Jacqueline Jordan Irvine

Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society

The authors offer these design principles in the hope that they will help education policy makers and practitioners realize the elusive but essential goal of a democratic and pluralistic society. WHAT DO WE know about education and diversity, and how do we know it? This two-part question guided the work of the Multicultural Education Consensus Panel, sponsored by the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington and the Common Destiny Alliance at the University of Maryland. This article is the product of a four-year project during which the panel, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, reviewed and synthesized the research related to diversity. The panel members are an interdisciplinary group consisting of two psychologists, a political scientist, a sociologist, and four specialists in multicultural education. The panel was modeled after the consensus panels that develop and write reports for the National Academy of Sciences. In such panels, an expert group studies research and practice and arrives at a conclusion about what is known about a particular problem and the most effective actions that can be taken to solve it. The findings of the Multicultural Education Consensus Panel, which we call essential principles in this article, describe ways in which education policy and practice related to diversity can be improved. These principles are derived from both research and practice. They are designed to help practitioners in all types of schools increase student academic achievement and improve intergroup skills. Another aim is to help schools successfully meet the challenges of and benefit from the diversity that characterizes the United States. Schools can make a significant difference in the lives of students, and they are a key to maintaining a free and democratic society. Democratic societies are fragile and are works in progress. Their existence depends on a thoughtful citizenry that believes in democratic ideals and is willing and able to participate in the civic life of the nation. We realize that the public schools are experiencing a great deal of criticism. However, we believe that they are essential to ensuring the survival of our democracy. We have organized the 12 essential principles into five categories: 1) teacher learning; 2) student learning; 3) intergroup relations; 4) school governance, organization, and equity; and 5) assessment. Although these categories overlap to some extent, we think readers will find this organization helpful. Teacher Learning Principle 1. Professional development programs should help teachers understand the complex characteristics of ethnic groups within U.S. society and the ways in which race, ethnicity, language, and social class interact to influence student behavior. Continuing education about diversity is especially important for teachers because of the increasing cultural and ethnic gap that exists between the nations teachers and students. Effective professional development programs should help educators to 1) uncover and identify their personal attitudes toward racial, ethnic, language, and cultural groups; 2) acquire knowledge about the histories and cultures of the diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and language groups within the nation and within their schools; 3) become acquainted with the diverse perspectives that exist within different ethnic and cultural communities; 4) understand the ways in which institutionalized knowledge within schools, universities, and the popular culture can perpetuate stereotypes about racial and ethnic groups; and 5) acquire the knowledge and skills needed to develop and implement an equity pedagogy, defined by James Banks as instruction that provides all students with an equal opportunity to attain academic and social success in school.1 Professional development programs should help teachers understand the complex characteristics of ethnic groups and how such variables as social class, religion, region, generation, extent of urbanization, and gender strongly influence ethnic and cultural behavior. …

The Impact of the Desegregation Process on the Education of Black Students: Key Variables.

Few, if any, events in this century have rivaled the impact of the 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education. The decision evoked the passions, stirred the souls, and engaged the intellect of millions of Americans as they grappled with this singular legal decree. The plethora of books, articles, monographs, and commentaries written on this subject abound. Yet, after three decades of Brown, the academic community has not produced coherent analyses and well-conceptualized theories on the subject. Even more critically needed are analyses which assess the effect of desegregation on black pupil achievement and on life outcome chances for black children. To date, too few serious comprehensive theoretical analyses of Brown have been undertaken. Unfortunately, the literature on this topic may be characterized as either abstracted empiricism lacking in theory or polemic lacking in both empiric and theoretic foundation. Clearly, what is needed is an attempt, however provisional, to synthesize the empirical with the theoretical. This paper is one such attempt to offer a degree of clarity. More accurately, it is an attempt to identify those variables that might be useful in clarifying and analyzing those issues involved in desegregation. The effectiveness of desegregation appears mostly to be taken for granted. To do so, however, may produce what is known in medicine as iatrogensis, whereby the prescriptions or schedule of

Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools

which personalizes the mix of racial, religious, cultural, and school variables active in Catholic schools. Further, they accent the resiliency and adaptability of African American children, demonstrate the overlap between school and family experiences, and describe the delicate balance attained by African American students and parents in negotiating their presence, and sometimes leadership roles, in Catholic schools. In the final chapter, Irvine provides a coherent synthesis of the lessons learned from Catholic schools about the education of African Americans and discusses their implications for public school reform. She organizes these lessons into three themes: curriculum and instruction, common values shared, and race and racial identity. She deduces that curriculum and pedagogy in Catholic schools are generally academic, structured, and very traditional. Additionally, she maintains, Catholic schools offer a strong set of clearly articulated, accepted values embraced by Catholic school educators, students, and parents. On the subject of race, Irvine concludes that African American children in Catholic schools learn a lot about race and their own racial identity as a result of the Catholic school experience; they also learn how other children, school personnel, and society define and value racial differences. However, she asserts that Catholic (and public) school personnel must make more of an effort to examine the overt and hidden racial messages in their curricula and maximize their formal and informal interactions with African American students. Irvine concludes her summative analysis of the African American Catholic school experience by sharing with readers some guidelines for the education of African American students based on the findings of these essays. As she attests, the first of these is that, despite the nature of that curriculum or the particular pedagogical approach, African American students profit from a demanding curriculum taught by individuals who are mission-oriented and who believe that African Americans must learn and achieve in school. Second, African American parents and their families must share the values and mission of the school and support the school in ways that are mutually agreed upon and negotiated. Third, schools must also acknowledge the identity of their students African American heritage and understand that African Americans are not simply colorful prototypes of White students but students who strongly identify with their culture. What makes this book great reading is the depth and breadth of information and experiences offered; however, the recollections of individuals who attended Catholic schools in different regions of the United States and even the Caribbean or Africa would have added a broader dimension to this book. It would also have been helpful if the original sources of all these articles had been noted. Despite these limitations, Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools achieves its objectives. It strongly challenges the dominant theory that portrays African Americans as helpless victims in a marginalized culture that exists in constant opposition to Eurocentric beliefs and practices. It also succeeds in presenting a lucid historical and sociological treatment of the education of African Americans in Catholic schools. Irvine and Foster have compiled in this volume a collection of educational research and interpretation that is honest, noteworthy, insightful, and opportune. This book should prove useful to teachers and school administrators in public and private schools, especially African American teachers and school administrators who interact with African American students in Catholic schools. It is also strongly recommended for African American parents who are exploring Catholic schools as one of many options for the schooling of their children. Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools, edited by Jacqueline Jordan Irvine and Michele Foster. …

