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The
Need for Diversity Education
by Joel Federman
Note:
This article is also published (in slightly different versions)
on the following other websites:
The Peace Chronicle, Summer 2001 (publication of the the Peace
and Justice Studies Association), and the University
of Maine Peace Studies Program Newsletter, Fall 2001
Young People
are Concerned
There are a number of important reasons why schools need to develop
diversity education and community-building agendas. The first reason
for diversity education is that young people are very concerned
about the issues of prejudice and discrimination, and diversity
education is a way of helping them deal with that concern. In a
national survey of young people reported in Newsweek magazine, prejudice
and racism were listed among their top five social concerns. When
asked in another poll how much pressure they feel from their friends
to participate in certain activities, teens aged 13-19 said they
felt as much pressure to be "mean to kids who are different"
as they did to have sex, or use drugs or alcohol. A third poll found
that, nationally, 48% of Middle School students don't feel like
they fit in socially. Issues around diversity are very much alive
for young people; they are not just "adult" issues being
imposed on them.
Opinion Survey:
Percent of Kids Who Say Each is a "Big Problem" for People
Their Age
| Problem |
8-11
Year Olds |
12-15
Year Olds |
| Teasing
and Bullying |
55%
|
68%
|
| Discrimination
|
51%
|
63%
|
| Violence |
46%
|
62%
|
| Alcohol
or Drugs |
44%
|
68%
|
| Pressure
to Have Sex |
33%*
|
49%
|
| Racism |
30%*
|
35%
|
| HIV/AIDS |
26%*
|
36%
|
* = 10-11 Year
Olds Only
(Source: Kaiser Family Foundation, March 8, 2001)
The Need for the Transmission of Values
A second reason for diversity education is that addressing issues
of tolerance and civility fills an important gap in our culture
by helping to transmit important prosocial values to the next generation.
Many people have come to believe that parents need to work together
with schools to counter some of the antisocial pressures on young
people created by popular culture.
There is a growing movement nationally around the idea of character
education. In 1993, the National Education Association and the American
Federation of Teachers joined dozens of other organizations to form
something called the Character Counts Coalition. A primary premise
underlying character education is that it is possible to teach values
in a way that does not impose them on students—or, in the case
of public schools, circumvent the separation of church and state.
The Character Counts Coalition states in its credo that "character
education is based on core ethical values (that) transcend cultural,
religious and socioeconomic differences." The Coalition names
six such values: respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, fairness
or justice, caring, and what they call "civic virtue."
Diversity education, by focusing on the values of fairness, compassion,
empathy, civility, and the rejection of prejudice and discrimination,
can make an important contribution toward advancing the broader
goals of character education.
Preparation for the Real World
A third reason for diversity education is that, at this point in
history, diversity education is integral to the central mission
of education in general, which is to prepare young people for the
challenges and opportunities that life will bring them. If young
people aren't prepared to deal with people who are different from
them, it will limit their ability to be fully functional in an increasingly
diverse world.
Diversity is increasingly becoming a central feature of our social,
political, and economic world. Within the next fifty years, there
will be no majority race in America; whites, statistically, will
no longer be the majority. In California, that is already true,
according to the Year 2000 Census. Today's children will be entering
workplaces that are far more diverse in terms of race and ethnicity
than the ones many of us grew up to expect. There are also still-emerging
workplace issues involving age, disability, weight, gender and sexual
orientation, that businesses and our legal system are confronting
everyday—witness only the recent Supreme Court decisions on
gays and scouting, and regarding the rights of the disabled in pro
sports.
With the increasing globalization of the economy and transnationalization
of business—and of course, with the continuing development
the internet economy—it is becoming more and more likely that
young people, in the course of their future working lives, will
be exposed to people from different backgrounds, cultures, lifestyles
and belief systems.
As a result, children and students will have to learn how to deal
with difference, to communicate across differences, and to find
ways to bridge those differences in order to work effectively together.
So, by preparing students to effectively deal with difference, we
are—in a literal sense—preparing them for the real world.
Addressing Systemic Discrimination and Preventing Prejudice
A fourth reason for diversity education addresses the flip side—or
the dark side—of diversity. Diversity education is important
because it helps students grapple with what is arguably the most
important social issue of our time: that of systemic discrimination
against people based on difference.
At the extreme end of the discrimination spectrum are incidents
of hate violence. There are many ways that people of good will are
attempting to address this problem, from protesting hate groups
to proposing hate crime legislation. There is an almost universal
agreement that the best way to deal with this problem is through
preventative education. But, though most agree theoretically, at
some point we have to begin to concretely implement educational
strategies that would truly produce the result of reducing prejudice
and discrimination.
One element of such an educational strategy is to help students
address the concrete specific prejudices that they may face—or
that they may have. It needs to be acknowledged that almost ten
percent of all hate crimes recorded by the federal government occur
in schools and colleges. Moreover, hate crime statistics only capture
the most extreme manifestations of bigotry. Much more prevalent
are less-severe attitudes and behaviors that, arguably, in their
extensiveness, cause even greater harm.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, in grades 8-11, there
are reports of some level of sexual harassment by 68 percent of
girls and 39 percent of boys, and around a quarter of students experience
some form of racial or ethnic victimization during the course of
a school year. According to another study, one out of every thirteen
students has been assaulted or harassed because they were perceived
to be gay or lesbian. Interestingly, four out of five young people
harassed or assaulted because they are perceived to be gay or lesbian
are actually straight. But, regardless of their actual sexual orientation,
those young people are more likely to skip school, drop out altogether,
or attempt suicide than their peers.
If K-12 students aren't facing these problems today, they may need
to be prepared to face them in college. A report released in June
2000 by the Southern Poverty Law Center showed that increasing diversity
on college campuses—represented by the doubling of racial minority
enrollments since 1976 and the increasing visibility of gay and
lesbian students—has led to a parallel increase in verbal and
physical harassment of minorities, as well as the more extreme hate
crimes.
Diversity education can serve the purpose of helping students deal
with an important social issue, and it can be a central element
in preventing prejudice and discrimination and crimes of hate.
The Inherent Uniqueness of Each Person
A final reason for diversity education goes even deeper. Diversity
education at its best goes beyond recognition of the standard categories
of human difference based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender,
physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic
status. It emphasizes the uniqueness of each person as something
that is precious, and should be cherished and nurtured and encouraged,
both for its own sake and for the sake of society in general.
From that perspective, prejudice isn't just about the specific groups
that are its targets. It is a way of thinking and seeing that doesn't
allow people in general to be and become fully everything that they
are able to become. The philosopher Kierkegaard wrote: "Once
you label me, you negate me." Each person is more than any
label that can be attached to him or her. That is the fallacy inherent
in all stereotyping.
The opposite way of thinking involves empathy, universal compassion,
and unconditional love. It is a way of seeing and acting toward
people that lifts them up and supports them in their quest to fully
be themselves and live to their fullest potential. The best parents,
and the best teachers, are those who have the gift—or have
developed the ability—to recognize that spark in each of their
children and students, and to feed that spark every day. A
s Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, the greatest quality of a teacher is
to bring people to themselves, to help them recognize their own
unique genius. Supporting that goal is the most powerful reason
and purpose for diversity education, which is through various means
to bring to light the idea that people, no matter what category
they fall into, should not be treated as anything less than sacred.
Helping to create school communities in which all students not only
feel safe, but also feel cherished—and cherish each other—as
well, is the ultimate goal of diversity education.
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