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Re-Acculturating Racial Stereotypes

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Title: Re-Acculturating Racial Stereotypes
Language: English
Authors: Adam, Michelle
Source: Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review. Sep 2004 70(1):38-42.
Availability: Prakken Publications, 832 Phoenix Dr., P.O. Box 8623, Ann Arbor, MI 48108. Tel: 734-975-2800; Fax: 734-975-2787; Web site: http://www.eddigest.com/.
Peer Reviewed: N
Page Count: 5
Publication Date: 2004
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Descriptive
Descriptors: Acculturation, Stereotypes, Minority Groups, Affirmative Action, Equal Education, Labor Force
Geographic Terms: Connecticut
ISSN: 0013-127X
Abstract: This article features Moises Salinas, an assistant professor at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) who addresses the place of stereotypes in education, and describes how Salinas investigates root causes of stereotyping and its consequences in minority education. According to him, affirmative action policies of past decades have attempted to level the playing field for minorities in education and the work force but these efforts have not been enough to bring equality to the people. In his book, "The Politics of Stereotype: Affirmative Action and Psychology," Salinas supports affirmative action policies, but says "to be more effective, there need to be more proactive measures that attempt to solve the basic inequalities in the society." Despite affirmative action policies having led to particular stereotyping of minority students, he said that behind the law was an effort to level the playing field and make sure that people from different parts of society are fully represented in an educated work force.
Abstractor: ERIC
Entry Date: 2006
Access URL: https://www.eddigest.com/index.php
Accession Number: EJ741075
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0014494015;edd01sep.04;2004Oct07.10:16;v2.1</anid> <title id="AN0014494015-1">Re-Acculturating Racial Stereotypes </title> <p>AFFIRMATIVE action policies of past decades have attempted to level the playing field for minorities in education and the work force, according to Moises Salinas, assistant professor at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). But these efforts, he says, have not been enough to bring equality to the people of our nation.</p> <p>In his book, The Politics of Stereotype: Affirmative Action and Psychology, Salinas supports affirmative action policies, but says "to be more effective, there need to be more proactive measures that attempt to solve the basic inequalities in our society. I think affirmative action is important, but it is limited in what it can do. We cannot just correct for inequalities in society. We need to fix them."</p> <p>Salinas' book is the culmination of years of investigating root causes of stereotyping and its consequences in minority education. He argues that, contrary to what many believe, stereotypes and prejudices have not disappeared from society; they are merely more subtle than 40 years ago and continue to negatively impact minorities and more marginalized groups within education and in our society at large.</p> <p>"Stereotypes can have a very powerful effect on the person [targeted], who ends up thinking, 'I am like this.' ... We also know that stereotypes affect education as a whole," said Salinas.</p> <p>A behavior of stereotyping often demonstrated in the classroom (and documented in studies and research) is teachers' low expectations of minority students. "Society tends to have certain expectations, which policy decisions are based on," said Salinas. "In my book, I look at some of the discourses that occur behind decisions that are based on stereotypical thinking."</p> <p>Stereotyping also affects how those stereotyped view themselves, explained Salinas. "We know that performance declines on tests when minorities are primed on stereotypes about themselves. Some people get nervous and don't want to fulfill the stereotype. In higher-stakes testing, that's enough to create anxiety and impact the test," he said.</p> <p>Salinas also studied the impact of stereotypes on welfare reform of the 1990s. "You had a lot of references about single, minority women having children, or an overwhelming number of Latinos taxing public education resources. A lot of initiatives were passed by politicians using this kind of discourse when the majority of people on welfare were not minorities," he said.</p> <hd id="AN0014494015-2">Not Because They Deserved It</hd> <p>The same type of stereotyping lay behind much of the passing of Proposition 209 in California, explained Salinas. "When the University of California System decided to end affirmative action, this decision was based on stereotypes, of minorities being unqualified (or not as qualified as others), and of unproductive minorities making it to the top just because of affirmative action and not because they deserved it," he said. "Affirmative action may help some minorities move forward, but you will not find many minorities that are unqualified but moving forward anyway."