Culture and Community

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Culture and Community

• Chapter 5

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Outline of Todays Lecture

• Todays Multicultural Classrooms
• Social Class Differences
• Ethnic and Racial Differences
• Females and Males Differences in the Classroom
• Creating Culturally Compatible Classrooms

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Todays Multicultural Classrooms

• Canadian classrooms
• 21 of Canadians under the age of 18 live in
  poverty
• Many children live with one parent, usually their
  mother
• Many children face problems that interfere with
  learning (e.g., they are unhealthy, neglected,
  physically or emotionally abused, homeless, etc.)
• Toronto was recently named the most ethnically
  diverse city in the world

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Todays Multicultural Classrooms

• Multicultural education Education that teaches
  the value of cultural diversity

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• Content Integration Using
• examples and content from a
• variety of cultures to illustrate
• key concepts and principles

• The Knowledge Construction Process
• Helping students understand how
• cultural assumptions within a
• discipline influence the ways that
• knowledge is constructed within it

• An Equity Pedagogy
• Matching teaching styles
• to students learning styles to
• facilitate learning of students
• from diverse backgrounds

• Prejudice Reduction
• Identifying the characteristics
• of students racial attitudes
• and determining how they can
• be modified by teaching

Multicultural Education

• An Empowering School Culture and Social
  Structure
• Examining group and labeling practices, sports
  participation and
• interaction of staff and students across ethnic
  and racial lines to
• create a school culture that empowers students
  from all groups

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Culture

• The knowledge, values, attitudes and traditions
  that guide the behaviour of a group of people and
  allow them to solve the problems of living in
  their environment

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Social Class Differences

• Socioeconomic Status (SES) Relative standing in
  the society based on income, power, background
  and prestige

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Social Class Differences

• Difficulties poor children face
• Poor children are likely to suffer from
  malnutrition and have stressful home lives. At
  school, poor children are at risk for problems
  with reading and writing and are more likely to
  be held back a grade, need to be referred for
  special education services or drop out of school.
  
• Difficulties some minority children face
• Minority children with limited English
  proficiency are more likely to experience social
  isolation, increasing academic failure, high
  referrals for special education, lower scores on
  tests, higher dropout rates and lower rates of
  college attendance.

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SES and Achievement

• High SES students of all ethnic groups show
  higher levels of achievement in school and stay
  in school longer than lower SES students

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Factors that May Influence the Relation Between
SES and Achievement

• Poor Health Care
• Families who are poor may not have access to good
  prenatal and infant care and nutrition.
• Poor mothers are likely to have premature babies
• Children in poverty are more likely to be exposed
  to drugs and alcohol during pregnancy
• Low Expectations-Low Self-Esteem
• Low SES students may end up thinking they are
  poor students because that is what everyone
  expects from them

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Factors that May Influence the Relation Between
SES and Achievement

• Peer Influences and Resistance Cultures
• Resistance culture Group values and beliefs
  about refusing to adopt the behaviour and
  attitudes of the majority culture
• Tracking
• Assignment to different classes and academic
  experiences based on achievement

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Factors that May Influence the Relation Between
SES and Achievement

• Child-Rearing Styles
• Researchers have found that middle-class mothers
  talk more, give more verbal guidance, help their
  children understand the causes of events and make
  plans and to direct their childs attention to
  the relevant details of a problem.
• Home Environment and Resources
• Books, computers, visits to libraries and museums
  and trips seem to have the greatest impact on
  childrens achievement when not in school (i.e.,
  before school starts or during the summer)

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Ethnic and Racial Differences

• A major concern for schools is that some ethnic
  groups consistently achieve below the average for
  all students.
• E.g., First Nations students are three times more
  likely to labelled as learning disabled or as
  delinquent than non-Native students

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Video

• The Angry Eye

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Stereotype Threat

• A burden of doubt one feels about his or her
  performance due to negative stereotypes about his
  or her groups abilities.
• Research has shown effects of stereotype threat
  on many visible minorities, low-income people,
  women, and elderly people.

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Combatting Stereotype Threat

• Acknowledge stereotypes about groups and give
  students ways of coping with them

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Females and Males Differences in the Classroom

• Gender-role identity The image that each
  individual has of himself or herself as masculine
  or feminine in characteristics
• Androgynous Having some typically male and some
  typically female characteristics apparent in one
  individual

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Females and Males Differences in the Classroom

• How does a persons gender-role identity develop?
• Biology plays a role (hormonal differences)
• Environmental factors such as parental
  expectations and different treatment also affects
  gender-role identity

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Gender-Role Stereotyping in School

• Gender Biases Different views of males and
  females often favouring one gender over the other

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Gender-Role Stereotyping in School

• Sex Discrimination in the Classrooms
• Teachers interact more with boys than with girls
• Boys are given way more attention in science
  classes

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Gender Differences

• Mental Abilities
• Boys and girls do not differ in general
  intelligence, but they do vary in specific mental
  abilities.
• Girls are advantaged in early language
  development and reading achievement in the school
  years.
• Boys outperform girls on spatial ability tasks
  and do better on tests of mathematical reasoning.

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Small Groups Exercise

• Discuss specific ways for eliminating gender bias
  in the classroom.

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Bringing it all Together Teaching Every Student

• Know your students
• Respect your students
• Teach your students