Reducing Disproportionality in Special Education: The Role of Cultural Self-Awareness

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Reducing Disproportionality in Special Education
The Role of Cultural Self-Awareness

• Facilitator _______________________
• A project of the Minnesota Department of
  Education, Division of Special Education and the
  Office of Continuing Professional Studies,
  College of Education and Human Development,
  University of Minnesota

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Agenda

• Overview of Project
• Learning through a Cultural Lens
• Module 1

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Project Purpose

• Primary goals
• To increase success of African-American students
  and
• To reduce special education referral rates
• To improve prereferral practice

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Professional Development Plan

• Session One Module 1 Strengthening the Circle
  Empowering the African-American Learner
• Session Two Module 2 History, Heritage and
  Schooling The African-American Experience
• Session Three Module 3 Culturally Sensitive
  Classroom Assessment Assessing Social and
  Academic Engagement
• Next year Modules 4-7 (dependent on school
  participation)

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Module 1 Learning Objectives

• At the end of the workshop participants will be
  able to
• Discuss the background of disproportionality and
  its impact on educators and students
• Articulate a working definition of culture and
  culturally responsive pedagogy
• Identify characteristics of a culturally
  responsive teacher
• Discuss the role culture plays in teaching and in
  the prereferral process

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Exploration of Culture I AM Introductions
Activity

• This activity takes place in silence.
• Draw 5-6 pictures that represent who you are.
• Find one partner. Dont show them your picture
  until asked to do so.
• Hold the picture up at chest level so your
  partner can see it.
• Examine your partners picture (No talking!!)
• Each round lasts 1 minute there will be 3 rounds.

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I AM activity, cont.

• On a sheet of paper, answer the following
  questions
• What did you like/dislike about the activity?
• Was it easy to communicate what you wanted to?
• What do you think are the learning goals of this
  activity?

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Diversity Awareness Scale
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In Minnesota

• Special educators are concerned about
  disproportionality.
• Some facts
• African-Americans and American Indians are more
  likely to be in special education
• English Language Learners (ELL) are less likely

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Special Education

• Benefits
• Individualized small group instruction
• Challenges
• Less access to regular classes and curriculum
• Stigma
• Lower(ed) expectations

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Causes of Disproportionality

• Research in Minnesota
• Special ed system issuesassessment practices,
  criteria, lack of parental understanding
• Community and environmenthealth issues, overall
  racial bias, poverty
• General educationlack of options for struggling
  students, teacher knowledge and attitudes,
  student attitudes

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National Research

• Prereferral problem-solving is a very important
  part of efforts to reduce special education rates
• Classroom teachers are critical

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Disproportionality in IDEA 2004

• If district has significant disproportionality,
  it must review and revise policies, practices,
  and procedures
• Each state must set level of significance that
  will trigger this review
• Training on prereferral will be one option for
  districts

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Pilot Site Districts

• Factors for selecting pilot sites
• Some problem with disproportionality
• Size of minority community (at least 30-50
  elementary level students)
• Existing interest and efforts related to
  diversity
• Existing interest in disproportionality and/or
  prereferral practices

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Culturally Appropriate Teaching

• Objectives
• 1. What is it?
• 2. How do we do it?
• 3. How do we know when weve done it?

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What is Culture?

• Take a moment to think about what the word
  culture means to you.
• Write a brief definition of culture on a piece
  of paper.
• You will be asked to share your definition but
  sharing is optional.

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What is Culture?

• What do you think?
• Objective vs. subjective culture
• The Iceberg Analogy
• How we define culture
• A few examples National origin, race/skin color,
  ethnicity, religion, gender, age, language, other
  (for example, rural/urban)
• What is your culture?

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Definitions of Culture

• No one agreed upon definition of culture exists
• One definition is culture is a set of
  distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and
  emotional features of society or a social group,
  and that it encompasses, in addition to art and
  literature, lifestyles, ways of living together,
  value systems, traditions and beliefs. (UNESCO,
  2002)

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Definitions, cont.

• Cultural self-awareness means understanding
  culture in general and ones own culture in
  particular. It means understanding your own
  culture with the added ability to describe it to
  others.

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• Intercultural competence encompasses a range of
  factors including
• Cultural self-awareness
• Understanding of cultural differences
• Knowledge of two or more cultures
• Skills and ability to behave appropriately in
  multiple cultures
• Culture-learning skills
• Intercultural competence emphasizes culture
  learning and adaptation skills that can be
  applied to any situation. Interculturally
  competent individuals tend to be more effective
  when dealing with culturally diverse others of
  their own and other culture groups.

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Intercultural Competence and Being Culturally
Responsive Means

• Understanding the meaning and importance of
  culture in your life as well as in students and
  their families lives
• Being an effective culture learner
• Recognizing different cultural patterns
• Helping students understand and deal with
  cultural identity issues, when appropriate

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A few considerations about learning about culture

• Requires self-reflection of learners about
  personal experiences with cultural difference
• Requires process-oriented learning versus solely
  fact-based learning
• Requires exploration of worldviews that differ
  from ones own
• and all of these can be challenging

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Turn to your partner

• What does it mean to be culturally responsive?

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Cultural Responsiveness involves

• Reading the cues of another and reacting
• The ability to meet another individuals needs
• The ability to empathize and react in a
  supportive manner

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Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

• Teachers who make instructional variations in
  response to
• Culture
• Race
• Gender
• Class
• Other cultural variables

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Cultural Variables

• Diverse Learners and Key Cultural Variables
• Learning styles
• Communication styles
• Non-verbal communication patterns
• Cultural values
• Cultural identity
• Issues of cultural adaptation

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Why is culturally responsive teaching important?

• Changing demographics
• Standards-based reform and Accountability (No
  Child Left Behind)
• Individual Disabilities Education Improvement Act
  (IDEIA) 2004
• Economic challenges
• We need interculturally competent individuals who
  have the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors
  necessary to create inclusive, welcoming,
  supportive, and successful learning communities.

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Cultural continuum
Bicultural
Assimilated to dominant culture
And various points in between
Strongly identifies with a group that has a
cultural world view and experiences that are
different than the dominant group
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The Achievement Gap Closes When

• Educators
• 1) are aware of their own cultural filters
• 2) hold positive attitudes and beliefs that
  nurture student motivation
• 3) Support students efforts to adapt to
  culturally diverse environments

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Cultural Acculturation Process

• Process of cultural change that occurs in
  individuals when two cultures interact
• It leads individuals to adapt elements of another
  culture, such as values and social behaviors.
• Culture is not static
• It naturally changes over time and distance

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Effects of Acculturation

• Normal effects of acculturation may look like
  disability
• Heightened anxiety
• Withdrawal
• Response fatigue
• Distractibility
• Disorientation
• Confusion in locus of control
• Silence or unresponsiveness
• Code-switching
• Resistance to change
• Related behaviors

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• Gloria Ladson-Billing
• Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

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Propositions

• Academic Achievement
• Teachers must place student learning at the
  center of all classroom activity. Students must
  achieve regardless of how good the fit between
  home and school.

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• Cultural Competence
• Teachers must help students develop a positive
  identification with their home culture an
  identification that supports student learning
  (students dont have to act white)

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• Sociopolitical Consciousness
• Teachers must help students develop civic and
  social awareness, enabling them to work toward
  equity and justice beyond their own personal
  advancement.

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• The best teachers of economically disadvantaged
  children know how to do a specific set of skills

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• Protect learners and learning
• Put ideas into classroom practice
• Challenge external labels given to students such
  as at-risk, EBD

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• Develop a professional-personal orientation
  toward students
• Know how to satisfy school bureaucracies without
  compromising teaching quality
• Recognize their own fallibility
• Have emotional and physical stamina

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• Have good organizational ability
• Focus on student effort rather than a vague
  notion of ability
• Focus on teaching students rather than sorting
  them
• Convince students that they are needed in the
  classroom

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• Serve as allies with students against challenging
  material
• Source Haberman (1995)

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Turn to your partner

• What do you think makes it so hard for teachers
  to implement these culturally responsive
  instructional models in their classrooms?

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Lets take a look at beliefs

• Gloria Ladson Billings research

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BELIEFS TOWARD ACADEMICALLY AND CULTURALLY
AT-RISK STUDENTS
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REFERRAL AGENTS

• Referral agents do not believe that much can be
  done to help their students improve either, but
  they shift the responsibility (for maintaining
  students at these low levels) to other school
  personnel, by sending them off to the school
  psychologist or the special education teacher (or
  other support personnel).

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CUSTODIANS

• Custodians do not believe that much can be done
  to help their students but they do not look for
  others to help them maintain the students at
  these low levels.

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GENERAL CONTRACTORS

• General Contractors believe that improvement is
  possible, but they look for ancillary personnel
  (aides resource teachers, and son on) to provide
  academic assistance rather than take on the
  responsibility themselves.

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TUTORS

• Tutors believe that students can improve and they
  believe it is their responsibility to help them
  do so.

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COACHES

• Coaches also believe their students are capable
  of excellence, but they are comfortable sharing
  the responsibility to help them achieve it with
  parents, community members, and the students
  themselves. Coaches understand that the goal is
  team success. They do need a sense of how to
  blend the talents of the players to form a
  winning team.

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CONDUCTORS

• Conductors believe that students are capable of
  excellence and they assume responsibility for
  ensuring that their students achieve that
  excellence. Critics describe the quality of the
  performance in terms of the conductors
  performance, even though the conductor did not
  play a single note.

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Turn to your partner

• Do beliefs change?
• If you think so
• What facilitates this process?

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• Personal Cultural Identity Revisited

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White Identity Status

• Stage 1 Conformity
• Preference for dominant cultural values over own
• Ethnocentric attitudes and beliefs
• Minimal awareness of self as racial being
• Belief in universality of values and norms
  governing behavior
• Limited knowledge of other groups
• Believe they are not racist
• Believe minority inferiority justifies
  discrimination
• Denial compartmentalization

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White Identity Status

• Stage 2 Dissonance
• Forced to deal with inconsistencies
• Forced to acknowledge whiteness and examine own
  cultural values
• Conflict between upholding humanistic values and
  own behavior
• Risk ostracism from family and friends
• Tendency to retreat into white culture

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White Identity Status

• Stage 3 Resistance and Immersion
• Complete endorsement of minority view
• Dedicated to reacting against white society
• Rejects white social, cultural and institutional
  standards
• Desire to eliminate oppression
• Questions and challenges own racism
• Sees racism everywhere
• Anger at family, friends, institutions
• Zealous

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White Identity Status

• Stage 4 Introspection Stage
• Intensity of feelings draining
• Resistance is reactive, not proactive
• Doesnt allow personal growth
• Discomfort with rigid group views
• White identity cannot be defined by external
  forces
• Need for greater individual autonomy
• Independent research fro goals beyond reacting to
  racism
• Reduction of defensiveness associated with being
  white

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White Identity Status

• Stage 5 Integrative Awareness
• Self-fulfillment with regard to racial cultural
  identity
• Nonracist white identity emerges

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Minority Identity Status

• Stage 1 Conformity
• Self
• Self-deprecating
• Own cultural characteristics negative
• Physical characteristics source of shame
• Same Minority
• Group deprecatinginternalized white stereotypes
• Use of denial I am not like them.
• Other Minority
• Share dominant attitude and beliefs toward other
  minorities
• Dominant Group
• Appreciating attitude
• White culture, social and institutional standards
  better

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Minority Identity Status

• Stage 2 Dissonance
• Self
• Conflict Self-deprecation self-appreciation
• Feelings of shame and pride
• Why should I feel bad about who I am
• Growing personal awareness that racism exists
• Considers positive attributes of minority culture
• Same Minority
• Conflict Group deprecation group appreciation
• Questions dominant viewsaspects of own culture
  appeal
• Finds members of own group attractive as friends
  or lovers
• Different Minority
• Conflict between dominant view and shared
  experience
• Questions stereotypessense of comradeship
• Dominant Group
• Conflict Group deprecation group appreciation
• Awareness that dominant values do not benefit
  self
• Growing suspiciousness distrust

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Minority Identity Status

• Stage 3 Resistance/Immersion
• Self
• Self discovery of own history and culture
• Self esteem is raised
• Same Minority
• Strong sense of commitment identification with
  group
• Minority value accepted without question
• Restrict interactions with own group
• Different Minority
• Conflict between empathy culturo centrism
• Dominant Group
• Perception of dominant group as oppressor
• Withdrawal from dominant culture
• Anger, hostility, distrust and dislike towards
  whites

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Minority Identity Status

• Stage 4 Immersion
• Self
• Conflict between allegiance to group and personal
  independence
• Same Minority
• Concern with unequivocal nature of group
• Sees own group taking extreme positions
• Different Minority
• Uneasiness with culturo centrism
• Desire to understand other group experiences
• Movement to understand differences in oppression
• Dominant Group
• Conflict between trust and selective trust
• Recognition that many elements of majority
  society are desirable
• Is it a sell out to accept certain White values?

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Minority Identity Status

• Stage 5 Integrative Awareness
• Self
• Positive self-image
• High sense of autonomy
• Bicultural or multicultural without a sense of
  selling out
• Autonomous unique individual
• Member of own group and larger group
• Same Minority
• Pride in group without unequivocal acceptance
• Empathy with group experience
• Empathy towards members functioning less
  adaptively
• Different Minority
• Group appreciating
• Desire to understand values and traditions
• Support for all oppressed people
• Dominant Group
• Selective appreciation of those who seek to
  eliminate oppression
• Open to constructive elements of dominant culture
• Racism is seen as a sickness in a society where
  white people are also victims

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Ask your partner

• Dreamkeepers or Gatekeepers
• In light of what you have just learned, what
  does this phrase mean to you?

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Turn to your partner

• Summarize one or two points from this
  presentation that you think are the most critical
  to your understanding of culturally responsive
  teaching.
• Congratulate yourself on taking on the important
  task of being culturally responsive in your
  teaching!

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References

• UNESCO, 2003 (def of culture)
• Definitions of culture (Paige)add citation to
  slides 19-20
• Slide 27 NCLB IDEIA, 2004
• Slide 32 Gloria Ladson-Billings CRP
• Slide 40 Haberman, 1995