Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - D1120022
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED339285 AUTHOR: Marshall, Patricia L.
TITLE: Juxtaposing Steele's Thesis on the African-American
Student and Pre-Service Education Majors' Concerns about
Teaching Diverse Students.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1991
NOTE: 15 p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) (Washington,
DC, November 1991).
ABSTRACT: This paper converges Shelby Steele's discussion
on issues facing African-American students in his 1990
book, "The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race
in America" (which argues in part that a self-defeating
preoccupation with race reduces their academic
performance), with education majors' concerns about
teaching culturally diverse students identified from a
recent survey. First examined is Steele's perspective on
black students in America. The major theme is that
African-Americans as a group harbor feelings of inferiority
in racially integrated settings, and thus seek reassurance
through race which only further inhibits academic and
personal progress. Juxtaposed to this is the finding that
research examining teachers' professional concerns
indicates that teachers harbor considerable concerns about
dealing with culturally diverse students, a general fear of
a lack of necessary skills in teaching minority students,
a sense of lower expectations of African-American students,
and a fear that race would become an issue in the classroom
as an excuse for low performance. Survey results suggest
that teachers may be predisposed to identify
African-American students as being responsible for
their own substandard performance and under-challenge them
as a result. Contains seven references. (GLR)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Academic-Achievement; College-Students;
Cultural-Differences; Elementary-Secondary-Education;
Higher Education; Racial-Identification;
Undergraduate-Study
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Black-Attitudes; *Black-Students; *Racial
Attitudes; *Racial-Bias; *Teacher-Attitudes
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