Culture in Education

Culture in Education

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Culture in Education

Culture comprises of beliefs, traditions, norm, values and attitudes that are shared by a given group of people as part of their heritage. Culture is displayed by way of dress, diet, language and social customs (Hall, 1976). On other hand, macro culture is a shared cultured by the people of a nation. It consists of mainstream values and characteristics such as competitiveness, individualism, ambition and independence that best describe the American macro culture (Gollnick & Chinn, 2009).

Some of these values and characteristics are also exhibited in the education sector in the USA for instance. Individualism is displayed when students are encouraged to work on their own in test and assisting colleagues is seen as a way of cheating. Property that belongs to someone must be borrowed. One cannot just take without permission of the owner. On the value of ambition, schools are not only training students to have knowledge and skills but to equipping them to achieve and become the best that they could possibly be. Students are taught that they are independent to think and even form opinions of their own. School are also run independently by educators with undue interference from outside.

These values are also at play in the wider society in the USA. People from all over the world immigrate to the USA every year because they want to have their own American dream. People know that hard work and ambition is rewarded here. Some of the strategies that have been in the education sector to reflect the cultural diversities include the use of role models. Successful educators are used to encourage students especially from minority communities. This has also worked greatly to encourage women to pursue their education dreams (Davis-Lowe, 2006)

Another way is to create and encourage professional diversity and development. It involves taking a tough stance against discrimination of any kind in class. Teachers are taking steps to learn about cultures of minority groups and ho to meet the needs of such students (Davis-Lowe, 2006)

References

Davis-Lowe, E. (2006). Fostering STEM diversity. Report presented at OPAS Initiative. Retrieved

from http://opas.ous.edu/Committees/Resources/Staff_papers/Fostering_STEM_Diversity.pdf

Gollnick, D., & Chinn, P. (1986). Multicultural education in a pluralistic society (2nd ed.).

Columbus: C.E. Merrill.

HALL, E.T., 1976. Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday