Conflicting Times: Multiculturalism, Individualism and Diversity

I appologize for this sloppy-copy draft, with it's messed up formatting, but offer the thought process here as another point of view on a controversial subject. The debate continues and broadens as the global family stretches.

Multiculturalism and Individualism: Creating a
Foundation for Recognition of Diversity in Pre-Kindergarten

Nancy Gray
Capella University
June 20, 2004



Abstract

The dichotomous relationship that frequently results when multiculturalism and individualism are viewed as separate when considering the foundational definition of diversity when determining curriculum choices is examined at the Pre-Kindergarten level of educational cultures. Positive and negative considerations and barriers related to teaching in an environment predominantly disposed toward an emphasis on multiculturalism or individualism are explored through a review of existing literature. Macro-multicultural programs that are based on generally globally diverse elements that emphasize group cooperation, collaboration and community while minimizing individualism are contrasted with micro-multicultural programs based on promoting an integration according to local community demographics as represented within the classroom. The micro-cultural program focuses attention first on diversity as it is represented in the classroom and the extended environment of the children. Next, higher lever thinking related to individual diversity as a natural occurrence for everything in and out of the classroom is encouraged. Once the concept of diversity is firmly developed and accepted as both natural, nonthreatening, and beneficial, diversity as related to groups in general, and finally as cultures, is introduced.

Table of Contents

Abstract 2

Table of Contents 3

Introduction 4

Multiculturalism or Individualism:
Dichotomy or Dichotomy? 8

Pre-Kindergarten: Putting the Pieces together 20

The Pre-Kindergarten Classroom Culture:
The New Family 21

Macro- Versus Micro-culturalism in the PreK Classroom:

The Natural Way of Learning 22

Conclusion 24

References 25

Multiculturalism and Individualism:

Creating a Foundation for Recognition of

Diversity in Pre-Kindergarten

The first step

In any multicultural transformative process

Is to examine

What issues, biases, prejudices, and assumptions

I carry into the classroom
And how these inform my curriculum.
In fact, I must constantly engage in a process of

Examining and critiquing my own perspective
Because this will also affect the way

I approach transformation.
(Gorski, 2004b)

Multicultural education is "at risk." A crisis of legitimacy threatens what Banks describes as an "idea, an educational reform movement, and a process (Banks, 1997). Emerging evidence suggests that the new light on the horizon of education, segregation based on religion, will continue development in the glare of media interest, pushing multicultural education as formerly conceived into the shadows. But as an African proverb reminds us, today is not yesterday. Nor is it tomorrow.

And, for today at least, multicultural education remains a favorite topic for research and discussion. The range of discussions is broad and diverse. Perhaps it is as diverse as people or everything else known in our universe, although indications are that in general the discussions have polarized into for, against, and who cares, rather than why, how and who will benefit from education that is multicultural. Perhaps the key to opening more minds to diversity in teaching and learning as natural, nonthreatening, and beneficial will be in changing the focus of educational idea, reform and process from multicultural to egalitarian. Perhaps then educators will focus less on the political, social and economic rights related to education and more on a purpose of education as a means to enable all to achieve at the highest levels possible to each.

For those still firmly embedded in a belief system that puts multicultural in the preeminent position, multicultural education is as Bank defines it akin to a trifecta. To win, one must correctly pick the first, second and third place finishers in a race. The idea, the educational reform movement and the process must win, place and show, albeit not necessarily in that order.

