Date sent: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 02:14:55 -0600 (CST)
From: LindaP (Texas)
Subject: Issues in supporting school diversity

>Subject: Issues in supporting 1 tucker
>
>April 24, 1991
>
 
>Issues in Supporting School Diversity:Academics,
>Social Relations, and the Arts
> By
>Judith Lynne Hanna
>Supporting diversity in the schools is a shibboleth in education and even a
>mandate in
>some states. But while such support is invaluable, the odyssey to achieve it
>is often
>fraught with danger.
>Because the arts are a particularly vibrant means of entering a culture,
>offering at once
>valuable information about their creators, producers, and audiences, I have
>been interested
>in my career in gauging the impact and potential of multicultural arts
>education. Exposure
>to various esthetics and their sociocultural contexts and history, I have
>found, allows a
>person to see and understand more than his or her own footsteps. Diverse
>cultures may
>have unique and meaningful ways of expressing universal themes.
>Experiencing similarities and differences in these modes of expression often
>helps an
>individual become more skillful and comfortable interacting with members of
>diverse
>groups at work and at play. Learning about one's own culture usually provides
>a sense of
>identity, roots, and self-understanding; learning about other cultures
>stretches the mind
>and can help dissolve prejudice.
>A key problem in this and other approaches to multicultural education,
>however, is
>intracultural variation--diversity within diversity. Society often puts
>homogeneous labels
>on groups that differentiate themselves. And a cultural designation, in this
>context, may
>become a false or damaging stereotype behind which an individual is
>submerged.
>Members of a "group" may disagree on what aspects of the group's or
>subgroup's culture
>should be reflected in school, and how. The group's disagreement may in turn
>create
>school-community friction. Given the richness and abundance of cultural
>diversity, along
>with limited time in school, putting priorities on what receives attention is
>unavoidable.
>When a group lacks a specific, easily identified form of cultural expression
>that other
>groups may have--a dance, for example--who decides what is appropriate to
>create and
>designate as such, and how?
>African-Americans often recognize divisions based on social class, skin
>color, region or
>country of origin, amount of time lived in an area, gender, age, religion,
>and kind of racist
>oppression experienced. Yet, policymakers often regard them as a homogeneous,
>unified
>group because they are a minority with African roots.
>Some African-Americans even view aspects of African-American culture, such as
>gospel
>music, "feeling the spirit" through kinetic manifestation, and traditional
>dance genres as
>esthetically inferior. In a Philadelphia school, for example, officials
>banned children's
>spontaneous playground dancing, "doin' steps," as "lewd, fresh, inappropriate
>for school,
>disrespectful, and too sexual." Officials in a Dallas school, on the other
>hand, had no
>objection to this kind of dancing.
>The "Hispanic" and "Caribbean" communities of New York City, Miami, and Los
>Angeles
>include both recent immigrants and established families of Cubans,
>Dominicans,
>Guatemalans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Mexicans, Nicaraguans, and Puerto Ricans.
>This
>diversity, compounded by generational and life-cycle divisions, reflects a
>plethora of
>diverse music and dance.
>A second problem is that, although there is a worthy panoply of rationales
>for multicultural
>education and multicultural arts education, there is little evidence that
>specific programs
>and approaches do what they are supposed to do. Rationales are based on such
>transformations as helping minority students succeed in school, improving
>social relations
>among groups, assisting all students in reaching their potential, developing
>respect for
>diverse but equally valid forms of expression, avoiding the causes of
>oppression, and
>dispelling stereotypes.
>But at least one evaluation has demonstrated the gap between such program
>goals and
>outcomes. Raymond Giles, who coordinated the New York City African-American
>Institute's in-service courses on Africa, later interviewed 15 classes of
>predominantly
>African-American students in grades 4, 5, and 6 in Central Harlem. The
>students had nine
>months of once- or twice-a-week hourly study of African culture and history
>aimed at
>improving their self-image and engendering an appreciation of the African
>heritage. In his
>talks with the students, however, Mr. Giles found that most expressed the
>same hostile
>beliefs and negative stereotypes about Africa held by the uninformed or
>misinformed.
>It is even possible that exposure to symbols of a cultural group might evoke
>a new
>negativity toward that group--if, for example, the symbol, perhaps a dance,
>is disliked, or
>the previously held negative associations remain unchallenged.
>A third problem is the sometimes antithetical relationship between preserving
>symbols of a
>cultural group, such as the arts, and socioeconomic mobility. The arts can
>reflect what is,
>as well as suggest what might be. For migrants or immigrants to a new place,
>their own
>group's arts often provide an anchor in a sea of uncertainty, catharsis, and
>an emotional
>ballast for life's travails. Nonetheless, if the arts are embedded in a
>low-status, culturally
>conservative group, they may ultimately hamper the performers' integration
>into a new
>setting and their socioeconomic mobility. Some researchers, in fact,
>criticize multicultural
>education as a palliative to keep minorities from rebelling against
>oppressive systems.
>At times, upwardly mobile groups eschew their own cultural esthetic
>expression and take
>on the art forms of the group they wish to emulate on the next rung of the
>socioeconomic
>ladder. Mexicans in Texas incorporated beats and patterns of the music and
>dance of the
>German and Polish farmers into their own cross-pollinated Tex-Mex music and
>dance. It is
>often only when people have improved their socioeconomic situation that they
>rediscover
>their earlier cultural heritage.
>Because the arts often reflect a group identity and are viewed as property, a
>fourth
>problem in supporting diversity is that an outsider's appropriation of a
>cultural group's art
>form may be resented, even considered a form of theft or offense. The
>religious beliefs
>among some American Indians, for example, preclude a secularization of sacred
>art. Some
>other groups do not want their culture to be presented in schools because
>they want the
>schools to "Americanize" their children.
