List of Inclusionary Practices

List of Inclusionary Practices for Cultural Acceptance/ Integration

There are many approaches to assist educators with ensuring cultural acceptance and integration for students of the Chinese culture. These approaches provide educators and students with the necessary means of matching educational philosophy, the school’s culture, and support that best fits the individuals’ needs. Wardle (2013) discuss how teachers need to discover the approach that best match to their own knowledge, personal education philosophy, and school culture. The approaches are that of teaching of the exceptional and culturally different, human relations approach, multicultural education approach, content integration approach and knowledge construction process.

1.      Teaching of Exceptional and Culturally Different

The use of this approach assist educators in equipping all students with knowledge, skills, values, and dispositions that prepares them for future employment within the American society. Educators accomplish this approach by first identifying the learner’s strength and continue to build upon that strength. Wardle (2013) discuss how teachers often begin by assessing the level of their students in each content area compared to grade level standards, and then develop approaches to them catch up much like Response to Intervention. Educators who understand cultural, linguistic, and other student diversities adjust to their instructional approaches without lowering expectations. The method of instructional approaches include small group and cooperative learning, using the student preferred learning styles, and the use of relating new concepts to students’ own personal experiences. This is a factor with the growing demand on Distance Education because the only way for an educator to know about students’ culture is through the means of introduction. Then, there are times when students do not provide the instructor with full background knowledge. According to Jung, Wong, Li, Baigaltugs, & Belawati (2011), as suggested by Perraton (2000), the goal of DE for some countries (or providers) is to achieve a level of quality on par with that of face-to-face education. However, Stella and Gnanam (2004) have suggested that DE is so distinctive that the aims and methods of face-to-face education cannot be applied in assessing its quality. Furthermore, as Koul (2006) has commented, DE should be judged by the standards of face-to-face education while factoring in some distinctive features of DE, such as open entry, flexible operations, and technology-based course delivery. 

2.     Human Relation Approach

This approach focuses on helping students to learn together harmoniously because of the changes within the world where a diverse group of people will work and learn together. Educators use this approach to teach learners the importance of respecting each other that promotes feelings of tolerance, unity, and acceptance. According to Wardle (2013), the human relations approach teaches positive feelings among diverse students, promotes group identity and pride for students of color, and works to reduce all forms of stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination (Grant & Sleeter, 2013).

3.     Multicultural Education Approach

The focus of this approach is to reduce prejudice and discrimination against oppressed groups, work towards equal opportunity and social justice for all, and to provide knowledge of equitable distribution of power among different culture groups. Educators use this approach to teach students the changes within the educational system by reforming the schools along principles of pluralism and equality where these actions cause the society to be reformed.

4.      Content Integration Approach

This approach provides educators with an opportunity to integrate content and concepts from different groups into their curriculum. These additions help students to learn about diversity. Wardle (2013) discuss that this approach illustrates how each member of a different group brings knowledge to education. In the content integration approach, teachers integrate content and concepts from various groups into their curriculum and instruction (Banks, 2013a), such as information about famous female artists, Black inventors, Hispanic scholars, and politicians with disabilities. The nature of this integration depends on the content area being taught (e.g., it may be easier to integrate this information into social studies than math), the knowledge of the teacher, and the age of the students. Unfortunately, many curricular content areas initially appear to lack diversity, largely because of historical and political biases and stereotypes. Therefore, teachers must actively do their own investigations, research, and be open to challenging pervasive biases.

5.      Knowledge Construction Process

This process focuses on teachers using curricular content to aid student in understanding, investing, analyzing, and determining how cultural contexts, historical events, frames of references and various assumptions can influence the way knowledge is constructed. Wardle (2013) illustrates how this includes learning to deconstruct images and messages received from the media, and from political, social, and cultural institutions. For example, a teacher might use a Disney film to analyze the role of women, the poor, and minorities. In this approach, students also need to understand how schools and the official curriculum are part of the knowledge construction process. The students could analyze how the supposed science of racial categories developed out of the need to justify slavery and a view of White superiority, or how the initial purpose of IQ tests was to keep students out of government schools and screen soldiers for the U.S. Army (Smedley, 2002). Another assignment could involve a study of the Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994), a modern example of the use of science and scholarship to bias knowledge content and counter arguments presented in other books, including Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth (Fish, 2002). 

Teaching Strategies

The teaching strategies that would help this group from an instruction standpoint are teaching that includes the importance of different members of a diverse group. The Chinese believe in more of a family bonding that holds high value to their society. Liu (2012), discuss how education is at the center of Chinese people’s lives. It is not only the path of self-improvement that leads to becoming a noble person, an ethical pursuit and the highest goal for humanity in Chinese eyes (Tu 1993), but it also has been the most important avenue of social mobility. At a societal level, education was a mechanism to select elite for governance in imperial times, and this function has been further extended to training administrative and technical elites to promote national development in modern China. Unlike Western individualism, Chinese culture gives primacy to family and society (Tu 2002). Close family bonds are a core feature of Chinese society. The relationships among people are based on reciprocal responsibilities accepted through an internalized consensus within ethical and moral guidelines, in sharp contrast to the practice of regulating human relationships through law in the Western world. The teaching strategies must focus on the best method of how this culture learns within the classroom and compares to the ties of their culture.

