Affirming Diversity
This chapter examines a number of theories about the complex conditions that may affect school achievement and considers how these conditions can collectively influence the academic success of failure or students.
Caring
"Educators caring is just as important-and in some cases, even more so-than larger structural conditions that influence student learning."
Three out of four students said they worked harder for teachers who cared most for them.
Rubén Garza found five dominant themes that described what students appreciated about the strategies that teachers used.
1) Provided scaffolding during teaching episode
2) Reflected a kind disposition through actions
3) Were always available to the student
4) Showed a personal interest in the student's well-being inside and outside the classroom
5) Provided affective academic support in the classroom setting
Deficit Perspectives
Throughout the past several decades, the failures of students have been blamed on their so-called deficits such as:
Poorly developed language (do not speak standard English)
Inadequate mother (assumption of being that low-income Black mothers were poor parents)
Too little stimulation in the home (Black children’s homes lacked the kinds of environments that encouraged learning)
Too much stimulation in the home (homes were too chaotic and disorganized-according to middle class norms)
"We are dealing, it would seem, not so much with culturally deprived children as with culturally depriving schools. And the task to be accomplished is not to revise, amend, and repair deficient children, but to alter and transform the atmosphere and operations of the schools to which we commit these children." -William Ryan
Economic and Social Reproduction
Schools are to maintain the inequalities by keeping the poor in their place by teaching them the correct attitudes for becoming good workers and by keeping the dominant classes in power by teaching their children the skills of management and
Caring
"Educators caring is just as important-and in some cases, even more so-than larger structural conditions that influence student learning."
Three out of four students said they worked harder for teachers who cared most for them.
Rubén Garza found five dominant themes that described what students appreciated about the strategies that teachers used.
1) Provided scaffolding during teaching episode
2) Reflected a kind disposition through actions
3) Were always available to the student
4) Showed a personal interest in the student's well-being inside and outside the classroom
5) Provided affective academic support in the classroom setting
Deficit Perspectives
Throughout the past several decades, the failures of students have been blamed on their so-called deficits such as:
Poorly developed language (do not speak standard English)
Inadequate mother (assumption of being that low-income Black mothers were poor parents)
Too little stimulation in the home (Black children’s homes lacked the kinds of environments that encouraged learning)
Too much stimulation in the home (homes were too chaotic and disorganized-according to middle class norms)
"We are dealing, it would seem, not so much with culturally deprived children as with culturally depriving schools. And the task to be accomplished is not to revise, amend, and repair deficient children, but to alter and transform the atmosphere and operations of the schools to which we commit these children." -William Ryan
Economic and Social Reproduction
Schools are to maintain the inequalities by keeping the poor in their place by teaching them the correct attitudes for becoming good workers and by keeping the dominant classes in power by teaching their children the skills of management and