Educational Concepts

Ethnicity in Educational Practices

Introduction

Ethnicity refers to cultural (dialect, religion, traditions, etc.) and physical (skin color, body shape, etc.) characteristics used to classify people into (ethnic) groups or categories considered to be significantly different from others. Ethnicity is not a static phenomenon (Hall, 1997; Giordan, 1999;). Ethnic groups change through time in complex ways. Education, media, migration, colonialism and globalization are examples of processes that have changed individual and group identities. These processes seem to emphasize political and economic stratification. Thus, in a way make ethnicity class-based and politically-based.

Some anthropologists label ethnic groups into: "Great Tradition" and "Little Tradition." In Asia for example, ethnic groups who belong to the so-called "Great tradition" are those who were able to gain access in economic and political arenas. These are the groups who were educated in the Western tradition (North America and Europe) and who acquired political leadership and control of the media. Those who belong to the "Great Tradition" identified the "others" as the minority group and thus, the "Little Tradition." Labeling the "others" as belonging to "Little Tradition" through education and media became a powerful political tool for controlling, marginalizing and even getting rid of them. In Europe and North America, the migrants are often considered as the "others" and belonging to "Little Tradition." The dominant groups or communities may feel threatened and sometimes they resist efforts to improve their class positions.

In all these instances, there seems to be two major emerging trends on how groups react to various processes: there are those who become assimilated in the mainstream culture and those that resist assimilation. Those belonging to certain groups may play a major role in the definition of group identities and in the maintenance of boundaries between groups. Ethnic groups who accept citizenship in the state where they are living are the assimilationist group and often buy the idea of ethnic diversity. Moreover, they aspire to be part of the Great Tradition.
On the other hand, ethnonationalism prevails when ethnic communities are struggling for recognition as autonomous regions or independent states. While many small indigenous societies are disappearing into national societies, many larger ethnic groups are violently reasserting their presence and even independence of the nations that they have integral parts of until now (e.g. the breakup of Yugoslavia into ethnically "purified" areas, the Muslim resurgence in Eastern Europe and Asia, the ethnic conflict in Africa and many more).
The clash between and among these ethnic groups results to varying levels of tolerance and intolerance.

Global Trends on Ethnicity

Friedman (1999) contends that there are four major trends in the world that led to disorder and fragmentation:

1. Indigenization: Where there are indigenous populations within the state territories, they begin to reinstate their traditions and to claim their indigenous rights. The Fourth World movements have become a global phenomenon, institutionalized via United Nations Organization such as the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. The demography of this phenomenon is significant. The population of North American Indians more than doubled from 1970 to 1980. Most of this was re-identification. Five new tribes appeared during the same period.

2. Nationalization: The nation states of Europe have become increasingly ethnic over the past 15 years, moving from a formal citizenship/modernist identity to one based on historicized roots. This has been documented via the rapid increase in consumption of historical literature. In France, the Middle Ages, the Celts and everything that preceded the modern state were highest on the list from the late 70's on. Much of this has an indigenous quality to it, especially where there is no competition from other indigenous populations. The so-called "New Right" movements in France, Italy and Germany harbor ideologies that are similar to fourth world ideologies. They are anti-universalist, anti-imperialist, against universal religions and exceedingly multi-culturalist. Thus Jean de Benoist, spokesman for the French New Right states, "Given this situation, we see reasons for hope only in the affirmation of collective singularities, the spiritual re-appropriation of heritages, the clear awareness of roots and specific cultures....We are counting on the breakup of the singular model, whether this occurs in the rebirth of regional languages, the affirmation of ethnic minorities or in phenomena as diverse as decolonization...[whether in the] affirmation of being black, the political pluralism of Third World countries, the rebirth of a Latin American civilization, the resurgence of an Islamic culture etc... (Elements 33 Feb-March 1980 19-20 translated in Piccone 1994).

