DIVERSITY & INCLUSION - Essay Example

That is, the thought that customs, usages, traditions, and habits are all necessary and sufficient features of culture has been dominant throughout the history of sociology (Geertz, 2000, p. 25). Rather, it seems that the idea of computer programs is a more accurate picture of culture, which produces various rules, instructions, recipes, and plans that govern behavior. On this concept, culture is not merely an interesting intellectual consideration in understanding how people behave, but a necessary mechanism in determining what an individual person does and accomplishes (Geertz, 2000, p. 25). The idea of a “multicultural education”, like culture, engulfs many different perspectives and ideas; namely, it is not merely an idea, but also an educational reform movement and a process of distinct goals.

The primary goal of the multicultural education movement is “to change the structure of educational institutions so that male and female students, exceptional students, and students who are members of diverse racial, ethnic, language, and cultural groups will have an equal chance to achieve academically in school” (Banks & Banks, 2009, p. 1). . ystems, interactions are governed to varying extents by various kinds of prejudices, biases, discrimination, and norms that may restrict (or enhance) group cohesiveness or separation.

In the four-step pyramid, the two more fundamental steps involve the educator’s awareness of what he or she is projecting into the society of the school. If, for instance, an educator exhibits a cultural bias against students, then the culture that bias creates will likely have an effect on other students, who tend to mirror adult behaviors. This result demonstrates the fundamentality of teacher attitudes toward students in the classroom, especially with younger children who are especially impressionable.

The top steps in the pyramid reflect the need for the educator to recognize outside sources of cultural biases and the need to address those. In a multicultural education, the educator is responsible for managing the impressions of cultural bias and class prejudices in their students. Treating the school as an ordered social society once again, it is important not to allow factors from the exterior environment to leave an impact on the participants (the students) that will lessen the potential for a welcome, helpful cooperation.

Children in elementary schools, although impervious to various kinds of indicators of social class like homes and possessions, are likely to pick up on less concrete signs: such as the effects of economic disadvantage and their parents’ interactions with employers. These clues toward social class ultimately affect a child’s perceptions of the world (including the relationship between school and their future) and their interactions with others (Ramsey, 2004, p. 94). A multicultural education, as an education that seeks to equalize educational opportunity, is