Ed419 Glossary

ED419 MultiCultural Glossary

African Americans: United States residents and citizens who have an African biological and cultural heritage and identity. This term is used synonymously and interchangeably with Black and Black American. These terms are used to describe both racial and a cultural group.According to the U.S. Census there were 32,718 African Americans in the United States in 1998. This figure excludes African Americans of Hispanic origin. The number of African Americans increased by 25 percent between 1980 and 1998 to about 12 percent of the U.S. population. The U.S. Census (1998) projects that African Americans will make up 14 percent of the nation's population by 2050; they will be outnumbered by Hispanic Americans. Today, Afican Americans make up 12 percent of the U.S. population, while Hispanics make up 11 percent. An excellent one-volume encyclopedia on African Americans is "Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience" (Appiah & Gates, 1999).
Afrocentric curriculum: A curriculum approach in which concepts, issues, problems and phenomena are viewed from the perspectives of Africans and African Americans. It is based on the assumption that students learn best when they view situations and events from their own cultural perspectives (Asante, 1987; 1991).
Anglo Americans: Americans whose biological and cultural heritage originated in England, or Americans with other biological and cultural heritage who have assimilated into the dominant or mainstream culture in the United States. This term is often used to describe the mainstream United States culture or to describe most White Americans.
Antiracist education: A term used frequently in the United Kingdom and Canada to describe a process used by teachers and other educators to eliminate institutionalized racism from the schools and society and to help individuals to develop nonracist attitudes. When antiracist educational reform is implemented, curriculum materials, grouping practices, hiring policies, teacher attitudes and expectations, and school policies and practices are examined and steps are taken to eliminate racism from these school variables. A related educational reform movement in the United States that focuses more on individuals than on institutions is known as "prejudice reduction".
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: Americans who have a biological and cultural heritage that originated on the continent of Asia or the Pacific region. The largest group of Asian Americans in the United States in 1990 were (in decending order)Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Asian Indians, Koreans, and Vietnamese. Other groups include Laotians, Thai, Cambodians, Pakistanis, and Indonesians. Asians are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. They increased 379 precent between 1980 and 1997. There were about 10 million Asian Americans in the United States in 1997. The U.S. Census projects that Asians will make up about 8 percent of the nation's population by 2050 (Pollard & O'Hare, 1999).
Assimilation: A view of diversity in which a hierarchy of values is assumed so that members of ethnic groups are expected to adopt and live by the values of the dominant culture.
Bias: The result of procedures or items used in assessment that unfairly discriminate among students.
Bilingual education: The teaching of English language skills to students with limited English proficiency. Two approaches are taken to bilingual education: Maintenance: Native Language (MNL) programs, in which students become fully literate in their home languages before studying English; and Transitional: in which students begin studying English immediately.
Bilingualism: A term used to describe the ability to speak fluently in two different languages.
Constructivist view of learning: A cognitive view of learning whereby learners are assumed to construct knowledge in the context of the activity of the culture and knowing cannot be separated from doing.
Content integration: The degree to which teachers use content and examples in all subject areas that reflect both genders, diverse cultures, and different social classes.
Cultural Assimilation: Takes place when one ethnic or cultural group acquires the behavior, values, perspectives, ethos, and characteristics of another ethnic group and sheds its own cultural characteristics.
Cultural pluralism: A view of diversity that embraces cultural differences.
Culture: A way of life in which people share a common language and similar values, religion, ideals, habits of thinking, artistic expression, and patterns of social and interpersonal relations.
Culture: The ideation, symbols, behaviors, values,, and beliefs that are shared by a human group. Culture can be defined as a group's program for survival and adaptation to its environment. Pluralistic nation-states such as the United States, Canada, and Australia are made up of an overarching culture, called the macroculture, that all individuals and groups within the nation-state share. These nation-states also have many smaller cultures, called microcultures, that differ in many ways from the macroculture or that contain cultural components manifested differently than in the macroculture.
Deficit model: The assumption that students who are members of ethnic minority groups are deficient in knowledge and skills required to contribute to the national culture.
Dialect: A distinctive version or variation of a language in pronounciation, grammar, vocabulary, and usage.
Disability: The physical or mental characteristics of an individual that prevent or limit him or her from performing specific tasks.
Discrimination: The differential treatment of individuals or groups based on categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social class, or exceptionality.
Dominant bilingualism: A form of bilingualism in which students are fully competent in their first language and nearly so in their second.
Episodic memories: Memories associated with specific personal experience, including the time and place they occurred.
Ethnic group: The people who derive a sense of identity from their common national origin, religion, and, sometimes, physical characteristics.
Ethnic group: A microcultural group or collectivity that shares a common history and culture, common values, behaviors, and other characteristics that cause members of the group to have a shared identity. A sense of peoplehood is one of the most important characteristics of an ethnic group. An ethnic group also shares economic and political interests. Cultural characteristics, rather than biological traits, are the essential attributes of an ethnic group. An ethnic group is not the same as a racial group. Some ethnic groups, such as Puerto Ricans in the Untied States, are made up of individuals who belong to several different racial groups. White Anglo Saxon Protestants, Italian Americans, and Irish Americans are examples of ethnic groups. Individual members of an ethnic group vary considerably in the extent to which they identify with the group. Some individuals have a very strong identity with their particular ethnic group, whereas other members have a very weak identification with it.