3. Regionalism: Sub-national regions have been on the rise since the mid-Seventies. After several decades during which it was assumed that assimilation was the general solution to ethnic problems, when social scientists calculated how many generations it would take for ethnic minority groups to disappear into larger national populations, the 70's came as a surprise to many (Esman 1977). The weakening of the national projects of Europe became increasingly evident, Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany, Occitania, Catalonia, today supplemented by the Lega Nord and a European wide lobby organization of the advancement of the interests of a Europe of Regions rather than nation states. In the former empire to the east, the break up of larger units is rampant and violent in Central Asia and Southern Europe.

4. Immigrant ethnification: The optimism with respect to regional identities in Europe was identical to assimilationist/integrationist predictions with regard to immigrant minorities, especially in the United States. What seemed to be a trend toward integration was broken and reversed in the late 60's when multi-ethnicity of Black and then Red power movements were supported at both grass roots and elite levels (Ford Foundation was heavily involved in ethnic community local control projects). Today this has become a major state interventionist project in many Western countries at the same time as identity politics has led to what some have called "culture wars" in which the very unity of the nation state, its very existence is questioned. The question of the diasporization process is simply the ethnification of transnational connections, so that communication, social relations and economics become organized and even institutionalized across boundaries rather than immigrant groups becoming transformed into separate minorities. Diasporization is simply the ethnification of the immigration process. It is unlike other processes of fragmentation because it structures itself in global terms, being both sub-national and trans-national.

The process of fragmentation has not been a particularly peaceful one. In 1993, for example there were 52 major violent conflicts in the world in 42 countries, the most severe conflicts being in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa. Half of these conflicts had been under way for more than a decade (UNRISD 1995:15). This is very different than the previous decades of the cold war when there was a simpler division and a much stronger degree of control in the world system.

"All but five of the twenty-three wars being fought in 1994 are based on communal rivalries and ethnic challenges to states. About three-quarters of the world's refugees, estimated at nearly 27 million people, are in flight from or have been displaced by these and other ethnic conflicts." (Gurr 1994:350)

These various ethnic reactions to their societal experiences should be understood and studied based on their own contexts to develop peaceful societies. Government leaders should take responsibility and exert efforts to build societies that respect human rights for everyone.
How do rights of ethnic groups respected? The articulation of respect by individuals may come in many forms. Human rights trainers have the direct hand in articulating human rights. But one has to be aware that such articulation may vary depending on one’s belief, ideology or perspective. What then are the underlying assumptions of human rights trainers when they teach concepts and assimilationist tendency or the ethnonationalist tendency?

Questions on Educational Practices

The educational arena is one of the richest grounds where educators can help societies to free themselves from the cultural biases of individuals. This is possible if educators do not have their own biases against individuals or certain groups. Educators can open the minds and hearts of students to various cultural experiences and cultural diversity so that they could be understood.

Again, this is conceivable if educators are open to various cultural ideas. It would seem problematic however, if educators themselves have their biases and they themselves perpetuate these biases in their classrooms. Hence, it is valid to examine the feelings, thought processes and behavior of educators about ethnicity. How do educators educate when confronted by issues of ethnicity? Do they believe in assimilation or do they believe in the autonomy of ethnic groups?

The feelings, thought processes and behavior of educators and the way educators create images may be manifested on the way they negotiate with various border dimensions: the self and other individuals, the individuals and the communities, Otherness in the communities and the way they look into national and international issues and challenges.

The Self and Others

The way the person have formulated one’s meaning of self identity in relation to cultural identity may have been the result of one’s interaction with others and also the way the human mind may formulate, reformulate, shape, reshape or reconstitute ideas as products of social interaction. The adjustments in the human mind happen because of the dialogical nature of the mind’s ego and the alter (Pertierra, 1997). In this sense, the formulation of one’s reality is the product of how one interacts with others and how the human mind construct and interpret what one experiences.

The educator, having its own social construction of cultural, social, political and economic experiences may be creating its own micropolitics of domination. Then way the educator would present one’s concept of democracy or human rights or tolerance may be a product of how the self would conceptualize these ideas. The educator’s concepts may play the dominant idea in classroom discourses because of the way educators have positioned themselves with their students. The educator may consciously or unconsciously play the authority and therefore capable of asserting its power over the students. Although students may make adjustments in their minds, but the way educators would present concepts may have very strong influence in shaping and reshaping ideas among students.