"Multiculturalism has largely failed," says student Ibrahim Hewitt. "We are not all the same. Why should we all be moulded to be the same? It is a very misguided approach. Integration should not be mentioned in a democracy." (Berliner, 2004)

Teachers and students in the mid-range "believe that racially integrated schooling is important." But, "when asked what effect racially diverse environments have on achievement, half of teachers and three-quarters of students responded that integrated classes have no impact on student learning."(Reid, 2004)

At the far end of the continuum of opinions, Locke says "multiculturalism is a grave threat to this country. Multiculturalism is a threat to education;" He too points out a recurring theme. "People are individuals; they are not interchangeable ciphers in an amorphous collective."(Locke, 1998)
In the following, Banks offers descriptions of what each of his three facets of multicultural education must attempt to do in order to succeed.
As an idea, multicultural education seeks to create equal educational opportunities for all students, including those from different racial, ethnic, and social-class groups. Multicultural education tries to create equal educational opportunities for all students by changing the total school environment so that it will reflect the diverse cultures and groups within a society and within the nation's classrooms. Multicultural education is a process because its goals are ideals that teachers and administrators should constantly strive to achieve. (Banks, 2004)

Unfortunately, as clear as the descriptions seem to be, closer examination reveals that the term "multicultural" is superfluous to the primary concept. Quality education as an idea, educational reform movement and process serves as well. The missing element from Banks definitions about multicultural education appears to be the individual.

Multicultural education as proposed by many of its proponents is oppositional. In a the existing culture of the United States, founded on diversity as evidenced through an Individualism that suggests the individual is a free agent, entitled to succeed or fail according to his or her own choices, a school culture emphasizing multicultural as a diversity of preference for curriculum development that displaces the responsibility of the individual, placing responsibility on a "group" divides more than it integrates.

The dichotomous relationship that frequently results when multiculturalism and individualism are viewed as separate when considering the foundational definition of diversity when determining curriculum choices at the Prekindergarten level is examined. Positive and negative considerations and barriers related to teaching in an environment predominantly disposed toward an emphasis on multiculturalism or individualism are explored through a review of existing literature. Macro-multicultural programs that are based on generally globally diverse elements that emphasize group cooperation, collaboration and community while minimizing individualism are contrasted with the possibility of micro-multicultural programs. The micro-programs are based on promoting an integration according to local community demographics as represented within the Pre-K classroom. Such a program focuses first on diversity as it is represented there, regardless of the demographic "mix" of students and faculty.

After thoroughly developing an understanding of the concept of diversity through every subject that arises naturally through teacher facilitated/student centered discussions and teacher-guided, curriculum specific, learning experiences the class proceeds to higher lever thinking related to diversity as a natural foundation for everything in and out of the classroom from the children's home culture to the emerging global culture of which they are a part. Finally, around the age of 4, when the children have acquired the capacity to "understand that they and others can have false beliefs" (Perner et al.,1992 in (Campbell & Christopher, 1999)the foundation of diversity as natural, beneficial, and desirable will be easier to apply to themselves and others, both as individuals and as groups, deemed somehow unlike them.

Multiculturalism or Individualism: Dichotomy or Dichotomy?

…it is very helpful to suggest that
diversity is not so much an end in itself
as it is a condition of our society
and a condition of the world in which we live.
Frank Wong

In Sedona, Arizona a red rock formation stands silhouetted against the sky. It is easy to believe the Native American peoples of the area who tell the tale that the formation that appears to be one red rock sculpture actually represents a man and a woman, standing back to back. According to legend the reason is that the man and woman learned doing so did not mean as generally suggested that they were in opposition, perhaps standing in hostility and resistance to one another, seeing things differently and unwilling or unable to look at anything in the same way. On the contrary, the man and woman stood that way because they learned by doing so they doubled their capacity to see their world in all directions. They were equal partners in spite of their differences, gaining from their willingness to work together while trusting the vision of each regardless of differences to benefit them as partners.

Multiculturalism and Individualism could be such equal partners. Even the word dichotomy, usually used to suggest opposition in its negative sense, is used in a biological sense as a dividing into two equal parts in a positive sense. Unfortunately, in their zeal to change society some proponents of multicultural education, prefer to stand arms firmly locked together in an impenetrable wall against everything this country was founded on as though nothing good is there. How would they know as long as they look in only one direction?

