Chapter 6

Educational Psychology
Fourteenth Edition
Cluster 6
Culture and Diversity
Copyright © 2019, 2016, 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Learning Objectives
6.1 Describe the meaning of culture and discuss how cultural
diversity in American schools today is related to learning and
teaching.
6.2 Discus what defines social class and socioeconomic status,
including how SES differences relate to school achievement.
6.3 Explain how race, ethnicity, prejudice, discrimination, and
stereotype threat might affect student learning and achievement in
schools.
6.4 Describe the development of gender, gender identity, and
sexual orientation and discuss their role in teaching and learning.
6.5 Define multicultural education and apply research on diversity
to the creation of culturally compatible classrooms.

Outline
• Today’s Diverse Classrooms
• Economic and Social Class Differences
• Ethnicity and Race in Teaching and Learning
• Gender in Teaching and Learning
• Creating Culturally Compatible Classrooms

Today’s Diverse Classrooms
• Aspects of diversity that affect teaching and learning
– Social class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation
• Broad definition of culture
– Knowledge, language, values, attitudes, traditions that shape
and guide the behavior and beliefs of a group of people
– Defined along regional, ethnic, religious, racial, gender,
social class, or other lines
• Individuals are members of many groups, influenced by many
different cultures
– Example of one individual’s cultural ties: African American,
feminist, middle class, social studies teacher

American Cultural Diversity
• Many different cultures within every modern country
– Aspects that differ: Rural/urban, rich/poor, level of education
– Aspects in common: Values, history, traditions, many
common experiences
• Iceberg metaphor for culture
– 1/3 visible signs of culture, the rest hidden and unknown
– Visible: Costumes, marriage traditions, laws
– Invisible: Implicit, unstated, unconscious biases and beliefs
▪ Rules for listening, conducting interpersonal relationships
• Cultural influences—widespread, pervasive

Diversity Among Students
• Diverse abilities, experiences, languages, ethnic and racial
backgrounds, socioeconomic levels
– Student 1, Ternice Mattox, 7th grade, Black student
▪ Lives with mother, 3 siblings in large city in Northeast
▪ Advanced skill in writing discovered in grade 6
▪ Reluctant to test for a gifted program
– Student 2, Jessie Kinkaid, 11th grade, lives with mom,
Wisconsin
▪ Vocational track at school, not strong academically
▪ Reluctant to apply for chef’s school, though likes to cook
▪ Dislikes school, plans to graduate, marry, start family
• Diverse challenges for individuals from diverse communities

Cautions: Interpreting Cultural
Differences
1. Caution: Children are complex; most research focuses on
only one variable at a time (social class, ethnicity, race, or
gender)
– Intersectionality: Overlapping, intersecting social
identities shaping each of us in unique ways
– Each student shaped uniquely by cultural group
memberships (not just one factor or group)
2. Caution: Group membership does not define an individual
– Group membership only one factor (not sole factor) in
student’s behaviors

Cultural Conflicts and
Compatibilities
• Cultural differences often generate conflict
– Dominant-culture values used as standard for behaviors
– Students from other cultures socialized differently, behave
differently
– Example: Mexican American child violating school rule by
taking bread roll home to share with sibling
• Compatible cultural differences generate positive labels
– Example: “Model minority” label used with Asian Americans
• Dangers in stereotyping
– Reinforces conformity, stifles assertiveness
– Perpetuates view of group members as foreigners

Economic and Social Class
Differences
• Social class levels – low to high, depending on perceptions
of wealth, power, and prestige
– Classism – some groups feeling they are better
• SES (socioeconomic status) – relative standing in society
based on income, power, background, prestige
– Four levels (based on specified characteristics)
identified by researchers: Upper, middle, working, lower
– Characteristics: Income, occupation, education, home
ownership, health coverage, neighborhood, political
power