>A fifth issue is that good intentions in the use of the arts in
>multi4cultural education may
>go astray because people are not sufficiently aware of each other's point of
>view.
>Sometimes an art form may be unrealistically romanticized, symbolize a
>low-status group,
>or have a ritual status. Because people may feel uncomfortable discussing
>cultural
>differences, they may inadvertently offend or hurt each other.
>Recognition of ethnically related artistic diversity itself may cause
>problems. Some children
>do not want to be singled out for what they are. Recognition for any
>reason--cultural-group esthetic expression or academic
>achievement--maysubject them to
>ridicule and humiliation. For children in general, fear of being humiliated
>ranks high among
>their concerns.
>There are at least three approaches to dealing with these problems:
>Investigating sensitivities and complexities. It is critical to develop an
>awareness among
>educators that cultures are not only internally diverse but ever-changing.
>Besides
>receiving multicultural training, educators can benefit from learning how to
>discover the
>views and problems of the groups they serve. Moreover, there should be
>encouragement
>for parents, teachers, and students to speak forthrightly in settings free
>from incrimination
>and penalty.
>Listening to children's voices about their social world, their peer-group
>priorities and
>pressures, their family and community life, and the arts is also necessary in
>order to know
>how best to help them.
>Balancing assimilation with diversity. It may be wise to provide all
>individuals with the
>opportunity for choice by teaching the skills, knowledge, and culture that
>allow a person
>access to socioeconomic mobility with the possibility of code switching
>(being able to
>operate in one or another culture at will). In addition, recognizing the
>cultural entity that
>defines what is an American helps avoid enforced divisiveness.
>Evaluation. It is important not only to discover whether programs intended to
>support
>diversity in schools validate their goals, but also to assess the often
>surprisingly
>unintended effects caused by well-meaning programs.
>Research can reveal students' felt and reflective experiences in response to
>exposure to
>different cultures' expressions. Cultural expressions such as the arts are
>symbols and, as
>such, they are a shorthand and susceptible to distortion. Moreover, symbols
>and their
>meanings change over time in response to environmental forces.
>American culture is integrative, incorporative, cross-pollinating, and
>amalgamating.
>Americans have many identities: separate personal identities, separate
>cultural identities,
>and common identities. Recognition of difference need not become an immutable
>stone
>wall to our country's strength.
>Judith Lynne Hanna is an education program specialist in the U.S. Education
>Department
>and a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland. Her books
>include Disruptive
>School Behavior; To Dance is Human; The Performer-Audience Connection; Dance
>and
>Stress; and Dance, Sex, and Gender. She is the co-author of Urban Dynamics in
>Black
>America.
>
>SUBJ:
>Do We Need a National Achievement Exam?
>Yes: To Measure Progress Toward National Goals
>Education Week
>Volume 10, Issue 31, April 24, 1991, pp 36, 28
>Copyright 1991, Editorial Projects in Education, Inc.
>
>Do We Need a National Achievement Exam?
>Yes: To Measure Progress Toward National Goals
>
>By Thomas H. Kean
>Keith Geiger, head of the National Education Association, is against it. Joe
>Nathan of the
>University of Minnesota Center for School Change opposes it. Even Gregory
>Anrig of the
>Educational Testing Service doesn't like it. With so many clamoring against a
>national
>achievement examination for high-school seniors, why do I support it?
>Because we need a reliable way to measure our progress toward the national
>goals set by
>President Bush and the governors. Because employers need a lot more than the
>high-school diploma to tell them what their applicants have learned. And
>because even as
>most indicators tell us that our schools are failing, America continues to
>spend hundreds
>of billions of dollars annually on an enterprise that has little or no means
>of accounting for
>results.
>It's time to develop a national achievement exam, required for all students.
>Some educators
>may not agree, but three out of four Americans do. In a 1989 Gallup poll, 77
>percent of
>respondents strongly supported requiring schools to use standardized national
>testing
>programs to measure what their students are learning.
>Educate America, a group I chair, recently proposed a national achievement
>examination
>for all high-school seniors in public and nonpublic schools. The exam would
>measure
>outcomes in six areas: reading, writing, math, science, American and world
>history, and
>geography. Individual scores (on a 0-200 scale in each area) would be mailed
>to students
>and their parents, as well as colleges and potential employers designated by
>the students.
>School-by-school and state-by-state averages would be published, allowing
>educators
>and policymakers to focus attention on clear, unambiguous, easy-to-understand
>results.
>At least five reasons compel us to pursue a national exam:
>Accountability for students. Students not bound for college have little
>incentive to work
>hard in school. They know that prospective employers are likely to ask only
>for a diploma,
>and in many schools, that sheepskin is more a proof of attendance than a mark
>of
>achievement. But what if students were told that Employer K would be looking
>at how
>much math they have learned, or Employer L how well they can construct a
>paragraph?
>A national exam with clear, easily understandable results would have a much
>more direct
>impact on job opportunities. It would create an effort-oriented system with a
>clear message
>that hard work pays dividends and that tough courses are the path to success.
>A large
>part of our efforts nationwide must be to bring that kind of challenging
>curriculum to all
>students, particularly those now tracked into dull and watered-down courses.
>Accountability for schools and states. With results of the test made public,
>the $230 billion
>nationwide education enterprise at long last would be accountable for
>results. For the first
>time in history, a reliable, commonly accepted indicator of accountability
>would be
>available for every high school in America. Because the results could be
>compared across
>schools and states, decisionmakers at all levels could pinpoint where changes
>were
>necessary. Depending on the results of these objective indicators, schools
>could either
>celebrate success or focus resources where most needed.