DIVERSITY AND MULTICULTURALISM AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Diversity and Multiculturalism and Academic Achievement



Diversity and Multiculturalism and Academic Achievement

One of the most serious and explosive in the United States today is how to meet the educational needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. If current trends in educational achievement continue, millions of students (mostly poor African Americans, Asians, Native Americans and Hispanics) do not get the education necessary for full participation in economic and civic life of the country. Moreover, the inequality that results from differences in school performance of children is likely that the social stability of the United States increasingly dubious.

The differences in academic performance of children appear early. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP) reported that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and many children of color consistently achieve below the national average in math and language, with the widening gap that children continued through his years school. The more time that some children stay in school, the greater the discrepancy between educational performance and that of white students and middle class. Slowly but surely, the chances of academic success of students decrease poor and minorities, as it was put up in the paths of failure (Alexander and Entwisle, 1988, p. 1). Early childhood is thus a critical time for intervention in the schooling of children at risk by waiting to change the results.

The importance of early childhood education is reflected in the first of our national objectives: All children come to school ready to learn. Those of us who study early development and learning to find this statement to be difficult. After all, not all children learn? The ability to learn is an essential condition for life and, with very few exceptions, all children can learn and learn. Moreover, if children learn in school depends on the school environment as it does in children. Therefore, many of us have reformulated this objective to read: All children come to school ready to learn in school, and all schools will be ready to teach all children. The wording has changed not only emphasizes the development of children, but the layout of the school. In this article, I suggest that understanding how differences in culture and language affect children's learning can help us understand what schools can do to improve outcomes for many of the children of this nation.

How to explain the difference in children's academic performance? Is there something wrong with the children and the poor children of color - their genes or their families - that undermines development and achievement? Of course not. While some children are at risk of abnormal development due to the hardships inherent in living in poverty or in families in crisis, the poorest children and minorities are a normal development and their families skillfully perform the essential functions of raising children. among poor and minority children the capacity for adaptation and learning is as broad as that of other children. The explanation of the differences in school performance is the difference in life experiences between ...