[Dr. Hill-Jackson] Howdy.
This lecture is for the course INST 222.
The topic is Culture and Education.
Please familiarize yourself with these important terms
for this lecture.
There are three parts of this lecture.
Part A, defining culture; part B we'll discuss culture
and the power of intangible aspects of culture;
and then in part C we'll connect culture
to education and learning.
Let's begin with part A, defining culture.
It's important to start any conversation on culture
with some definitions.
And if you take a look at your screen,
on the left we have seven definitions for culture,
all of which you are responsible for knowing.
I really like and appreciate the first definition,
which it comes from online, Merriam-Webster,
and it's a very formal definition of culture.
For example, part B defines culture
as the customary beliefs, social forms,
and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.
It's also the characteristic features of everyday existence.
As we move down the items there on the left
we also see, according to Marshall who is a leader
in multicultural education, a culture means ways of being.
And that makes sense for us because every cultural group
has a way of doing things.
For example, if you take women and men,
the way women just sort of operate their everyday lives
is different from the way men operate their everyday lives,
not better, not worse just different.
So men and women have different ways of being, that's fair.
We can also look to other ethnic groups as well
when we look inside their homes
and how they sort of go about their everyday lives
we start to see that there is this different way of being.
As we move down the list,
we see with definition number three
that culture is a group's program for survival.
Now, I know that sounds a little primitive
but it's not meant to be so.
It just means that every cultural group
has a way of sort of interacting with the environment
and getting along and throughout the day
based on one's environment.
For example, Aggies as a culture group,
you survive differently
than those who exist on the UT campus,
the Longhorns are a bit different than the Aggies.
Their way of surviving on campus is a little different,
even though they're all college students.
The definition that I love the best
is definition number four, a group's way of doing things.
That's a very simple, elegant way
of understanding what culture is.
It's a group's way of doing things.
Please familiarize yourself
with all seven definitions of culture.
We should know that there are these properties
that help define culture, right?
So we should know, first of all,
that culture, whenever we start to talk about it
we have to understand that it's very difficult to define.
There's a complexity there
that once you begin a conversation on it,
you don't know where to begin, where to end.
And we start to see with, for example item number four,
that culture is ubiquitous.
It is everywhere, it is everything.
So there are these aspects in our environment
that help us sort of define who we are
and our ways of being and our group's program for survival.
So, in that way these ideas of complexity and ubiquity
can actually sort of interact with each other.
So, we also have to remember that culture is fluent,
and that means it changes over time.
It doesn't stay the same, it is not static,
it is not stagnant, it is changing all the time.
For example, the way Americans used to be back in
let's say 1850 is different from how Americans were in 1950
and sure enough we're gonna be a different group of people
by the time 2015 rolls around.
We are changing over time.
Another aspect culture is that it is political.
And we have to understand that culture is not this neutral
or value-free entity but some cultures around the world,
their ways of being are more valued than other cultures.
For example, the English language.
There's a reason
why so many places around the world speak English
because of the English Empire
and their influence around the world.
That power has helped to push a kind of English narrative
that has been respected over time.
So, these four properties are worth knowing.
We also have to remember
that there are all these items in our environment
that help make up our culture, especially as Americans.
You know the art around us, the toys.
Mr. Potato Head is not a toy that is common around the world
but it's very unique to us.
Holidays, money, dance, decor, celebrations,
even the idea of Santa, the way he looks,
that's unique to the US.
Santa looks different around the world
and some countries don't even recognize Santa.
The way we pray, how we pray, when we pray
is all a part and reflective of our culture
and every culture has their way of doing this as well.
Our religion, the books that we use,
all of these items around us influence us,
influence our ways of being.
We need to be aware of that.
And so, as we move on we have to understand
even things like our clothing and transportation,
language, culture, food, sports, the way we view time,
music, our government structure,
our democratic ways of doing things, very unique.
While we do have countries around the world
that sort of mimic our style, but our specific way
of having a two to three-party system
and having House of Representatives as well as a Senate,
it comes from English ways of doing things.
