Lecturer: Amber M Graeber

1. Lecturer: Amber M Graeber • M. Ed., Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle • Emphasis: Race relations and equity

2. Positionality . . . • Raised in Fargo, North Dakota • Parents were educators (h.s. and college level) • Moved to IA to attend college

3. Positionality . . . • Positionality is used to describe how race, culture, social class, and gender – as well as other personal and cultural factors – influence how we view our society and the world • What is your “positionality” and how does it affect the way you see the world?

4. Background in Teaching . . . • Urban Education • East High School, Des Moines, IA • 70% free/reduced lunch population • Mobile student population, city center

5. Current Teaching Position . . . • Suburban Education • Bellevue High School, Bellevue, WA • 11% free/reduced lunch, 20+% ELL • Graduation rate 90%

6. What is Multicultural Education? • J.A. Banks (1989) defines Multicultural Education as “a process whose major aims are to help students from diverse cultural, ethnic, gender, and social class groups attain equal educational opportunities, and to help all students develop positive cross-cultural attitudes, perceptions and behaviors” (p. 236).

7. The Demographic Imperative (Banks, 2008) • U.S. population has changed dramatically since the 1965 Immigration Reform Act. -Large waves of immigrants from Asia and Latin America have been entering the United States since the mid-1960s.

8. In 2004, ethnic minority students were majorities in 6 states • In small groups, try to name the 6 states?

9. California • Hawaii • Louisiana • Mississippi • New Mexico • Texas

10. Sources of Resistance to Multicultural Education (Source: Tatum, 1992) • Race is considered a taboo subject, especially in racially mixed settings. • Many of us have been socialized to think of the U.S. as a just society. • Many, especially White students, initially deny any personal prejudice, recognizing the impact of racism on other people’s lives, but failing to acknowledge its impact on their own.

11. Understanding “Race” A Social Construction

12. Race: A Social Construction • “If men define a situation as real, then it is real in its consequences” –W.I. Thomas, sociologist

13. “Race” is a social construct • But the social, political, and economic consequences of ‘race’ are real. • Humans are not that different from one another, but we are visual people and have been trained to notice these differences • The United States is not a color-blind society; race matters.

14. Read the article: “Biology of Skin Color” 1. Highlight, annotate the article. 2. Underline at least three pieces of evidence important to your understanding

15. Why the “biology argument” doesn’t hold up Historically, people used ‘race’ to describe a sub species • So-called ‘races’ of humans, often referred to by people in society, are not sub species -for example, a White person and a Black person produce offspring that are fertile, etc.

16. Why the “biology argument” doesn’t hold up • The genetic variations within so-called ‘racial’ groups is much greater than the variation between said groups. • Example?

17. Cross-Cultural Argument • Different cultures around the world have different ways of ‘doing race’ • Example? United States vs. Latin America vs. South Africa

18. Racism – a modern phenomenon • Xenophobia – fear of “Others” • Ancient pattern of determining ‘us’ and ‘them’ • Ethnocentrism – ethno is the idea of people, centrism is the center

19. Racism – a modern phenomenon • Initially, skin color had little to do with it, except as a means of identification or possibly as an indication of radical “Otherness” that made it psychologically easier to treat them with the brutality that the slave trade often necessitated. • It took lots of time for anti-Black racism to become a way of thinking – an ideology

20. Definition: Prejudice • A preconceived judgment or opinion often based on limited information (Katz, 1978) • A tendency to think and feel negatively about members of other groups

21. Prejudice • This has cognitive and affective components • Usually rests on misinformation or generalizations • Not much meaningful can be said about all members of a particular group – other than that they belong to the group (and that isn’t meaningful)

22. The Creation of Stereotypes • Stereotypes are not random, but particular and a part of a group’s history and situation in the present • Referred to as a “fixed image” or pictures in our heads

23. Research: Katz & Brayly • Repeated trials in 1933, 1951 and 1966 at Yale University with White, male college students • Found that students assigned traits to specific groups and it didn’t matter if they had actual contact with said group members

24. 1. Cognitive efficiency Laziness; efficient, but not necessarily fair People don’t want to spend extra time or effort on figuring someone out 2. Legitimate inequality An ideology that tells those on the top and the bottom that the status quo is normal, expected Why do people stereotype?

25. Research: Simpson & Yinger (1972) • Took data during WW2 about Japanese and Germans; people used words like ‘cruel, evil, and hostile’ to describe • Then, in the 1960s, representative samples described these same groups as ‘industrious, clean, efficient’

26. Why are stereotypes so resistant to change? • Selective perception -tendency to explain away, fail to notice, or forget evidence about members of a group that do not fit with our existing paradigms or stereotypes

27. Result of Stereotyping • These images become destructive, internalized for all people (dominant group members and minorities)

28. How can we decrease prejudice? • 1. Persuasion • 2. Education • 3. Equal Status Group Contact (cross cultural interaction)

29. Definition: Discrimination • Actions taken on the premise of prejudice • Discrimination can be individual or institutional

30. Individual Discrimination • Individual: denial of some opportunity, resource or benefit to an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, etc. • The obvious, straightforward type of discrimination

31. Institutional Discrimination • Institutional: when an ‘ostensibly racially neutral mechanism’ creates a discriminatory result • Often goes unnoticed, it’s subtle and hard to see) • Institutional discrimination perpetuates the effects of discrimination that occurred in the past

32. Definition:Racism • a system of advantage based on race (Wellman, 1977) • the assumption, consciously or unconsciously held, that people can be divided into a distinct number of discrete “races” according to physical, biological criteria and • that systematic social differencesautomatically and inevitably follow the same lines of physical difference

33. Racism • Two parts of racism: -Difference -Power

34. Racism • Two types of racism -Overt “easy to see - racism” -Covert “symbolic racism”

35. Racism Racism is always changing • -Different forms of racism exist in different time periods, geographical settings and peoples • -Racism changes size, shape, purpose and function with changes in the economy, social structure, etc.

36. Racism Racism is always changing • -Different forms of racism exist in different time periods, geographical settings and peoples • -Racism changes size, type, and function with changes in the economy, social structure, etc. • Consequences of racist attitudes can range from social discrimination to systematic genocide