Ethnic minority group: An ethnic minority group with several distinguishing characteristics. An ethnic minority group has distinguishing cultural characteristics, racial characteristics, or both, which enable members of other groups to identify its members easily. Some ethnic minority groups, such as Jewish Americans, have unique cultural characteristics. African Americans have unique cultural and physical characteristics. The unique attributes of ethnic minority groups make them convenient targets of racism and discrimination. Ethnic minority groups are usually a numerical minority within their societies. However, the Blacks in South Africa, who are a numerical majority in their nation-state, are often considered a sociological minority group by social scientists because they have little political and economic power.
Ethnic Studies: The scientific and humanistic analysis of behavior influenced by variables related to ethnicity and ethnic-group membership. This term is often used to refer to special school, university, and college courses and programs that focus on specific racial and ethnic groups. However, any aspects of a course or program that includes a study of variables related to ethnicity can accurately be referred to as ethnic studies. In other words, ethnic studies can be integrated within the boundaries of mainstream courses and curricula.
Ethnicity: A term used to describe the cultural characteristics of people who identify themselves with a particular ethnic group.
Ethnocentrism: The assumption that one's own cultural ways are the right ways and universally appropriate to others.
Eurocentric curriculum: A curriculum in which concepts, events, and situations are viewed primarily from the perspectives of European nations and cultures and in which Western civilization is emphasized. This approach is based on the assumption that Europeans have made the most important contributions to the development of the United States and the world. Curriculum theorists who endorse this approach are referred to as Eurocentrists or Western traditionalists.
European Americans: See Anglo-Americans
Exceptional: Used to describe students who have learning or behavioral characteristics that differ substantially from most students and that require special attention and instruction. Students who are intellectually gifted or talented as well as those who have disabilities are considered exceptional.
Exceptional learners: Learners who have special learning needs and who require special instruction.
Extrinsic motivation: When learners work on tasks for external reasons, such as to please a parent or to avoid getting into trouble with the teacher.
Gender: Consists of behaviors that result from the social, cultural, and psychological factors associated with masculinity and femininity within a society. Appropriate male and female roles result from the socialization of the individual within a group.
Gender identity: An individual's view of the gender to which he or she belongs and his or her shared sense of group attachment with other males or females.
Global education: An aim of multicultural programs to help students to understand that all peoples living on earth have interconnected fates.
Global education: Concerned with the issues and problems related to the survival of human beings in a world community. International studies is a part of global education, but the focus of global education is the interdependence of human beings and their common fate, regardless of the national boundaries within which they live. Many teachers confuse global education and international studies with ethnic studies, which deal with ethnic groups within a national boundary, such as the United States.
Handicapism: The unequal treatment of people who are disabled and related attitudes and beleifs that reinforce and justify discrimination against people with disabilities. The term "handicapped" is considered negative by some people. They prefer the term "disabled". "People with disabilities" is considered a more sensitive phrase than "disabled people" because the word people is used first and given emphasis.
Hidden curriculum: The tacit lessons and messages taught to students by the way teachers and schools operate.
Hispanic Americans: Americans who share a culture, heritage, and language that originated in Spain. Most of the Hispanics living in the United States have cultural origins in Spain. Many Hispanics in the United States prefer to use "Latino" rather than Hispanic, as do the editors of this book. However, "Hispanic" is the term used in the U.S. Census. Most Hispanics in the United States speak Spanish and are mestizos. A mestizo is a person of mixed biological heritage. Most Hispanics in the United States have an Indian as well as a Spanish heritage. Many of them also have an African biological and cultural heritage. The largest groups of Hispanics in the United States are Mexican Americans (Chicanos), Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. According to the U.S. Census, 29,348 documented Hispanics lived in the United States in 1997, which was about 11 percent of the U.S. population. In 1997, there were 18.7 million Mexican Americans, 3.1 million Puerto Ricans in the mainland United States, 1.3 million Cubans, and 6.4 million Hispanics from other nations (Pollard & O'Hare, 1999). Hispanics are one of the nations fastest growing ethnic groups of color. They increased 101 percent between 1980 and 1997, from 14.6 to 29.3 million. The nation's total population increased 19 percent between 1980 and 1998 (Pollard & O'Hare, 1999). The U.S. Census projects that Hispanics will make up 24 percent of the nation's population in 2050. It is misleading to view Hispanics as one ethnic group. Some Hispanics believe that the word Hispanics can help to unify the various Latin groups and thus increase their political power. The primary identity of most Hispanics in the United States, however, is with their particular group, such as Mexican American, Puerto Rican, or Cuban.
Integration: A view of diversity in which individual ethnic groups merge together to from a single, shared culture.
Intrinsic motivation: When learners work on tasks for internal reasons, such as pleasure or enjoyment in the activity.
Knowledge construction process: A process by which knowledge is socially and culturally constructed.
