When one encounters individual discrimination, he or she will feel very hurtful and psychologically damaging. This negative outcome may either become very frustrating and increase one’s self-inferiority or a motive in a positive way for a change , with the metaphor of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” in mind. Actually, the discrimination is not simply an individual bias; it is above all an institutional practice, which should be viewed more seriously. Individual discrimination, as defined in the book of Nieto & Bode, means the conduct based on a distinction made on grounds of natural or social categories, which have no relation either to individual capacities or merits, or to the concrete behavior of the individual person. However, it is incomplete. It describes neither the harmful effects of such conduct nor move beyond the individual l. Indeed, institutional discrimination, as a systemic use of economic and political power in institutions, can define discrimination more completely and lead to detrimental policies and practices, which does far greater damage. As It is stated in the book of Nieto & Bode, the major difference between individual and institutional discrimination is the wielding of power. It is primarily through the power of the people who control institutions, such as schools, that oppressive policies and practices are reinforced and legitimated. I have a friend, who is a foreign-born Asian and came to the USA at his 20’s. He had successfully accomplished his PHD education from Harvard University. Then, he was hired by a large company and has been working there for about 15 years. Guess what, he is just a manager of a small department, which is mainly dealing with business with Asian countries. He quoted that he is going to fail in his career because he didn’t see any hope or possibilities to be promoted to higher position of the top management or any board member no matter how hard he has tried. I am wondering he is smart, intelligent even brilliant, working hard and able to communicate in English very well , but why couldn’t he see his future in this company? Just because he is an Asian, foreign-born, Asian language native speaker not English native speaker , has no family background ? Obviously, it is not the individual discrimination but the institutional discrimination that gets in the way of individual effort. So discrimination is not solely an individual phenomenon, it is more of an institutional practice , which is underlying behind with more powerful effects.
Taking into consideration the sociopolitical context of multicultural education, there appears some ways in which discrimination becomes an institutional education practice. Many examples reflect this phenomenon, for example, a White teacher tend to have much more frequent eye contact with her White students than with her Black or other color of students.
And, according to the study, the Black children had to try three times harder to catch the teacher’s eye for signs of approval, affection, and encouragement. Obviously, the light-skinned students are able to derive significantly more benefits from their schooling thank their dark-skinned peers. In addition, from the differences between schools that primarily serve middle-class or affluent European American students and those that primarily serve students of color and students living in poverty, it has been found that schools with a narrow “achievement gap” have highly competent, dedicated, and well-trained teachers who have higher expectations for all students; a curriculum that is both culturally sensitive and challenging; a school community that emphasizes high achievement. What is more, the discrimination based on social class is also prevalent in our public schools, and social class and race are often intertwined. This can be found from the differences in academic achievement. Basically, the academic achievement are mainly due to the kinds of schools students attend, the length of time they stay in school, the curriculum and pedagogy to which they are exposed, and societal beliefs concerning their ability. As a consequence, unequal opportunities to learn can produce significant differences in academic achievement by low-income urban versus affluent suburban students. So it can be seen that compound educational and political inequality in the occupations, salaries, and housing of the urban poor and affluent reinforce political and economic differences. Based on both racism and classism, it has appeared in recent indictment of public education, the segregation of African Americans and Latinos in poverty is going more serious. Last, in a study conducted by Karen McLean Donaldson, shows that students were affected by racism in three major ways: 1/ White students experienced guilt and embarrassment when they became aware of the racism to which their peers were subjected. 2/ students of color sometimes felt they needed to compensate and overachieve to prove they were equal to their White classmates, and 3/ students of color claimed their self-esteem was badly damaged.
In my educational experience, I did not experience institutional discriminatory practices every day, but there were still some times that institutional discrimination cause bad effect. Exclusion is a typical example. In some schools, White teachers pay more attention to White students while Black teachers show more preference to their Black students, So do the Hispanic teachers and Asian teachers. Automatically, the students who receive less attention are excluded. Also, teachers , most of the time, treat those students with the high achievement much better than those who are not good at the subjects. as a result, those who felt being ignored or belittled did not show an active participation and lack of confidence. Some of the University teachers built up closer relationship with White students rather than others. So the others would feel like being excluded and have to make hard effort to attack their professors attention in many ways. Exclusion also exists among students themselves, wherever it is, middle school or high school, the segregation would automatically excluded some minority or those in poverty. Besides, Expectation of high achievement exclude those students who have the difficulties in their study. As a result, the whole family had to move to other community which suits them or some students had to decide to drop out from school.
