 263
Herrnstein, R. J., 16
Heterogeneity, within‐group, 119–120
Heterosexism, 94–95, 138–142
Higareda, I., 237
High School and Beyond (HSB) studies, 47
Hill, L., 51
Hinduism, 72, 73
Hispanics, 71. See also Latinos/Latinas
academic achievement of, 91, 92
and cost of sexism, 84
defined, 317
as English learners, 237
exclusion and marginalization of, 45
graduation rates for, 122
poverty rate for, 284
and religious pluralism, 72
in textbooks, 87
Historic sites, Anglo‐centric perspective of, 153–154
History, in multicultural vs. mainstreamcentric
curricula, 155–161
Hoefnagel‐Höhle, M., 200
“Holiday and hero” approach, 26
Holland, D., 29
Holland, M. M., 124
Hombo, J. R., 44
Homophobia:
challenges to, 138–142
costs of, 140
education against, 142–143
teacher education about, 126
Homosexuality, 95, 138. See also Lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer
Hout, M., 44
Howard, A., 51
Howard, G., 155
Howard, T. C., 26
HSB, see High School and Beyond studies
Hughes, L., 161, 162
Humans, 27–28
Humor, racist, 176
Hybrid identities, 31
Hyde, J., 93
I
IDEA, see Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
IDEIA, see Individuals with Disabilities Education
Improvement Act
Identity(‐ies):
cultural, 31
ethnic, 11, 26
gender, 118, 133–134, 316
hybrid, 31
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332 Index
Identity(‐ies): (contd.) intersecting categories of, 140
racial, 26
Identity, struggle and resilience at SCotA school,
268–269
Ideological resistance, 154
IEPs, see Individualized education programs
IFSP, see Individualized family services plan
Immigrants, 188–191
and flexible citizenship, 53
free public education for, 194
gender roles of, 119
and linguistic diversity, 188, 189, 192
religions of, 62–63, 72
school involvement of, 279
and social/economic landscape, 45
in the United States, 189–191
voluntary vs. involuntary, 34–35
Impairment, 214
Inclusion, 248–251
curricula, 137, 141
education, 227
Income levels, 283, 284. See also Poverty
and class‐related stratification, 45
gender differences in, 85
and postsecondary education, 48–50
Indiana, 194
Indians of British Columbia, 27
Indigenous languages, 193
Individualism, as part of U.S. core culture, 7
Individualized education programs (IEPs), 221–223, 225,
226, 228, 230, 240, 242, 243
Individualized family services plan (IFSP), 228, 240
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 214,
219–224, 226, 227
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act
(IDEIA), 237, 238, 240, 242, 251
Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America (Jencks et al), 43
Inoue, Y., 119
Institutional racism, 263
Integration:
additive approach to, 157–159
content, 16
contributions approach to, 158
progressive, 219
social action approach to, 161–163
transformation approach to, 159–161
Intelligent design, 68
Interactional, culture as, 31, 36
Interactionist theory, 201
Interprofessional collaborative pilot project, 244
Interracial marriages, 280
Intersectional, gender identity, 133
Intersex people, 134, 139. See also Lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and queer
IQ scores, 16, 46
Islam, 71, 73, 76. See also Muslims
Isom, D. A., 118
“It Gets Better” campaign, 141
J
Jackson, J. S., 120
Jackson, N. R., 126
Japan, groupism in, 7
Jaquette, O., 152
Jefferson, T., 7, 64, 155, 156, 159
Jencks, C., 43
Jenkins, H., 51
Jennings, K., 139
Jennings, M. E., 121
Johnny and Susie’s Mountain Quest (Hamilton), 87
Johnson, L. B., 193
Johnson, T., 76
Jokes, racist, 175–177
Jones, J. E., III, 47, 69
Joslin, C., 117
Judaism, 65, 69
K
Kahn, S., 51
Karabel, J., 49
Karim, J., 118
Karp, S., 259, 268
Kashatok, G., 36
Katz, M. B., 270
Katz, W. L., 159
Kauffman, J. M., 218
Keller, H., 263, 298
Kenway, J., 52
Kienzl, G. S., 49
Kim, K.‐H., 242
King, L., 140
King, M. L., Jr., 152, 155, 157, 263
King‐Sears, M. E., 249
Kingston, M. H., 161
Klingner, J. K., 237–239
Knowledge:
adaptive, 37
distribution of, 47–48
funds of, 37, 266
“official,” 47–48
in social action approach, 161–163
symbolic, 28
transmission of, 30
White vs. Black presentation of, 47
Knowledge capitalism, 53
Knowledge construction process, 16–17
Kohl, H., 263
Kosciw, J.G., 117, 124, 126, 127, 140, 280, 281
Kozol, J., 263
Krashen, S., 201
Krauss, M., 189
Kristeva, 106
L
Ladson‐Billings, G., 33, 35, 45, 118, 122, 246, 261
Language(s):
and academic achievement, 266
biased, 88
diversity of, see Linguistic diversity
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333Index
indigenous, 192–193
learning and teaching, 199–204
theories of second language learning, 201–204
in the United States, 160
Language arts:
sample lessons for, 110
in transformation approach, 159, 161
Language policy, in the United States, 193
Lapayese, Y., 123
Lareau, A., 50
Lasker, B., 166
Lave, J., 301
Latent curriculum, 20
Latinos/Latinas, 317. See also Hispanics
building on assets/strengths of, 127
classroom experiences of, 122–125
and core culture, 9–10
with disabilities, 122
English language instruction for, 199
exclusion and marginalization of, 45
feelings of unsafe at school, 140
and gender equity issues, 117
as involuntary minority, 34–35
learning disabled, 15
as microculture, 8
obtaining knowledge about, 126–127
as teachers, 128
track placement of, 47
Lau, K. K., 194
Lauder, H., 53
Lave, J., 30
League of the Iroquois, 6
Learning, 258
in the 21st century, 35
in context, 36–37
and culture, 27
micro‐and macro‐level issues in, 261
and schooling, 259
using symbols in, 28
Learning disabled, classification of students
labeled as, 15
Learning to Labor (Willis), 30
Least restrictive environment (LRE), 221–223
L’Ecole des Annales, 105
Lee, A., 65
Lee, C. D., 35, 36
Lee, E., 268
Lee, R. E., 153
Lee, Y., 300, 301
Lerner, G., 106
Lesbian(s), 13, 94
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ,
LGBT), 132–145
challenges to homophobia and heterosexism,
138–139
curriculum and issues for, 134–135
