A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Systemic Reform: Perspectives on Personalizing Education--Sept. 1994

4) Are There Universal Forms of Teaching That Will Equally and Adequately Address Classrooms of Students of Diverse Cultures?

Having reviewed the evidence for cultural differences that impact teaching, learning and schooling, we are in much better position to consider another problem of the highest social import, that of the multicultural classroom. Critics of the cultural compatibility movement too often leap to a dismissive conclusion, that classrooms cannot possibly be compatible with more than one, and often a great many cultures, therefore cultural dimensions of teaching/learning are irrelevant. This is, in my view, a grave error. Awareness of the variables in which cultural incompatibilities interfere with teaching/learning alerts us to possibilities for correction and rearrangement. Even more important, this awareness allows us to devise conditions of instruction in which the variables (of differences in sociolinguistics, motivation, cognition, and social organization) are least likely to be divisive.

In more conventional phrasing, the question is: Under what conditions will effective education for classrooms of diverse students be most likely to occur? Although cultural differences can never be completely abrogated and will always require some accommodation and special attention, we do in fact know major conditions, which, if achieved, will reduce the divisive impact of cultural differences. To many policy makers it may be a surprise, but the answer is well enough known, and is sufficiently consensual, for us to proceed with confidence.


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