The Importance Of Racial Diversity In High Schools

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

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.

Racial diversity is something that is often discussed on college campuses. As a student who self-identifies as a minority in more ways than one I often feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the subject of racism and race. However, often times when these issue are discussed I learn something new; this was the case when reading the articles this week. This week’s articles examined the issue of race from different perspectives. This allowed me to re-examine the issue in a fuller manner; it also allowed me to question some of my own notions that I hadn’t really challenged before.

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

The American education system is failing the generations of the future. Society neglects the children born into impoverished areas, while mainly white upper class children participate in superior educational activities. Low-income neighborhoods often produce schools with low scoring students. Therefore the government transitions these schools into impersonal factories. The phrase diversity masquerades the reality of re-segregation of schools. Many schools across the country are utilizing the phrase diversity, yet the statistics reveal that over ninety percent of the students are black or Hispanic. Creating successful environments is extremely difficult and subsequently results in serious consequences for the American education system.

Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.

Baltimore County is a very diverse county, there are many whites,blacks, hispanics, asians etc… These different races get along very well throughout their area, they have very little problems. They have very prestigious high schools, with a lot of good kids. However, there is a problem that concerns The Board of the Baltimore County Schools. That is the lack of diversity throughout the teachers in the schools, people have been irritated about this. People of the county believe it's a real big problem, but others believe that it's not. There is a lot of discussion and controversy on what actions to take to make the schools more diverse.

As a member of several clubs and organizations, I have always valued the wide range of people you can find within the walls of my high school. If you walk into my Physics lab, you will find me collaborating with a dancer strongly involved in his cultural heritage and a volleyball player in the engineering academy. If you come to my Calculus class, you will see me calculating derivatives with a football player, a snowboarder, a National Honor Society officer, and a painter. The word “diversity” is often used to describe a cross-cultural population, but it is so much more than that. At Bartlett High School, students originate from hundreds of different cultures, with an abundance interests, and participate together in an assortment of activities.

Even in the 21st century the United States public school system is once again becoming segregated by race. Results of research show there are several factors involved in this trend, including housing discrimination and the United States Supreme Court granting the states sovereignty to govern their own policies on school desegregation; even going so far as to say the policies employed by states to desegregate based on race were unconstitutional. This topic addresses the issues causing resegregation and the ideas set forth to alleviate the problem and insure equal education for all children, regardless of race or socio-economic status.

My educational experience with other races had been limited before high school. I can count on one hand the number of classmates from elementary and middle school that were not caucasian. Even in my church there are only a couple of families of color. Entering high school was quite a learning experience for me. Suddenly I was thrust into the world of Joliet West where only a third of the students are white. Entering this new world was like discovering mythical creatures, created by the stories from movies and my older sister, were real. Based on the myths I heard, I found myself questioning if any of the Hispanic students in my classes were illegal immigrants. I encountered loud black girls that intimidated me with their larger than life personalities.

Rudgers and Peterson identified collisions over campus climate as an issue that will continue to impact colleges and universities in 2017. In their discussion of campus climate concerns, Rudgers and Peterson mention the experienced and potential negative impacts of white nationalist groups, as well as Donald Trump’s rhetoric towards immigrants and Muslim individuals. The article mentions institutions of higher education’s long-term efforts to create welcoming environments for female students, as well as racial minorities. The institution is currently facing some of the effects of this issue. Beyond the campus climate being described as hostile, racial minorities are leaving the institution at a higher rate than white students, the institution

The second most commonly referenced effort to reduce racial isolation in hyper-segregated White high schools involves participation in the Open Choice or A Better Chance Program. Of all the reported efforts to reduce racial, ethnic and economic isolation by providing hyper-segregated White students the opportunity to interact with students from diverse racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds, Project Choice and A Better Chance appear to be the most effective. Based on a review of Strategic School Profile and Performance and Profile Report narratives, in combination with discussions with principals at hyper-segregated White high schools, we determined that urban students participating in the Project Choice and Better Chance programs are subject to racial, ethnic, and/or economic isolation. These programs therefore provide hyper-segregated Minority students the opportunity to interact with racially, ethnically, and/or economically hyper-segregated White students. However, the number of students participating in Open Choice or A Better Chance programming is a small fraction of the overall student body in hyper-segregated White high schools. It is unclear from the data if and how Open Choice and A Better Chance students interact with the hyper-segregated White student body, and how many White students benefit from this interaction. Therefore, we conclude that the Open Choice and A Better Chance programs do not provide meaningful opportunities for all White students in hyper-segregated White high

For years people worked to desegregate schools so that every child no matter what color their skin was would get the same education. However, it seems like today that schools have “resegregated” and schools are as just unequal as they were back in 1954. According to our reading 54% of black students compared to 87% of white students performed at or above the basic level on the 2003 eighth-grade reading exam. People need to take into account racial composition, as well as poverty, location in a central city, suburban, or non-metropolitan setting, and the demographic composition of local residents. The reading also discusses what types of schools that the different racial groups are attending. It is reported that minority students attend worse schools, then non-Hispanic whites do. More then 60 % of black and Hispanic students attend high-poverty schools while only 18% of white students and 30% of Asian students attend high-poverty schools. After all the fighting and work and the amount of things we have overcome you would think that we would fix a problem such school segregation.

The American school system structure is often romanticized and shown in such a lighting in which it’s flaws are masked by the shadows. School is commonly thought to embody a safe, welcoming, inclusive and supportive environment; in which children are transformed into productive members of society. The truth however, is that “the classroom is not gender neutral, racially neutral, or sexually neutral site. It is a gendered, racial, sexual space into which identities are brought and weighed” (Bridges. Lecture 10/4/17). These characteristics are often used to define and categorize people into stereotypes. One of the main issues within the (school) system is discrimination against students, which robs them of opportunities for success. School is designed to “prepare children to be productive enlightened members of society” (Lecture 9/8/17). This paper focuses more on the results of the lack of support given to minority students, demonstrated by their academic gap by the time they are a high school senior. Students cannot be expected to become enlightened/ well-rounded citizens, when they have been socialized to believe false truths about society and themselves. One of the most impactful and destructive of these ideas, however latent or unintended, is racial discrimination.

As of July 1, 2011, there are 36, 708, 083 people in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2017a). 1.2% higher than the population last year, which was 36, 264, 604 people of all ages and both sexes (Statistics Canada, 2017b). The growth of population in Canada, which in this case powered largely by immigration, increases not only the human capital, but the diversity in every province as well. Hence, as diversity expands, there is also a rampant growth in religion. In 2011, there are 108 religions observed in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2011) - Christianity, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu – to name a few. These demographics have connotations on how diversity in school is also evident.