and dilemmas of queer inclusion, 144–145
with disabilities, 124
education against homophobia, 142–143
gender equity for, 116
histories of multiculturalism and LGBTQ
movements, 135–137
LGBTQ issues and curriculum, 134–135
obtaining knowledge about, 126–127
in school community, 280–281
sexuality and gender identity, 133–134
support for, 95
teacher education about, 125
teacher perceptions and expectations of, 122
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) movement,
136–137, 144
Levin, M. H., 43
Levinson, B. A., 34
Levinson, D. J., 252
Lewis, O., 32, 265
LGBT, see Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer
LGBTQ, see Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
queer
Liang, G., 126
Lies across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong
(Loewen), 153
Liliuokalani, 101
Lincoln, A., 7, 156
Linguistic diversity, 188–205
and dialect variation, 192–193
and English‐only legislation, 33
increase in, 192
and indigenous languages, 192–193
and language learning/teaching, 199–201
programmatic responses to, 196
and theories of second language learning, 201–202
and U.S. immigrant population, 189–191
and U.S. language policy, 193
Llamas, J. M., 121
The Location of Culture (Bhabha), 31
Loewen, J. W., 17, 153, 154
Lucas, T., 191
Lynn, M., 121
Lyon, M., 82
M
Macroculture, 5, 315
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 72
Maher, F., 9, 108–110
Mainstream Americans, 317
Mainstream‐centric curriculum, 151–153, 317
Mainstreaming, 4, 248, 317
Maintenance bilingual education (MBE), 197
Males, see Gender
Male‐defined curriculum, 99–100
Manifest curriculum, 20
Manifest Destiny, 7–8
Maoris, 6
Marbley, A. F., 128
March on Washington (1963), 136
Marginalization, 6, 127
Marx, G. T., 10
Marx, R. W., 152
Marzano, R., 199, 203
Massachusetts, 137, 196
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Massing, M., 157
Mastery, 108
Mathematics, 2, 15, 110–112, 259, 299, 301, 304
achievement, gender differences in, 2
Mayhew, J., 64
Mazzeo, J., 44
McCarthy, C., 45
McDermott, P., 281
McDonald, D. H., 199, 203
McDonough, P., 51
McField, G. P., 119
McKisick, S., 128
McNeil, L., 48
McPherson, M. S., 50
Measures:
of school reform, 258
validity of, 43
Meehan, D., 90
Men, 9. See also Gender
Menkart, D., 268, 269
Mental retardation, 9, 14–15
Mercer, J. R., 9, 14
Mertens, D. M., 119, 124
Messineo, M., 126
Mestizos, 317
Mexican Americans:
and core culture, 9–10
educational achievement of, 33–34
field sensitivity in, 11
Mexico, 8
Meyer, L. H., 249
Michie, G., 264
Michigan, 192
Microaggressions, 179
Microcultures, 5, 8–10, 315
Middle class, 14. See also Social class
child‐rearing practices of, 50
jobs of, 53
Milem, J. F., 152
Miller, L., 268
Miller, W., 65
Miner, M., 82
Mings, E., 140
Minimal group paradigm, 3
Minnici, A., 201
Minorities. See also specific groups educational achievements of, 34–35
and gender equity issues, 116
“sundown towns” for, 154
women of, 115
Mismatch hypothesis, 33
The Mismeasure of Man (Gould), 16
Misogyny, 102
Moineau, P., 244
Moll, L., 37, 265
Momaday, N. S., 161
Monroe, M., 152
Monte‐Sano, C., 152
Moral analysis, in social action approach, 162–163
Morningstar, M. E., 242
Morphology, 200
Morrell, E., 266
Morrison, T., 118, 161
Mosaic theory, 24
Mount Holyoke, 82
Mounty, J., 119
Multicultural curriculum reform, 151–168
additive approach, 157–159, 164
contributions approach, 155–157, 164
efforts to establish, 154–155
guidelines for teaching content, 166–167
and mainstream‐centric curriculum, 151–153
mixing/blending approaches to, 163–166
social action approach, 161–163
transformation approach, 159–161, 164
Multicultural education:
about, 2–3
defined, 260, 317
definitions of, 5
dimensions of, 15–18
historical development of, 3–5
as reform movement, 3
scope of, 5
Multiculturalism:
defined, 318
histories of LGBTQ movement and, 135–137
meaning of “culture” in, 25
Multiculturalists, 154
Multicultural perspective, school reform with,
260–262
Multicultural society, 24
Multiple acculturation, 161
Multiracial students, feelings of unsafe at school in, 140
Murray, A. D., 269
Murray, C., 16
Muslims, 72–74
attire of, 126
gender equity for, 116
gender stereotypes of, 117–118
stereotypes of, 117–119
Myrdal, G., 8
N
Nasir, N. S., 35, 37, 152, 304
A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence
in Education), 258–259
Nation‐states, groups within, 28
Native Americans, 17. See also Alaskan Natives;
American Indians
academic achievement of, 92
classroom experiences of, 122, 123
and cost of sexism, 84
culturally responsive instruction for, 35
“discovery” of, 153
and gender equity issues, 116
gender roles for, 118
groupism among, 9
history from the perspective of, 155, 157–159
as involuntary minority, 34
obtaining knowledge about, 127
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stereotypes of, 126–127
as a term, 318
Native Americans and Alaska Natives, 318. See also
Alaskan Natives
Native Hawaiians:
in interracial marriages, 280
languages of, 189
poverty rate for, 283–284
Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, 318. See also Pacific Islanders
NCLB, see No Child Left Behind Act
NCME, see National Council on Measurement in
Education
Neihardt, J. G., 158
Neufeldt, V., 117
Neuroplasticity, 94
Nevada, 71, 192
Newman, L., 276
Newmann, F. M., 302
A New Religious America (Eck), 73
Newton, H., 136
New York City Board of Education, 137
New York State, 137
New Zealand, 6
Next Generation Science standards, 200
Ngo, B., 120
Nieto, S., 260, 264, 267
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 196, 225, 259
Noguera, P., 269
Norton, E. H., 118
Noyes, J. H., 65
Null curriculum, 87
O
Oakes, J., 46
Obama, B., 155, 157
Oesterreich, H. A., 127
Ogbu, J., 34, 45
Okazawa‐Rey, M., 268
Oklahoma, interracial marriages in, 280
Olsen, L., 199
“Opportunity gap,” 261
Opportunity, individual, 7
Oswald, D. P., 237
Oswalt, S. B., 121–122