Language immersion: A form of bilingual education in which students study the English language intensively for extended periods of time.
Limited English proficiency: A phrase used to describe students whose first language is not English and whom depend on their first language for communication and understanding.
Macroculture: A larger shared culture representing core or dominant values of society.
Mainstream American: A United States citizen who shares most of the characteristics of the dominant ethnic and cultural group in the nation. Such an individual is uaually White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and belongs to the middle class or a higher social class status.
Mainstream-centric curriculum: A curriculum that presents events, concepts, issues, and problems primarily or exclusively from the points of view and perspe4ctives of the mainstream society and the dominant ethnic and cultural group in the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The mainstream-centric curriculum is also usually presented from the perspectives of Anglo males.
Mainstreaming: The process that involves placing students with disabilities into the regular classroom for instruction. They might be integrated into the regular classroom for part or all the school day. This practice was initiated in response to Public Law 94-142 (passed by Congress in 1975), which requires that students with disabilities be educated in the least restricted environment.
Microculture: Groups within cultures that share particular values, knowledge, skills, symbols, and perspectives.
Multicultural education: A reform movement designed to change the total educational environment so that students from diverse racial and ethnic groups, both gender groups, exceptional students, and students from each social-class group will experience equal educational opportunities in schools, colleges, and universities. A major assumption of multicultural education is that some students, because of their particular racial, ethnic, gender, and cultural characteristics, have a better chance to succeed in educational institutions as they are currently structured than do students who belong to other groups or who have different cultural and gender characteristics. See the "Handbook for Research on Multicultural Education" (Banks & Banks, 1995) for a further discussion of multicultural education.
Multiculturalism: A recognition that ethnic groups make up and contribute to a national culture while they maintain an individual identity.
Multiculturalism: A philosophical position and movement that assumes that the gender, ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity of a pluralistic society should be reflected in all the institutionalized structured of educational institutions, including the staff, the norms and values, the curriculum, and the student body.
Multiple acculturation: The reciprocal idea that the general culture of the United States changes with the entry of each new ethnic and cultural group, which is itself changed by the national culture.
Native Americans: United States citizens who trace their biological and cultural heritage to the original inhabitants in the land that now makes up the United States. "Native American" is sometimes used synonymously with "American Indian". There were about 2.4 million Native Americans (including American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts) in the United States in 1998. In 1990, only four tribes, the Cherokee, Navajo, Chippewa, and Souix, had more than 100,000 persons. Most tribes have a population of less than 10,000. The two largest tribes were the Cherokee (308,000) and the Navajo (219,000).
People of Color: Groups in the United States and other nations who have experienced discrimination historically because their unique biological characteristics that enabled potential discriminators to identify them easily. African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics in the United States are among the groups referred to as people of color. Most members of these groups still experience forms of discrimination today.
Positionality: An idea that emerged out of feminist scholarship stating that variables such as an individual's gender, class, and race are markers of her or his relational position within a social and economic context and influence the knowledge that she or he produces. Consequently, valid knowlege requires an acknowledgement of the knower's position within a specific context (See chapter 7 in this book).
Prejudice: A set of rigid and unfavorable attitudes toward a particular individual or group that is formed without consideration of facts. Prejudice is a set of attitudes that often leads to discrimination, the different treatment of particular individuals and groups.
Race: Refers to the attempt by physical anthropologists to divide human groups according to their physical characteristics. This has proven to be very difficult because human groups in modern societies are highly mixed physically. Consequently, different and often conflicting race typologies exist. An excellent book on race is "Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race" by Jacobson (1999).
Racism: A belief that human groups can be validly grouped according to their biological traits and that these identifiable groups inherit certain mental, personality, and cultural characteristics that determine their behavior. Racism, however, is not merely a set of beliefs but is practiced when a group has the power to enforce laws, institutions, and norms, based on its belief, that oppress and dehumanize another group. An informative reference on racism is "Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race" by Montagu (1997).
Religion: A set of beliefs and values, especially about explanations that concern the cause and nature of the universe, to which an individual or group has a strong loyalty and attachment. A religion usually has a moral code, rituals, and institutions that reinforce and propagate its beliefs.
Sex: The biological factors that distinguish males and females, such as chromosomal, hormonal, anatomical, and physical characteristics.
Sexism: Social, political, and economic structures that advantage one sex group over the other. Stereotypes and misconceptions about the biological characteristics of each sex group reinforce and support sex discrimination. In most societies, women have been the major victims of sexism. However, males are more victimized by sexist beliefs and practices.
Social class: A collectivity of people who have a similar socioeconomic status based on such criteria as income, occupation, education, values, behaviors, and life chances. Lower class, working class, middle class and upper class are commonly designations of social class in United States.
Socioeconomic status: Relative standing in society as measured by variables such as income, occupation, education, access to health coverage and community resources, and political power and prestige.
Subtractive bilingualism: A form of bilingualism in which students, although conversationally competent in both languages, are not fully literate in either one; this has an adverse effect on achievement.
Teaching: Action taken with the intent to facilitate learning.
Theory of multiple intelligences: Howard Gardner's theory of seven distinct intelligences or talents.