In my neighborhood, about 33% of the population is Asian people. Many Asian kids go to public schools. There are mainly two issues come up. One thing is that many Asian parents complained about their poor involvement in PTA because most Principles or administrators are of White people. Another issue is that most Asian parents intend to send their kids to the public schools which include most White and Asian people and less Hispanic or Latino because they are concerning about the bad learning environment. Another invisible phenomenon is also existing. Some White teachers are gradually leaving schools from which consist majority of Asian children to those which have more White kids. In another school district, they received many immigrants form Mexico and Asia, those students really have problems with English language, so they are not able to understand their teachers in class. Plus, there are no ESL class for these special group. As a consequence their grades go down below the average and they lost their interest in study and their self-esteem and self-confidence had been broke down. To solve the problem, I think, the school district should limit the number or the rate of the PTA, according to the rate of the whole population of the school in order to have reasonable occupation. For those schools who have many recent immigrants, they should tailor their students with curriculum , such as , to set up the ESL class or emersion class for those students who have the difficulty to learn in English.
Taking into consideration the sociopolitical context of multicultural education, there appears some ways in which discrimination becomes an institutional education practice. Many examples reflect this phenomenon, for example, a White teacher tend to have much more frequent eye contact with her White students than with her Black or other color of students.
And, according to the study, the Black children had to try three times harder to catch the teacher’s eye for signs of approval, affection, and encouragement. Obviously, the light-skinned students are able to derive significantly more benefits from their schooling thank their dark-skinned peers. In addition, from the differences between schools that primarily serve middle-class or affluent European American students and those that primarily serve students of color and students living in poverty, it has been found that schools with a narrow “achievement gap” have highly competent, dedicated, and well-trained teachers who have higher expectations for all students; a curriculum that is both culturally sensitive and challenging; a school community that emphasizes high achievement. What is more, the discrimination based on social class is also prevalent in our public schools, and social class and race are often intertwined. This can be found from the differences in academic achievement. Basically, the academic achievement are mainly due to the kinds of schools students attend, the length of time they stay in school, the curriculum and pedagogy to which they are exposed, and societal beliefs concerning their ability. As a consequence, unequal opportunities to learn can produce significant differences in academic achievement by low-income urban versus affluent suburban students. So it can be seen that compound educational and political inequality in the occupations, salaries, and housing of the urban poor and affluent reinforce political and economic differences. Based on both racism and classism, it has appeared in recent indictment of public education, the segregation of African Americans and Latinos in poverty is going more serious. Last, in a study conducted by Karen McLean Donaldson, shows that students were affected by racism in three major ways: 1/ White students experienced guilt and embarrassment when they became aware of the racism to which their peers were subjected. 2/ students of color sometimes felt they needed to compensate and overachieve to prove they were equal to their White classmates, and 3/ students of color claimed their self-esteem was badly damaged.
In my educational experience, I did not experience institutional discriminatory practices every day, but there were still some times that institutional discrimination cause bad effect. Exclusion is a typical example. In some schools, White teachers pay more attention to White students while Black teachers show more preference to their Black students, So do the Hispanic teachers and Asian teachers. Automatically, the students who receive less attention are excluded. Also, teachers , most of the time, treat those students with the high achievement much better than those who are not good at the subjects. as a result, those who felt being ignored or belittled did not show an active participation and lack of confidence. Some of the University teachers built up closer relationship with White students rather than others. So the others would feel like being excluded and have to make hard effort to attack their professors attention in many ways. Exclusion also exists among students themselves, wherever it is, middle school or high school, the segregation would automatically excluded some minority or those in poverty. Besides, Expectation of high achievement exclude those students who have the difficulties in their study. As a result, the whole family had to move to other community which suits them or some students had to decide to drop out from school.
In my neighborhood, about 33% of the population is Asian people. Many Asian kids go to public schools. There are mainly two issues come up. One thing is that many Asian parents complained about their poor involvement in PTA because most Principles or administrators are of White people. Another issue is that most Asian parents intend to send their kids to the public schools which include most White and Asian people and less Hispanic or Latino because they are concerning about the bad learning environment. Another invisible phenomenon is also existing. Some White teachers are gradually leaving schools from which consist majority of Asian children to those which have more White kids. In another school district, they received many immigrants form Mexico and Asia, those students really have problems with English language, so they are not able to understand their teachers in class. Plus, there are no ESL class for these special group. As a consequence their grades go down below the average and they lost their interest in study and their self-esteem and self-confidence had been broke down. To solve the problem, I think, the school district should limit the number or the rate of the PTA, according to the rate of the whole population of the school in order to have reasonable occupation. For those schools who have many recent immigrants, they should tailor their students with curriculum , such as , to set up the ESL class or emersion class for those students who have the difficulty to learn in English.
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