Culture and Community

1
Culture and Community

• How many of you have had an experience with
  bullying in your K-12 education?
• 30 of American children are regularly involved
  in bullying, either as bullies, victims, or both
  (National Center for Safe Schools, 2001).
• Classroom teachers identified and intervened in
  only 4 percent of bullying incidents (Skiba
  Fontanini, 2000).

2
Consequences of Bullying

• lower attendance
• lower student achievement
• lower self-esteem
• depression
• increased incidence of violence and juvenile and
  adult crime

3

• Children who bully are more likely to become
  violent adults.
• Victims of bullying often suffer from anxiety,
  low self-esteem, and depression well into
  adulthood (Banks, 2000 NRCSS, 1999)

4
Children who regularly witness bullying at school
suffer from

• a less secure learning environment
• the fear that the bully may target them next
• the knowledge that teachers and other adults are
  either unwilling or unable to control bullying
  behavior (USDOE, 1998).

5
Primary indicators include

• duration
• power
• intent to harm
• Bullying, unlike isolated conflicts between
  individuals, occurs when a student or group of
  students targets an individual repeatedly over
  time, using physical or psychological aggression
  to dominate the victim.

6
How would you address bullying in your school?
7
Small Group Discussion Questions

• 1. Define culture and discuss the issues that
  prompted belief in the cultural deficit model.
  What are the prevailing beliefs of educational
  researchers and theorists today about this issue?

8
2. Discuss the assumptions and goals of
multicultural education.
9

• 3. Identify some of the factors that may lead
  low-income students to perform less well in
  school than middle-income students with the same
  abilities.

10
4. Define gender bias and describe how it has
been expressed in school.
11

• 5. Compare alternative approaches to teaching
  bilingual children. Should a childs use of
  his/her non-English language in classroom
  learning be discouraged or directly integrated
  with learning in Standard English?

12

• 6. Discuss major findings from learning styles
  research regarding Hispanic, African American,
  and Native American students. Specifically, what
  types of learning styles appear dominant or more
  common for each of these groups?

13

• 7. What strategies might you use to help these
  new students to succeed in your class?