Behavior Disorders Related to Cultural Diversity - Essay Example

Introduction Cultural diversity is an awkward term to identify when attempting to write a definitive dissertation regarding the effects of the same on behavioral disorders within children and adolescents. If one were to talk about adults, the effects of cultural diversity on this sector of the population is deemed racism. When men of one color create disputes with men of another color, the cry of racism is a simple one on which to blame the unhealthy or destructive behaviors. The racially charged attacks often stem from deeply rooted belief systems which have been built be environmental factors as well as experiences over a life time. However, when discussing children and adolescents, the picture changes because individuals in this age range are still in the process of building their belief systems. The individuals who experience or construct behaviors which are destructive as a result of cultural diversity do so from a number of influences and causal factors. However, one factor that should not be used to understand these behaviors and interactions is that of racism. Although the individual may well be experiencing events similar to racially motivated disagreements, because the younger population is still constructing their core belief systems, we must look for other influences in order to understand their behaviors. The Problem of identifying racially based behavioral disorders According to Boucher, the issue of mental health is a valid discussion to pursue when inquiring into children and adolescent behavioral disorders. The child who is able to take a step back, so to speak, and look at a situation from a more objective viewpoint is a person who has a better foundation of emotional and mental health than those who cannot. When an individual cannot withdraw, and put emotionally charged feelings on a lesser priority level and consider a problem or situation from a more rational point of view, the person cannot detach in order to think more clearly and exercise behavioral choice over their responses. This persona has a problem with "detachment: or an inability to be objective or to distance themselves from circumstances. They over personalize events; they complain that they are the brunt of insults, the butt of jokes, blamed, or targeted; or they believe that they are victims. Unable to prioritize, they react to everything in equal proportion; molehills become mountains." (Boucher, 1999) This behavior is not that which rises to the point of clinical detachment disorder, but rather is simply the learned ability to think through a problem, whether emotionally or racially charged or not. Boucher continues "The detachment difficulty evident in students with emotional and behavior disorders does not involve such a pervasive quality of unreality. Their detachment difficulty, rather, is a process of selective perception. These individuals can deal only with what relates to them; they cannot think beyond themselves; and they are unable to put order into their thoughts and behaviors, or prioritize." (Boucher, 1999) Thus Boucher has identified one of the inherent difficulties with approaching the subject of adolescent and child behavioral disorders as they relate to cultural diversity. Individuals in a culturally diverse setting are often more conscious of themselves, uncomfortable with how they do or do not fit in. When this is perceived as being motivated across racial divides the problem can escalate quickly. In other words, the younger population often has not yet developed the ability to step back and see the situation through a rational viewpoint. For example, black and white people groups within the American culture have unique, and yet often opposing views of the country and culture which give them identity. Black and white, a subgroup and a group respectively, have a different experience within the American culture which has given birth to what can be diametrically opposed perspectives on the American experience. For the white group, what could be called a ruling class by those who feel separate from the white group, America has always been a place of opportunity, evolution of self, and a culture which allows any person or peoples to change and better themselves. This process of living with the purpose of bettering oneself, and the lifestyle it creates, is a choice. When the black sub group chooses to pursue another cultural path within the American culture, white America often shows little tolerance or understanding. For example, for the black American, the melting pot and land of opportunity images have never evolved into the cultural icons with which white American's so closely identify. The black experience of American culture did not begin with voluntary immigration in the pursuit of a better life. Black American's were forcibly taken from their homes and brought to America as slaves. Black American's, while no longer living as slaves, and living in a free country, still struggle to establish a distinctly American and successful identity. Their path was forced, not voluntary. Their emigration was from freedom to bondage, while white Americans, to a great extent, left religious and social bondage to establish freedom. From these two different paradigms, two different American cultures have emerged. At the seam where these cultures meet, friction and misunderstanding not only seem to be the norm, but they are on the increase. As a result, a homogeneous America currently does not exist for either group. As a result, both sub-cultures tend to carry a chip on their shoulder, blaming the other as the source of the discord. Taking this cultural experience, and applying it across the culturally diverse spectrum which America has become, and then backtracking into the younger generations, one can see two different behavioral paths beginning to form. The aspect of positive mental health referred to above as detachment is a skill which must be learned, and this process most often occurs from parent to child. The higher order mental function, called metacognition (Boucher, 1999) enables functional independence. An individual learns to self monitor, and thus becomes more independent from others. Children need to learn this process from his parents in order to distinguish between events that are merely unpleasant and annoying and those that are serious and tragic, and also to be able to distinguish events which are a function of racial differences from those which are focused on attacking a person because of racial differences. The person must learn a sense of proportion ( Ginott 1969) in order to build a healthy emotional foundation. For the younger population of diverse cultures, the idea of detachment becomes blurred when the adults pass along the idea of discrimination and racism to their children. A parent can point out incident from their personal history which was racially motivated. This sets the child on a pursuit to look for and find similar occurrences. Thus, events can no longer be viewed from a detached point of view. Incidents which arise from valid differences, or discomfort which arise from unfamiliarity between races are perceives as personal attacks, personal racial slurs, and thus the child become accustom to looking at the world through racially motivate lenses. This is a process which can affect both black and white individuals as well as other races, and in no way is an experience which is limited to one racial group or another. The Positive Influence of a More Culturally Diverse Social Order Racial patterns, and in particular racism of the past decades is becoming more out of place in a more racially diverse society, and those who reap the greatest benefits are the younger population. Racism of the past, the racial hatred of this nation leading up to, and through out the civil rights movement, found fertile soil in which to grow. Our society was dominated by white Americans, and the racial cries revolved around the insistence that black American's did not "fit in." Regardless of the reason, the black Americans stood out among the population. At this same time, white Americans established through their dominance that white American culture. However, in post modern America, cultural diversity is both more wide spread and more influential. The idea of a 'white America' as it was understood in the last century has all but been erased. In the place of this idea is the acceptance of wider culturally diversity as part of the American experience. As the social order has evolved on our nation, the mass immigration of Europeans during the late 1800's and early 1900's lead to a melting pot mentality. Today, new cultural influences are being felt across the country, and the melting pot is lying discarded along the side of the road. In another half century or more, the country will likely begin to feel another sociological push toward become a melting pot again. How this applies to behavioral disorders is that many of the definitions of what was a behavioral disorder have been expanded, or thrown out completely. These definitions are becoming out dated . . . a function of a society which was looking for commonality among individuals rather than teaching individuals to use their differences to benefit themselves and those around them. In a recent study entitled "What's right with behavioral disorders, authors discussed this changing viewpoint this way "This paradigm shift actually exists, (although it) has been received with considerable skepticism by the behavioral disorder field. Specifically, Elkind (1998) suggested that individual differences in behavioral characteristics and behavioral expression are so vast, complex, and unique that traditional classification systems are next to useless and artificial at best. He recommends that we focus our efforts exclusively on the individual. Elkind further argued that behavioral disorder professionals have at their disposal an array of therapeutic techniques, from differing theoretical approaches, and that we should apply combinations of them as the child's individual needs warrant. On what basis we would select such combinations of techniques and evaluate the efficacy of our efforts remains a mystery to us" (Walker, Sprague, Close and Starlin, 1999) Another researcher supports this same interpretation of the changing dynamics among children with behavioral disorders. Heubeck (2000) conducted research across three continents, and discovered that traditional behavioral models were showing convergent patterns "especially the social problems factors. Most double loadings in the current models were not upheld. Instead, additional analyses discovered a number of unmodelled loadings including many cross-loadings." His findings led to the the requirement that many social problems had to be redefined in order to evaluate, especially aggression factors, emotional acting out and delinquent factors described an evasive, covert type of antisocial behaviors. Further research has found that there may be a growing confusion in the field between the outworking of cultural diversity and genuine behavioral disorders. "Scholars (have) asserted that the misclassification of culturally diverse students in programs for students with emotional and behavioral disorders may be attributable, at least in part, to the mismatch between the behavioral expectations present in the students' home environments and those prevalent within schools." (Aaroe, Nelson, 2000) Some in the field have not yet acknowledged the need to redefine behavioral disorder definition. They see this approach to the topic as throwing out the historical evidence and empirical perspective which has built the field of human studies since the time of Galton and Darwin. However, understanding the effects of postmodernism and cultural diversity on the evaluation, diagnosing and treatment of behavioral disorders is an important shift, created by the post modern man. By treating every behavioral disorder as a unique individual case rather than measuring how the individual does or doesn't fit into a predefined societal pattern can only be good for the patient as well as the practitioner. This shift allows the practitioner to carefully weigh and measure the validity of their definitions he or she uses in order to more accurately identify the emotional health of his patient. This expanded, less rigid perspective is more in keeping line with that which schools use to evaluate students which exhibit behavioral disorders in the classroom. According to Hendrickson, Gable, Conroy, Fox and Smith (1999) education personnel are another group which can no longer simply attempt to suppress unacceptable student behavior. Now they are expected to determine the "why" behind the student's behavioral antics. The student is motivated to engage in that a particular behavior (Gable et al., 1998a; Van Acker, 1998) and in order to treat the child, the educators are asked to probe beneath the surface. Based on knowledge of the function(s) of behavior educational teams must design programs to reduce future occurrences of the behavior while teaching the student more socially acceptable replacement behaviors. This may mean discussing home life, modeling which occurring within the home as well as individual incidents in the school. Behavioral disorders now are being more widely classified, (e.g., Fox et al., 1998) White Americans, black Americans as well as Asian. Latino and others each have made choices on how to perceive their country and culture. Each has come to an individual understanding based on their choices and personal experiences. Unfortunately, at the intersection of these paradigms, the individuals often try to justify their perceptions as something bigger than choice. White America lifts up their own experience as 'how and what America is.' America is the melting pot, the land of opportunity, and any individual or people group that does not perceive it similarly is understood as attacking America. Black America similarly can understand the country as an oppressive culture, bent on taking from them their individuality and uniqueness as it tries to squeeze them into the white cultural mold. Working under this perception, black Americans can easily turn aggressively hostile to the white paradigm, which leads to conflict, and disunity. When children are modeled this understanding of the world, that the world is an unjust place, and that those of other nationalities are out to attack those who are unlike them, the children mature into racists. When these feelings are not allowed to vent in the child's life, the child also is already on the path toward adult racism. At the child's level, these belief systems are being tested out, applied to their situations and tested for validity. This behavior could be called 'trial behavioral disorders.' The child is testing a behavior, to see if the world will respond in the way which he or she has been told will occur. If the child is responded to in a manner which belittles their cultural identity, the trial behavioral disorder can easily become a hardened and accepted behavioral pattern as the child seeks to validate his own personage out from under the oppressive weight of racial discrimination. If the child is responded to in a manner which reinforces his uniqueness, and validates his cultural heritage, the child will be more willing to open up, and accept those of different national origins. The child will feel self acceptance of the differences between himself and others of other heritages. The child, although he may continue to test out 'trial behavioral disorders' will eventually discover that acceptance by the majority of the society, which includes diverse cultures, is more desirable than ostracization as a result of behavioral issues. As a result, the child will likely leave the questionable behaviors behind of their own accord. Ultimately, this process teaches the child the value of choice and the importance of healthy detachment as they learn to make emotionally healthy decisions. Reike and Sillars, in their work on critical decision making (1993) address this phenomenon by accurately identifying it as the product of choice. They say that our individual belief systems are made up of two components, beliefs and values. Individuals settle on core values as both an individual and as a larger group. Often these values within a culture are similar, even though they are worked out in different ways. Americans as a group tend to hold the value of independence as a universal value. Individuality is also a shared cultural value. According to Reike and Sillars, built around these core values are individual belief systems which shape and affect our understandings of our values. Belief systems are most often learned behaviors. Belief systems are based on what is important to us, our values, but they also reflect our personal experiences, and our belief systems also shape our actions. We will rarely make decisions or choose a course of action which is in violation to our belief system, even if the belief system inaccurately reflects our world view. At the core of the disharmony between different races are competing belief systems. At the core of the developing child is a desire to both fit into the herd, as well as find individual value and worth as a unique member of the same. The increasing level of cultural diversity in post modern America is a positive influence on both of these core desires. A monumental difficulty arises when our culture as a whole accepts these world views to the exclusion of the other. At this point, communication and cultural movement toward change become very difficult, if not impossible. Individuals pull back, and begin digging emotional and cultural fox holes, to 'defend' their position, and their personal identity, against the perceived salvos launched from the 'other side.' In order to protect their identity, the sides become unwilling to communicate, unwilling to engage the other, and the racial problems continue unabated. This reactionary process hinders any real growth and change that can occur, and our society stays divided. The beginning of this process in the child is what is mentioned above as 'trial behavioral disorders.' If the child is reinforced positively for being disruptive, they will continue the behaviors. While this is basic child psychology, when dealing with this issue of personal identify, the process is slightly different. When the child receives affirmation for their cultural diversity, even if demonstrated through aberrant trial behaviors, the affirmation will pull them out of the behavior. If the child received a response which attacks his or her cultural identity, even if the response is directed toward correcting aberrant behaviors, the child will likely feel reinforced to continue the behavior because he refuses to accept the lack of acceptance of his or her national identify. Conclusion To some extent, this evaluation of child and adolescent behavioral disorders as related to cultural diversity is akin to asking a tadpole to jump like a frog. The tadpole will eventually be a frog, shedding its tail and protective water habitat. The child too will eventually come to an age at which he is ready to shed the need for trial behavioral disorders. However, during the childhood and early adolescent years, the psychological ability to detach and make rational decisions will be typically deficient. The opportunity exists to help them mature without turning the trial emotional and behavioral disorders into mature racism, and emotional dishealth. While students lack the perspective that permits a sense of humor, a light heart, and the creation of a philosophy of life that involves a viewpoint beyond oneself, those involved with them can be the catalyst toward positive emotional health with their responses, and their support. Works Cited Aaroe, L; Nelson, R. (2000) Comparative Analysis of Teachers', Caucasian Parents' and Hispanic Parents' Views of Problematic School Survival Behaviors. Education & Treatment of Children, Vol. 23. Boucher, R. (1999) Students in Discord: Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Greenwood Press. Conroy, M; fox, J; Gable, R.A.; Hendrickson, J; Smith, C. (1999) Behavioral Problems in Schools: Ways to Encourage Functional Behavior Assessment. Education & Treatment of Children, Vol. 22. Elkind, D. ( 1998 ). "Behavioral Disorders: A postmodern perspective". Behavioral Disorders, 23, 153-159. Fox, J., Conroy, M., & Heckaman, K. (1998). Research issues in functional assessment of and intervention on the challenging behaviors of students with emotional and behavior Disorders. Behavioral Disorders, 24, 26-33. Gable, R. A., Sugal, G., Lewis, T., Nelson, J. R., Cheney, D., Safran, S. P., & Safran, J. S. (1998b). individual and systemic approaches to collaboration/consultation on behalf of students with emotional/behavioral Disorders. Reston, VA: Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders Ginott H. G. 1969. Between parent and teenager. New York: Avon. Rieke, Richard & Sillars, Malcolm (1993) Argumentation and Critical Decision Making, New York: HarperCollins, 3d. ed. Heubeck, B. (2000) Cross-Cultural Generalizability of CBCL Syndromes across Three Continents: From the USA and Holland to Australia [1] Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Vol. 28. Starlin, C; Walker, H. (1999) What is Right with Behavior Disorders: Seminal Achievements and Contributions of the Behavior Disorders Field. Exceptionality, Vol. 8. Van Acker, R. (1998). Translating discipline requirements into practice through behavioral intervention plans: The use of functional behavioral assessment. In L. M. Bullock & R. A. Gable (Eds.), Implementing the 1997 IDEA: New challenges and opportunities for serving students with emotional/behavioral Disorders (pp. 29-41). Reston, VA: Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders Read More