This document discusses diversity in society and education. It covers several key topics: 1) It defines culture and diversity, and how culture is learned and influences individuals. The dominant culture influences other cultures. 2) It discusses theories around assimilation, pluralism, and cultural choice in how schools should respond to non-dominant cultures. 3) It covers characteristics like socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, language, gender, sexual orientation, ability, age, religion, and geography that influence diversity. Schools aim to promote inclusion regardless of these characteristics.

1. Diversity in Society
Chapter 2

2. Learning Outcomes
 Describe culture and some of its characteristics
 Identify the dominant culture and how it influences
other cultures
 Understand three theories and ideologies that
describe how schools should respond to students
who are not from the dominant culture
 Identify microcultural groups
 Understand that student learning is influenced by
language, culture, family and community values

3. Diversity and Culture
 Diversity…the wide range of differences among people,
families, and communities based on their cultural and
ethnic backgrounds as well as physical and academic
abilities
 Culture…socially transmitted ways of thinking, believing,
feeling, and acting within a group of people that are
passed from one generation to the next

4. Diversity and Culture
 Includes socioeconomic status, ethnicity,
race, religion, language, gender, sexual
orientation, academic and physical ability,
age, and geography…all these things can
and do influence us
 Children learn how to think, feel, speak, and
behave through the culture in which they are
raised

5. Culture and Society
 Everyone has the same biological and
psychological needs, but the
ways in which we meet
these needs are culturally
determined.
 Culture is learned, shared, adapted, and
dynamic and learned through enculturation

6. Dominant/Mainstream Culture
 The one most financially successful families
have grown up in or adopted (cultural capital)
 Many low-income families have similar values,
but not the finances to support a similar lifestyle
(but not all families do)
 Mass media and international communications
are creating a universal
culture…TV and movies
teach a common culture

7. Microcultural Groups
 One-third of the nation’s students are students of
color…soon to be 40% (2020) and half by 2050.
Already a majority in
California, Texas, and the
nation’s largest cities
 Power is a key in understanding dominant culture
and microcultural groups’ relations…who has the
power and how is it used

8. Diversity and Education
 Concerns about equality and inequality…the
intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and
class as they relate to individual and group
identity
 Socioeconomic status…the economic
condition of individuals based on their (or
their parents’) income, occupation, and
educational attainment

9. Assimilation
 A process by which an immigrant or culturally
distinct group is incorporated
into the dominant culture
 First step is learning the
cultural patterns of the
dominant group, and the
final stage is structural assimilation…
interacting with the dominant group at all
levels, including marriage

10. Assimilation
 Melting pot theory described the egalitarian state as a
core value of democracy…people of color because of
racist ideology preventing from “melting” or becoming
structurally assimilated
 The guiding principle in most schools
 Acculturation, learning of the dominant culture through
immersion is the prevailing strategy
 Cultural deficit theory blame those who don’t “fit” with
deficiencies in their home environment (single parents,
teenage moms etc.)

11. Pluralism
 The maintenance of cultures as parallel and equal to the
dominant culture in society
 Societies which maintain distinct cultural patterns,
including languages, value and promote pluralism…
currently the U.S. is not one of these societies because
parity and equality between groups isn’t valued
 “Public schools generally teach only the dominant
culture.”

12. Cultural Choice
 The freedom to choose and adapt the characteristics
from one’s own and other cultures in developing one’s
own cultural identity
 Knowing when it is appropriate to use the patterns of
each
 Many people of color are acculturated, but discrimination
keeps them from being structurally
assimilated even if they want it.
Strong identity with their cultural
group provides solidarity to
combat inequities

13. Socioeconomic Status
 Social stratification…levels of social class
ranking based on income, education,
occupation, wealth, and power in society
 High or low rankings not just based on SES
criteria. Race, age, gender, religion, disability
also are contributors
 Class structure…working class, middle class,
upper middle class, upper class

14. Poverty
 $18,104 for a family of four…31.1 million persons in the
U.S. live in poverty (11%)
 16% of children…double that of most other major
industrialized nations
 68% of those living in poverty are white, only 9% of
whites live below the poverty line

15. Race and Ethnicity
 Race and ethnicity are linked but are not the same
thing.
 Race is not accepted as a scientific concept, but it is
a social construction for identifying differences
 Skin color is a signifier of race, but many states
declared a person nonwhite historically if they had
any percentage of nonwhite heritage
 Whites seldom think of color for themselves. White
has become the “norm.” So many whites have
trouble understanding “white privilege”
 National origin is the primary determinant of ethnicity

16. Ethnic Diversity
 58% identify with a single ancestry, 22% with
multiple ancestries, 20% do not identify an
ancestry
 “The groups that are most oppressed in this
country are those who are indigenous or
whose ancestors entered the country
involuntarily.

17. Language Diversity
 “Educators need to recognize that miscommunications
between themselves and students may be due to
inaccurate decoding rather than lack of linguistic ability.”
 Learning English may take young people only a couple
of years, but five to seven to reach proficiency necessary
for academic success

18. Gender
 “…the major difference between boys and girls is the
way adults respond to them.”
 Families headed by single women are more likely to be
living in poverty than any other group. (more than 27%)
 Many working- class males develop patterns of
resistance to school and its authority figures because
schooling is perceived as feminine and as emphasizing
mental rather than physical work

19. Title IX
 Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments
is the major legislation that addresses the
civil rights of girls and women in the
education system.
 The most controversial part of Title IX is the
provision for equal opportunity in athletics
 847% increase in high school sports by
females since Title IX

20. Sexual Orientation
 Established early in life
 Between 5 and 10% of the population is
estimated to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or
transgender…many cultural groups place
high value on heterosexuality
 83% of LGBT students report verbal
harassment, 65% sexually harassed, 42%
physically harassed, 21% physically
assaulted…70% fear for their safety in
schools

21. Exceptionalities
 49 million people, 19% of the population over the
age of five, have a disability
 Some school systems require a decision
whether a child is diploma-bound by the end of
kindergarten (72% of people with disabilities
have a high school diploma and 11% have a
college diploma)

22. Inclusion
 The integration of all students, regardless of
their background or abilities, in all aspect of the
educational process
 IEP…individualized educational plan
 Inclusion regardless of race, ethnicity, gender,
class, religion, physical or mental ability or
language

23. Religion
 Although 88% of the population regard their
religious beliefs as very or fairly important, less
than half attend a religious service on a weekly
basis
 56% of the population is Protestant, 2% Jewish,
27% Catholic, many immigrants of the last two
decades are Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist

24. Geography
 Rural…17% now in poverty (invisible poor to
the larger population
 Suburban…half of the U.S. population (20%
of suburban children live in poverty)
 Urban…many immigrants live in urban areas
and high percentages of student populations
are students of color