Multicultural education is:

1.) Creation of equal educational opportunities for students from diverse racial, ethinic, social-class, and cultural groups.

2.) Aquisition of knowledge, attidtudes, and skills needed to function effectively in a pluralistic democratic society.

3.) Interaction, negotiation, and communication with peoples from diverse groups in order to create a civic and moral community that works for the common good.

- Multicultural education embraces the notion tha tall Americans have come from many races and thnic groups and that these individuals and groups have helped to create and establish the U.S.

- To guard against negactive culutral diversity, teachers must encourage all students to understand that cultural diversity means that societal groups coexist in harmony.

- The classroom environment should strive to be a place where children learn to become more tolerant individuals and members of society.

- Teachers must find effective ways to instill a multicultural atmosphere in the school. Recognition of deep cultural values( family values, health issues, family structures, and male/female roles), instead of the typical surface cultural values (clothing, music, food) must be explored.

Multicultural curriculum should:

-Create a classroom atmosphere of equal opportunity for all students.

-Create an atmosphere of cultural diversity and positive attitudes for people from all backgrounds and cultures.

-Establish a nonthreatening atmosphere for learning so that students can explore creative activities and succeed in school.

-Encourage students to become more culturally litereate.

- Involving parents in the school community is an excellent way to establish bridges of communictaion between immigrant families and the school.

- Saravia-Shore and Arvizu refer to culture as "a dynamic, creative, and continuous process that includes behaviors, values, and substance shared by people that guides them in their struggle for survival and gives meaning to their lives." Others view culture as a conscious pattern of behaviors that reflects the societal beliefs and values shared by the people who are memvers of the group.

- Oberg first explained culture as the "environment which consists of man-made physical objects, social institutions, and ideas and beleifs."  He also believes that parents are not consciously responsible for the culture they transmit to their  young, instead, "the young learn to adapt themselves to the physical environment, and to the opeople with whom they associate."

- The term ethnicity refers to the sense of belonging to a cultural group.

- Ethnicity includes the national or linguitic background with which the individual is affiliated.

- Stereotyping can occur when false and exxagerated characteristics of a group are attributed to the individual, but sociotyping involves an accurate generalization about cultural groups as a whole. People accept their culture as the best and only way ot diong things and this is called ethnocentrism.

-American people can be described as nationalistic, patriotic, and ethnocentric.

Culture plays the role of ensuring that members conform to socially acceptable actions, and cultural groups use laws as external restrictions to enforce appropriate behavior. However, an allowance for diverstiy and a certain amount of freedom of individual choice exist.

1. Culture is univerals. All people have culture and, therefore, share ina common humanity.

2. Culture is organized. There is a coherence and structure among the patterns of human behavior.

3. Culture is stable, yet chageable. It is dynamic and manifests continous and constant change.

Food- Food and culinary contributions

Holidays- Patriotic holidays, religious observances, personal rites, and celebrations

Arts- Traditional and comtemporary music, visual and performing arts, and drama

Folklore- Folk tales, legends, oral history

History- Historical and humanitarian contributions, and social and political movements

Personalitites- Historical, contemporary, and local figures

Ceremony- What a person is to say and do on a particular occasion

Courtship and Marriage- Attitudes towards dating and marrieag, and raising a family

Esthetics- The beautiful things of culture: Literature, music, dance, art, architecture

Family Ties- How a persohn learns and practices honesty, fair play, principles, moral thoughyt.

Health and Medicine- How a person reacts to sickness, death, soundness of mind and body, medicine

Folk Myths- Attittudes towards heroes, traditional stories, legendary characters, superstitions

Gesture Kinesics- Forms of nonverbal communication, such as the use of eyes, hands, and the body.

Grooming and Presence- The cultural differences in personal behavior and appearence such as laughter, smile, voice quality, gait, poise, hair style, cosmetics, dress.

Ownership- Attitudes towards ownership of property

Precedence- What are acceptable manners toward older pwople, peers, and younger people?

Rewards and privileges- Attitudes towards motivation, merit achievement, service, social position.

Rights and Duties- Attitudes towards personal obligations, voting, taxes, military, legal rights

Religion- Attitudes toward the divine and the supernatural and how they affect peoples thoughts and actions

Sex Roles- How a person views, udnerstands, and relates to members of the opposite sex

Space Proxemics- Attitudes toward self and land

Substinence- Attitudes about providing oneslef, the young, and the old and who protects whom

Taboos- Attitudes and beleifs about doing things against culturally accepted patterns

Concepts of Tme- Attitudes toward being early, on time, or late

Values- Attitudes toward freedom, education, cleanliness, cruelty, crime

-Deep culture is the underlying value and beleif system of a society and may not be recognized until values are seriously challenged.