But the way that we have put our stamp on it
make it really unique for the American experience.
The tools that we use, even the design of buildings.
Anybody who's ever gone abroad,
you know when you've gone to another country.
The architecture itself speaks to the people who were there
and the time frame in which they live.
We have to remember that as Americans
there are these features that help to define who we are.
I don't know if we've ever thought about it,
but there are these ideas that are uniquely American.
And we have these core values that speak to who we are.
For example, number one this idea of civility.
That is a uniquely American value
and not just that other countries aren't civil to each other
but our expectations on civility are unique.
This idea of patriotism, freedom, security,
the ability of self reliance.
We all have heard, for example,
pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
That's an American ideal.
Equal opportunity and equality, getting ahead, capitalism,
the ideas of pursuing the American dream,
justice and fairness,
as well as this idea of critical patriotism,
which is different.
Number 10 is different from symbolic patriotism.
And so the difference is a subtle one.
With symbolic patriotism,
the idea that we need these memorials in our life
to remind us of who we are as a people.
For example, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center
compared to this idea of critical patriotism.
That is this idea
that we should enjoy the comradery of being American
but at the same time have the privilege
to critique certain things
that we don't like about our country.
And I want to remind you all
of the marches in the '50s and '60s
during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
These were Americans that were saying,
we love being American but we're not invited
to fully sit at the table.
So the marches were a sign of critical patriotism
in our country and that's accepted.
We have examples of groups all around our wonderful country
that when they see an issue, an idea
that they feel the need to challenge, they do so
but based on the fact that we believe in free speech
we all have the right to do that.
That's a core value of Americans.
We're moving on to the two types of cultural orientations
and they are micro culture and macro culture.
Micro, for all of you, means smaller or less than
and macro means larger.
So, a micro culture refers to the specialized subgroups
marked with their own languages, ethos,
and rule expectations
that permeate differentiated industrial societies.
Now, that's different from a macro culture,
and this is culture that all humans share in a general way
and it crosses local boundaries
and they exist among groups nationally or internationally.
So if you take, for example,
the figure 1.1 on the right side of your screen
we see that the shaded area represents the macro culture.
That's the part of the culture,
whether you're talking about language
or religion or what have you that people share in common.
The micro cultures are smaller subgroups
where they have a lot of these ideas, traits, values,
beliefs in common but what falls outside of that shaded area
is what they hold to be uniquely their own.
So if we take the example, one marker of culture,
let's say religion, and if we made that shaded area
represent religion,
we can see that for a lot of folks in our country
we have a lot of Christians.
The research says that they're about 77%,
Christians in the US, but we know
that there are a lot of smaller subgroups.
We have folks who are Methodist, who are Baptist,
who are Mormon, who are Catholic
and so their ways of doing things, these subgroups,
may be a little bit different than the macro group, okay.
Moving on, we need to understand
that when it comes to cultural groups
it can be defined by many different ways,
not just one's ethnicity.
For example, when you're comparing
and thinking about the different ways
that people are different,
you look at women are a culture group, men, Asian Americans,
European Americans are a culture group.
Amish culture, bilingual learners, firefighters,
sorority sisters, GLBTQ, gifted learners.
So the point I'm trying to make with this list
on the left of the screen
is the fact that any time you have a group
where they have a set of identified beliefs,
values, and behaviors they are in essence a cultural group.
As, those of you who are on campus,
you may belong to a sorority, that's a cultural group.
You're an Aggie, that's a cultural group.
There are so many cultural groups that you belong to
all at the same time.
The authors from so many readings tell us
that culture is learned, it is symbolic,
and it is transmitted through groups.
And what that means is a lot of the ways of being
that we know how to get along on this planet
or interact in a group,
we acquire just from sheer participation in life,
being in your family is a cultural group.
Belonging to a particular ethnic group.
You learn certain rules about culture
by belonging or just simply by osmosis.
