Racial And Sexual Identification Among Students

The peer reviewed article “Ethnic and Racial Identity During Adolescence into Young Adulthood: An Integrated Conceptualization” is a well written article on the struggle that people of color face when coming face to face with their identity in social situations. Umana-Taylor, Quintana, Lee, Cross, Rivas-Drake, Schwartz and Seaton (2014) analyzed ethnic and racial identity or ERI and how it relates to important developments and issues from early childhood well on into young adulthood. They worked to find the most important milestones during the development or ERI as well (Umana-Taylor et. al 2014). This paper will consist of the information given from the article and how I’ve dealt with my own ERI.

The United States of America has a long and complicated history of segregation and inequality. Though the country has fought fiercely to redeem itself by eradicating the practice of inequality in many areas, there are still some concerns that remain. These concerns are present in the public education system, and relate to the time-honored practice of educators to group and educate students by their ability level. This paper will discuss how students historically have been classified based on ability tracking and grouping, the legal issues created by this classification, and what the Constitution requires in order to maintain equal protection rights for all citizens.

Hispanic culture influences states with a larger Hispanic population. More than half of the Hispanic population lives in California, Texas, and Florida. These are the states in the U.S. that have a larger mix of Hispanic and American culture. The leading state for the Hispanic community in America is California. Out of 37.7 million people 14.4 million are a part of the

Racial formation is a vast sum of signifying actions and social structures that clash in the creation of complex relationships and identities that is a labeled race. Throughout the history of the United States, a large array of strategies was engaged in regarding education that took advantage of nonwhites. Since policies by those who supposedly “protect our rights” attempted to eradicate social, economic and cultural aspirations, dominated groups were more often than not suspicious of the school 's interests. According to John Ogby, “children from dominated cultures often failed school because they considered the school to be representative of the dominant white culture” (Spring, 101). This portrays racial formation having an effect on equality. “Acting white” meant to attempt to do well in school because

Social Class and Education”. It opens by discussing research conducted in the 1960’s in an effort to identify factors contributing to differences in the academic achievement of Whites and Blacks (Banks & Banks, 2013). Researchers hypothesized that the achievement gaps were mainly the result of disparities in school resources and characteristics, but found that there is a high correlation between achievement and socioeconomic status (SES) (Banks & Banks, 2013). Furthermore, attention is drawn to the class stratification which exists in our educational system and works to maintain inequality through exclusion strategies such as ability grouping and tracking (Banks & Banks, 2013). Evidence of the correlation between social class and

High school is often considered a microcosm of society. Beliefs, social order, and current issues present themselves through student’s interactions and the environment they learn in. One of the oldest and still prevalent issues in the United States today is race and equality. So it is no surprise when racial issues are exposed in public education. Although many believe the civil rights era fixed most discrimination, racism remains in schools. Even after court ordered integration, classroom disparities have led to harmful segregation to continue within schools.

In addition to the students who does not fit into these categories, they were considered as “others”. One of the questions I had asked Ms. Elena is “when you were in high school, was social class, gender, and race classified?” She explained that “in high school, I remember much emphasis placed on race and ethnicity. There were many rallies discussing how our school was a melting pot of various races. That didn’t seem to make a difference; however, because when I think back to the different cliques of students, I remember various races segregating themselves from others such as Filipinos, Whites, African American Asians, etc. The different groups did not seem to meld together at school or outside gathering.” In her book “Women Without Class”, Bettie argued that “a primary way students understand class and racial/ethnic differences about themselves is through their informal peer hierarchy, with cliques and their corresponding styles largely organized by racial/ethnic and class identities” (Bettie, pg. 49). With that said, Bettie explained that the way students understand class racial/ethnic difference is by their own complementary with peers because they build their racial/ethnic and class identities together. In addition to this, I followed up that question to briefly tell me how social class was describe throughout her school days. She briefly told me: “I went to

Along with that, racial identity is another big contributor to the degradation of African American’s youth mental health, as a weak racial identity results in poorly mishandled ways of coping with racism and stress. African American students as early as middle school engage in introspection of their racial identity, where they begin to discover who they are and the negative stereotypes surrounding their identity (Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, 2007, p.256). The results of a study of 297 African American adolescents by McCreary, Slavin, and Berry found that a strong pride in racial identity was important in handling stress in a positive manner and decreasing poor mental health (Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, 2007, p.256). Students were less likely to internalize negative racial stereotypes that devalue their worth and build resistance towards it. If not, students were more susceptible to succumbing to stereotype threat, racial bias, and a negative self-fulfilling prophecy that could alter their well-being and threaten their mental health. Chronic exposure to this can severely damage African Americans adolescents’ mental health, which is evident by their mental withdrawal in school and loss of interest or motivation to achieve academic success.