-When people talk about cultures they often describe differences, not similarities.

-Understanding another culture is continous and not a discrete process.

- Some people are offended because people from the U.S. describe themselves as "American". When "American" can refer to Latin Americans, Central Americans, South Americans, Mexicans, and North Americans.

- Once peopel understand their own cultural values, they can understand why other cultures may be so different, no wrong, just different.

- Cultures have a mainstream value system, but stereotypes need to be avoided. Individuals are different within their own culture.

- American values, and values of every culture, stem from hitorica, political, and religious beliefsover a long period of time.

See table 4-1 Pg. 21

- The term "Cultuer Shock" refers to the removal or distortion of many of the familiar cues a person encounters at thome and the substitution of them for other cues wich are strange.

-Classic reactions to culture shock:

A feeling of helplessness, a desire of dependence on long term residents of ones own nationality, depression, loss of appetite, poor sleep, impatience with nationals, great concern over monior pains, delay and or refusal to learn the host language, a terrible longing to be back home.

- Children who are delveloping their primary language as well as the new language are not subjected to the loss of status, but they suffer with the inability to express themselves in interpersonal relations. Children may also manifest their cultural discomfort and anxiety iwth physical symptoms, such as upset stomachs and headaches.

1.) Honeymoon stage- Includes a euphoric feeling of fascination with novelty, experiencing the country for the first time.

2.) Hostile or aggressive reactions as a result to crisis

3.) Recovery- Individual reconciles with the language and begins to understand the cues of culture.

4.) Adjustment- Finally, the host culture is accepted in a meaningful way and the customs of the host culture seen just like another way of living.

- Teachers can help students recover from culture shock by understanding the symptoms, embracing multiculturalism, incorporating the  home culture into daily lessons, reaching out to the families, and making positive parental contact.

- Based on cultural norms, "participation structures" describe the interactions of students in the classroom, when and how to speak, and what to speak about.

-People form cultures with "high involvment" converstainoal patterns talk and interrupt more, expect and are not botehred by people who interrupt them while speaking, and speak louder and quicker than those individuals from converstainoally "high-considerateness" cultures. Ex. of "high involvment"

Russian , Italian, South American, Greek, Spanish, and African.

- Cultures who do not interrupt whle other are speaking, listen politely, nod, show interest, and make positive sounds to show that they are paying attention are considered "high-considerateness". Ex. Chinese, Korean, Japenese, American.

-Directedness in speach is valued in the American cultures. ex. "Don't beat around the bush,", "Get to the point", "The bottom line is...".

-"Indirect speech" is an objective of cultural patterns held by Asians, Native Americans, and many Latin American groups. It's important to "save face" by not embarrassing others or shaming another person.

-High-context culture (Japanese ex.) do not have to talk much because the members of the society communicate eith intrinsic knowledge of how others think and feel and what they expect.

- Low-context cultures (Americans, Swiss, and Germans ex.) must be very specific and explain everything- what is expected, what the rules are, how things should be done, etc. These cultures are mirrored by how people think and act.

-Kinesics (the study of body language) includes facial expressions, posture, gestures, budy movements, eye contact, or any message that conveys meaning to a culture.

- Paralinguistics is a set of vocal , nonverbal utterances that carry and augment meaning. How people use speek and use pitch, grunts, etc. help to clarify what they are trying to say.ex. humor, sarcasm, emotion, disbelief.

- Haptics is the art of how people use touch to communicate.

-Proxemics refers to how a person uses and perceives body space. All people have a zone of personal space surrounding their bodies.

-Gestures are not universal and what one culture may see common and polite, another culture may perceive it as rude.

-Oculesics is the study of eye movement and position.

-Chronemics is the way a person views and uses time.

-Monochronics think in terms of linear sequential, time-ordered patterns with a beginning, middle, and an end.

-Educators must be careful not to make the mistake of judgin people's emotions by using their own cultural indicators.

-Teaching adn learning styles reflect cultural backgrounds.

-Students who have teachers from their own cultural backgrounds hae little problem understanding the cues given by teacher. Students will already be familiar with the appropriate interational behaviors expected int he classroom.

-Teachers need to provide activities that incorporate all types of learning styles.

-Teachers need to be aware of their own cultural learning styles and preferances, as well as those of their students.

-Stereotyping can happen when false and exaggerated characteristics of a group are attributted to the individual, but sociotyping involves an accurate generalization about cultural groups as a whole.

-Teachers need to plan curriculum and instruction to incorporate the learning styles of their students.

- If students are uncomfortable in class they will become bored, unresponsive, or test poorly.