Extreme Poverty: Homeless and
Highly Mobile Students
• 1.3 million homeless students in U.S.
– Up to 25% of students in 37 states
– Inevitable physical, social, learning difficulties
– 75% in elementary, 85% in high school perform below grade
level
• Poverty and school achievement
– 44% of U.S. children live in low-income families or in poverty
– Increasingly lower achievement the longer a child remains in
poverty
– Growing achievement gap between privileged children and
children in poverty

Students in Poverty: Health,
Environment, and Stress
Negative effects of poverty:
• Poor prenatal and infant health care and nutrition
• High incidence of premature births (associated with many
cognitive and learning problems)
• Exposure to legal and illegal drugs before birth (associated
with organization, attention, and language problems)
• Chronic stress from evictions, hunger, lack of resources
(associated with school absences, cognitive problems)
• More likely to be exposed to environmental toxins
associated with neurological impairment

Students in Poverty: Low Expectations,
Low Academic Self-Concept
• Often stigmatized by teachers and peers
• Effects of teachers’ negative assumptions
– Teachers avoid calling on poor children in class
– Set lower standards
– Accept poor work from them
• Lower quality educational experience, low academic self-
concept
– Learned helplessness, view of school as dead end
– Intersection of poverty and race—chronic inequalities

Peer Influences and Resistance
Cultures
• Students at schools with peers from middle to high-income
families more likely to attend college
• Students in high-poverty schools more likely to have friends
who drop out
– May be part of resistance culture (resist school
achievement; resist acting “middle class”)
• Linked to poor Latino American, Native American, African
American groups and poor White students
• Educators need to be “equity literate,” make school an
inclusive place, not inviting resistance

Home Environment and Resources
Explanations for lower achievement of students in poverty
• Lack of access for poor families to high-quality preschool care
– Children read less, watch TV more, access books less
• Greater academic setbacks from summer breaks
– Begin school 6 months behind in reading skills
– Lose ground in reading skills each year, especially in
summer
• Tracking and lower quality schools
– May be tracked into “low-ability” or “vocational” classes
– Often at schools with few resources, inexperienced teachers

Teaching Students Who Live in
Poverty
• Learn about effects of poverty on student learning
• Set, maintain high expectations for the students
– Avoid feeling sorry, making excuses, expecting less
• Develop caring teacher-student relationships with them
– Talk to them out of class, attend their sports events
• Build their learning skills, self-regulation skills
– Teach how to organize, focus attention, manage
conflict
• Pay attention to health problems, absences, tardies
• Assess their knowledge; build on what they know

Ethnicity and Race in Teaching and
Learning
Clarification of terms:
• Ethnicity – cultural heritage shared by a group of people
– Shared history, homeland, language, traditions, or religion
• Race – socially constructed category based on appearances,
ancestry – shared physical characteristics such as skin color
• Race and ethnicity – both primarily social constructions
• Minority group – group of people who have been socially
disadvantaged, discriminated against
– Not always a numerical minority of the population
– African American minority group = majority population in
some areas

Ethnic and Racial Differences in
School Achievement
• Achievement gaps narrowing, ethnic groups gaining on
standardized achievement tests
• Greater gaps exist between wealthy and poor students
• Concerns for students of color, students of poverty:
– Problem of their scores being compared to test scores of
middle-class Whites (viewed as the norm), who have more
opportunities
– Lower high school completion rates (varying across
ethnicities)
– Consistently lower test scores – legacy of discrimination,
cultural mismatches
• Need for teachers to focus on successes of ethnic students

The Legacy of Inequality
• Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, 1954
– Parents and concerned families filed suit
– Ruling: “Separate but equal” schools inherently unequal
– Segregation became illegal; integration mandated
• Problems of legally mandated integration
– Many Whites left integrated schools, moved away
– Many schools more segregated today than 60 years ago
– Racial segregation associated with economic segregation
– Resegregation into low-ability tracks in some integrated
schools