The feelings, beliefs and attitude of educators may be examined and analyzed because they manifest the borders that they themselves are implanting in classroom interactions. The borders may be to include their students and others to their self-identity or to exclude students and others from ones own culture.

Classroom or training discourses are very rich avenue to negotiate for meanings of ones self-identity and how one categorizes ethnic identities of students. However, one has to look into the products of these negotiations and adjustments because such may end up to creating borders—I, we, they—which in the end may create group divisiveness resulting to conflict in many forms among individuals and groups.

The following questions may be ask to reflect on how the trainer/educator negotiates and formulates meanings of ones cultural identity and how such identity is articulated during the training:

• Do I have biases about the others?

• How do I convey this attitude to my students?

• What aspects of ethnic or racial diversity make me feel uncomfortable?

• Why?

• How do I act when I am with another ethnolinguistic group?

• Where did these attitudes and feeling originate?

• Am I able to discuss volatile issues with my students?

• Do I have biases on these issues?

• How do I handle these biases?

An exploration of our attitudes, feelings, beliefs and behavior may also be extended to the way we relate with our colleagues, university staff and students. Do educators put up social boundary when interacting with students of various ethnic backgrounds? Establishing social boundary with others signify creation of borders between the educator and the students and most likely dominating the weak and inferior ethnic group. Language is a very strong symbol of creating social boundary because it possesses boundary-maintaining mechanism to exclude others from ones ethnic group. The way we use certain language when we interact with other students may show signs of power play between dominant ethnic groups and inferior ethnic groups.

Moreover, the manner by which we treat our students and colleagues is also one indicator of how we operationalize and internalize values and concepts of tolerance, democracy or human rights. Educators may be articulating the concepts correctly, but applying the concepts to everyday life situation has to be examined closely. The behavior of educators toward their students and colleagues may show dichotomy or divisiveness of dominant cultures with inferior cultures.

The way we treat others may also be visible in the images we portray. These images may be in the form of visual arts or visual aids that we use when we teach or write instructional materials. The educator has to look into the images they use in teaching/training situations because educators may implicitly or explicitly project images according to how one constructs ethnic groups. Portrayal of ethnic groups may be good or bad, right or wrong and this is the beginning of setting boundary among cultures. This social boundary may enhance or downplay certain ethnic groups.

Consciously or unconsciously, the educator may form feelings, attitude, behavior and images, which may create borders between the "Great Tradition” and "Little Tradition." Educators may themselves inclined to promote a particular side of the border, which may result to differential treatment of various ethnic groups in the classroom. In this situation, ones ethnic group might be treated as superior over the other. Hence, an examination of ones self-identity is necessary to reflect ones own educational goal and the goal of the organization and the society where one belongs.

The Individuals and The Communities

Communities are a group of people living in the same territory where people draw their livelihood and organize themselves to attain a common goal. The type of communities people build depends upon the type of environment and human resources that could harness their environment. Educators are part of the human resources that can contribute in the development of their communities. When educators of the network talk about democratic communities, it is possible that definitions or components of democratic communities vary from one educator over the other. There might be educators who would want to develop a kind of community that may promote one dominant ethnic group or a culturally diverse group.

The concept of educators of communities may be the concept of the dominant groups. This may happen if educators are not exposed to various experiences of different communities. Creation of borders among groups of individuals may begin from the knowledge of teachers about their communities. If knowledge of teachers about various cultures of communities is limited to dominant culture, s/he may create a school curriculum that will have the tendency to isolate other cultures of communities. This situation leads to creating a culture divide between the dominant culture and the marginalized culture which in turn creates borders among groups and individuals in the community.

Otherness in the Communities

Part of the discourse of communities is the discourse of inclusion and exclusion. Among groups found in the communities, there are groups, which are powerful or less powerful. There are groups who have more access to resources and there are those who never had access to resources. Who perpetuates this condition? Do educators contribute to various forms of inequalities?

