Cultural Bias of U.S. Education

Recent trends in multiculturalism notwithstanding, education in the United States remains culturally biased, which leads to bias in curriculum and in school testing. Most approaches to multiculturalism merely involve adding on discussions of marginalized racial and ethnic groups to the chiefly Eurocentric point of view. Even well-meaning educators fail to eliminate cultural bias in the classroom, which often results in negative educational outcomes for African-American youth.

Culture plays a role in the ability of students to understand curriculum materials and therefore score well on tests. Information may be unknowingly presented in the classroom that is so culturally biased minority students unconsciously or consciously reject it. Rose Mary Scott gives an example of a book about Native Americans (written by a non-Native American) assigned to a class of preservice teachers to read. The class believed that the book was well-written and accurate, until the instructor made them aware of a critique of the text which pointed out gross inaccuracies. This experience illustrates a daily occurrence in African-American classrooms throughout the country: "Minority students, among other things, are asked to relate to material that is not produced in their community or culture, is not presented from their perspective, and tends to ignore their existence" (Scott 115). When minority students are tested on material that they consciously or unconsciously reject as false, it is not

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, they teach to a curriculum as if it were set in stone" (McElroy-Johnson 120). Many teachers from middle-class backgrounds fail to realize the issues of power that present themselves in classrooms where large numbers of minority children are taught. Because such teachers are already participants in the culture of power, it is difficult for them to understand their complicity in perpetuating the rules of the game. These issues include: "the power of the publishers of textbooks and of the developers of the curriculum to determine the view of the world presented . . . and the power of an individual or group to determine another's intelligence or 'normalcy'" (Delpit 130). Textbook publishing is a very competitive industry. Publishers are loathe to include information in their textbooks that would be considered controversial. Thus school textbooks present the mainstream point of view. Likewise, tests that are given on information in these textbooks are mainstream in nature. For African-American students to achieve well on these tests, they must accept the prevailing codes and rules for participating in the power structure. The role of teacher expectations cannot be ignored in influencing the performance of African-American

Category: Psychology - C