You don't even realize you're picking up these ideas,
these views, these ways of doing things,
these artifacts, all of these things in your environment
that help inform not just how you do things as an individual
but how you participate in that unique cultural group.
Understanding another culture
involves understanding another's belief system
and not just another spoken language.
So, so often we think that we can pigeonhole people
by looking at their skin color
or paying attention to the language that they speak,
but culture is more complicated and more enduring than that.
In order to really understand someone's culture
you have to understand their belief system.
So that takes us to part B,
culture and the power of intangible culture.
So what do I mean by intangible?
So let's start with a definition of tangible.
Tangible means capable of being perceived
through the sense, and that means taste, touch,
sight, hear, et cetera.
Intangible means unable to be perceived,
not able to be perceived by humans.
So it's almost invisible to the senses.
You don't know that it's there because you can't sense it.
And so if we use the metaphor of the iceberg,
this is how people get stuck
when it comes to sort of interpreting culture
because we look at the tangible parts of people,
we look and see what gender they are, what skin color,
what language they speak,
and we look for those things
that we can sort of identify through our senses.
Many people judge others like an iceberg.
They base their judgements on what they can see
above the waterline.
But when you really wanna get to know
how a cultural group thinks, acts, and behaves
you gotta know there's a whole lot of other stuff
going on below the waterline.
So in actuality, there's a great deal to learn about people
below the surface.
We have to look at the intangible aspects,
those things we cannot perceive through our senses.
So, before we really delve into that
we gotta go through some important terms
like stereotypes and essentialize, prejudice,
cultural hegemony, discrimination, self-fulfilling prophecy,
and consciousness of difference.
A stereotype is perceived or oversimplified generalizations.
We all know about that.
We've heard stereotypes
about every cultural group you can imagine.
And we have to realize that some stereotypes,
many stereotypes are just based in just rumor or hearsay.
They have no weight.
There are these patterns,
which is something different from stereotypes,
in which we notice about people
but it is confirmed through analysis, observation,
and real study.
So there is a difference and we need to be aware of that.
This idea of essentializing is the same thing
or very similar to stereotype.
And so we have to realize
that so often when we hear stereotype
we believe that some of us have the ability to say,
okay that's just a stereotype.
But for others they feel as if every person
of that particular culture group must be that way
because they've heard the stereotype.
Let's take the stereotype about blondes.
So, blondes, we all have heard that stereotype
that they're not as smart as the general public.
And so for some people who can't move beyond a stereotype,
every blonde that they meet they feel as if she or he
must not be that intelligent.
That's essentializing.
Before you even get to know anyone,
before you get to know what's under the waterline
of that iceberg you automatically place them
in a particular category.
Prejudice is a preconceived judgment, belief, or opinion.
Cultural hegemony, the established views of things
by the ruling dominant group in society.
And every culture, every society,
whether we're talking about the American society,
Bolivian society, European society
has a dominant group and their values are exerted
on everyone else.
We can think about for example in the US
and we can take religion.
The example of Christianity is a form of cultural hegemony.
The way that a lot of Christians have worked
to help build this country, their ideas have infiltrated
a lot of aspects and institutions in our country.
Take, for example, the school system.
The fact that we had what was Christmas break
and we had Easter break, that was based on Christians
being a part of laying out the calendar.
Now we know that we have to respect other religions
in this country.
So now we have winter break and spring break
just to not sort of force our ideas
on other religious groups that may be in schools.
Discrimination, discrimination equals prejudice plus power.
So you have prejudice, this belief or preconceived judgment
but when you tack on the ability to have an action
or a policy that changes or affects another person's life
for, not for the better, that then becomes discrimination.
And we have to understand, and if we take a look
at the figure on the right of the screen,
that there are many forms of discrimination like racism,
classism, ableism, linguicism, sizeism, heterosexism,
and the list of isms can go on and on.
So discrimination is really a kind of umbrella term
and there are many forms of discrimination.
Self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction
that proves itself to be true.
