Multicultural Education and Racial Prejudices in Children
Document Type
Poster Presentation
Start Date
18-4-2019 9:15 AM
End Date
18-4-2019 10:30 AM
Keywords
Multicultural education, children, prejudice
Biography
My name is Rikki Rodgers and this project is for a Psychology Clinical Practicum Capstone course. This project includes the review of a topic that continually sparks my interest as I find the development of children's minds through their educational communities continuously fascinating and significant.
Major
Psychology and Spanish
Advisor for this project
Penny Koontz
Abstract
Abstract
This poster examines the impact of multicultural education on school-aged children’s concepts of racial prejudices in the classroom setting, and the significance of their teachers’ multicultural awareness in facilitating equitable curriculum and classroom environments. Multicultural education is an assimilated curriculum involving the teaching of social justice, values, texts and perspectives from many cultures, ethnicities, and genders. It has been shown to reduce not only the early development of racial prejudice in children, but also encourages respect and validation for diversity. The multicultural knowledge and awareness of the educators for the curriculum is in turn highly significant in shaping the knowledge and awareness of the children, as teachers’ knowledge of the students’ needs is subjective, and there may be further cultural dissonances within the teacher student relationships. Based on this review, there is evidence that a more integrated education model within the classroom can reduce the development of student racial prejudices, and that the multicultural knowledge, awareness, and teaching skills of the educators is directly related to how receptive those students are to the curriculum. It is proposed that multicultural education be implemented more broadly throughout education curriculum in order to prevent and challenge developing racial prejudices in current students. Future research should include relationship analysis on multicultural awareness of educators and the extreme by which minority children are disciplined.
Multicultural Education and Racial Prejudices in Children
Abstract
This poster examines the impact of multicultural education on school-aged children’s concepts of racial prejudices in the classroom setting, and the significance of their teachers’ multicultural awareness in facilitating equitable curriculum and classroom environments. Multicultural education is an assimilated curriculum involving the teaching of social justice, values, texts and perspectives from many cultures, ethnicities, and genders. It has been shown to reduce not only the early development of racial prejudice in children, but also encourages respect and validation for diversity. The multicultural knowledge and awareness of the educators for the curriculum is in turn highly significant in shaping the knowledge and awareness of the children, as teachers’ knowledge of the students’ needs is subjective, and there may be further cultural dissonances within the teacher student relationships. Based on this review, there is evidence that a more integrated education model within the classroom can reduce the development of student racial prejudices, and that the multicultural knowledge, awareness, and teaching skills of the educators is directly related to how receptive those students are to the curriculum. It is proposed that multicultural education be implemented more broadly throughout education curriculum in order to prevent and challenge developing racial prejudices in current students. Future research should include relationship analysis on multicultural awareness of educators and the extreme by which minority children are disciplined.
