Transcript Multicultural Education: What, Why and How?

Key Concepts in
Multicultural Education-Socialization And Related Concepts:
Stereotype, prejudice, racism,
discrimination
Stereotype
• mental category based on exaggerated and inaccurate
generalization used to describe all members of a group
(Bennett, 1995);
• erroneous beliefs, either favorable or unfavorable, that are
applied universally and without exception (Bennett, 1995);
•
stereotypes become truths:
• African Americans are violent and sexually promiscuous,
• Mexicans are illegal, hard-workers;
• athletes are dumb and fat people are lazy,;
• Jews are stingy
Discrimination
• differential treatment of individuals considered to belong to
particular groups or social categories (Rose, 1974).
Prejudice
•
set of rigid and unfavorable attitudes toward a particular
group or groups that are formed in disregard of facts
• individualized attitude (behavior);
• leads to discrimination.
Racism
• belief that human groups can be grouped on the basis of their
biological traits; these identifiable groups inherit certain mental,
personality, and cultural characteristics that determine their
behavior;
• extension of an attitude into an action. In a racist society, the
political, economic, and social systems reflect and perpetuate
racism; thus, racism is institutionalized (Gay, 1973);
• related to the idea of race,
• Race: human or biological traits of a group
• practiced when a group has the power to enforce laws,
institutions, and norms based on its beliefs that oppress and
dehumanize another group.
• Prejudice is an individualized attitude while racism is an
institutionalized concept/belief;
Ethnocentrism
• feeling of superiority of a culture over another culture; culture is
defined by our values;
• important to comprehend the complex dimensions of American
racism and the separatist movements that have emerged
within ethnic minority groups.
Racial classification
What racial groups do the following traits of racial classification
belong to?
Africans, Native Americans, Europeans, Asiatics
• have wide nostrils and harsh faces and are obstinate,
content, free and regulated by costums.
• are gentle acute, inventive, and governed by law
• have black hair and dark eyes, and are severe, haughty,
covetous, and governed by opinions
• wear scanty clothes, have black, frizzled hair, and are crafty,
indolent, negligent, and governed by caprice, improper
behavior.
Racial classification
• Native Americans: have wide nostrils and harsh faces and
are obstinate, content, free and regulated by costums.
• Europeans: are gentle acute, inventive, and governed by
law
• Asiatics: have black hair and dark eyes, and are severe,
haughty, covetous, and governed by opinions
• Africans: wear scanty clothes, have black, frizzled hair, and
are crafty, indolent, negligent, and governed by caprice,
improper behavior.
Carl von Linné’s racial classification
Carl von Linné’s racial classification
• Western society has tended to accept this classification of
Homo Sapiens along with the erroneous assumption that
mental, behavioral, and socio-cultural tendencies are
determined by a few visible biological traits and the belief
that Western Europeans are superior to all others
AFRICA AND MYTHS ABOUT AFRICAN
AMERICANS
• There has been prevalent misconception about the African
continent causing a tremendous effect on the way Blacks
are treated and stereotypized by the mainstream culture;
• The myths about Africa flourished in Europe and were
transported to the colonies in North America. Myths conjured
visions of the great White hunter facing primitive, cannibal
tribes;
• Myths about Africa developed, among other things, from the
need to justify slave trade. Assurance that slaves were
heathen savages who would benefit from becoming
Christianized and civilized became the basic excuse for
slavery.
AFRICA AND MYTHS ABOUT AFRICAN
AMERICANS
• When Europe launched into an era quest for new lands and
control new colonies, traditional history, culture and sources
of group identity were suppressed and replaced by the
dominant culture;
• Today, many books have outdated information about
African nations: a continent of lions, jungles, inferior savages,
a race of Negroes, land of turmoil, incapable of selfgovernment. Elementary and secondary history and
geography books are filled with erroneous information about
Africa and Africans;
• RESULTS are OBVIOUS: myths and distortions from the past
used to justify slavery are now used to serve as rationalization
for inferior segregated schools for black children,
substandard homes, low-paying jobs, segregated lives…