Other‐race effect, 181
Our Country (Strong), 63
P
Pacheco, V. S., 296
Pacific Islanders:
and gender equity issues, 117
poverty rate for, 283
within‐group heterogeneity for, 119–120
Palin, S., 157
Parallel dual frames of reference, 29
PARC, see Pennsylvania Association for Retarded
Children
Parents:
learning resources for, 289
LGBTQ, 134
low‐income, 283–284
in partnerships with professionals, 244–245
production of privilege by, 50
single, 283
with special needs, 282–283
Parent/family involvement:
complexity of, 276–277
historical overview of, 279
under IDEA, 223–224
importance of, 277–278
increasing, 285–292
of LGBTQ parents, 137
in school reform, 269
in special education, 240–244
teacher concerns with, 284–285
Parent‐to‐parent programs, 244–245
Parks, R., 152, 157, 263
Partnerships:
general and special education, 227–228
with parents, 244–245
Patel, S., 244
Patterson, F. E., 121
Payne, R., 32
Pedagogy, 107–109
antihomophobia, 143
equity, 17
feminist, 9
inclusive, 248–250
meaning of, 107–108
multicultural, 143
and school reform, 267–268
Pelletier, J., 244
Pell Grants, 49
Penn, W., 60
Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children
(PARC), 219
People of color, 3. See also specific groups;
Students of color
in the arts, 161
defined, 318
and gender equity issues, 116
as immigrants, 190–191
LGBTQ, 145
Perney, V. H., 12
Perry, T., 193
Persell, C., 51
Person, A., 51
Petersen, A. J., 119, 127
Peterson, F. L., 121
Pew Research Religion and Public Life
Project, 74, 76
Phonology, 200
Picca, L. H., 172, 173, 179
Pitcher, M., 101
Pledge of Allegiance, 67
Pluralism:
Christian symbols, 70
in conceptualization of women, 103
religious, 69–74
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Pocahontas, 155
Political efficacy, 161
Political movements, 136
Political resistance, 154
Pollard, D. S., 121
Pollitt, A., 301
Pollock, M., 26, 37–38, 264
Polygamy, 66
Portes, A., 191
Positionality, 106, 108, 318
Postmodernism, 31
Postsecondary education:
and class‐related stratification, 45
and cost of sexism, 85
selectivity of institutions, 49, 51
and social class, 48–50
as sorting ground for employment, 48
and track placement, 46
Poststructuralism, 31
Poverty, 283
culture of, 32, 33
and educator–student relationship, 33
feminization of, 79
and parental involvement, 243–244
and postsecondary education, 48–50
and special education, 238
Power:
and “legitimate” knowledge, 47
preparing students for, 50
relations of, 34, 266
Pragmatics, 200
Prejudice, 172, 318
Prejudice reduction, 17
Price, L., 161
Prince George’s County, Maryland, 291
Private schools, 51
Privilege(s):
of cultural capital, 29
production of, 50
of social class, 50–52
Production, cultural, 30
Professional–parent interaction, 244
Progressive integration, 219
Protestant, Catholic, Jew (Herberg), 69
Protestant work ethic, 7
Proweller, A., 51
Psychometric tests, 43
Public–private partnerships, 259
Public sites, Anglo‐centric perspective of, 153–154
Puerto Ricans, 161
Puerto Rico, 14
Puritans, 7
Putting culture to work, 25, 35
Q
Qin, D. B., 29
Queer, 133, 144. See also Lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer
Queer Nation, 144
Questioning, 134
R
Race:
correlation of class and, 45
defined, 318
as emotionally loaded topic, 171
and gender, 90, 115, 118–119, 122. See also
Gender equity
and graduation rates, 122
interaction of class, gender, and, 12
and LGBTQ groups, 145
and most famous Americans, 152
as social category, 13–14
and special education, 211–212, 229
Racial groups:
blurring of lines between, 280
divisions within, 145
Racial identity, 26
Racism, 166
anti‐, 262–265
in concepts of culture, 27
and contributions approach, 156–157
and cultural deficit model, 32–33
defined, 319–320
and education of women, 83
environmental, 268
frontstage, 174–175
individual vs. institutional, 263
scientific, 16, 27
in textbooks, 86–87
underground/subtle, see Backstage racism
Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations (Feagin), 183
Raftery, A., 44
Ragged Dick (fictional character), 7
Ramirez, A. Y., 129
Ramírez, M., 10
Ramsey, P. G., 166
Randolph, A. P., 136
Ravitch, D, 259, 264
Reagan, R., 195
Reardon, S. F., 198
Reed, I., 159
Reform, see Multicultural curriculum reform;
School reform
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504, 225
Relations of power, 34–35, 246
Relativism:
cultural, 27
and cultural difference model, 34
Religion(s), 60–76. See also specific religions Christianity in North America, 60
common themes in, 61, 62
defined, 319
early diversity in, 60–61
and homosexuality, 141
and LGBTQ issues, 138
new faces of pluralism, 71–74
pluralism as the norm, 69–71
resources on, 75–76
restraints on religious freedom, 66–69
Banks-bind.indd 336 8/31/2015 9:33:16 PM
337Index
separation of church and state, 63–66
as social category, 13
spread of evangelical Protestantism, 62–63
Religious freedom, 60, 63–69
Religious fundamentalists, 41
“Religious nones,” 74
Resistance to multicultural curriculum, 154–155
Response to intervention (RTI), 228, 238
Rhodes, G., 50
Richard, L., 153
Rist, R., 45–46
Rivers, C., 91
Robeson, P., 155
Robinson, J., 157
Rogoff, B., 11, 35
Roosevelt, E., 101, 155
Rosaldo, R., 108
Rosebery, A. S., 35
Rosenbaum, J., 46–47, 51
Ross, B., 138
Rossel, C., 197–198
Rothenberg, J., 281
RTI, see Response to intervention
Rueda, R., 237
Rumbaut, R. G., 191
Rustin, B., 136
Rutter, M., 43–44
Ryan, W., 265
S
Sadker, D., 93
Salas, L., 241–243
Salazar, J. J., 237
Sampson, D., 101
Sanders, J.‐A. L., 127
Sandler, S., 296
Saxe, G. B., 301
Schapiro, M. O., 50
Schleppegrell, M. J., 204
Schlesinger, A. M., Jr., 6
School(s):
cultures of, 29
as dominant learning format, 28
efficacy of, 43–44
linguistic diversity in, 192–193
as social system, 19–20
School–community approach, 243
School culture, empowering, 18
School discipline, 92
Schooling:
education vs., 28
and student learning, 259–260
subtractive, 33