And we have to be careful if you are a future teacher
because if you have low expectations of students,
what happens is that if you predict they won't do well
it usually will prove itself to be true
because you often won't get those learners,
learners who have maybe a certain physical
or mental disability, learners who are poor,
learners who speak another language,
or learners who just are biased against,
you won't give them that extra support that they need.
So, your prediction that they won't do well
often will turn into a reality.
Consciousness of difference,
that just means a deliberate awareness
of those who are different from yourself.
For example, if you're a future teacher
you are going into your classroom thinking,
how are my learners different here?
And not looking at that difference as an obstacle
but looking at that difference as an opportunity.
So you're looking to see
if there are different socioeconomic statuses,
if there are different languages,
how can you identify the different ethnic groups
in your class and not to put the focus on it
just for the sake of putting the focus on it.
But you can use those cultural differences to leverage
real rigorous and exciting learning opportunities
inside the classroom.
Well you have to understand that beliefs, values, morals,
perspectives, prejudice, and bias
these are all parts of culture as well.
And so we've talked about the tangible parts of culture
but it is these intangible parts of culture
that are even more powerful than the tangible bits
because they define so much of why and how
we engage in cultural groups.
So take the time to review
these intangible parts of culture.
Bias is everywhere.
Bias is in medicine, it's in law enforcement,
it's in the media, it's in politics as well.
If you take a look on the left,
we look at the more liberal-leaning magazine
called Us Weekly.
And this Us magazine, when they are sharing a story,
for example, they will take an approach
that almost gives you an inside view
of how they feel about certain conservative
or democratic groups.
And so, for example,
when Sarah Palin was featured on the cover
then it was not so much in the best possible light.
When the President and the First Lady
were featured on the cover,
we realize that the light shone on them was more positive.
And anyone that understands the people
who are creating this magazine
and their whole sort of vision and mission
is more one that is liberal-leaning.
And if we understand that
we know the kinds of information and stories
that they're going to share.
Every piece of content that exists on this Earth planet.
Every book you've ever read,
anything you're going to read in this class
has a certain bias.
And that's okay,
we just have to be able to teach our students
to be skeptics of knowledge and to always ask
who wrote this, where does this information come from,
is it credible?
And also recognize that everything has a bias.
What's really sad is when we have teachers who are biased.
We have examples over and over again
of teachers in the classroom being biased to their students.
Teachers will demand
that students don't speak a certain language
in their classroom.
There was an incident in 2008
where a Native American student was expelled
near a, in a district near Houston,
just for having long hair.
Someone who's culturally incompetent,
a teacher who's culturally incompetent may not understand
that that's a part of this culture group's culture
and their heritage.
And also in 2008,
and it happens nearly every year since then,
we had a teacher who was harshly reprimanded
for calling a student the N-word.
So, over and over again, every day in the media
there are examples of teachers just not knowing,
making missteps either A, from not knowing or B,
just being callous.
And so we have to be aware that teachers are cultural beings
and of course we all are bias, myself included.
Our students are biased too.
They don't come to us as blank slates.
They have been influenced by their parents,
by their places of worship, by the community,
by their friends, by the media,
and so they're coming to us as well.
And we have to make sure
that we have the kinds of empowering school culture
that helps them to be able to interact
with all kinds of people.
After all, we live in a very diverse state,
diverse nation, and an increasingly diverse world.
And it just makes sense
that we know how to interact with all kinds of people.
There's a movement in education called anti-bias education
where we know how to help students,
whether in language arts class or math and science class,
how we can give the kinds of lessons
to get over their biases and become more productive
and morally upright citizens.
We have to realize that our worldview,
our perspective influences our actions.
So our worldview is a part of our culture
which is also attached to our values and behavior as well.
Your perspective is the lenses by which you see the world
or your worldview.
It has been informed by your culture
which has been shaped by your values and your behavior.
We need to ask ourselves
what happens when a teacher's worldview
is different from his or her students?
Does it affect his or her methods or practices
and actions in the classroom?
And if so, how?
