Learning about the "other": building a case for intercultural understanding among minority children.

"My three-year-old boy imitates his father's verbal rejection (bla-bla-bla) of Spanish language whenever I try to talk to him in Spanish."

An African American student (also a fluent Spanish speaker) in one of my graduate level courses once shared her frustration over her thwarted efforts to teach Spanish to her son. She confided that her African American husband was biased against the Latino culture. As an infant, their son began learning some words in Spanish, but over time he picked up on his father's negative attitude. He started refusing to speak, or to be talked to, in Spanish. Other students in this education class shared similar stories from their own classrooms about minority children who display biased attitudes against other minority groups.

The stories shared by these students are not isolated or unique. Racial/ ethnic division among various minority groups in the United States is manifested in a wide variety of contexts. Clearly, ignorance and stereotypical views about cultures other than one's own extends across all racial/ethnic groups. Consequently, violence among minority groups has erupted throughout the United States: the 1992 Los Angels riots that involved, in part, African Americans and Korean Americans; the 1991 Crown Heights riots in New York between blacks and Jews; the July 4, 1993, violence in Washington, D.C., between blacks and Hispanics; and violence against Arab Americans in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Despite these events, efforts to facilitate intergroup understanding and harmony among minority children from different groups have received insufficient support from teachers, administrators, and parents. Even "The Condition of Education, 2002," published by the National Center for Education Statistics (2002), did not include children's intercultural attitude, knowledge, and skill as an important part of "learner outcomes." Brawarsky (1997) laments that "in general, the number of research studies in the area of intergroup relations has declined considerably since the 1970s, yet the need for such study is probably greater than ever" (p. 7).

While proponents of multicultural education hold out hope for its potential to alleviate conflict among all racial/ethnic groups, many people, including minority teachers, do not understand the true scope of multicultural education. One of my students (a kindergarten teacher in a predominantly Latino school) once remarked, "We do multicultural education in our class all the time. My classroom library is full of books from the Latino culture, including bilingual [Spanish-English] books." My student's efforts to expose her Latino children to literature from their own cultures is certainly laudable. However, she made no mention of how her Latino students were learning about cultures other than their own. This particular example reflects how multicultural teaching can become monocultural teaching in predominantly minority schools, perpetuating the very ideology that multicultural education struggles to overcome.

It is important that schools and college campuses reflect the diversity of society so that students are "living diversity" rather than just "doing diversity" (see Michele Foster's comments at the Carnegie Corporation's "Youth Intergroup Relations Initiatives" meeting, as cited in Brawarsky, 1997). However, the mere existence of racial/ethnic diversity in school and college campuses, or even the absence of overt conflict, does not guarantee intercultural understanding and harmony among students from various minority groups. As Parker, Archer, and Scott (1992) rightly point out, "We must make the transition from numerical diversity to interactive pluralism" (p. 2).

I am not arguing for an intercultural learning program for minority children that is separate from the school's multicultural program. Rather, this article highlights some common misunderstandings of multicultural education that impede understanding among minority children, provides justifications for intercultural understanding among minority children, and offers suggestions for an ideal intercultural program. For the purposes of this article, the term "minority" is limited to aspects of race and ethnicity.

MYTHS OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Ideally, one of the imperatives of multicultural education is to facilitate intercultural understanding among children of all races and ethnic groups so that communication and harmony are maintained in a diverse society. However, multicultural education often fails to fulfill its mission because of the following unexamined beliefs held by teachers, parents, and administrators.

* Multicultural education is primarily for white children, because they lack exposure to other perspectives. Adherents of this view tend to overlook the fact that minority children also grow up in predominantly homogeneous environments. If intergroup contact is essential to reduce prejudice among groups (as suggested by Allport, 1954), then it is possible that minority children who lack exposure to and sustained interaction with children from other minority groups may harbor an ethnocentric world-view and stereotypical attitudes toward minority groups other than their own.

* The purpose of multicultural education is to learn about one's own culture. This particular view is most prevalent in schools and communities where one minority group is predominant. Consequently, some teachers from these schools mistakenly believe that incorporating their students' cultural experiences into the curriculum is evidence of multicultural education. In truth, these teachers/administrators lack a comprehensive understanding of multicultural education. "Culturally appropriate pedagogy/curriculum" is an important aspect of multicultural education, yet it does not ensure understanding about other cultures. Multicultural education means learning about the self as well as about the "other." Moreover, many adults in minority communities fear that learning about values, beliefs, perspectives, and customs that are very different from their own may confuse their children. In a research study conducted with parents (Pattnaik, 2001), some minority parents expressed concern that their children would question their own culture or show preference for cultural values other than their own. These parental concerns can be addressed by helping parents understand that they need not avoid discussing issues of diversity, and that they may find it helpful to discuss different cultural beliefs. Moreover, it is important for parents to understand that multicultural education promotes an acceptance of one's Own culture as well as respect for other cultures. They are inseparable entities, like the two sides of a coin.