School reform, 257–271, 275–292
antiracism and antibias in, 262–264
and changing nature of families, 277, 279–282
conceptualizing and implementing effective
assessment, 257
conditions for, 261–262
expectations and standards for learners in, 269–270
by increasing parent/family involvement, 285–292
with a multicultural perspective, 260–261
news and entertainment media, 263
within parameters of critical pedagogy, 267–268
and parent/family involvement in schools, 277–278
people involved in, 269
reflecting understanding/acceptance of all students in,
265–266
and teacher concerns with parent/family involvement,
283–284
“Schools‐to‐prison” pipeline, 92
Science, 15–16, 85–86, 110–112, 299
Scientific racism, 16, 27
SCotA, see Springfield Conservatory of the Arts school
Scott, K. A., 121
SDAIE, see Specifically designed academic instruction
in English
Seaton, E. K., 120
Secco, S., 266
Secondary schools, class privilege in, 50–52
Second language learning, 192–204. See also Bilingual
education
English learners, 192–200
theories of, 201–204
Section 504, Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 225
Segmented assimilation, 191. See also Assimilation
Segregation, 172, 211
and special education, 236–237
Self‐esteem, 85, 90
Sellers, R. M., 120
Semantics, 200
Seminaries, 82
Separation of church and state, 63–66
Sex:
cultural attitudes about, 143
defined, 319
Sex in Education (Clarke), 83
Sexism, 4. See also Gender bias
cost of, 84–86
defined, 319
in textbooks, 86–87
Sexual harassment, 85, 86, 140–141
Sexuality:
contexts for questions about, 103
and gender, 140. See also Gender equity
and gender identity, 133–134
and students with disabilities, 124
teacher education about, 126
Sexual orientation, 13. See also Lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer
SFL, see Systemic Functional Linguistics
The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (Kozol), 41
Shariff, J. W., 282
Shaver, J. P., 14
Shavit, Y., 48
Sheltered instruction observation protocol (SIOP), 203
Shepard, L., 295
Sherman, M., 302
Shor, I., 50, 267
Banks-bind.indd 337 8/31/2015 9:33:16 PM
338 Index
Simm, G., 266
Single‐group studies, 4
Single‐sex education, rebirth of, 92–94
SIOP, see Sheltered instruction observation protocol
Situated learning theory, 30
Skiba, R. J., 237, 240
Skills, social action approach, 161–162
Skill diversity, 214–216. See also Exceptionality
Slate, J. R., 121
Slaughter, S., 50
Slavin, R. E., 198
Sleeter, C. E., 5, 141
Smith, B., 161
Smith, J., 65, 66
Snow, C., 201
Social action approach:
multicultural curriculum reform, 161–163
Social categories, 13–15
class, 14
construction of, 13
exceptionality, 14–15
gender, 13
race, 13–14
sexual orientation, 13
Social class, 41–53
correlation of race and, 44–45
and cultural difference model, 33–34
defined, 319
and globalization, 52–53
interaction of race, gender, and, 14
and postsecondary education, 48–50
production of social and economic inequalities, 44–48
research on privileges of, 50–52
schools’ maintenance of inequalities of, 44
segregation by, 47
as social category, 14
Social context, classroom assessment, 303–304
Social equality, 152
Social identity theory, 3
Social inequalities:
maintenance of, 44
production of, 44–45
Socialization, 29, 93
Social mobility, individual, 7
Social structure, empowering, 16
Social studies, 16, 17, 90, 112, 199, 299
Social system, school as, 19–20
Society:
multicultural, 24
reproduction of, 28–29
Sociocultural theories of language learning, 203
Sociology of Education (Gamoran), 44
Sociopolitical context, of school reform, 260–261
South Carolina, 61, 65, 194
Spade, J., 47
Special education, 235–252
and culturally competent teaching, 245
culturally responsive interventions, 246–248
culturally situated schooling, 248–251
in a diverse society, 229–230
effectiveness of, 226–227
eligibility for, 218
as exclusion, 236–240
general and special education partnerships, 227–228
history of, 218–219
inclusive pedagogies, 248–251
and negative outcomes of exclusion, 251–252
parent participation in, 240–245
preintervention culturally responsive teaching,
245–246
regular and special education partnerships, 227–228
working with families, 242–243
Specifically designed academic instruction in English
(SDAIE), 203
Spencer, M. L., 120
Spiegel, D. L., 300
“Spiritual, but not religious” persons, 70
Spirituality, privatization of, 70
Springfield Conservatory of the Arts (SCotA) school,
268–269
Spooner, F., 227
Spring, J. H., 270
Standard English, 193, 195, 196
Stecker, P. M., 223
Steele, C, 302, 304
Steinem, G., 4
Stephan, J., 51
Stereotypes and stereotyping, 88
of African Americans, 116–117, 126
confronting and addressing, 126–127
and cultural deficit model, 32–33
gender, 90, 94
of Muslims, 117–118
of Native Americans, 126
occupational, 87
racial, 176–177, 180–181
Stereotype threat, 302, 303
Stewart, R., 153
Stolzenberg, N. M., 35
Stonewall Inn, New York City, 143
Stowe, H. B., 82
Straight, 94–95
Stratification in Higher Education: A Comparative Study
(Shavit, Aram, and Gamoran), 48
Strengths, building on, 127–128
Stritikus, T., 204
Strong, J., 63
Students:
building on assets and strengths of, 127–128
differences in classroom experiences of, 122–125
involved in school reform, 269–270
Student agency, 30
Student collaboration, 302
Student engagement, on classroom assessment:
authenticity, 302
autonomy, 302
collaboration, 302
contextualizing items, 301–302
description, 301
stereotype threat, 302
strategies, in assessment events, 303
Students’ autonomy, 302, 303
Banks-bind.indd 338 8/31/2015 9:33:16 PM
339Index
Students of color. See also specific groups;
People of color
backstage racism in journals of, 178–181
and cost of sexism, 84
in education field, 128
field sensitivity in, 11
and gender bias, 90
graduation rates for, 122
influence of mainstream‐centric curriculum on, 153
journals of, 178–181
in special education, 236–237
