Culture Influence on Education - Research Paper Example

This research paper analyses the influence of culture on education within the perspective of critical pedagogy. Cultural Diversity in Contemporary Education The United States is increasingly becoming culturally diverse. The effect of this increasing cultural diversity is most evident in schools. But in spite of the increasing cultural diversity all over the country, cultural or racial-based segregation in schools has been growing. Alongside the evolving nature of U.S. education, ideas of how best to teach and learn in a culturally diverse setting have also evolved over time.

The educational history of the United States, in fact, is full of examples of culturally biased policies that worked to segregate or exclude from formal education students of Latino, Asian, African American, and Native American backgrounds (Doyle 82). It is evident that ideas about racial and cultural inferiority and dominance have a profound and long history in the U.S. educational history. For a considerable part of that educational history, the traditional knowledge was that students who come from minority cultures have a weakness ingrained in their identities.

As a result, the faster students assimilated to the mainstream society the smoother would be their move to the upper rungs of the social ladder. In the second half of the 20th century, these assumptions were criticised and disproven, mostly by individuals from the cultures being forced to change. It is not accidental that educational campaigns supporting multicultural education and ethnic studies all appeared simultaneously (Nieto 88). Such campaigns stood for the condemnation of ideologies that had prevented numerous cultural groups from attaining educational success.

All teachers nowadays deal with students who are more culturally diverse than ever before. This increasing cultural diversity influences teaching and learning. As an outcome of the evolving demographics of the United States and the rest of the world, culture and language are ever more essential issues in contemporary schools across the globe. Unfortunately, only a small number of educators aside from experts in bilingual education, urban education, or English as a second language (ESL) have been sufficiently trained or experienced to teach students who come from diverse cultural backgrounds (Phipps & Guilherme 62).

Consequently, numerous educators are not prepared to confront cultural diversity in schools. Such realities demonstrate that educational reform has to occur in certain areas, especially at the national, societal, and ideological levels. Meanwhile, students who are culturally different from the majority are especially at risk in a society that has viewed such differences to be weaknesses, and financial hardships to be a moral violation (Phipps & Guilherme 29-30). Nevertheless, change can start at any level, and this paper is rooted in the idea that teachers can and, indeed, should positively influence and inspire their students through critical pedagogy.

Knowledge is not unbiased, but it is usually viewed and handled by schools, teachers, and students as though it were. As a result, education has a tendency to be limited or narrow; it tends to accept only the least questionable and least offensive. But the truth is history is filled with fascinating controversies, debates, and socio-political conflicts. All