* Multicultural understanding can be achieved through lessons about the food and festivals of minority-groups. This particular viewpoint is reflected in the "cultural tourism" approach to multicultural education that many schools practice (Aldridge, Calhoun, & Aman, 2000). For example, schools may invite minority parents or community members to share their food and festivals with children and teachers. In such an approach, minority cultures are not integrated into the school's total framework; rather, the cultures are relegated to certain times during the year. Therefore, children of the majority culture may perceive minority cultures as trivial; minority children may feel the same about other cultures and sometimes even about their own. In a cultural tourism approach, teaching and learning about diversity is limited to the superficial aspects of a culture. What remains unexamined are the deeper issues that challenge the human rights of people from certain groups and threaten intercultural understanding and peaceful co-existence. Therefore, it does not foster in minority children a genuine interest in learning about their own cultures or other minority cultures, nor does it engage them in learning and exploring the common issues challenging all minority communities.

* The sole purpose of multicultural education is to build a bridge between whites and non-whites. This particular assumption comes from the belief that the only cultural divide is the one between whites and non-whites. In part because of the growing political and economic instability in many parts of the world, the latter half of the 20th century witnessed a large influx of immigrants into the United States. As a result, "There are more racial and ethnic categories than ever before and the borders between them are far from neat" (Brawarsky, 1997, p. 9). * The changing cultural landscape and the consequent competition in the labor market, accompanied by the politics of division adopted by many whites, have fostered distrust among minority communities toward one another and have pushed them further apart. In the book Black and Brown in America, Piatt (1997) cites many instances of confrontation and gang-related violence between blacks and Hispanics over employment and university admissions, among other issues.

NEED FOR INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING AMONG MINORITY CHILDREN

As is true for other aspects of children's development, the development of intergroup attitudes in children is influenced by ecological dynamics (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) at all levels of their environment: the micro (the immediate environment, including the community and school); the meso (interrelations among the major systems in the environmental setting, such as peer group interaction and school-family interaction); the exo (informal social networks and service-oriented agencies and organizations); and the macro (economic, political, social, legal, and educational systems). Therefore, the discussion on the need for intercultural learning among minority children is grouped here under four main categories: society-related, school-related, family-related, and child-related.

Society-related

A pluralistic, democratic society contains many possibilities as well as challenges. The possibilities include the interchange of values/beliefs, knowledge/expertise, arts/sciences, and a broader understanding of different cultures, religions, and human values. In the absence of understanding among people from diverse groups, however, this diversity becomes a liability for the society, resulting in constant tension and conflict among various ethnic groups. Ogbu's (1987) categorization of "voluntary" and "involuntary" minorities may be used to explain the interethnic conflict among these groups. For example, many "voluntary minorities"--immigrants who came to the United States looking for better economic and/ or social opportunities--too readily accept the mainstream negative stereotypes about involuntary minority groups (such as Native Americans, and African Americans whose ancestors were brought to the United States as slaves), and in doing so, separate themselves from these groups. In the same vein, many members of the "involuntary minority" communities harbor hostile feelings against people from the "voluntary minority" groups, resenting the majority group's differential treatment of "voluntary minorities" as well as the academic and economic success of these groups.

Hostility among minority groups is not limited to "voluntary" and "involuntary minorities." In a competing economy, each minority group may view itself as competing with other minority groups for a share of the same pie. As Piatt (1997) writes, "Blacks fear being displaced by Hispanics in affirmative action." Therefore, the key here is to allow children to co-construct an understanding of "how to maintain and draw strength from our differences and at the same time, reach out to each other across the racial and ethnic barriers that divide us" (Brawarsky, 1997, p. 11).

School-related

Schools represent and reflect the surrounding community. If children frequently observe ethnic conflict among different minority groups in their neighborhoods, their behavior in school may mirror that conflict. In addition, some school policies have contributed to intergroup conflict among minority groups. For example, Piatt (1997) writes that many schools employ "a trade-off of punishment between one minority group and another.... School administrators compensate for disciplining blacks by lessening the discipline of Hispanics" (p. 81). Academic tracking is another case in point. African American, Hispanic, and Native American children are disproportionately represented in the lower track groups and special needs classes, and thereby lack opportunities to interact with children from the majority group as well as other minority groups.