Students with disabilities, 213–231. See also Special
education
Americans with Disabilities Act, 225
challenges in educational equality for, 226–230
classroom experiences of, 122–125
general and special education partnerships, 227–228
history of educational equality for, 218–219
identification of, 214–218
Individuals with Disabilities Act, 220–225
No Child Left Behind Act, 225
rights of, 211
Section 504, Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 225
special education in a diverse society, 229–230
Student–teacher interaction, gender bias in, 89–90
Submersion, 197
Subtractive schooling, 36
Success, individual, 7
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (Loewen), 154
Sweetland, J., 201
Symbolic violence, 29
Symbol systems, shared, 27
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), 203
T
Taylor, C. S., 296, 298–301
Taylor, M., 167
Taylor, P. B., 121
TBE, see Transitional bilingual education
Teacher assessment practices:
assessment materials, 297, 305
classroom assessments, 305
language complexity, 304–305
project‐based and performance, 305
responsibility, 305
Teacher education programs, 33, 127, 244, 245, 250
Teachers:
demographics of, 125
differential perceptions of, 122
gender perceptions/expectations of, 121–122
for inclusive schools, 250
increasing the diversity of, 128
involved in school reform, 269–270
LGBTQ, 134–135
and parent involvement, 284–285
as role models, 125–126
Teaching:
culturally responsive, 35, 245–248
and culture, 27
early textbooks on, 82
Te Kotahitanga program, 245–246
Tennessee, 153
Tests and testing:
discriminatory, 263
gender differences in achievement, 90
validity of measures, 43
Tetreault, M. K., 9, 108–110
Texas, 33, 192
Textbooks:
feminism and, 4
gender biased, 86, 87
TFD, see Toronto First Duty project
Thomas, C. M., 83
Thomas, D. R., 218
Thomas, P., 161
Thomas, S. L., 52
Thorne, B., 107
Three‐tier process, model for CLD students, 238
Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972, 83–84
Tomlinson‐Clarke, S., 250
Toohey, K., 199
Toronto First Duty (TFD) project, 199
Totten, T. L., 121
Tourist‐based approach, 32
Tracking, 44–45
Trackton, South Carolina, 5
Transculturation, 31, 190
Transformation approach:
multicultural curriculum reform, 159–161, 165
social action approach, 168
Transgender, 94–95. See also Lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer
Transitional bilingual education (TBE), 197
Transmission, cultural, 24–25, 27–29
Transnational era, 190
Troy Female Seminary, 82–83
Truth, S., 118
Tsethlikai, M., 117
Tubman, H., 152
Turley, R. N. L., 119
Turner, T., 26
Two‐Faced Racism:Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage (Picca), 172, 173, 179
U
UDL, see Universal design for learning
United Kingdom, immigrant populations in, 45
United States:
core culture of, 6
definition of “Black” in, 13–14
history of religion in, 59–76
immigrant population(s) in, 45, 189–191
language policy in, 193–196
languages in, 160
as multicultural society, 5
postsecondary education in, 48–50
religious pluralism in, 69–74
separation of church and state in, 63–66
social class in, 14
U.S. culture, 5–12
core culture, 6
Banks-bind.indd 339 8/31/2015 9:33:16 PM
340 Index
U.S. culture, (contd.) equality idea in, 6
expansionism in, 7–8
group identification in, 10–11
groupism in, 7
individualism in, 8
interaction of race, class, and gender in, 12
microcultures, 8–10
Umansky, I. M., 198
Universal design for learning (UDL), 249
Universities, see Postsecondary education
Unsafe, feeling, 139–140
Unz, R., 195
V
Valadez, G., 244
Valdés, G., 199, 204
Valenzuela, A., 33, 199
Values:
in social action approach, 162–163
underpinning special education programs, 52–53
Value conflicts, about what should be taught, 27
Value inquiry, in social action approach, 142–143
Van Ausdale, D., 264
Vanfossen, B., 47
Vasquez, M. J. T., 123
View, J., 269
Violence:
homophobic, 141
symbolic, 29
Virginia, 66
Vivekananda, 72
Voice, 108, 109
W
Waddell, J., 127
Waitoller, F. R., 244
Wakiroo, N., 123
Walker, A., 167
Walkington, C., 302
Waller, W., 279
Warren, B., 35
Washington, B. T., 155
Washington, G., 7, 64, 155, 157
Watson, C., 244
Watts, L., 128
Ways with Words (Heath), 34
Weininger, E., 50–51
Weinreich, M., 192–193
Weinstein, C. S., 250
Weis, L., 47, 49, 51
Welch, O. M., 121, 128
Wells, A., 47
Welner, K. G., 261
Wenger, E., 30
Western traditionalists, 154–155, 316
Wheeler, R. S., 201
Whites:
academic achievement of, 92
and cost of sexism, 84
with disabilities, 124
and education of women, 83
ethnic cultural forms legitimized by, 153
feelings of unsafe at school, 140
and gender bias, 91
and gender equity issues, 116
graduation rates for, 122
hidden racism of, see Backstage racism
history of, 158, 159
in interracial marriages, 280
and LGBTQ issues, 136
most famous Americans chosen by, 152
poverty rate for, 283
student journals of, 173–178, 181–182
as teachers, 26, 34, 128
White, C., 121
White, E. G. H., 65
White, R., 159
Wiese, A., 194
Willard, E. H., 82
Williams, R., 60
Willig, A., 198
Willis, P., 30
Wilson, A., 119
Wilson, J. F., 64
Wineburg, S., 152
Winfrey, O., 152
Winters, M. A., 122
Within‐group heterogeneity, 119–120
Women. See also Gender
and core culture, 9
and gender inequality, 79. See also Gender bias
Native American, 117–118
oppression of, 129
Women’s curriculum, 103–105
Women’s equity, 116
Women’s rights movement, 4
Wong Fillmore, L., 200
Working class, 34. See also Social class
child‐rearing practices of, 50–51
jobs of, 53
Wright, J., 157
Wuthnow, R., 70
Wyatt, T. J., 121–122
Wyman, L., 36
Y
Yell, M. L., 222
Yonezawa, S., 47
Yoon, I. H., 121
Young, M. F. D., 47
Z
Zaman, A., 126
Zen Buddhism, 70
Zigler’s Schools for the 21st Century, 243
Zionts, L. T., 241–242, 244–245
Zittleman, K., 87, 121
Banks-bind.indd 340 8/31/2015 9:33:16 PM
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT Go to www.wiley.com/go/eula to access Wiley’s ebook EULA.
