EDUC 120
What's Culture Got To Do With It?Feb. 12

Song of the Day!

Teach, your children well
Their father's hell
Did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's
The one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would die
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

Teach your parents well
Their children’s hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's
The one you’ll know by.

Last Time

Wrapped up Dewey and Democracy

New Unit!

Key Takeaways

Introduce key concepts of culture and identity

Discuss versions of “multicultural” education

Link these concepts to our exploration of democracy and schooling

Overview

Openers

Where Are We Now?

Discuss Nieto's article

Intro to Culture and Education

Opening query

What's culture got to do with it? (Education, that is)

What was you first "cultural" memory in school?

Course Units

Why do this? Chunking, Make it overt, Patterns

Unit One: Democracy and Education

Unit Two: Schooling and Identity

Unit Three: Schooling and the Market

Unit Four: Sustainability and Schooling

Unit Two Themes

Hunger of Memory (anchor text)

SOAN emphasis

Identity and Schooling with particular focus on race and ethnicity

Brown v Board Case

The One and The Many...

Why Relevant?

Achievement Gaps

Affirmative Action

Multiculturalism in the curriculum

Residential Segregation

"Majority-Minority" demographics

Pluralism and Democracy (Nieto Pg 127). Is democracy about "safety"? About "getting along"? About deliberative conflict?

Diversity-Domestic Goals

Examine the ways definition is an act of power

Explore theories of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, ethnicity, or other socially constructed categories

"Passages of Significance" on Moodle

Choose one passage you found significant, thought provoking, or controversial

Cite it/quote it so we know where it is in the text

Explain, briefly, why you thought it was a "passage of significance"

World Cafe!

"Tables of 4"

#1 Favorite Place?

#2 Moment of Courage

#3 What is something I should know about you that would help me to get to know you better?

# 4 What was a first memory of "cultural difference" for you growing up?

Same Tables

Look at first Cultural Continuum on pg. 31.

Cultural Destructiveness, Cultural Incapacity, Cultural Blindness, Cultural Precompetence

Generate examples from Earlham context

Organize your lists of examples by theme, type (e.g. school policy, classroom statements, co-curricular, etc.)

What do you see from these lists?

Where does Earlham need to go from here?

What takeaways do you have from this in terms of your own work on diversity? As a citizen? Possible teacher?

What's Culture Got To Do With It?

Schools are locations where culture is both reproduced and produced

Schools can function to legitimate and/or de-legitimate cultural norms

Schools are sites of cultural conflict

Students of education must contend with culture as a concept... how?

Models and Movements

Multicultural Education (1970's and 1980's)

Learning about other "cultures"

Passive

"Tolerance"

Diversity Education (1990's)

Learning about self and others

Awareness of Privilege

Individually oriented

"Acceptance"

Cultural Competency/Proficiency (2000's)

Self and Institutional transformation

Focused on proactive change at self and structural level

Ally/Solidarity

R. McDermott "Achieving School Failure"

Deficit Approach

"Children not learning in school have been broken by impoverished experiences; in addition to suffering a restricted environment, they are now restricted kids

Pedagogical stance: "I just want to give these kids the opportunities they don't have at home."

Pedagogical stance: "I don't see race in my classroom, I just see children."

Difference Approach

"Children not learning in school are not broken, although they can appear that way because of constant miscommunication organized by cultural and linguistic differences

Pedagogical Stance: "I like to celebrate diversity in my classroom. I often have kids bring in special ethnic food from home."

Pedagogical Stance: "I allow different spellings and pronunciation of words in my classes as it honors the different cultural heritage and traditions of my students and we can all learn from that."

Critical/Political Approach

Children not learning in school are not so much broken or different as they are made to appear that way... School failure is a cultural fabrication and is constantly looked for... 127-128

Pedagogical Stance: "The Culture of Power" (Delpit, 24)

1. Issues of power are enacted in classrooms

2. There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is, there is a "culture of power."

3. The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power

4. If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier

5. Those with power are frequently least aware of- or least willing to acknowledge- its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence

Building "cross-cultural competencies" and code switching

What are some of the ways we think about and define "culture" in contemporary US?

How does Nieto define it?

What does it signify when we define "culture" as everything "not white"?

"Dominant groups do not name themselves, they name others." (Terrell, 29).

Small Groups: Going Deeper with the Concept of Culture

How can someone be multiple cultural identities at the same time? Culture is not ethnicity (132)

How do we decontextualize culture? Native American example? (133)

How can culture be associated with power? (135)

What does it mean to say that "culture is socially constructed"? (137-138)