The Education of Children Whose Nightmares Come Both Day and Night

In this lecture, Dr. Irvine begins by reflecting on four explanations for the low academic achievement of Black and poor urban students: socioeconomic, sociopathological, cultural, and genetic. She acknowledges the merits of the first three, pointing out their specific weaknesses and common limitations. She next describes key characteristics of teachers who make a difference in reversing the cycle of despair and school failure among urban schoolchildren. These teachers, she claims, view teaching not only as telling, guiding, and facilitating mastery of much-heralded content standards but also as caring, other mothering, believing, demanding the best, responding to ones calling, and disciplining. Several years ago, I had a brief conversation with a nine-year-old African American boy that I want to share with you. I was sitting on the steps of my church in a working-class Atlanta neighborhood, waiting for the locksmith to open my car, when an inquisitive little boy spotted me and jumped on his bike to get a closer look. After persuading him that he did not have to break into my car to retrieve my keys, I asked my new friend, Darius, to sit down and talk. I asked him the usual boring questions that adults ask children: Whats your name? How old are you? Where do you go to school? Whats your teachers name? Finally, I asked, What do you want to be when you grow up? After responding quickly to the other questions, he stalled on the last, and said, I dont wanna be nothing. Oh, come on, I said. There are so many wonderful and exciting things to dream about-being a teacher, an astronaut, a businessman, a mechanic, a policeman. Just close your eyes and let me know what you see yourself doing when you get to be all grown up. Darius hesitantly followed my directions. He closed his eyes, folded his arms over his chest, and lifted his head toward the sky as if he needed divine inspiration for such a difficult task. After 15 seconds of what appeared to be a very painful exercise, I interrupted Dariuss concentration. What do you see? I asked impatiently. Tell me about your dreams. The young boy mumbled, Lady, I dont see nothing, and I dont have no dreams. Stunned by his remark, I sat speechless as Darius jumped on his bike and rode away. Darius, this bright, energetic, handsome young man, is not likely to end up at Howard University. In fact, statistical data predict that Darius has a better chance of ending up in a jail, where African American men now represent 41% of the prison population. By the way, if Darius ends up in prison, taxpayers will spend more than

Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South@@@Growing up African American in Catholic Schools

25,000 a year for his upkeep. For that amount of money, we could pay his college tuition at almost any institution of higher education. Sometimes we forget that a large number of children, like Darius, dont see nothing and dont have no dreams when we ask them to envision the future. These are the children whose nightmares occur both night and day (Hughes, 1999). At night, the villains are creatures in horror movies and in books like Goosebumps. Like all other children who have bad dreams, Darius is rescued by daylight. But Darius, unlike other children, has daymares, if you will. Ghosts and demons haunt and chase him as part of his daily life, and daylight offers no reprieve from fear. Ironically these daytime horrors are scarier than nightmares. The duress does not end when Darius opens his eyes. Daymares have no scary faces, just scary effects: poverty, violence, hunger, poor health, drug addiction, poor school performance, insensitive policies, and privileged people who sigh in collective hopelessness and hostility wondering where Dariuss absent father is and blaming Dariuss young mother for apparently having a baby she can neither raise nor afford. I have spent my entire career at Emory University researching and writing about the school experiences of African American children like Darius, their schools, and their teachers. …

Education and Diversity.

African American schools in the segregated South faced enormous obstacles in educating their students. But some of these schools succeeded in providing nurturing educational environments in spite of the injustices of segregation. Vanessa Siddle Walker tells the story of one such school in rural North Carolina, the Caswell County Training School, which operated from 1934 to 1969. She focuses especially on the importance of dedicated teachers and the principal, who believed their jobs extended well beyond the classroom, and on the communitys parents, who worked hard to support the school. According to Walker, the relationship between school and community was mutually dependent. Parents sacrificed financially to meet the schools needs, and teachers and administrators put in extra time for professional development, specialized student assistance, and home visits. The result was a school that placed the needs of African American students at the center of its mission, which was in turn shared by the community. Walker concludes that the experience of CCTS captures a segment of the history of African Americans in segregated schools that has been overlooked and that provides important context for the ongoing debate about how best to educate African American children. African American History/Education/North Carolina |Walker recounts the history of the Caswell Training School, an African American school in rural North Carolina that faced enormous obstacles to stay open, operating from 1934 to 1969. She shows that the school placed the needs of the African American students at the center of its mission, which was in turn shared by the community. The result was a nurturing educational environment in spite of the injustices of segregation.