</p> <p>Salinas' work is a direct reflection of his own childhood and the shadows of stereotypes he lived under growing up in both Mexico and the United States. "I was a minority everywhere I went," he said.</p> <p>The son of a Cuban refugee father and Jewish Mexican mother whose family immigrated to Mexico from Russia and Poland in the 1920s, Salinas spent many of his earlier years in Mexico. He used to vacation in the United States, remaining here to stay after getting a bachelor's degree in 1991 in educational psychology at Israel's Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master's in research psychology at Mexico City's la Universidad Iberoamericana in 1994. His Ph.D. in social/developmental psychology came from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998.</p> <p>"I had the feeling of 'I don't belong here, I don't belong there.' In Mexico, as a practicing Jew, they have a hard time separating national culture from religion. And here, if I don't tell them I am Mexican, they have a hard time seeing [it]. I don't fit the stereotypes," said Salinas. "It's been very hard and also an interesting experience dealing with these stereotypes. That got me interested in the whole topic of stereotyping and the whole issue of education as it is related to stereotyping."</p> <p>Salinas switched his college major several times before discovering psychology. "When I took a social psychology class, something clicked. I wanted to know why people have all these stereotypical assumptions and then why, when we are aware of them, our behavior is still based on them. People actually kill each other over these issues and stereotypes in Israel. People were willing to kill based on stereotypes during World War II."</p> <hd id="AN0014494015-3">Behaving to Counter the Stereotype</hd> <p>In restaurants in Mexico, he'd normally tip high to counteract the stereotype of Jews being cheap. "My behavior was shaped by that. I became a big tipper," he said.</p> <p>He acknowledges that "everyone has stereotypes," and that cultural patterns from which stereotypes derive do exist. "The problems occur when it moves to a higher level and you start passing policy based on these assumptions. You are making a decision where you end up getting more people boxed in by this decision. Stereotypes are cognitive devices that allow large amounts of information to be placed into boxes. Stereotypes themselves are not harmful. We need to know we have a stereotype, but not let it cloud our judgment of a person, realizing they may not conform to that stereotype. You have to consider a person as an individual."</p> <p>Salinas specifically addresses the place of stereotypes in education. Despite affirmative action policies having led to particular stereotyping of minority students, he said that behind the law was an effort to level the playing field and make sure we have people from different parts of society fully represented in an educated work force.</p> <p>This need to have differences within our society equally represented should be an intrinsic part of our K-12 system, says Salinas: "We need to deal with basic levels of resources. In general, minorities have been impacted disproportionately. We also need to level the educational curriculum. The way we teach our kids is based on values from 150 years ago. The education we have today is not taking into consideration the differences of the children and multiculturalism."</p> <p>Salinas says we still teach with Eurocentric values, even though today's students are much more diverse and multicultural. These old values include placing more emphasis on writing than on oral traditions, focusing on Eurocentric histories rather than including all histories, and using short, efficient sentences, rather than longer, more complex ones, as is more common in Latin cultures.</p> <p>As long as we don't make room for differences in our educational system--getting stuck in stereotyping rather than expanding curriculum beyond Eurocentric values--we will continue to perpetuate poor educational performance, said Salinas. "The structure we have was designed around white, male European values. The concept of testing is a European, male concept. That structure feeds Asians better than it even does white Europeans today. Latinos and African-Americans have a harder time fitting into this standard, production-like structure."</p> <p>Salinas says our system fits "the structure around the child. We need to change our educational model. Our current model does not support cooperation or learning from others. As soon as we move into a system where we allow for cultural differences, there isn't a problem. The minute we say we are going to structure to the needs of the students, the old issues disappear."</p> <hd id="AN0014494015-4">More Learner-Centered Schools</hd> <p>Salinas is now studying the effects of learning-centered classrooms and schools on academic performance of minorities and nonminority groups as measured by both traditional (e.g., standardized tests, grades) and nontraditional (e.g., creativity, motivation to learn, self-regulation, cooperative skills, openness to diversity, metacognitive skills) assessments. It is expected that minorities in more learner-centered schools and classrooms will have academic performance close to their white peers, and that all students in these schools will have higher scores in the nontraditional measures than their peers in less learner-centered schools.