- Cover������������
- Title Page�����������������
- Copyright����������������
- Contents���������������
- Preface
- Part 1 Issues and Concepts���������������������������������
- Chapter 1 Multicultural Education: Characteristics and Goals�������������������������������������������������������������������
- 1.1. The Nature of Multicultural Education�������������������������������������������������
- 1.2. The Historical Development of Multicultural Education�����������������������������������������������������������������
- 1.2.1 How Multicultural Education Developed��������������������������������������������������
- 1.3. The Nature of Culture in the United States������������������������������������������������������
- 1.3.1. The Meaning of Culture������������������������������������
- 1.3.2. Identification and Description of the U.S. Core Culture���������������������������������������������������������������������
- 1.3.3. Equality����������������������
- 1.3.4. Individualism and Individual Opportunity������������������������������������������������������
- 1.3.5. Individualism and Groupism����������������������������������������
- 1.3.6. Expansionism and Manifest Destiny�����������������������������������������������
- 1.3.7. Microcultures in the United States������������������������������������������������
- 1.3.8. Groups and Group Identification���������������������������������������������
- 1.3.9. The Teaching Implications of Group Identification���������������������������������������������������������������
- 1.3.10. The Interaction of Race, Class, and Gender���������������������������������������������������������
- 1.4 The Social Construction of Categories������������������������������������������������
- 1.4.1. Gender��������������������
- 1.4.2. Sexual Orientation��������������������������������
- 1.4.3. Race������������������
- 1.4.4. Social Class��������������������������
- 1.4.5. Exceptionality����������������������������
- 1.5 The Dimensions of Multicultural Education����������������������������������������������������
- 1.5.1. Content Integration���������������������������������
- 1.5.2. The Knowledge Construction Process������������������������������������������������
- 1.5.3. Prejudice Reduction���������������������������������
- 1.5.4. An Equity Pedagogy��������������������������������
- 1.5.5. An Empowering School Culture and Social Structure���������������������������������������������������������������
- 1.6 The School as a Social System����������������������������������������
- Summary��������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 2 Culture, Teaching, and Learning������������������������������������������������
- 2.1. Getting to Know Culture: An Overview of Culture’s Meanings and Uses�������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 2.2. Some Early Origins of the Construct of Culture����������������������������������������������������������
- 2.3. Culture as Transmission and Adaptation��������������������������������������������������
- 2.4. Creating Culture: Cultural Transmission and Education�����������������������������������������������������������������
- 2.5. Culture Change: Cultural Psychology and Cultural Production�����������������������������������������������������������������������
- 2.6. Critiques of Culture��������������������������������
- 2.7. Culture and Educational Achievement�����������������������������������������������
- 2.8. Cultural Deficit Models�����������������������������������
- 2.9. Cultural Difference Model and Mismatch Hypothesis�������������������������������������������������������������
- 2.10. Educational Achievement: Voluntary versus Involuntary Immigrant Students�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 2.11. Putting Culture to Work: Culture and Learning in the 21st Century������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 2.12. Rethinking Learning and Cultural Processes in Education��������������������������������������������������������������������
- 2.13. Learning in Context: What Teachers Need to Know������������������������������������������������������������
- 2.14. Concluding Remarks�������������������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Part 2 Social Class and Religion���������������������������������������
- Chapter 3 Social Class and Education�������������������������������������������
- 3.1. Education and the Production of Social and Economic Inequalities����������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 3.2. Ability Grouping and Tracking�����������������������������������������
- 3.3. Official Knowledge and Its Distribution���������������������������������������������������
- 3.4. Access and Outcomes in the Postsecondary Sector�����������������������������������������������������������
- 3.5. Research on Class Privilege���������������������������������������
- 3.6. Globalizing Our Imagination���������������������������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 4 Christian Nation or Pluralistic Culture: Religion in American Life�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 4.1. Europeans Plant Christianity in North America���������������������������������������������������������
- 4.2. Early Signs of Diversity������������������������������������
- 4.3. Common Themes�������������������������
- 4.4. The Spread of Evangelical Protestantism���������������������������������������������������
- 4.5. Religious Freedom and the Separation of Church and State��������������������������������������������������������������������
- 4.6. Diversity, Religious Freedom, and the Courts��������������������������������������������������������
- 4.7. Pluralism Becomes the Norm��������������������������������������
- 4.8. New Faces of Pluralism����������������������������������
- 4.9. Summary and Educational Implications������������������������������������������������
- 4.10. Resources����������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Part 3 Gender��������������������
- Chapter 5 Gender Bias: From Colonial America to Today’s Classroom������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 5.1. The Hidden Civil Rights Struggle��������������������������������������������
- 5.2. Report Card: The Cost of Sexism in Schools������������������������������������������������������
- 5.3. Gender Bias in Today’s Classroom: The Curriculum������������������������������������������������������������
- 5.3.1. Invisibility: What You Don’t See Makes a Lasting Impression�������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 5.3.2. Stereotyping: Glib Shortcuts������������������������������������������
- 5.3.3. Imbalance and Selectivity: A Tale Half Told���������������������������������������������������������
- 5.3.4. Unreality: Rose‐Colored Glasses
- 5.3.5. Fragmentation: An Interesting Sideshow����������������������������������������������������
- 5.3.6. Linguistic Bias: Words Count������������������������������������������
- 5.3.7. Cosmetic Bias: Pretty Wrapping��������������������������������������������
- 5.4. Gender Bias in Today’s Classrooms: Student–Teacher Interaction��������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 5.5. Trends and Challenges���������������������������������
- 5.5.1. The Boy Crisis����������������������������
- 5.5.2. The Rebirth of Single‐Sex Education
- 5.5.3. Supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students (LGBT)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 5.6. Strategies for Creating Gender‐Fair Classrooms
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 6 Classrooms for Diversity: Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy�����������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 6.1. Feminist Phase Theory���������������������������������
- 6.2. Male‐Defined Curriculum
- 6.3. Contribution Curriculum�����������������������������������
- 6.4. Bifocal Curriculum������������������������������
- 6.5. Women’s Curriculum������������������������������
- 6.6. Gender‐Balanced Curriculum