Incorporating Parents in the Learning Process

Parents play a major role in the success of their children education. When parents take an active role in showing genuine concern for their progression, their children show school provide a means for educators to better equip the learners with knowledge. According to Wardle (2013), one result of family involvement is that children in these families make friends easier and are more successful learners (NCPIE, 2006). Another result is that children stay in school longer and take more advhanced classes (Barnard, 2004). Finally, children of successful home-school partnerships are more motivated to succeed in school (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Kersey & Masterson, 2009). According to Hill & Taylor (2004), family involvement works through two major processes: increasing social capital and increasing social control. The methods of getting parents involved with their school work is to invite them to the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Meetings and have the class to sponsor events that includes their parents. Having parent who are willing to volunteer to present cultural experiences or customs to the class helps in promoting diversity and understanding of the culture. 

Parents of the Chinese culture believe in supporting their children with their education. This is a major part of their culture and the importance of education is one of the high priorities of the Chinese. Liu (2012) discuss how Chinese families have an immense willingness to invest in their children’s education to the fullest extent possible. The consumer surveys conducted by the China People’s Bank in multiple years since the late 1990s have repeatedly shown that children’s education has been listed as the most important rationale for family saving. The close family bonds can extend to grandparents and other relatives, or even to a clan or a village and ensure significant resources in terms of financial support that children can draw upon. This can be traced back to a common practice hundreds of years ago in the Ming and Qing dynasties in which a community or a clan set up a joint chest to subsidize the travel of candidates attending civil service examinations at the provincial and metropolitan levels (Ho 1962). This context has greatly bolstered policies regarding expansion, privatization, and cost sharing in higher education.

References

Hongcheng, S., & Minhui, Q. (2010). The other in education: The distance between school education and local culture. Chinese Education and Society, 43(5), 47-61. Retrieved fromhttp://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid&custid=s8856897&db=eric&AN=EJ919536&site=ehost-live; http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/CED1061-1932430503

Jung, I., Wong, T. M., Li, C., Baigaltugs, S., & Belawati, T. (2011). Quality assurance in asian distance education: Diverse approaches and common culture. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(6), 63-83. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid&custid=s8856897&db=eric&AN=EJ963932&site=ehost-live

Liu, J. (2012). Examining massification policies and their consequences for equality in chinese higher education: A cultural perspective. Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education and Educational Planning, 64(5), 647-660. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid&custid=s8856897&db=eric&AN=EJ980247&site=ehost-live; http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9517-4

Wardle, F. (2013).Human Relationships and Learning in the Multicultural Environment.  San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

YouTube (2010). Diverse Learners and Classroom Organization- American College of   Education Video. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB87i48pRhk

Introduction: Cultural Perspectives

Introduction

        The Professional Learning Community (PLC) Division of Savage Glover High School created a Culturally Responsive Plan. This plan focuses on the aspects of cultural diversity within the classroom. The culture that this plan mainly addresses are those students of Asian Culture. Having these students and others from different ethnicities within the classroom causes educators to reach out to family members and the community. Wardle (2013) discuss the importance of how students, families and school can access and use at least two kinds of community resources: resources to enrich the lives of families and that can be used to extend the learning process used by the school; and resources that provides direct assistance, support, guidance, intervention, and services mainly for families but also for schools and teachers. Many of the community resources in both categories also develop in children a sense of cultural identity and can be used by schools to make learning culturally and individually relevant to their students and families.

     This plan includes subjects that focuses on the culture in terms of behavior, social values, genders roles, academics and traditions. The plan includes the history of the culture and how Americans accept cultural behaviors and the impact of language, culture, and education. Additionally, the plan depicts the historical and current inclusionary and exclusionary educational practices that relates to the current culture. The plan provides a list of inclusionary practices through the means of curricular, instructional, or campus-wide changes for the staff to employ that ensures cultural acceptance and integration for this group. Lastly the plan provides ideal teaching strategies, other practices that could assist this group from an educational standpoint, and the value of employing these considerations.