And if you have a perspective
where you don't value a particular cultural group
and you've never had an opportunity
to check your biases at the door, you may not realize
that you may not interact with your students
in a way that is uplifting or encourages achievement.
We also have to realize that our worldview
affects the kinds of content and material
that we share with our students.
It's important that students get the kind of material
where they get multiple perspectives on an issue
and not material content that's framed by one worldview
but that's framed by multiple worldview.
And that has to be
a rigorous and exciting curriculum for all.
Part C.
It's time now for us to connect culture with education.
We need to know that culture is learned.
Cultural learning is unique to humans.
And this idea of enculturation,
it is the process
by which a child learns his or her culture.
Cultural learning is the accumulation of knowledge
about experiences and information
not perceived directly by the organism
but transmitted to it through symbols.
So, as I was saying earlier, this idea of all individuals
just learning how to participate in a culture
just by the sheer act of being there and engaging.
You may not have your parents say, this is our rule
for sitting down and enjoying a meal together,
but through the sheer act of enculturation,
the act of just participating, you become acculturated.
You learn the rules of a particular cultural group
just by your sheer participation.
We have so many scholars like Howard
who tell us that student learning
is a combination of so many different factors.
And culture for Howard is not bound exclusively
by one's race or ethnicity.
That's a very limiting sort of idea about culture.
But a student learns and is impacted by,
how and when they immigrated to our country.
Student learning is influenced by the student's gender,
their family history, religion, cultural practices,
their social class that they belong to,
the geography if they live in a rural or suburban
or high-city environment.
We have to realize that a student's culture
is impacted by all of those items as well.
We also know that students come to us
with a certain cultural capital.
And this is knowledge that is associated with the group
that has the most status.
And so if you belong to a cultural group
in the United States that is considered the dominant group,
and in the US that would be our Anglo
or European brothers and sisters,
then there's a certain amount of cultural capital or cache
that one might have when interacting in society.
For example, if you have a certain cultural capital
and you belong to that dominant group
then certain stereotypes and biases
that are attributed to minority groups
may not be attributed to you
because you belong to the dominant group
and there's a certain cultural capital you have
for not having the weight of those stereotypes
placed on you.
On this slide are a few other terms
that we've talked about a little bit,
but take the time to review
the remaining terms on the slide.
We want to go a little deeper into this phenomenon
called self-fulfilling prophecy and sort of take it apart
so we can see it's relationship to our learners
inside the classroom.
And we've already given a definition
for self-fulfilling prophecy
as a prediction that proves itself to be true.
And so if you have low expectations of learners
and you don't do what you need to do
to support their growth and development,
we often see that groups that are predicted not to do well
are kids who are poor,
are kids who come from certain ethnic groups.
When they don't get that support,
because our teachers have low expectations for them,
the prediction for them is already low,
we have research when it comes to our achievement gap scores
that shows that our students aren't doing well.
That prediction proves itself to be true.
But when we take the time
and really not sort of think of one culture
as better than the other and we don't have the baggage
of bias and discrimination,
we can appreciate the term cultural relativism.
And with this term, cultural relativism encourages us
to avoid stereotyping
and to look at the behaviors of groups as patterns
as opposed to a negative.
We can look to these behaviors of certain groups
as well that's just how they behave.
It's not better than my cultural group that I belong to
or worse, it's just different.
Educators can use this knowledge
to affirm our students in our curricula,
which can lead to student achievement.
This is a positive self-fulfilling prophecy.
So, we can actually flip the script, if you will,
on this idea of thinking poorly about our learners
and carrying the baggage of stereotypes.
So often with human beings,
we place value on cultural groups.
Some cultures are just better than other cultures.
That's an absolute fallacy.
It's based on something that is absolutely worthless.
There's this need in the human culture
just to place a hierarchy on cultures.
But when we adopt or embrace this idea
of cultural relativism,
I think we can all start to appreciate the idea
that there's no such thing as one culture being better than
or worse than another, but that cultures are just different.
And we can appreciate the positive aspects of every culture
on this planet.
Thank you for your time, and gig'em.
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