</p> <p>At Central Connecticut State University, Salinas takes much of his research and passion to the classroom. He currently teaches classes in cross-cultural psychology, psychology of the exceptional child, and early childhood development, and a graduate course on the psychology of learning.</p> <p>"I teach my students how different cultures affect the way we see things and how we define ourselves, our gender.... There is such diversity in this world that stereotypes are not very useful in making decisions," said Salinas. "For many of my students, these issues are eye-opening. They never had the opportunity to talk about these issues in their lives. A lot of them don't even know what they feel."</p> <p>Most of his students are studying to become teachers, and, much to Salinas' dismay, the majority are nonminorities, with about two to four minorities in his classes of up to 35. "It is really worrisome," he said. "These are people who are going to be working with Latino and minority students. We don't have enough role models to help these students."</p> <p>Salinas is one of a half-dozen Latino faculty among about 325 teachers at Central Connecticut State University. "I definitely think we have an added responsibility," he said.</p> <hd id="AN0014494015-5">Giving Back to His Community</hd> <p>To give back to his community, Salinas is a member of the Latin American Association (LAA) at CCSU, was an association vice-president in 2003, and chairs the CCSU-LAA Education Committee. As chair, he has developed a comprehensive plan for Latino-student recruitment/retention. As part of this plan, he coordinates an innovative Latino mentorship program integrating elements of the country's best such programs. The school also has a five-year Connecticut College Access and Success (ConCASS) grant to help further develop the mentorship program.</p> <p>"Many of the things we talk about relate to the system not being geared toward individuals and trying to fit everyone into a mold. We try to fill that vacuum here. We also encourage students to stand up for themselves and their needs--to help them change the mold, rather than respond, 'I'm out of here,'" said Salinas. "When you get a chance to talk to the students outside the classroom, you see how these issues are real. The whole concept of the university even requiring students to do things in very specific ways is not helpful to students who work full time."</p> <p>It was precisely because students openly expressed their feelings that the administration wasn't receptive to their diversity that the school president formed a "Commission on Diversity." Salinas is one of those who sits on that commission, to explore the matter.</p> <p>"Education reflects what we are like in society," said Salinas, who ultimately sees that embracing differences, both inside school and within society, is key to improving education. "If we are all different, then nobody is really different."</p> <p>It is this message that Salinas hopes his students not only learn, but embrace as they reflect on the values, ideas, and stereotypes they may carry into the world of teaching. "That is what makes a difference later on," he said. "It is this message that they will take with them when they leave the university."</p> <aug> <p>By Michelle Adam, The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education</p> <p></p> <p>Michelle Adam is a Staff Writer for The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education. Condensed from The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, 14 (March 22, 2004), 17-18. Published at 210 Route 4 East, Ste. 310, Paramus, NJ 07652; <ulink href="http://www.HispanicOutlook.com">www.HispanicOutlook.com</ulink>.</p> </aug>
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  Data: This article features Moises Salinas, an assistant professor at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) who addresses the place of stereotypes in education, and describes how Salinas investigates root causes of stereotyping and its consequences in minority education. According to him, affirmative action policies of past decades have attempted to level the playing field for minorities in education and the work force but these efforts have not been enough to bring equality to the people. In his book, "The Politics of Stereotype: Affirmative Action and Psychology," Salinas supports affirmative action policies, but says "to be more effective, there need to be more proactive measures that attempt to solve the basic inequalities in the society." Despite affirmative action policies having led to particular stereotyping of minority students, he said that behind the law was an effort to level the playing field and make sure that people from different parts of society are fully represented in an educated work force.
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