Affirming Diversity - Coursework Example

Affirming Diversity Affirming Diversity According to Nieto and Bode , the concept of affirming diversity, through the manner in which schools acknowledge ethnic and racial identities have an impact on the educational experiences of all students. Inevitably, schools are a reflection of the society. However, at the same time, there is growing evidence and concern that the society is getting more unequal each day. It is from this perspective that the proponents of affirming diversity consider the concept to be typically about social justice. This is in contrast to other views that consider multicultural education and social justice to be about sensitivity training, ethnic cheerleading and political correctness. In particular, students of color and other marginalized groups have been shown to be the most affected, negatively, by the structural inequality that exists in school systems. This paper will discuss affirming diversity with a focus on how it impacts multicultural education, ways in which educators and schools can support students who do not have English as a native language and how it affects student outcomes. Areas of diversity can generally be grouped in groups which include ethnicity, race, religion, gender, disability, language, family and literacy. Because of the structures and curriculum in place in a particular school, it can be considered to either support or not support affirming diversity. My school supports affirming diversity because its curriculum is designed to ensure that student learn about valuing individual perspectives and differences. They are also expected to learn about understanding and empathy and, most importantly, appreciate diversity as normal and build inclusion. Essentially, the curriculum is designed to include the ability of the students to define diversity and understand the perspectives of other as part of the expected outcomes. The school is said to be supporting affirming diversity because students are required to be able to describe the challenges and difficulties that those from diverse backgrounds experience. This can only be achieved by an understanding of negative society values and challenging them (Nieto & Bode, 2012). Affirming diversity has a positive impact on multicultural education. First of all, it is critically essential to learn English for the sake of both academic success and future life prosperity (Nieto & Bode, 2012). However, this does not imply that in a multicultural education environment students must discard their own identities. In this sense, when immigrant students maintain their ethnic identity positively while acculturating have been shown to end up as fluent bilinguals with better academic performance and mental health than their counterparts that assimilate completely. This calls for the maintaining and enhancing of linguistic and cultural diversities in multicultural education environments rather than erasing them. When all students are respected regardless of their backgrounds, it means multicultural education affirms who they are and translates into effective and productive teaching. Education outcomes will improve significantly when diversity is affirmed by means other than simply special assembly programs such as ethnic celebrations and multicultural dinners. Rather, they should involve an analysis of practices and policies in schools that improve the curriculum, instructional strategies, testing, materials and textbooks. When these are all more unbiased for each student regardless of their background in multicultural education, their achievements significantly improve (Nieto & Bode, 2012). On the other hand, even though learning standards and funding of different schools may be identical, student outcomes may be sharply different when these aspects are availed in a prejudiced manner. Competence is not enough on its own, even though it is a critical learning requirement. Therefore, competence must exist alongside an environment of multicultural education to minimize chances of skills going unused or put to anti0social and unproductive ways. Multicultural education will, therefore, impact on education positively by building confidence and, more importantly, connections and character (Oregon Department of Education, 2009). Schools and teachers can support students who do not have English as their native language first by acknowledging that such students are living in two different worlds represented by the school and home (Monroe, 2006). Many will generally be able to navigate between them, but many others also find the two worlds in conflict. Recognizing home culture and first language as strengths rather than handicaps, therefore, forms the basis of offering support geared towards bilingual education and academic work. Through affirming diversity, the schools and teachers can shift focus from the majority culture to multicultural aspects. Then, rather than relying simply on teaching through talking, schools and teachers should be more experimental and interactive, which will ensure that the literacy range is expanded (Oregon Department of Education, 2009). Examples include the school putting in place integrated studies and using strategies such as releasing responsibilities to students in a gradual manner. From this aspect, it is, therefore, important for schools to let students participate in establishing learning objectives, rather than it being a role reserved exclusively for teachers. It is also recommended that the family be part of supporting such students. Schools serving culturally marginalized and economically deprived are likely to cut arts programs. This can be explained if viewed from the notion that culturally marginalized students present the single largest challenge to education systems because their lack of intellectual stimulation as students means they struggle with language as an art. Then, when they do not develop sufficient foundations in writing, reading and speaking, they essentially lack the tools essential to succeed in any other discipline of education. Therefore, the cutting of other arts programs ideally facilitates concentration on language (Oregon Department of Education, 2009). This offers students opportunities and experiences of successful learning early within the curriculum to avoid increased displays of frustration caused by academic failure or difficulty. Researchers opine that by concentrating particularly on the arts of language and reducing the other, the schools are using this trend to avoid a dip in self-esteem by the students because of frustrating results. Viewed from the broader perspective, this affects student achievement positively by arming them with language as the most significant tool to succeed in other academic disciplines. The choices between assimilation and affirmation are different today than they were one century ago mainly because of the changes that have occurred in the societies that an immigrants needs to either assimilate or affirm (Jewish Virtual Library, 2008). For instance, the US was once known to assimilate immigrants from most parts of the world mainly because the nation had universal values that immigrants could easily embrace. It was easy for the immigrants to understand the values of equality, liberty, honesty and hard work as they presented by the law and suited most cultures around the world. Therefore, this made the choice of assimilation and affirmation much easier, because the immigrants knew exactly what they were affirming or assimilating into. However, 100 years down the line, it has become a complicated issue for immigrants to understand values such as class warfare, marital infidelity, feminism and gay marriage, essentially complicating the choice between affirming and assimilation. Then there is also the issue of stereotyping certain professions with certain ethnicities. For example, female Jews in New York dominated the teaching profession of teaching in public schools to an extent that it was described as a Jewish job. This means that, towards the 21st century, it was almost a necessity for Jews to assimilate if they wanted jobs in other industries, for example, those that were known to be affiliated with the Catholic Church. However, the choice of assimilation can still be viewed as not being so limited today mainly because the rights of immigrants are legally protected. Then, the diverse cultures are still supported within the American culture, albeit amidst others that are considered to be unacceptable. In the PK-12 setting, the key idea for affirming diversity is that children should be made aware of the existence of diverse cultures, races and ethnicities in schools, groups and organization (Nieto & Bode, 2012). This should be done with the objective of teaching the children to accept, embrace and appreciate rather than view the differences negatively. References Jewish Virtual Library. (2008). Assimilation. Retrieved from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0002_0_01522.html Monroe, J. (2006). Standardized testing in the lives of ELL students: A teacher’s firsthand account. Retrieved from http://www.elladvocates.org/documents/nclb/Monroe_Standardized_Testing_for_ELLs.pdf Nieto, S. & Bode, P. (2012). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. New York: Pearson. Oregon Department of Education. (2009). How schools and teachers can help students feel good about school and why it matters. Oregon: Author. Read More