Browsing by Subject "Racism in education--United States"
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Item Equity and what secondary science teachers bring to the classroom(2004) Austin, Barbara Anne; Marshall, Jill Ann.The demographics of people working in science-based careers do not match the demographics of the larger society. In particular, people who self-identify as Hispanic are underrepresented among working scientists. One reason may be the influence of formal schooling and more specifically, the behaviors of teachers in secondary science classrooms. This study looks at the practices of eight secondary science teachers at two schools at which 62% of the enrolled students declare their ethnicity as Hispanic. All of the teachers have at least three years of experience. Through interviews with the teachers, classroom observation, and interviews with other faculty, this research elucidates typical behaviors and attitudes surrounding teaching science in these settings. In spite of having a deficit view of their students, they all express interest in and concern about the students they teach. Their characterizations of teaching practices and classroom behaviors do not incorporate strategies designed to promote content learning through culturally relevant curriculum. Instead, they use mainstream-situated approaches that develop science content knowledge, vocabulary, procedures, and skills targeted toward high achievement on state and district standardized tests leading toward graduation or success in college. These approaches are consistent with a view of equity that increases the participation of underrepresented groups in science based careers in that it gives students the skills and knowledge they will need in order to successfully pursue these careers. Additionally, they behave in ways that are consistent with equitable strategies such as using inquiry based teaching, serving as role models, and providing a structured learning environment. This research informs the literature base for instructional systems designers by identifying what that teachers situated in culturally diverse classrooms bring to professional development programs targeted toward making secondary science teaching more equitable.Item The majority minority: academic experiences of white students in a predominately racial/ethnic minority school(2003) Morris, Edward William; Muller, Chandra.This dissertation uses ethnographic data to trace the educational processes and meanings pertaining to whiteness and white students in a predominately minority middle school. White students in this setting derived some advantages from their race, especially in discipline and classroom interactions. Advantages of whiteness depended largely on how others interpreted this characteristic, however. Teachers’ race composed a key factor in how they approached and perceived white students. Black teachers tended to link whiteness in this context to middle-class status, while white teachers tended to view these white students as poor and unfortunate. In the youth peer culture, whiteness was not perceived as desirable, and many white students tried to distance themselves from stereotypical whiteness by connecting to minority peers and the predominately minority neighborhood. To conclude, I propose that whiteness should be viewed as a hegemonic system that marginalizes non-whites as well as whites who do not reflect the hegemonic ideal. I propose several ways schools can counteract the reproduction of hegemonic white privilege in education.