Schools that have a diverse student body are likely to experience interethnic tensions. From their review of research, Bonvillain and Houston (2000) conclude, "As schools integrate, children become more conscious of their ethnicity and more likely to define themselves in terms of it than in ethnically segregated schools" (p. 49). Often, children's strong racial awareness results in self-segregation of groups (Brawarsky, 1997). Researchers also maintain, however, that children who possess a strong and stable sense of self-identity will very likely accept and respect others' self-definitions (Tatum, 1997). Therefore, minority children need opportunities within an educational context to build positive attitudes toward their own cultures as well as an understanding of others. Brawarsky (1997) points out that, unlike adults, young people are more likely to share their feelings and attitudes and engage in discussion on important issues facing humanity if they have a psychological "safe space."

Family-related

Family influence is critical to young children's development of their racial and personal identities (Demo & Hughes, 1990), and their attitudes toward other cultures (Derman-Sparks, Gutierrez, & Phillips, 1989). Unfortunately, minority families rarely have opportunities to interact with people from other minority groups. They often live and work in racially segregated neighborhoods. Piatt (1997) writes, "Prejudice hardens in the absence of experience that contradicts it" (p. 75). Many times, children in these communities are raised with an ethnocentric worldview and learn stereotypes about other ethnic minority groups through family and community members, political and religious leaders, and local media. Schools can develop multicultural programs that focus on interethnic harmony and help parents learn factual information about minority groups. This strategy also may encourage a sense of cooperation and common purpose among minority parents.

Child-related

Cross-cultural research indicates that children begin developing racial/ethnic biases at a very young age (Kowalski & Lo, 2001; Teichman, 2001). By age 3 or 4, children can identify and categorize themselves as well as others (Aboud, 1987), especially by using observable features such as skin color (Ramsey, 1987). Kao (2000) argues that "distinct images of racial groups work to maintain boundaries between groups and provide rationale for students to maintain racially segregated peer groups at school" (p. 409). Most important, these group images about one's own group as well as other ethnic groups are not restricted to white children. Therefore, intercultural learning opportunities need to be provided to minority children from an early age so that children can develop positive attitudes toward people from other minority groups.

INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING AMONG MINORITY CHILDREN: THE VISION OF AN IDEAL PROGRAM

This section provides suggestions for developing an ideal intercultural program for minority children. If carefully implemented, such a program holds the potential for engaging minority children in personal and community-wide change. It is appropriate to mention here that while the focus is limited to minority children in particular, the suggestions pertain to all children.

Program-related

The ideas presented here are related to a school's policies and practices.

Building Partnerships With Home/Communities.

Continuity of learning between home and school is critical to children's conceptual development (Springate & Stegelin, 1999). Children need to experience consistency in information and messages (explicit and/or hidden) regarding groups other than their own, and they need to sense a positive attitude toward diversity among people around them. Schools need to organize parent workshops, provide resources, and make genuine efforts to involve minority parents in important decisions related to multicultural education. Workshops designed for minority parents could encourage participants to reflect on their own unexamined biases toward other minority groups; understand perspectives other than their own; learn about the struggles, achievements, and contributions to society of each minority group; and seek out opportunities and resources outside of home and school to extend their, and their children's, multicultural knowledge base. Schools can help form multiethnic parent groups that could serve as models of cooperation and friendship for the children.

Home-activity bags that include books from various minority groups, accompanied by related information and activity ideas, will be helpful in involving minority parents in the school's efforts to foster intergroup understanding among minority children. Schools could develop partnerships with local places of worship and organize events (such as interethnic musical/drama groups and debates/essay contests) that provide opportunities for ongoing interaction among minority children.

Avoid Homogeneous Groupings. Some school practices (such as academic tracking, the labeling of special needs students, separate classes for students with special needs, and the make-up of the school's athletic teams) often generate homogeneous groupings, perpetuate stereotypes, and create divisions among minority groups. For example, when a majority of the African American and Latino students are assigned to lower reading and math groups, Asian students may perceive these children as academically inferior and may distance themselves from these peers. Instead of assigning children to various reading/math groups, children of various academic performances need to be placed in cooperative learning groups so that they can support each other's learning. Through such cooperative learning minority children gain firsthand knowledge about their peers from other cultures. Ad hoc learning groups (with an interethnic composition) are also useful, as they provide opportunities for students who are weak in a specific skill to be tutored (and/or peer-tutored by an interethnic student group) until they have mastered the skill. Slavin (1995) emphasizes the benefits of cooperative learning in facilitating cross-ethnic friendships and interethnic understanding.