Sonia Nieto is one of the major proponents of multicultural education, as she sees it. According to James A. Banks, Sonia Nieto is considered one of the leading theorists in multicultural education.(P. xi). (Nieto, 1999). She is introduced that way when she appears on panels, lectured, and other public venues. She begins her book on "creating multicultural learning communities" with the basic declaration that "Many children today live in circumstances so difficult that they would have been unthinkable even a decade or two ago." Few would dispute the assertion that children today live in difficult circumstances. However, she then qualifies the statement by continuing, "…conditions including abject poverty, disrupted families, homelessness, neglect, violence, and drug abuse," (P. xxi), none of which are circumstances new to today's children. History is replete with references to Lloyd Demause's "nightmare of childhood" (Demause), to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "children weeping," and Alice Miller's "poisonous pedagogy" and "hidden cruelty" toward children. (Miller, 1981, 1984, 1990, 1991, 2002). The fact is "Thanks to researchers from Duke University and the Foundation for Child Development, there is now a Child Well-Being Index (C.W.I.), according to which kids were faring 5 percent better as of 2003 than they were in 1975. (Hulbert, 2004)

If Nieto is no more knowledgeable about multicultural education than the quote above indicates she is about children's circumstances today or decades ago, her credentials as a leading authority may be equally as questionable, possibly even "unthinkable" to others in this heavily debated field. Perhaps Nieto and others who choose to look in one direction could learn something important from the red rock formation.

Nieto develops her concept of multicultural education through a series of questions based on the "premise that context is always implicated in learning." P. 1 (Nieto, 1999)In her book(Nieto, 1999)the social and political context of education that Nieto constructs serves her as a straw man towards which she aims her vitriolic ammunition and upon whose supine remains she then heaps her scorn. When she quotes Paolo Freire, "Reading is re-writing what we are reading," (In Nieto, p. 14)she offers a clue about the source of her own perspective on the context within which she views multicultural learning. Postmodernists do say that the reader writes the text, but that is not quite the same thing as Nieto suggests.

The intensity of Nieto's disdain for what she labels "cultural capital," that economic privilege and advantage that she maintains automatically accrues to "students from socially and culturally dominant groups," those "intangibles as values, tastes, and behaviors and through cultural identities such as language, dialect, and ethnicity" p. 6 (Nieto, 1999)serves to blind the reader to the shallowness of her arguments. Left to her unquestioned position she spins securely bound in place as she weaves her dangerous web.

Culture, Nieto claims, influences learning. Substitute "learning environment" for the now inflammatory word "culture" and Nieto's arguments are similar to the "static thinking" she accuses "teachers" of developing as a result of their "aversion …to focusing on the cultural differences of their students." p. 9 (Nieto, 1999) Apparently she does not consider the influence of teachers' justified fear of failing to be "politically correct" on their "aversion…to focusing on the cultural differences of their students" in the classroom. She ignores their context, a context unfortunately resulting from unintended consequences of well-intentioned efforts to create "conditions...in schools that can help most students learn." (p.25) Culture, and most things related to it have become the most dangerous of "dirty words" within the educational environment!

Nieto also ignores consideration of the influence exerted on textbook and test publishers by both left and right wing ideologues, to be "politically correct." Multicultural committees at MacMillan/McGraw-Hill check for "relevancy, authenticity, stereotypes, and historical accuracy" and insure that all textbook programs are infused with multicultural material." (Jones, 2002)
In order to appease myriad such special interest groups that might deem some materials politically incorrect by someone, somewhere, sometime, suspect are vetted out of educational products. That artificially restricted context leaves little beside innocuous pap as content from which teachers are expected to teach and children to learn...anything… least of all anything interesting or remotely related to diversity or challenging multicultural information.

Literature, long believed the gateway to abstraction and difficult thinking is "dumbed down." Whereas children used to be challenged with works from the now denigrated whiteman's canon of Western literature, today Eighth graders get to teethe on "safe" writings such as "Hilda: The Hen Who Wouldn’t Give Up." (Hull, 2000). Why? Researchers find that "exposing children to literature that includes characters, settings, and events similar to their lived experiences produces positive academic, personal, and social results virtually identical to those generated by the Multicultural Literacy Program." P. 132 Gay To whom is Hilda the hen meaningful?

