Chapter 2: Multicultural Education

Warm Up Questions

• In what ways does culture impact on the society we live in?
• How does culture affect the way we behave in our daily interactions?
• What type of influence do you think culture has on our education system?

Key Terms

cultural relativism

an attempt to understand other cultures within the context of your own cultural beliefs

dominant culture

a cultural practice that dominates within a certain society in which more than one culture exists

enculturation

the process of acquiring the characteristics of a culture and knowing how to navigate behaviours, customs, etc.

ethnocentrism

a belief held by people that their culture is best and that any others are strange, inferior, or wrong

Reading

Culture and Society

1. One of the main goals of multicultural education is to help bridge understanding between the dominant culture and groups of people who may have been marginalized by that culture. Therefore, it is important to understand exactly what is meant by the term “dominant culture.” For most sociologists, culture involves many components, such as language, customs, traditions, values, food, music, dress, gender roles, the importance of religion, and so on.

2. Culture imposes order and meaning on our experiences, and it allows us to predict how others will behave in certain situations. For example, if you are in a classroom and a student raises their hand, we know this means he or she has a question. But, culture includes so many aspects–the way people talk, dress, interact, eat, live, and so on. Within each culture are individuals, who are unique expressions of many cultures and subcultures.

3. There are two main responses to culture. One is enculturation, or the process of acquiring the characteristics of a culture and knowing how to navigate behaviours and customs. This often happens simply through the process of growing up within a given culture but is certainly something that can continue should the culture around you change. For example, if you have ever studied abroad or visited another county, you will likely have encountered another culture where you needed to adapt and learn how to navigate new social behaviours. The second response to culture is socialization, which refers to the process of learning the social norms of a culture.

4. Dominant culture refers to the significant aspects of culture that you find in a society. How would you describe the dominant culture in North America? White? English-speaking? Middle class? Christian? These are just a few terms that are often used to describe the dominant North American culture. A key distinction of dominant culture is that it is often maintained through our institutions. These can be our political and economic institutions, churches, schools, and media. When you examine the leaders in most of these areas, you find they often meet the criteria listed above.

5. When people begin to believe that their culture is best and that any others are strange, inferior, or wrong, it is referred to as ethnocentrism. At its roots, ethnocentrism is the belief that your culture is correct and superior to all others, any other culture is not an equally valid option. The opposite of ethnocentrism is cultural relativism. Cultural relativism refers to an attempt to understand other cultures within the context of your own cultural beliefs. For example, if you religiously identify as Christian and attend services and participate regularly, perhaps you can identify with Jews or Muslims who also have religious beliefs that impact their daily living, customs, and values.

Culture and School

6. So, what does culture have to do with education? There are two main ways that culture interacts with our education system. First, culture influences what and how we learn, and second, greater experiences with a dominant culture often equal greater success within that culture.

7. To elaborate on how culture influences what and how we learn, we can look to history for some strong examples of this. One of the most obvious ones was the work of Galileo. Before he proposed his theories, most scientists and certainly the influential Catholic church, fully believed the Earth was at the center of the solar system. However, growing scientific evidence showed the sun was actually at the center. Was the church and culture quick to change their opinion based on scientific evidence? Not exactly. Galileo was subjected to Roman Inquisition by the church and put on house arrest in 1615. It was not until 1992 that the Catholic church apologized for the handling of Galileo. While this may be a more extreme example, we continue to see culture influencing other aspects of learning today in topics such as climate change, evolution, and sex education.

8. The second way that culture is important to education is that the more experiences a person has with dominant culture, the more likely they are to be successful within that culture. Sociologists often discuss these experiences as cultural capital, a symbolic credit a person would acquire by having more experiences with dominant culture. Some examples of the most valuable cultural capital include things like reading at least three hours per week, owning a home computer, attending preschool, and having exposure to performing arts (playing an instrument, chorus, etc.).

9. Families are often incorrectly and inappropriately blamed for not providing their children with the cultural capital needed to succeed in schools. These children are often labelled as having a cultural deficit or experiencing cultural deprivation (a somewhat insensitive and biased term). The issue these terms are attempting to define, however, is a real one. The challenge for educators is that often the expected knowledge and experiences of students do not actually line up with their actual knowledge and experiences. Essentially, there is a gap between expected and actual knowledge/experience.

10. Methods that schools and communities use to compensate for these gaps include extra programming, funding, and other assistance. Field trips and community schools are just a few examples of such programs. Other programming includes support services for the disabled, family literacy programs, Head Start, language instruction, computer instruction, and transportation services.

Conclusions

11. Now that you, hopefully, understand more about the background and key ideas of multicultural education, it is worth investigating how scholars in the field would design and implement multicultural programming in schools. Educational theorists have alternative viewpoints on what a multicultural program would look like within a school setting. Advocates of particularism support the idea that a common culture is both undesirable and unattainable and they maintain the position that students would learn best from teachers and curriculum that reflect their ethnic backgrounds. On the other hand, advocates for pluralism think the United States does have a rich, common culture made up of various subcultures.

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Comprehension Questions

1. What is one of the primary objectives of multicultural education?
2. What are some examples that are part of culture? Give at least three examples.
3. What are the two main responses to culture? Give an example for one of them.
4. What aspect of society helps to maintain the dominant culture? Give an example.
5. In what two ways is culture related to education? Provide an example for each way.

Chapter 2 Answer Key

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary Practice

Definitions Chapter 2

Fill in the Blanks Chapter 2

Collocations Chapter 2