Educational Equity Book & Website Critique

Chapter 6: Planning Curriculum That Is Multicultural

Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity

Reflection 6.3

Textbook or document tally

Summary of Tally Results

The textbook that I focused on for my tally chart was geared towards concepts second graders need to learn. I was not too surprised to find that as I flipped through the pages, White Americans were mentioned far more often then every other race/ethnic group. And, not only were White Americans mentioned more often, but the number of references toward men in comparison to women was about 2:1. The least represented group in the text was the Latino American population, a true shock to myself particularly because there is such a large Latino influence in America. Also, out of the five instances where Latinos were mentioned, only one had to do with a female. Arab Americans were the second least mentioned population with American Indian coverage not too far ahead. African Americans and Asian Americans were referenced more often than others, but certainly not to the extent of White Americans. It must also be mentioned that throughout the entire text there was not one reference to disabled Americans, a true disservice to our nations youth.

Reflection 6.13

Analyzing a website

Who produced the website?

The website, http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/edmulticult.htm, was produced by the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University.

How is this website intended to be used?

The website is a collection of curricula that focuses on multicultural education. It was created with the purpose of providing a plethora of resources to empower teachers to easily incorporate multicultural learning into the classroom. Within the website are distinct sections focusing on multicultural lesson plans, teaching tolerance, art, literature, math, music, science, social studies, women, Hispanics, African Americans, civil rights, gay/lesbian/sexual preference, Asian Americans, Native Americans, immigration, homelessness/refugees, Jewish Americans, Russian Americans, and Arab Americans/Moslems. Each section is from a distinct source and carries its own characteristics.

What biases might it’s developers have? Remember, everyone has biases; biases aren’t necessarily good or bad, and identifying them doesn’t mean that the website is unusable.

The website is a collection of various resources that the site creators have found to be useful. One would expect a certain amount of religious bias coming from a site founded by a Christian university. While there are references to gay and lesbian tolerance, there is little, though some, mention for religious tolerance.

Whose view of the world does it tend to support?

Each of the individual curricula have a specific focus. The creators of the site do little to try and steer you one direction or the other and leave the information to be presented from the respective institutions. Each organization presenting ideas, such as PBS, Yale, tolerance.org, and discovery.com, to name a few, while reputable in their own rights, are all representing a specific demographic.

Whose view does it undermine or ignore?

The creators of the site seem to leave their own opinions out of the material. For example, where one might expect a conservative approach to the gay and lesbian issue, they don’t make any comment at all. The curriculum ideas from the various authors for each individual curriculum vary in approach and design.