The president of Harcourt Brace expresses frustration at "pressure from a multitude of special-interest groups" so that "various sensibilities…can be accommodated" but they "give in to these demands." The results give children a "double dose of irrationality." And the lesson learned in this context? "The group's wishes are omnipotent," math is animated "by consensus" and history by "group agreement."(Hull, 2000).

For Neito "the ugly realities of racism and social class bias, among other forms of discrimination, and the ways in which these are manifested, are a taboo subject to discuss because they challenge the ideal that advancement and achievement are based on merit, not on social class status or racial privileges." P. 21 (Nieto, 1999)
Nieto's "Unearned privilege" certainly exists, but it is not as narrowly applied as she suggests. In fact, it is spreading across all boundaries. Recently, a former president of Princeton called for "preferences like those granted to minorities" for all students(even white ones!) as long as they are "low income." He said "such affirmative action…is necessary if the top colleges are to be 'engines of opportunity' rather than 'bastions of privilege.'" (Arenson, 2004)

Before now, "affirmative action" as seen by the poor white is as unearned a privilege as is being born to a rich stupid white man, or famous beautiful black woman, or favored Latino entertainer. Being created and born equal does not mean one is guaranteed equal measures of opportunity or success by whatever definition. In fact there seems to be no guarantee by any standard, least of all the bastion of privilege, or its opposite. (Eakin, 2004)Oprah, Powell, Rice do not share the same roots and yet they achieved success by most standards. Bill Clinton and his brother do. One can be born to every possible "unearned privilege" and yet fail to achieve anything considered of value. Likewise another can be born to poverty and considered "at risk" because of every identifiable characteristic. Neither condition assures a child of a certain future. Condoleeza Rice recently told a group of graduating students to beware of ever thinking that just because they deserve something, they will get it. And, she added, "Don't ever assume that just because you get something it means you deserve it."

Educators and theorists do all children a disservice to suggest otherwise. Those of the "in" group lead to believe that they have all the advantages struggle under expectations by themselves and others of achieving levels of success that may be beyond their capabilities. Self-guilt and low self-esteem result. The "out" group lead to believe that nothing they do will make a difference because they lack the advantages of others, struggles against low expectations by themselves and others. Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and eventually blame against those perceived responsible result. There are few winners for either "side" in this sad scenario.

Multicultural education, intended to improve life for some, misapplied threatens all. In attempts to "foster positive self esteem" [words from a resolution from the National Education Association] artificial means are used to inflate poor self-images. Unearned praise is substituted for encouragement to achieve, regardless of research that Alfred Adler's notion that "encouragement promotes the most healthy self-concepts and behavior patterns in children." (Carns & Carns, 1998).

One author,(Ghate, 2000),who views multiculturalism as potentially destructive, and individualism as the way to offer all students positive alternatives suggests:
Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success.

Seeing from the other side, Gorski, says "The underlying goal of multicultural education is to affect social change." Gorski explains that the direction "toward this goal" requires three things. First is the "transformation of self." Second is the "transformation of schools and schooling." And third is the "transformation of society."(Gorski, 2004a).

Whether intentionally or not, Ghate and Gorski appear to see only one direction. Like a horse with blinders on whose view is limited, restricted to one narrow goal… with one way to reach it. A horse so blinded has a rider, someone who sees more and holds the reins, prepared to make adjustments if necessary. Proponents of Multicultural education who wear blinders restricting vision of alternative directions that may reach the goal they see as the only one have to avoid anything that interferes with it. Suggest racism is not something that only applies to minorities, or groups of color, as for the white student who said "My circle of friends is so integrated -- Asian, African-Americans, Latino -- all the different colors of the rainbow." Unlike, she continued, "In seventh and eighth grade, race was more of a problem because people called me cracker and Saltine."