Curriculum-related

This section provides ideas for designing an ideal intercultural curriculum. It is important to note here that the use of reflective and critical pedagogy is necessary to implement such a curriculum.

Designing an Intergroup Curriculum. The two most important aspects of an intergroup curriculum are fostering an understanding of minority cultures among children and helping children to acknowledge the contributions of various minority groups to society. The goal is to facilitate interethnic communication and harmony among minority children. Children need to understand both the material and the ideological aspects of minority cultures (such as language, food, festival, customs, beliefs, values, codes of behavior, and patterns of interpersonal relationship), and to analyze commonalities and differences among minority cultures. Cultural stereotyping can be avoided by highlighting the dynamic aspects of every culture, as well as the sub-cultures and variations within a particular culture.

In the United States, minority children need to learn about the contributions, past and present, of all minority communities to the country, including those of Chinese rail workers, African slaves, and Hispanic agricultural workers. They also need to learn that the very lands that now constitute the productive heartlands of the United States are the original homelands of Native Americans (Piatt, 1997).

Study of minority groups' contributions should not be limited to economic aspects. Other aspects of culture, such as art (performing and visual), sciences, and literature, also have benefited from minority contributions. Children will also gain from studying and discussing minority leaders whose services were not limited to specific groups. For example, Dr. Martin Luther King's contributions to the civil rights movement ultimately brought justice to many disenfranchised groups, not only to African Americans. After conducting research on the topic of minority contributions, students may design a Web site where they can post their research reports. Students also may present this information to the school community through dramatic performances and exhibitions.

Designing an Issue-based Curriculum. An important goal of such a curriculum is to engage children in critical reflections over various issues faced by minority communities. Such a curriculum will be more appropriate for children in the upper elementary and middle school grades. In the early grades, a basic understanding of these issues can be introduced through children's literature, such as Eve Bunting's Smoky Night (based on the interethnic conflict that occurred during the 1992 Los Angeles riots). Ideas for an issue-based curriculum are discussed below.

* Bias and discrimination against minority groups. Children need to understand that almost every ethnic and racial minority group faces or has faced some form of discrimination (based on skin color, language, customs, traditions, dress, and/or physical features) at the hands of the majority. Moreover, they also need to learn about and reflect on specific societal discriminations against minority people, such as the de facto segregation of minorities in schools and neighborhoods and the perception of minority group members as second-class citizens. Instead of harboring jealousy over one ethnic group's achievement or opportunities, it is important that minority students critically reflect on the issue of limited opportunities (educational, economic, and social) available to minority communities as a whole, and on the so-called glass ceiling that exists for ethnic minority individuals (from all groups) in almost every field of work. Children may conduct research in the local business community to explore this issue of limited opportunities for minority workers.

* The role of the media. Students need to understand the role of the media in perpetuating negative stereotypes about minority groups. Teachers can help students critically evaluate how the media sometimes focuses on interethnic conflicts while overlooking sincere efforts to build interethnic harmony. Students may conduct a content analysis of local or national media and report their findings to the class, focusing on the nature of minority representations as well as the frequency of reports about intergroup conflicts.

Information on these aforementioned topics may be obtained from various sources, including government reports, museums, libraries, interviews with people (older and younger generation) in the community and in various workplaces, films/documentaries, books (fiction/nonfiction), and auto/biographies of minority leaders in various fields.

* Designing an action-based curriculum. After learning about the issues facing minority individuals and communities, children need to be involved in activities that are designed to change the existing undesirable practices. Here are some ideas in this regard:

--After conducting research, students could write protest letters to organizations that have discriminated against minority groups in their local communities (e.g., in terms of housing or employment). They could even contact a local newspaper or television station to highlight the issue further.

--Students may conduct research on current efforts to bring together various minority groups. Recent examples include the publication of the magazine Common Quest by Howard University and the American Jewish Committee, which focuses on black-Jewish relations (Platt, 1997), and the efforts undertaken by the African American and Latino communities to work for common purposes (for details, see Negrete & Taira, 1998). Children may write a letter to a local television station defending their views regarding media over-representation of minority conflicts, and they could suggest that the producers periodically host panel discussions with organizations that are involved in peace-keeping efforts.

--Children in upper grades may institute a multiethnic, mixed-age peer advisory group that is responsible for facilitating interethnic communication (at the school cafeteria, on the playground, and during special events) among all children, with special attention on minority children. With the support of teachers, administrators, and parents, this advisory group could organize interethnic plays, talent shows, and other programs to spread the message of interethnic harmony. They also may be trained in interethnic peer-counseling strategies to solve conflicts.

