The Schooling Learning
1960’s marked the emergence of a number of social rights and equality movements, which also included the struggle for diversity and equality in the US schools. The educational diversity movement was born in recognition of the potential of rising ethnic minority populations. In the middle of warnings of approaching crisis and renewed calls for educational reform, educational diversity advocates called for major change, in the form of cultural diversity policies and programs (Woolbright, 1989). As in the early 1970’s, such calls were answered by the general public. Cultural diversity programs rose in the hundreds across the United States, with positive consequences, as the movement continued to gather momentum. While the goals of the movement are admiring, the means by which these goals are to be achieved are another matter altogether. As supporters often spoke of the importance of respect for differences, there was the very real danger the movement cold be stopped. As Cheatham (1991, p. 28) explains,
Simplistic interventions result from describing racial and ethnic minority persons not as they are but as they are different from the modal individual. In that comparative context, the emphasis remains on validating the majority experience as opposed to studying the ethnic minority experience.
Here, Cheatham (1991) calls attention to two critical weaknesses in current approaches to cultural diversity. The first weakness involves reliance on a model of ethnic minority groups, that is, the tendency to see characteristics of the dominant group (Whites) as the norm around which other groups vary, and against which the latter are invariably judged inferior (Adams, 2002).
The second and more fundamental weakness is to leave implicit any substantive description of the ethnic minority groups in question, save for their presumed difference. The results are extraordinary: a rapidly growing literature in which there are few and very limited descriptions of such groups, and a multiplicity of programs grounded on little more than good intentions, in the absence of substantive knowledge. This paper compares and contrasts the home-schooling, public schooling, private schooling, and distant learning, focusing on the development of the educational system in the US and outlining the major benefits and pitfalls of each of these learning settings.
Historical background
The rate of participation of racial and ethnic minorities in higher education over the last 25 years demonstrates social and political movements. During the late 1960s and the decade of the 1970s, minority enrollment increased dramatically, but by the 1980s the increases in college and university enrollment, attendance, and graduation began to diminish.
Processing your request, Please wait....