She explained the change not as a result of multicultural education but because "Two weeks into freshman year, people stopped looking at race because there are so many different races at the high school." (Gordon, Chilson, & Randall, 2004) In other words, a natural change occurred when given an environment in which it could. A recent poll indicates "An overwhelming majority of public school teachers and students believe that racially integrated schooling is important." Ironically, given the insistence of its importance on the proponents of multicultural education and integration, "half of teachers and three-quarters of students responded that integrated classes have no impact on student learning.(Reid, 2004). Even Nieto mentions the "Catholic Effect" and disappointing results in various excellent multicultural education programs implemented throughout the country but fails to make the simple connection that maybe something is missing.

Nieto suggests "multicultural education has failed to have an immediate and direct connection to student learning because for the most part it has not broken out of a rather shallow 'holidays and heroes' mold." P. 163. She admits "Unraveling the mystery of how particular conditions and beliefs interact to support or thwart learning is difficult at best," but she does not consider the possibility that it has failed because essentially as an idea, educational reform and process it is flawed. If children are taught that the "system" is against them, that they are victims and must create change that seems beyond them, else nothing they do will succeed in bringing them the "fair fruits of their labors," where are their options? Why should they apply themselves?

Some theorists, researchers and educators suggest "school evaluation, competition, and social comparison make it difficult for many children to maintain the belief that they are competent academically. " Covington (1992) The "failure avoidance strategies developed by children may be attributed to efforts "to avoid appearing to lack ability…[including] procrastination, making excuses, avoiding challenging tasks, and perhaps most important, not trying." Covington & Omelich (1979) Others add: "Although trying is important for success (and is encouraged by both teachers and parents), if children try and fail, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that they lack ability. Therefore, if failure seems likely, some children will not try, precisely because trying and failing threatens their ability self-concepts." (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002).

Not surprisingly findings suggest that "Rather than responding to a challenging task with greater effort, these students may try to avoid the task in order to maintain both their own sense of competence, and others' conclusions regarding their competence." (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002).

Unfortunately, the solutions suggested for changing these behaviors involved "reducing the frequency and salience of competitive, social comparative, and evaluative practices, and focusing instead on effort, mastery, and improvement" as a means for "children to maintain their self-worth without having to resort to these failure-avoiding strategies." (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002).

Again, there appears to be a blind spot evident in these popular Multicultural education proponent conclusions. These same children hear at home, in their neighborhoods, even in classrooms that the "system" is against them. They believe they can't succeed because of something over which they have no control. Unlike Edison who is said to have failed some 500 times or more before "inventing" the light bulb these children are said to be unwilling to risk even one more failure for no other reason than that they "failed" at something? Something seems illogical about that to anyone who has spent time with children learning to walk. Personal failure possibly isn't the source of the problem of children not applying themselves in school. But the emphasis on past and present injustices as unassailable barriers, without equal exposure to those who succeed when faced with the same situation might be.

Researchers insist "there is an urgent need for research that identifies relationships among emergent competencies and school adjustment for vulnerable populations of children." Age-appropriate competencies and significant contexts need to be distinguished. Activities to "build capacities across contexts to foster these competencies" need to be identified. (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993). (Fantuzzo & McWayne, 2002) Once these are known, they need to be used in the environment at a stage of development where maximum benefits will result.

Pre-Kindergarten: Putting the Pieces Together

…despite research
linking good pre-K programs with later academic success,
early care and education in the United States
is essentially a nonsystem consisting of
a "patchwork of programs."
Shore

According to Boris Sidis, the problems of education are "fundamental." He mentions historically that the ancient Greeks knew that. Plato, he says, insisted on "education as the foundation of a new social, moral and intellectual life." And speaking through Socrates, Plato said:

Then you are aware that in every work the beginning is the most important part, especially in dealing with anything young and tender? For that is the time when any impression which one may desire to communicate is most readily stamped and taken."(Boris SidisJournal of Abnormal Psychology, 1919)

