Though America's students are increasingly diverse, most preservice educators have white, middle-class perspectives and cannot imagine teaching in multicultural urban schools. Six preservice teachers describe their experiences visiting a Harlem school, demonstrating that even brief visits can prompt students to critically examine their implicit…

This paper is concerned with conflicts which arise for students in the university setting as a result of having ethnic backgrounds different from the middle-class norm. There are a variety of ways in which an ethnic student can find himself in a classroom situation where behaviors which had evoked positive reinforcement in his subculture are now…

EDUCATORS ARE NOT ADEQUATELY FINDING WAYS TO DEAL WITH THE DISADVANTAGED IN AMERICA. THEY ASSUME THAT THEY MUST MAKE THE DISADVANTAGED CONFORM TO AND FUNCTION IN THE DOMINANT MIDDLE-CLASS SOCIETY. HOWEVER, WHILE THE MIDDLE CLASS SEEMS TO FAVOR A HOMOGENIZATION OF ALL CULTURES, SOME MINORITY CULTURES RESIST THIS PRESSURE AND FAVOR A SOCIETY IN…

TEFL textbooks should be concerned with teaching all the social strata in countries where English is being studied and should not, therefore, contain materials that are likely to alienate the disadvantaged pupils. (LG)

All education is based on a middle-class morality that finds its psychoanalytic equivalent in a reality principle which insists that present pleasure must be largely foregone for greater gains in the future. Schools, however, have yet to develop ways to teach low-income students this middle-class value. (Author/GC)

Although there are only about 2,000 active speakers of the Hawaiian language, there exists a coherent system of nonverbal behavior which can be identified as Hawaiian and which contrasts sharply with middle class white American behavior. Teachers of Hawaiian children should be aware of this in order to avoid potential misunderstandings in the…

Intensive psychotherapy is principally limited to the middle class and the affluent population. Working class individuals utilize individual psychotherapeutic services at a low rate, and members of American ethnic groups (including "white ethnics") probably have even lower utilization rates. The reasons that therapists and ethnic clients avoid…

Educators must realize that expectations should be appropriate and positive. Teachers who are not familiar with the culture of their students may not know what to expect. Schools may unknowingly promote failure by basing expectations on middle class norms. Two exemplary case studies of bilingual students are presented. (VM)

Many white, middle-class teachers tend to dismiss their students' cultures and judge parental involvement by their own behavioral norms. Many nontraditional literary experiences occur as parents and children go about their daily lives. Teachers may also have limited views of parental competence, motivation, and home-school collaboration. Teachers…

Reviews the test titled Psychological Testing of Minorities and notes that this book brings to the forum by which education may be made accessible to the underprivileged people of society without penalizing them for not belonging to the middle class mainstream culture. (Author/AM)

American Indian urban immigration has put between 33% and 50% of all Indians in urban settings where they invariably are subjected to an initial cultural shock. Leaving the reservation to improve their socioeconomic status, Indians find urban adjustment extremely difficult. The Anglo culture is inherently opposed to the "Indian Way", for it…

Analyzes oral narrative told to peers by a Black girl and compares it to one told to an adult female by a White middle-class girl. Proposes that the White girl's style is compatible with school-based values governing speech and writing, while the Black girl's style is compatible with cultures emphasizing verbal mastery but is not compatible with…