This issue-based and action-oriented curriculum will engage minority children in meaningful learning experiences and foster empathy for all minority people who are subject to individual, institutional, and societal discrimination.

Designing a Literature-based Curriculum. Children's literature is a critical component in an intercultural curriculum, because it conveys difficult and sometimes abstract concepts in a simple yet effective manner to young children. The following list of books may be integrated into specific thematic lessons/units that have an intercultural focus.

Similarities and Differences

Bein' With You This Way. (W. Nikola-Lisa, 1995). In this story, an African American girl leads a cumulative playground rap that cherishes physical differences and similarities among people.

All the Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color. (Katie Kissinger, 1994). The book provides scientifically accurate explanations of the differences in skin color and emphasizes that these differences are not always black and white--literally and figuratively.

Families Are Different. (Nina Pellegrini, 1991). In her search to understand how she is different from her parents and peers, Nico, an adopted child from Korea, discovers many different family types in her own classroom.

Whoever You Are. (Mem Fox, 1997). The story is a message to the world's children regarding the universality of human experiences amidst differences in skin color, home, lifestyles, and language.

Minority Families' Struggle for Freedom or Survival

The Drinking Gourd: A Story of the Underground Railroad. (F. N. Monjo, 1993). A young boy, the son of a conductor on the Underground Railroad, learns about the plight of African American slaves. With his father, he helps a family of runaway slaves escape to freedom in Canada.

The Circuit: Stories From the Life of a Migrant Child. (Francisco Jimenez, 1997). These separate but intertwined stories capture the difficult life experienced by a Mexican migrant family, who nevertheless retain their faith and hope for a better life.

Peacebound Trains. (Haemi Balgassi, 1996). The book depicts the poignant story of a South Korean mother and her young children, who flee from a war-torn area aboard the roof of a freight train.

Minority People Who Defy Stereotypes

African-American Inventors. (Patricia McKissack, 1994). This book provides a short biographical account of African American inventors (such as Garrett Morgan, who invented the gas mask).

Roberto Clemente. (Rudeen Kenneth, 1974). The story presents the biography of the Puerto Rican baseball hero who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and who died while undertaking a humanitarian mission.

Heroes. (Ken Mochizuki, 1995). The contributions of Japanese Americans who fought in World War II yet still faced discrimination are brought to light in this story.

Amazing Grace. (Mary Hoffman, 1991). The story depicts a black girl's determination to play the role of Peter Pan in the school play.

Interethnic Friendships

Mrs. Katz and Tush. (Patricia Polacco, 1994). The book presents a moving story of Mrs. Katz, a lonely old Russian immigrant, who is befriended by Larnel, an African American child.

Smoky Night. (Eve Bunting, 1994). The story uses two cats (of African American and Asian neighbors) as vehicles to teach lessons of tolerance to their human families during the Los Angeles riots.

Elijah's Angel: A Story for Chanukah and Christmas. (Michael Rosen, 1992). A tale of friendship, this story depicts the dilemma faced by Michael, a young Jewish boy, when an elderly African American, Christian friend presents him with a special gift, a carved guardian angel. Michael's parents model a warm attitude of religious tolerance, and the friendship strengthens.

Biracial/Interracial People and Families

Two Mrs. Gibsons. (Toyomi Igus, 1995). An interracial child presents beautiful portraits of the two most important women in her life, her Japanese mother and her African American grandmother.

Jalapeno Bagels. (Natasha Wing, 1996). Pablo, a boy whose mother is from Mexico and whose father is jewish, cannot decide what he wants to share at the school's international day. Finally, he decides upon "jalapeno bagels," explaining to his parents, "They are a mixture of both of you. Just like me."

CONCLUSION

In the context of schooling in the United States, multicultural education originally was envisioned as a philosophical guide for teachers and administrators designing programs to facilitate cross-cultural understanding among all children. However, it is safe to say that the existing practices of multicultural education in U.S. public schools have failed to address intercultural understanding among minority children. Such an omission will have long-term implications. Therefore, schools need to design policies and curriculum practices that specifically address this issue. A superficial approach of learning about food and festivals of minority cultures will not be sufficient. Schools need to change some of their existing practices (such as tracking and homogeneous grouping) and instead implement an issue-based, action-oriented curriculum that encourages minority children to reflect upon, and fight to change, policies and practices that threaten intercultural understanding.

References

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Teichman, Y. (2001). The development of Israeli children's images of Jews and Arabs and their expression in human figure drawings. Developmental Psychology, 37(6), 749-761.

Jyotsna Pattnaik is Associate Professor, Early Childhood Education, California State University, Long Beach.