In the United States, the nineteen million children under the age of five could benefit from early education (Staresina, 2004). Longitudinal studies such as The High/Scope Perry Preschool project provide "comprehensive evaluations of the lasting impact of prekindergarten." (Staresina, 2004). Head Start, the "premiere" preschool public program, created in 1964 as "part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's anti-poverty agenda, provides economically deprived preschoolers with education, nutrition, health and social services" for nearly 900,000 children. (Staresina, 2004). Head Start longitudinal studies indicate that attendees achieve greater academic success and experience lower occurrences of criminal activity later. (Oden, et al, 2000 in Staresina, 2004).

However, evidence of the positive outcomes for children who have access to high quality Pre-Kindergarten programs has not resulted in the support necessary to ensure universal availability of such programs. Although forty-three states do fund them, there are disparities in the funding, teacher requirements,(Quality Counts,2002), wages paid, outcome standards, transportation available, language requirements, and so forth.

The Pre-Kindergarten Classroom Culture: The New Family

Historians have been traditionally committed to

explaining continuity and change over time
And ever since Plato it has been known that

child-hood is a key to this understanding;
The importance of parent-child relations for

social change was hardly discovered by Freud;
St. Augustine's cry, "Give me other mothers and

I will give you another world,"
Has been echoed by major thinkers

for fifteen centuries…

Lynch and Hanson (1998) tell us that "cultural understanding in one's first culture occurs early and is typically established by age 5" (p. 24). They go on to say, "children learn new cultural patterns more easily than adults" (p. 25). (Aldridge, Cohen, & Aman, 2000). The majority of young children today spend some part of the first five years in environments that are not their homes. Many do so from birth. Some of these children are in Pre-K programs, of one kind or another. If a "universal" early care and Pre-K program is developed that allows natural development of awareness of diversity within a curriculum that provides encouragement and reinforcement of developing relationships among the children and avoids introducing many of the negative concepts presently being taught in homes and neighborhoods, children may follow natural inclinations of curiosity and bonding.

Macro Versus Micro-culturalism in the Classroom:
The Natural Way of Learning

Content without context is pretext
Jesse Jackson

According to Graue and Walsh, "a context is a culturally and historically situated place and time, a specific here and now." They are relational. "Individuals, tools, resources, intentions and ideas in a particular setting, within a particular time." shape and are shaped by contexts. "Contexts are fluid and dynamic, constantly reconstituting themselves within activity (Graue and Walsh, 1998, pp. 9-11 in "Not the United Colors…) although many believe cultural and linguistic diversity influence young children's' social processes, little research has been done. However one study clearly indicates "The major factor influencing the children's peer group structures was language…. ("Not the United Colors of Benetton: language, culture, and peers.," 2003).

Although Nieto, speaking of multicultural education, says:
If we understand teaching as consisting primarily of social relationships and as a political commitment rather than a technical activity, then it is unquestionable that what educators need to pay most attention to are their own growth and transformation and the lives, realities, and dreams of their students." P. 131. On the other hand, Ayn Rand speaking of educating the individual says:

The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life — by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past — and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.

Conclusion

When we recognize the constraints that children face,
We will be better able to figure out what to do

In order to help them move beyond boundaries,
And to create a peer culture

That broadens their sense of belonging and solidarity
With people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
("Not the United Colors of Benetton: language, culture, and peers.," 2003)

Fraser maintains "It is believed by many that the key to overcoming racial hatred and prejudice is education. It is not! Education is very important but it's not the key. The key is close personal friendships." In (Harvey & Allard, 2002).
If attitudes change only as behavior changes," (Harvey & Allard, 2002) and behavior changes most easily in the young, and close personal friendships do not happen as a result of education and learning about another's historical or present "culture" then perhaps the shortest way to effective multicultural education passes through a Pre-Kindergarten program that encourages getting to know each other as individuals, each with all the diversity and idiosyncrasies that come with humans being and becoming.


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