Would
an ethnocentric curriculum raise the achievement
levels of my struggling minority students?
Summary
Minority
students around the United States are scoring lower
on standardized tests and graduating at a lower
percentage than Caucasians. In Delaware, students
graduate with a basic, standard, or distinguished
diploma. In 2004, 76% of African Americans graduating
in Delaware received the lowest form of diploma,
a basic diploma, compared to 71% of Hispanics and
41% of Caucasians. Twenty-two percent of the African
American graduates received the standard diploma,
compared to 28% of the Hispanics and 48% of the
Caucasians. Only 2% of the graduating African Americans
achieved the distinguished diploma, compared to
1% of the Hispanic graduates and 11% of the Caucasian
graduates. Overall, Asian students fared the best,
having the lowest percentage receiving basic diplomas
(30%) and the highest percentage achieving distinguished
diplomas (24%).
These
figures show that across the state, Hispanics and
African Americans are well behind their peers when
it comes to academic achievement. These figures
are similar to figures across the United States.
This research report focuses on trying to narrow
this gap by infusing an ethnocentric curriculum
into classrooms to attempt to boost interest and
achievement for these struggling minority learners.
After
analyzing the data from the surveys, I learned that
more than half of the African American and Hispanic
students feel their education has not provided them
with knowledge of their own ethnic group. The Hispanics
had a greater number who expressed this sentiment,
followed by the African American students. Both
groups overwhelmingly claim to have more interest
in what they are doing when their learning pertains
to their own ethnic group. Both groups of students
expressed the desire for and interest in this type
of education; however, the data from work done in
the classroom seem to contradict this interest.
It appears that at the eighth-grade level, the majority
of the students are more concerned about which project
is the easiest rather than what the topic is about.
The cause of that may be that the students are performance
driven instead of learning driven. What that means
is that the majority of the students may be more
concerned about just getting a passing grade instead
of learning the material. In the case of the students
who did choose the option related to minorities,
there wasn’t an overwhelming increase in the student
achievement. The majority of the students stayed
consistent with how they usually perform. One interesting
note when analyzing the students who stayed the
same is that the majority of these students were
already high achievers and their achievement stayed
high.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Further
research should be done to see if the results
of an ethnocentric curriculum differ by age.
- If
student achievement is performance- based versus
learning-based, determine why many Asian students
can still achieve without an ethnocentric curriculum.
- Determine
whether the gap is due to cultural issues and
if more time should be spent on changing cultural
perceptions of education rather than the material
itself.
- Teachers
need to acknowledge other ethnic groups and allow
for choices in their classrooms where students
can learn more about their own ethnic group if
they choose to.
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