The main idea is to explore whether the students in the research sample show indication of internalized oppression and if so, attempt to explore the possible relationships or implications that it has on their academic performance. Moreover, if students do not show an indication of internalized oppression they will instead be showing an indication of the sociological imagination. Students will be asked questions that intend to reveal this information. For example, the question, “What do you think has contributed (positively, negatively, or both) to your current academic performance?” Answers that will indicate internalized oppression will include an emphasis on their individual effort. For example, if the student wasn’t doing well academically, and contributed this to solely themselves for not doing homework or studying enough, and conversely, if the student was doing well academically and contributed their success to their hard work and studying, both cases would show no implication for other larger structures. Both of these responses would be coded as internalized oppression. A response that shows the sociological imagination could be a student who was doing well academically and explained that what contributed to their performance included: a tutoring program, extracurricular activities, and being placed in gifted classes. This student did not attribute individual action to their academic performance. A problem does arise of course when a student may mention both individual effort and other inklings of larger structures. However, with other similar questions, the most prevalent answer will be considered. The reliability of the student’s answers are also a possible issue. Some students may not feel comfortable relaying their current academic performance or personal issues such as balancing a job and school. Overall, I think the many testaments from other

Included below are tables demonstrating a clearer view of the demographics, information was taken from California’s Secretary of State:

In the Anthology, Rereading America, Jean Anyon and Jonathan Kozol challenge the reader to really think deeply into the cultural myths that society fills Americans with. In Anyons Article, From Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum, she discusses five different elementary schools all with different socioeconomic classes and talks about how each student is taught to fit the same types of jobs that their parents do so they remain on the same social class level. It can be justified that my educational experience was quite empowering throughout high school because of the good teachers who gave us a voice in the classroom, and brand new facilities which helped me feel comfortable at school.

Everyone wore the same uniforms and had the same beliefs. In my mind, the children and their families were practically the same as me and my family, therefore, everyone else in society was just like us. I did not have to deal with the idea of dominance and privilege, because there was nothing to compare my life to - there was no one who was different or out of the ordinary. “The ease of not being aware of privilege is an aspect of privilege itself, what some call ‘the luxury of obliviousness’” (Johnson, 2006, p. 22). Since the families I grew up with were all “cookie-cutter” families, I did not know that privilege, such as being White, Christian, or financially secure, even existed. The idea of a typical, normal family, however, changed drastically once I embarked upon the next journey of my life, my first experience in a public school - high school. I realized how sheltered I had been once high school began. I transitioned from a school of children just like me, to a richly diverse school where it was anything but consistent, everyone was different - no two people were the same. During this drastic change, I learned how to handle and approach different social challenges by navigating my way through many different cultures and beliefs.

It's early afternoon and I'm watching daytime television which leaves you with limited options. I could probably be doing something better with my time however it is summer break. So as a guilty pleasure, I relish in the antics featured on the Maury Show. Normally his show deals with life changing paternity shows. Occasionally, he veers away from his usual format to a once popular format: Is she a man or woman? This is a show that allows the audience to guess the gender of the person. It seems rather straight forward; the entertainment value is that it's difficult to tell at first glance. It forces you to carefully select which phenotypical traits are most appropriate for the gender you select. We all think we can innately tell the

Everyone knows about the various stereotypes and social stigmas that come with socioeconomic status whether they will choose to admit it or not. Society has come to assume that a child who comes from a family of low socioeconomic status, that they will not do as well as a child who comes from a family of a greater socioeconomic status. Unfortunately these assumptions are so ingrained in our brains that we start to follow the self-fulfilling prophecy. When a child from a noticeably low socioeconomic status walks into a classroom, it is not uncommon for the teacher to automatically assume that the child will not perform well in class, and in turn either grades the child more harshly or does not give the child as much attention as the

“If we don’t fully understand our individual and collective roles in maintaining a system of white superiority, our relationships with people of color remains superficial, our ability to work in diverse workplaces is greatly diminished, and we fail to create a just world in which everyone has an equitable opportunity to contribute and thrive” (Kendall, 2013, p. 1). This paper discusses who I am as a cultural person and how I have come to be this way. The first section of this paper discusses my cultural background and my cultural identity. I address the factors that make up my cultural identity and the challenges that I have faced because of my cultural identity. The next section discusses my White racial identity development and the events in my life that have led me to become the person I am today in relation to my racial identity. The final section of this paper outlines the implications my own racial and cultural identity will have on my career as a clinical mental health counselor.