The Importance Of Cultural Diversity In The Classroom

Diversity is very visible in the schools within the United States. When you enter most classrooms you see students from different nationalities. As the immigrant population continues to grow in the U.S., teachers need to make sure they take everyone’s culture into consideration when teaching. It is important for teachers to create an atmosphere where all cultures are recognized and respected. Teachers should ensure to use culturally responsive practices in order to be able to engage all the student and their families, despite where they come from.

  Cultural competency has become important among health educators in America because our population is becoming more diverse.  The National Center for Cultural Competence states that, " American population is changing as a result of immigration patterns and significant increases among racially, ethnically, culturally and

Poverty is a serious issue which our society and children faces every day. It is a constant struggle that shouldn’t be ignored. UNICEF states “The study of OECD countries in 2007, over fourteen percent of Australian children under the age of eighteen are currently living in households who are defined as poor or with incomes less than half of the median national income”. The increase in the number and percentage of children living in poverty within our society has contributed to making today's classrooms more diverse than ever it has been. This highlights and makes both teaching and learning more challenging. Diversity exists in the students who are living in poverty and the education assistant and teachers must provide the concept of diversity

Classrooms will be filled with a variety of students coming from many different cultures and backgrounds. Teachers need to acknowledge each student will be different in this aspect and will have had different experiences in their lives. As the class moves forward, the goal is to provide students with the same experiences, just with through different lenses. To do this, the classroom must have a strong sense of community and a

Cultural competency is incredibly important to reducing health situations and improving access to good quality health care, health care that is imperative to the needs of diverse patients. “Cultural competence gives systems, agencies, and groups of professionals a chance to function effectively to understand the needs of groups accessing health information and health care in an inclusive partnership where the provider and the user of the information meet on common ground.”(NIH, 2013). Cultural competence benefits consumers, stakeholders, and communities and supports positive health outcomes. Since there are many elements that can influence health communication, including behaviors, and language, cultural competence is inevitable in order to get what you want in the classroom. Planning poorly in the classroom, planning that is ignorant to principles of cultural competence may yield false and biased results.

Teachers should understand the diversity spectrum that is in a classroom; there are cultures, races, languages, and socioeconomic backgrounds in classroom during the 21st century educational realm. Students need to acknowledge student’s diverse background specially when they arrive late in the school year.

If a teacher will take the time and energy to learn about a student’s culture and to show a caring attitude toward the student in regard to their culture, the student is more likely to interact with the teacher and exhibit greater achievement in the classroom.

An educator’s central goal is to make a difference in their student’s education by setting equal learning opportunities. Teachers are able to achieve success by incorporating different learning styles according to their students.

The thought I have about teaching in a diversity classroom. Is it going to be a big challenging? Challenging in a classroom I see and deal with on an everyday basis sometimes but, dealing with a diversity classroom I have no idea. I believe in treating each of my students fair with unique strengths. I will like to create an open classroom that can value the experiences and perspectives of all students.

The public-school system has “turned away from their traditional emphasis on assimilating newcomers into the national melting pot. Instead they have put a new emphasis on multicultural education, deemphasizing the common American culture and teaching children to take pride in their racial, ethnic, and national origins” (p. 2). Today, teachers must demonstrate they are culturally competent by demonstrating they have “certain knowledge, dispositions, and skills to work effectively with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds” (p. 52). Culture can be defined as “a pattern of human behavior that includes thought, communication, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of a racial, ethnic, religious, or social group” (p. 53). The word competence “implies having the capacity to function effectively” (p. 53). Becoming culturally competent is a process that takes commitment, effort, and time, and when both words are put together, culturally competent denotes an individual or educator acknowledges and incorporates the importance cross-cultural relations (Ford & Whiting,

Cultural competence is the foundation in creating a successful academic environment for diverse students. Being culturally competent means being knowledgeable of other cultures, including the awareness of that culture’s world view. When someone is culturally competent they are able to effectively communicate and interact with people across cultures, and hold a positive attitude towards culture differences. (Nieto 2014) Teachers should be able to understand their student’s cultural views, traditions, language, and home life, and incorporate these cultural factors into their lesson plans and classroom settings. When early educators use culture competence, children are able to develop a sense of belonging, form strong

In regards to diversity training, a third of the SLPs reported not receiving training on multicultural issues as students. A greater percentage of the SLPs working in diverse or non-diverse urban areas had received more extensive training on multicultural issues than those working in rural areas. The survey revealed that SLPs had received training on topics within the questionnaire pertaining to delivery of service concerns more than topics related to cultural issues. With that in mind, half of the SLPs reported they had not received training at all on topics pertaining to cultural issues. When asked about continuing education, the participants mentioned they had received 1.5-3 different types of continuing education activities to gain further

Still, while it is important to understand how cultural patterns can affect one’s learning, it is also crucial to realize that no pattern applies to all individuals within a culture. In order to be culturally sensitive, one must also be sensitive to individual students as well. Seeing each student as their own person requires an avoidance of expectations and stereotyping of a student based solely off of their cultural background. After all, a student’s learning is shaped not only by their culture, but also by his or her home life, personal talents, developments, and a variety of other factors as well. Tamara Lucas, author of the article “Preparing teachers for linguistically diverse classrooms: a resource for teacher educators” uses the example

Within the core of many educational institutions, diversity is a commercial tacit. While every institution cannot offer the same kind of diversity, the endorsement of such exists through various definitions. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges define diversity through the various classes: race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, disability, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and age (“Statement on Diversity”)

According to Soon Lee (2005), diversity is when someone manages to differentiate themselves from a group of people, while coexisting with them (Unesco.org, 2013). When it comes to determining what culture is, one can find a variety of interpretations. One of them includes following a number of rules in order to be acceptable as a member of a group of people, often called society (Soon Lee, 2005). Some rules that are enclosed under the term ‘culture’ can be knowledge, values, morals, certain behaviours and customs (Unesco.org, 2013).