1. Culture and Diversity
Chapter 5

2. Today’s Diverse Classrooms
American Cultural Diversity
Culture is defined as the knowledge, skills, rules, traditions, beliefs, and values that guide behavior in a particular group of people, as well as the artifacts produced and passed down to the next generation.

3. Today’s Diverse Classrooms
Interpreting cultural differences
Individuals are complex and consist of more than their cultural identity.
Group membership is an umbrella, not a definition.
Race
Class
Gender

4. Today’s Diverse Classrooms
Interpreting cultural differences
Cultural differences may be obvious, but may also be hidden.
What are some examples?

5. Expectations Stereotyping students can be damaging.
Sometimes stereotypes negatively cast students, causing teachers to hold low expectations.
Sometimes stereotypes positively cast students, causing teacher to hold extremely high expectations.

6. Social Class Differences
Socioeconomic Status
Socioeconomic status is defined as the variations in wealth, power, control over resources, and prestige.
Social Class
Socioeconomic status (SES) is another way of describing social class, which is an older term that may also refers to social and economic power.

7. Poverty and Achievement
Poverty and School Achievement
Lower student achievement and lower socioeconomic status are moderately correlated
Q: What does correlation mean (recall Ch. 1)?
A: Students from low SES backgrounds are more likely to be lower achievers.
Why should teachers care about the relation between SES and achievement?
What can teachers do to address the needs of low SES students?

8. Poverty and Achievement
Why should teachers care about the relation between SES and achievement?
Students from low SES groups tend to experience higher levels of stress, which may impact achievement.
Minority students tend to be over-represented in low SES groups.
Students who are from low SES backgrounds may be stereotyped as low achievers or tracked into adjusted coursework that does not enable them to reach full potential.

9. Ethnicity and Race
Ethnicity: groups with a common nationality, culture, or language.
Race: men and women who share biologically transmitted traits that are defined as socially significant.

10. Ethnicity and Race
Students of color (non-majority) are disproportionately represented in lower socioeconomic groups.
As a result, many minority students fall into low achieving groups.
Not all minorities are low achievers, and many do not fit with typical stereotypes.

11. Discrimination and Prejudice
Minority groups are groups that receive unequal or discriminatory treatment
Prejudice is a rigid and irrational judgment about a group of people
Also considered a culturally transmitted set of values
Begins before age 6 in many cases

12. Stereotype Threat
Stereotype threat is “an apprehensiveness about confirming a stereotype”
Individuals whose cultural groups are stereotyped fear confirming the stereotype.
The aversion can affect test performance (see Steele & Aaronson).
Disidentification occurs when students try to avoid challenges and experience withdrawal, stop caring, even drop out of school.

13. Language Differences
Dialect: Any variety of a language spoken by a group of people.
Includes variation in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation
Differs by region, even within small distances or communities
Genderlect: Differences between ways males and females speak.
Accent: inflection, tone, or choice of words unique to an individual or group of individuals.

14. Language Differences Bilingualism
Children experience two languages as they are learning to speak
Can be additive (maintain two) or subtractive (lose one)
Multilingualism
Learning to speak multiple languages at once

15. Language Differences English Language Learners
Students learning English as a second language (ESL) who have already acquired a first language.
ELL students have already developed a comprehension of a first language (e.g. grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation) and are challenged with mapping English onto their prior language knowledge.

16. Gender Bias Gender bias in texts Gender bias in teaching
Check children’s texts for bias in title characters and illustrations
Television can also reinforce gender norms and biases—including children’s television.
Gender bias in teaching
Research suggests boys receive more attention from teachers than girls

17. Multicultural Education
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
Strategies for teaching that address the cultural needs and norms of students.
Multicultural Education
Teaching about diverse cultural groups as they relate to curricula.

18. Melting Pot or Multiculturalism
The melting pot approach suggest cultural groups lose their individual identities and become part of a larger cultural identity.
The multicultural approach suggests various individuals’ retain their cultures as a part of conglomerate of distinct cultural groups.

19. Convergences Tips for teaching in a diverse classroom
Know your students
Respect your students
Teach your students