Selected Culture in Terms of Behavior, Social Values, Gender Roles, Academics, and Traditions

     This Culturally Responsive Plan includes knowledge of the Chinese cultures in the terms of their behaviors, social values, gender roles, academics, and traditions. These variables include information that supports the Chinese culture and their efforts toward education in different circumstances. There is a difference between members of different provinces within Chinese cultures, which causes differences within their academics. Hongcheng and Minhui (2010) discussed how China’s school education has assumed a core role in the process of state building. Irrespective of disparities in economic level and cultural forms, “schools must be present wherever there is the smoke of cooking fires.” Serving as strong points and fortresses, schools have become states in hamlets and villages. They constantly transmit ideology, mainstream culture, and modern knowledge systems to the local people, even in ethnic minority districts in 
the most remote and distant border regions. Modern school education is effectively shaping the community of the state and making communication possible among different regions and cultures. 
      In making communication possible among different regions and cultures,  the Chinese people work towards modernization of school and state power in becoming universally established in rural areas and ethnic minority regions as a symbol and manifestations of the state will. Hongcheng and Minhui (2010) depicts how modern education promises that students who “study assiduously” may achieve upward mobility through education and that the previous class society is coming to an end. However, we cannot evade the fact that the schools’ culture and the students’ everyday life circumstances pertain to two different cultural systems. Attending school means shifting from one cultural system to another cultural system. Moreover, these cultural systems may conflict with one another. Such conflicts occur among ethnic minority students, especially among ethnic minority students residing in remote rural areas.

History of the Culture

The history of the Chinese culture is important to the Culturally Responsive Plan. This plan enables teachers to learn more information about Chinese culture, the impact of how Americans regard their culture with an impact on language, culture, and education. Hongcheng and Minhui (2010) discuss how the Chinese state’s education transmits mainstream culture, school education provides little space for passing on ethnic minority cultures, and the preservation of local languages, culture, customs and habits, and beliefs and of cultural diversity has become a thorny problem. Second, ethnic minority students who grow up in modern school are disadvantaged in the unified nation evaluation system and school advancement system; they face the problems of poor cultural adaptation and scholastic performance, and it is no easy matter to “pull” them out of these local circumstances.

The cultural disparities within the culture begin with school and the family, which touches upon many different aspects that mainly involves language. Within the culture the main difference is that the language spoken in many homes are different from the language spoken in school. This action results into low scholastic achievements of ethnic minority students that lead to the outcome of teaching activities. According to Hongcheng and Minhui (2010), Shirley Heath (1983) has also remarked that each stratum has its own special language and symbol capital from which are shaped language categories of different styles, and both the value concepts and ways of communicating in families of lower social strata are disadvantageous for students attending white middle-class schools.

The disparities continue in the field of education. Individuals within the majority and minority ethnic cultures use their cultural value concepts to understand the all the aspects of the educational activities. Because of differences in cultural patterns, the study activities of students from different ethnic groups turn out to be either positive or negative and their educational achievements are either good or poor. This results in major difference between school education and local culture. Hongcheng and Minhui (2010), discuss how the rationale of modern school education has been established in the course of nearly a century of development. Within the walls that surround the schools, one sees such slogans as “Knowledge changes destinies, studies fulfill the future,” and “Today’s education is tomorrow’s economy.” These transmit the message to the local populace that education constitutes the ladder for the individual’s upward mobility and helps to develop local societies and economies. Although school education comes from outside the local cultures, there is an acknowledgement by families. The children that excel within school are able to get out of their local communities are children whose parents work in government or who live in households of modern way of life and communicate in the Han language. The use of this means of communication is quite similar to that of the school environment.    

Additionally, Liu, J. (2012) depicts how education is at the center of Chinese people’s lives. It is not only the path of self-improvement that leads to becoming a noble person, an ethical pursuit and the highest goal for humanity in Chinese eyes  but it also has been the most important avenue of social mobility. At a societal level, education was a mechanism to select elite for governance in imperial times, and this function has been further extended to training administrative and technical elites to promote national development in modern China.

Historical and Current Inclusionary and Exclusionary Educational Practices within the Chinese Culture

          The historical and current inclusionary and exclusionary educational practices as it relates to the Chinese culture are that of ensuring educators have the knowledge needed to assist these learners in their efforts of learning. The history of Chinese education depicts a major division among people of different regions. Hongcheng and Minhui (2010) discuss how the Dehong Dai and Jingpo autonomous prefecture is situated on China’s southwestern border. Due to its remoteness from the center of imperial power during the feudal dynasties, Confucian studies were never instituted, no imperial civil examinations were held, and neither official nor private schools developed. During the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, Han culture was transmitted through  small private tutoring schools set up by the Tusi (ethnic minority hereditary  overseers), but these were restricted to the scions of officials, and ordinary people were kept out of the educational system of Han culture. The most popular language taught was that of Dai people who created their own education system that related to Buddhism.

       Over the course of the twentieth century, the education system changed instead of excluding people of different ethnic groups the system focused more on inclusion of all people. According to Hongcheng and Minhui (2010), modern school education gradually advanced into ethnic minority border regions, and schools went up in all districts where state power was established. This was accompanied by the decline of Zangfang education. Starting in 1935, provincial elementary schools were set up in this region for the sake of developing educational culture and awakening the awareness of the fraternal ethnic people in this border region. As the organizational form and curricula of these schools imitated those of schools in the interior regions, space for modern education was formally established. Subsequently, when enlightened Tusi managed to get the provincial Luxi elementary school to set up branches in Fapa and Namu, schools began to enter the ordinary Dai villages.