- 6.7. Changes in Traditional Ways of Teaching���������������������������������������������������
- Sample Lessons���������������������
- Summary��������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 7 Understanding and Supporting Gender Equity in Schools����������������������������������������������������������������������
- 7.1. Evolution of Thinking about Gender Equity�����������������������������������������������������
- 7.2. Intersections of Gender and Other Statuses������������������������������������������������������
- 7.2.1. Concepts of Gender��������������������������������
- 7.2.2. Gender and Diversity����������������������������������
- 7.2.3. Within‐Group Heterogeneity
- 7.2.4. Gender Equity and Diversity: Implications for Education���������������������������������������������������������������������
- 7.3. Teacher Perceptions and Expectations������������������������������������������������
- 7.4. Classroom Experiences of Females and Males from Diverse Populations�������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 7.5. Supporting Gender Equity among Diverse Populations��������������������������������������������������������������
- 7.5.1. Strategy 1: Confronting and Addressing Stereotyping, Discrimination, and Systemic Oppression����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 7.5.2. Strategy 2: Obtaining Knowledge about Cultures, Statuses, and Intersections�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 7.5.3. Strategy 3: Building on Students’ Assets and Strengths��������������������������������������������������������������������
- 7.5.4. Strategy 4: Increasing the Number of Female and Male Teachers Who Represent Diversity in Race, Ethnicity, Disability, Sexuality, and Other Statuses�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 7.6. Conclusions�����������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 8 Queer Lessons: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Multicultural Education���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 8.1. Sexuality and Gender Identity�����������������������������������������
- 8.2. LGBTQ Issues and the School Curriculum��������������������������������������������������
- 8.3. Overlapping Histories of Multiculturalism and LGBTQ Movements�������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 8.4. Histories of Gay-Inclusive Multiculturalism and Other Curricular Inclusiveness
- 8.5. Challenges to Homophobia and Heterosexism�����������������������������������������������������
- 8.6. Challenging Assumptions about LGBTQ People������������������������������������������������������
- 8.7. Why Homophobia?���������������������������
- 8.8. Dilemmas of Queer Inclusion���������������������������������������
- 8.9. Seven Things to Do to Improve Education for Students of All Sexual Orientations and Genders�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Part 4 Race, Ethnicity, and Language�������������������������������������������
- Chapter 9 Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform��������������������������������������������������������������
- 9.1. The Mainstream‐Centric Curriculum
- 9.2. Public Sites and Popular History��������������������������������������������
- 9.3. Efforts to Establish a Multicultural Curriculum�����������������������������������������������������������
- 9.4. Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content����������������������������������������������������������
- 9.4.1. The Contributions Approach����������������������������������������
- 9.4.2. The Additive Approach�����������������������������������
- 9.4.3. The Transformation Approach�����������������������������������������
- 9.4.4. The Social Action Approach����������������������������������������
- 9.4.5. Mixing and Blending Approaches��������������������������������������������
- 9.5. Guidelines for Teaching Multicultural Content���������������������������������������������������������
- Summary��������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 10 Backstage Racism: Implications for Teaching�������������������������������������������������������������
- 10.1. Context��������������������
- 10.2. Methodology������������������������
- 10.3. Journals by White Students���������������������������������������
- 10.3.1. The Frontstage�����������������������������
- 10.3.2. The Backstage����������������������������
- 10.4. Journals by Students of Color������������������������������������������
- 10.5. Comparing the Journals Written by Whites and Students of Color���������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 10.6. Conclusion and Next Actionable Steps�������������������������������������������������
- Journal Exercise�����������������������
- How Do I Do This?������������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 11 Language Diversity and Schooling��������������������������������������������������
- 11.1. The Immigrant Population in the United States����������������������������������������������������������
- 11.2. Dramatic Increase in Linguistic Diversity in Schools�����������������������������������������������������������������
- 11.3. Additional Sources of Linguistic Diversity: Dialect Variation and Indigenous Languages���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 11.4. Historical and Legal Overview of Language Policy in the United States����������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 11.5. Implementation of Federal Policy���������������������������������������������
- 11.6. Language Policy in Recent History����������������������������������������������
- 11.7. Programmatic Responses to Linguistic Diversity�����������������������������������������������������������
- 11.8. Instructional Programs�����������������������������������
- 11.9. The Bilingual Debate and the Research Context����������������������������������������������������������
- 11.10. Program Types That Contribute to Successful Educational Practice������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 11.11. The Lived Reality of Today’s Linguistically Diverse Students��������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 11.12. Views on Language Learning and Teaching�����������������������������������������������������
- 11.12.1. Language������������������������
- 11.12.2. Language Learners���������������������������������
- 11.12.3. Age�������������������
- 11.12.4. First Language������������������������������
- 11.13. Language Learning and Teaching��������������������������������������������
- 11.13.1. Theories of Second‐Language Learning
- 11.13.2. Instructional Methods and Approaches����������������������������������������������������
- 11.13.3. Instructional Strategies and Contexts for Learning������������������������������������������������������������������
- 11.14. Conclusion������������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- Resources����������������
- Professional Associations��������������������������������
- Websites���������������
- References�����������������
- Part 5 Exceptionality����������������������������
- Chapter 12 Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities���������������������������������������������������������������������
- 12.1. Identification of Students with Disabilities���������������������������������������������������������
- 12.2. Is Disability a Social Construct?����������������������������������������������
- 12.3. How Many Students with Disabilities Are There?�����������������������������������������������������������
- 12.4. How Are Students with Disabilities Classified?�����������������������������������������������������������
- 12.5. How Is Eligibility for Special Education Determined?�����������������������������������������������������������������
- 12.6. How Does Classification Affect Instruction?��������������������������������������������������������
