Critical Review of the reading - Book Report/Review Example

Diaspora Literacy in the Canadian Education System In her book d “Canadian Perspective on the sociology of Education”, Cynthia Levine-Rasky discusses some of the fundamentals involved in drafting out a school curriculum. She bases her arguments in light of the hypotheses developed by Klebard. According to Herbert Klebard, all discourse pertaining to a school curriculum should be able to address the following four questions:1. Why a particular subject should be included in the curriculum?2.

Who should be given access to what has been taught?3. How should that knowledge be regulated?4. How should the components of the curriculum correlate with each other?The aforementioned questions were meant to give a solid outline to educational institutions to regulate the communication of knowledge to the learners. Klebard based his entire theory on to the American education system, but with the increasing diversity of Canadian student body, it is equally applicable to Canadian education system as well.

(Levine-Rasky 143)The most important question that the current education system of Canada is often confronted with is that of race and Diaspora; particularly the African-Canadian population. The African identity is by far the most complex to define because of the fact that their presence all over North America was vastly attributed to the Diaspora or the displacement brought about by the institution of slavery. The African population has indeed come a long way from their homeland by way of slavery but then in the later years, a number of people were voluntarily left their homeland in order to immigrate to greener pastures of the world.

According to Levine-Rasky, African-Canadian population is relegated to a hyphenated status, giving their real culture no actual meaning or identification and this status is only meant to single out people with a darker skin complexion. Not just African-Canadian, but almost every culture is recognized by a single label; such as the term “Orientals” is applied onto anyone or anything from Asia and brown for Indians (Levine-Rasky 146). The curriculum should work to break down the segregation based on skin color that ultimately defines an entire heritage for the student body.

Levine-Rasky points out that racial and ethnic identity have become more or less of a taboo amongst educators; they deem it wiser if they completely ignore these differences and propagate a more uniform structure of education and knowledge. However, researches have shown that avoidance of these differences makes no significant change, doing nothing but further convoluting the transmission of knowledge. I am of the opinion that ethnic history and Diasporan literacy should be included in the school curriculum to help sustain the identity of the minorities.

Making it a part of the Canadian narrative can further consolidate the society by raising awareness regarding various races and ethnicity, thereby enhancing their tolerance towards diverse cultures. However, there are certain practical implications to it; however, these implications are only localized in nature, in other words that applying racial narrative can be a bit of a problem in various provinces of Canada; the implication is more political in nature then social.Quebec epitomizes the aspect of the argument discussed above, as it has a completely different history compared to that of other provinces.

The province is not only completely dominated by the French, who have fought long and hard to establish their separate identity and therefore are quiet nationalistic in nature. Therefore, any sort of acknowledgement from their side for other races and ethnicities will not be as simple as it seems for other provinces; otherwise incorporating racial identity in the education system is quite beneficial, particularly for African-Canadians, as it can help them achieve recognition in the society and further defining their identity.

This will expedite the process of transmission by further helping educators regulate the components of knowledge, making it more interrelated, which will pave the path for the consolidation of the society.Work CitedLevine-Rasky, Cynthia. Canadian Perspective on Sociology of Education. Oxford University Press. 2009.