What Is Prejudice?
• Prejudice: Unfair prejudgment about a group of people
– Based on beliefs, emotions, actions – cultural values
– Bias – prejudicial preference or action
– Can be positive or negative (usually negative attitudes)
• Racial prejudice (racism) - pervasive, not confined to any group
• Begins to develop at an early age
– Personal, social, and societal factors contribute
– Human tendency toward us/them or in-group/out-group
• Stereotypes: Schemas that organize what you know, believe,
feel about a group (including prejudiced beliefs)
– Often based on incomplete, limited, biased information

From Prejudice to Discrimination
• Discrimination – acting on one’s beliefs/feelings of prejudice
– Unequal treatment toward categories of people
• Prevalent toward Native Americans, African Americans, and Latinos in
U.S. education system
• Teachers often unaware of own prejudice
– Affects their expectations of students, interpretations of behaviors
– Can result in offending parents, damaging educational outcomes
– Causes students to feel less valued, overlooked, excluded,
unmotivated
– Leads to paths away from programs in science and engineering
• Recognized even by very young children

Stereotype Threat
• Stereotype threat – fear that your academic performance may confirm
a stereotype others hold about you
– Awareness of stereotype, not necessarily belief in stereotype
– Example: Stereotype that girls are not good at math; girl feels
anxious about solving difficult math problem in class
• Can affect any group in any stereotypical situation
• Stereotype threat and school achievement:
– Prevents students from performing their best
– Interferes with attention, working memory, learning in the subject
– Decreases connections to and value of that subject
– Likely contributes to achievement gap

Short-Term and Long-Term Effects
• Short-term: Poor test performance
– Example: Lower math performance for women and African
Americans when stereotype threat is present
• Possible explanations
– Performance-avoidance goals (trying to avoid looking dumb)
– Adoption of self-handicapping strategies like procrastinating
– Decrease in interest/engagement in the task
• Long-term: Disidentification
– Feeling disconnected, less motivated, withdrawn
• Combating strategies: Value diversity, teach growth mindset
– Help students believe learning and intelligence can be improved
(growth mindset)

Gender in Teaching and Learning
Terminology related to sex and gender
– Gender: Traits, behaviors deemed proper for males/females
– Sex: Biological differences in males/females
– Gender identity: Sense of self as male or female; beliefs one
has about gender roles and attributes
– Gender roles: How people behave in gender conforming
ways
– Sexual orientation: Gender to whom a person is sexually or
emotionally attracted
– LGBTQ: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
questioning
Important for teachers to provide equitable education for all

Gender Identity
• Gender identity not as simple as realizing you’re male or
female
• For some, may be different from sex assigned at birth
– Transgender individuals and those who behave in
gender-expansive, gender nonconforming, or gender
atypical ways
– Vulnerable to stigma, discrimination, lower self-beliefs
– May feel less confident in academic capabilities
• For some, gender identity forms early, remains permanent

Gender Roles
• Development of gender roles in children
– Awareness of gender differences by age 2
– Begin to believe their sex cannot be changed by age 3
– Initial sense of gender roles by age 4
– Gender schema for clothes, games, behaviors by age 5
• Gender schema theory: Gender as an organizing theme to
classify/understand the world
• Shaped by biology, treatment by adults/peers, socialization
with toys and play styles

Gender Bias in Curriculum Materials
• Gender bias: Different views of males and females, often
favoring one gender over the other
• Publishers’ role: Guidelines to prevent gender bias
– Represent males/females equally
– Defy gender stereotypes
– Teacher screening necessary for classroom materials
• TV, movies, other media should be screened for gender
bias
– Bias of prominence of white male characters
– Biased depiction of women in hypersexualized,
underpowered positions

Gender Bias in Teaching
• Studies about gender bias in teaching
– Boys receive more attention, both positive and negative
– High-achieving White girls receive least teacher attention
– Boys favored in teachers’ perceptions of math competence
– International concern: Boys’ underachievement at schools
– 90% of elementary teachers are females
• Best solution: Good teaching
– Goal – successful learning for everyone; pros and cons to
gender-segregated approaches
– No boy-specific or girl-specific teaching strategies