- 12.7. History of Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities���������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 12.8. The Individuals with Disabilities Act: A Legislative Mandate for Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 12.8.1. Major Principles of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act����������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 12.8.2. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973������������������������������������������������������������
- 12.8.3. The Americans with Disabilities Act��������������������������������������������������
- 12.8.4. The No Child Left Behind Act�������������������������������������������
- 12.9. Educational Equality for Students with Disabilities: Progress Made but Challenges Remain�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 12.9.1. Effective Instruction������������������������������������
- 12.9.2. General and Special Education Partnership��������������������������������������������������������
- 12.9.3. Early Intervention���������������������������������
- 12.9.4. Transition from School to Adult Life���������������������������������������������������
- 12.9.5. Special Education in a Diverse Society�����������������������������������������������������
- Summary��������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 13 Culturally Responsive Special Education in Inclusive Schools������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 13.1. Special Education as Exclusion�������������������������������������������
- 13.2. Special Education and Segregation����������������������������������������������
- 13.3. Strategies to Prevent Misdiagnosis and Disproportionality����������������������������������������������������������������������
- 13.4. The Monoculture of Mainstream Education����������������������������������������������������
- 13.5. Parent Participation and Working with Families�����������������������������������������������������������
- 13.6. Causes of Limited Parental Involvement���������������������������������������������������
- 13.7. A Mismatch: Special Education and Families�������������������������������������������������������
- 13.8. Strategies to Increase Parental Participation����������������������������������������������������������
- 13.8.1. Preparation of Professionals for Partnerships with Parents�������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 13.8.2. Preparation of Parents for Partnerships with Educators���������������������������������������������������������������������
- 13.9. Culturally Competent Teachers and Inclusive Pedagogies�������������������������������������������������������������������
- 13.10. Preintervention Culturally Responsive Teaching������������������������������������������������������������
- 13.11. Culturally Responsive Interventions�������������������������������������������������
- 13.12. Culturally Situated Schooling and Inclusive Pedagogies��������������������������������������������������������������������
- 13.13. Quality Inclusive Schools���������������������������������������
- 13.14. Delivery of Special Education in the Context of General Education�������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 13.15. Inclusive Schools and Teacher Education�����������������������������������������������������
- 13.16. Managing Inclusive Classrooms�������������������������������������������
- 13.17. Diversity and Caring Communities: Outcomes for the Social Good����������������������������������������������������������������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Part 6 School Reform and Classroom Assessment����������������������������������������������������
- Chapter 14 School Reform and Student Learning: A Multicultural Perspective���������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 14.1. School Reform with a Multicultural Perspective�����������������������������������������������������������
- 14.2. Conditions for Systemic School Reform with a Multicultural Perspective�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 14.3. School Reform Should Be Antiracist and Antibiased��������������������������������������������������������������
- 14.4. School Reform Should Reflect an Understanding and Acceptance of All Students as Having Talents and Strengths that Can Enhance Their Education
- 14.5. School Reform Should Be Considered within the Parameters of Critical Pedagogy������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 14.6. A Study of Identity, Struggle, and Resilience at SCotA�������������������������������������������������������������������
- 14.7. The People Most Intimately Connected with Teaching and Learning (Teachers, Families, and Students) Need to Be Meaningfully Involved in School Reform�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 14.8. School Reform Needs to Be Based on High Expectations and Rigorous Standards for All Learners���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 14.9. Conclusion�����������������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 15 Communities, Families, and Educators Working Together for School Improvement����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 15.1. Reasons That Parent and Family Involvement in Schools Is Important�������������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 15.2. Historical Overview��������������������������������
- 15.3. The Changing Face of the Family��������������������������������������������
- 15.4. Parents with Special Needs���������������������������������������
- 15.5. Single Parents���������������������������
- 15.6. Low‐Income Parents
- 15.7. Teacher Concerns with Parent and Family Involvement����������������������������������������������������������������
- 15.8. Steps to Increase Parent and Family Involvement������������������������������������������������������������
- 15.9. Establish Two‐Way Communication between the School and the Home
- 15.10. Enlist Support from Other Staff Members and Students������������������������������������������������������������������
- 15.11. Enlist Support from the Community�����������������������������������������������
- 15.12. Develop Learning Resources for Parents to Use at Home�������������������������������������������������������������������
- 15.13. Broaden the Conception of Parent and Community Involvement������������������������������������������������������������������������
- 15.13.1. Parents Working with Their Own Children�������������������������������������������������������
- 15.13.2. Professional Support Person for Instruction�����������������������������������������������������������
- 15.13.3. General Volunteers����������������������������������
- 15.13.4. Decision‐Makers
- Summary��������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- Internet Resources For Information on Parent Involvement���������������������������������������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Chapter 16 Classroom Assessment and Diversity����������������������������������������������������
- 16.1. Bias and Sensitivity Issues in Assessment������������������������������������������������������
- 16.2. Lessons Learned from a Bias and Sensitivity Review Panel���������������������������������������������������������������������
- 16.2.1. “Othering”�������������������������
- 16.2.2. Consistency with Culture���������������������������������������
- 16.2.3. Developing Interpretations�����������������������������������������
- 16.2.4. Culturally Inappropriate Tasks���������������������������������������������
- 16.3. Investigating Potential Bias through Statistical Analyses����������������������������������������������������������������������
- 16.4. The Effects of Engagement on Assessment Performance����������������������������������������������������������������
- 16.5. The Social Context of Assessment���������������������������������������������
- 16.6. Teacher Assessment Practices�����������������������������������������
- Summary��������������
- Questions and Activities�������������������������������
- References�����������������
- Appendix: Multicultural Resources
- Glossary
- Contributors
- Index
- EULA
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