The dichotomy of exclusiveness and inclusiveness may be attributed to the perspective the educator possesses. If an educator prefers one group of individuals over another, such condition would be the starting point of creating social inequality. Increasing the self-esteem of only one group leads to lowering the self-esteem of another group. In this situation, the educator contributes in widening the gap among various groups with different ethnic backgrounds. The "other” group will remain as an outsider of the community. It is therefore necessary to investigate the goals of the network to prevent educational pursuits that widen the gap among ethnic groups.

National and International Borders

Governments create national and international borders. There are governments that extend cultural boundaries to evolve global information and communications network to ensure that all cultures are included. The global culture supports democracy. Some governments however, have the policy of expanding their culture globally, thus developing monoculture. This policy is assimilationist and in opposition to diversification of cultures and languages. Supporting the issues of standardization are the issues given by Skrzeszewski of Canada's Coalition for Multiculturalism(1997) such as: the preservation of dominant languages in the internet, dominance of US culture, the loss of cultural and linguistic diversity and the disconnected third world. The existing practice seems to point out that there are few countries whose national border extends and expands to international border resulting to their dominant position to global relationships. Are the goals of the members of the network or the network itself give space to subcultural groups or promote the dominant culture of a country?

The national and international borders can have its dynamics in the classroom too. Here educators play a very strategic role in influencing the minds of the young. Whatever perspectives, ideologies or biases they may have become part of classroom dynamics.

Conclusion

The fear of political leaders and even educators to allow the authentic voices of all civilizations to be heard may result to extreme ethnonationalism. The views of the "Others" may threaten dominant groups thus, resulting to conflicting situations. Inayatullah (1998) however, opposed this idea and labeled the contention as shallow liberalism. Instead he suggested a pedagogy of difference where deep pluralism is being practiced. Deep pluralism would ask: How do differing civilizations articulate the rights of the Other and what are the points of unity in these differences? Pedagogy of difference allows the following principles in educational practice:

• Recognition of the differences toward life-embracing unity- Shrii P.R. Sarkar has called this universal renaissance;

• All cultures must become part of the normal day-to-day pedagogy.

• Dissent must become part of the curricula: that the views of the religious and cultural minorities should not be seen as threatening to dominant religion or State ideology but as part of the national richness;

• The role of the teacher is to fairly present differing perspectives because it is given that societies have many voices vying for attention.

• Pedagogy of difference in not only teaching learning more than one language but also seeing how languages construct worldviews, how these languages are associated with social and cultural costs.

• Educational institutions must have faculty of various backgrounds;

• Facilities must cater to all cultures

• Deep multicultural education envisions a future where the multiplicities that we are, unite in the common neo-humanity that we can be.

• The last principle alludes to Rabindranath Tagore's philosophy of nationalism where every culture on earth is moving toward a universal culture.

Educating for all must recognizes the rights to differ (NIRA Policy Research, 1997). But the differences must allow students to formulate societies that could allow these differences to flourish. The job of the educators is to allow students to talk freely and openly and unleashed the myths and stereotypes. To do these, educators must examine about their own values and behavior and rethink about their visions and missions as educators.

The purpose of literacy then is to look into the learning systems of various traditions, make it known to students so that they will know something about their own heritage and the heritage of others and later on evolve a society where all the learning systems become part of the society ( Doronila, 1999; Covar in Santillan and Conde, 1998).

In the light of examining and questioning the educator’s self-identity, perspective or ideology about one’s ethnicity and the ethnicity of others, and the construction of a community and nation, it is important to look closely into the goals of the organization where one is a member. One should ask if ones perception and concept of tolerance, democracy and human rights are congruent with the organization where one is a member. A closer look into how educators operationalize tolerance, democracy and human rights in their day-to-day transactions with learners/participants is necessary to know the direction where the training is heading. What are the tendencies/inclinations of the members of the network? Do organizations in the network make training/instructional materials that lead to homogenize population to conform with globalization identities? Or reduce ethnic groups to folkloristic margins of society? Or promote a nation with diverse culture? Having all these in mind, educators or trainers of the network have to assess themselves when they train individuals for tolerance, democracy and human rights.

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