Sexual Orientation
• Internal mechanism directing one’s sexuality
• Separate from gender identity; distinct aspect of development
• Same-sex activity during adolescence—8% of boys, 6% of girls
– 4% of adolescents identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual
• Identity development of sexual orientation (can be flexible)
– Stages: Feeling different, feeling confused, then acceptance
• Discrimination against sexual minority youth
– More likely victims of aggression; greater risk to attempt suicide
• Teachers: Reach out; listen, affirm; refer student to an expert
– Deal with harassers; check back with the individual

Guidelines: Avoiding Gender Bias in
Teaching
• Check textbooks, other teaching materials for gender bias
• Be vigilant about your own comments, teaching practices
• Avoid limiting options for male/female students in any
class/school activities
• Use gender-free language
• Provide counter-stereotypic male/female role models
• Provide opportunities for all students to do complex,
technical work

Creating Culturally Compatible
Classrooms
• Multicultural education—equity in education of all students
– Ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, economic, gender
• Five dimensions of multicultural education (Banks 2014)
– Content integration
– Knowledge construction process
– Prejudice reduction
– Empowering school culture and social structure
– Equity pedagogy
• No general agreement about “best” approach

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
Teaching that rests on 3 propositions (Ladson-Billings 1995)
1. Students must experience academic success
2. Must develop/maintain their cultural competence
3. Must develop critical consciousness, challenge status quo
(critique social norms and values)
Three steps for culturally relevant pedagogy (Delpit 2003)
1. Believe in the children; believe all children are capable
2. Provide rigorous instruction, integrated across disciplines,
connected to students’ lives and culture
3. Know your students; help them value excellence

Self-Agency and Relationships
• Emphasis on teaching to strengths of students (Doll 2005)
• Self-agency strand (capitalizing on strengths)
– Academic self-efficacy, belief in one’s ability to learn;
rejection of societal messages about race and SES
– Behavioral self-control, self-regulation
– Academic self-determination, setting goals and making
choices; promote autonomy, connections to others
• Relationship strand (caring, connected network)
– Caring teacher-student relationships
– Effective peer relations, connections to school
– Effective home-school relationships, parent involvement

Diversity in Learning
• Social organization: Structure learning in ways that are compatible with
children’s social structure
– Hawaiian children thrive in cooperative groups
– Navajo children prefer segregated groups
• Cultural values, learning preferences that fit your students
– Hispanic Americans: Cooperative activities, not competition
– African Americans: Visual/global approach over verbal/analytic
– Native Americans: Global, visual; prefer learning privately
• Cautions: Questionable nature of learning styles research; danger of
focusing on racist or sexist group differences
– Be sensitive to differences; provide alternative paths to learning

Sociolinguistics and Cultural
Discontinuity
• Sociolinguistics: Study of formal and informal rules of
conversations within cultural groups
– Pragmatics of the classroom – when, where, how to
communicate
– Participation structures – rules for how to take part in a
given classroom activity
• What teachers can do
– Make clear, explicit communication rules
– Explain, demonstrate appropriate behavior
– Respond to students with consistency
• Cultural discontinuity: Mismatch between communication norms
in home culture and school culture

Lessons for Teachers: Teaching
Every Student
• Know yourself, your identity, background, values
• Know your students, the legacies they bring
– Work with students and their parents inside/outside school
• Respect your students; accept their strengths/limitations
– Build their self-images (respecting their cultures)
• Teach your students – strong emphasis on academics
– Beware how hidden biases creep in
– Hold high expectations and provide caring support
– Focus on meaning and understanding, not just basic skills
– Instruct students directly about how to be students

Guidelines for Culturally Relevant
Teaching
• Experiment with different group arrangements; encourage
cooperation and social harmony
• Provide a range of ways to learn material
• Teach classroom procedures directly
• Learn the meaning of your students’ nonverbal behaviors
• Emphasize meaning in teaching
• Get to know customs, traditions, values of your students
• Help students detect racist, sexist, homophobic messages

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