Role of Education in Society
Discrimination exists on many different levels and is both conscious and unconscious. It has also existed from the time the first colonists arrived in America and decided to make it their 'own'. They did so through conquering and oppression. The European culture of the colonists became the mainstream culture almost immediately. This included the 'Protestant ethic', which emphasizes hard work and the accumulation of property. It also includes the use of discipline and authority in child rearing (chapter one, page 9). This was in total disagreement to the Native American practices and became a focal point for change when the education system began to be concerned with the Natives. The need to 'force' the non-mainstream culture to conform to the established mainstream is the primary means by which education contributes to the development and preservation of bigotry and prejudice.
The education system in the United States has a long history of ethnic segregation, both formal (adjudicated by law) and informal. It has been argued that segregated programs are based on the idea of de-culturizing the student, rather than incorporating the culture in question into the learning experience. This is done through a program designed to eliminate the native language and culture. For instance, there have been times when the education system has eliminated or simply ignored the laws concerning attendance, especially in the case of Mexican-American farm workers' children who were needed to work in agriculture during planting and harvest seasons (Spring, 2003).
Part of the educational program includes observance of national holidays and certain celebrations. Another of the ways the education system has contributed to bigotry has been to exclude, dismiss and, on occasion, denounce holidays and celebrations particular to minority cultures. Schools have also had a tendency to use textbooks, examples and parameters of control based on mainstream American (white) culture and exclude material and, or, information pertinent to the child's own cultural experience and, or, background. Joel Spring has provided a list of the methods used in deculturalization that includes segregation and isolation; forced change of language; curriculum content...
555). In their interpretation of United States v. Fordice, the Department of Education refers to the "sound educational practices" clause in Fordice by mentioning the "distinctive histories and traditions" represented by historically black institutions (Moore 2000, p. 556). Such histories, traditions, and techniques of cultural preservation are inherently valuable and educationally sound. Historically black institutions are constitutional also in the sense that they actively encourage choice among African-American applicants
Judiciary Role The author of this report is tasked with discussing whether courts can help solve complex problems. Of course, the guiding documents and many of the amendments to the United States Constitution were written a century or two ago but these are the documents that are supposed to be guiding the decisions made by courts of all levels. This would range from district courts to circuit courts and all of
The other effect of the discriminatory judicial system is that non-whites are usually targeted by the system in an unfair manner. For instance, Latinos are usually and in certain instances explicitly singled out for the process of immigration enforcement. Close to ninety-four percent of all the illegal immigrants who are arrested by the INS are of Mexican origin. The Immigration and Naturalization Service itself however states that only about fifty four
Role effect women World War One. Women during the First World War This paper discuses in regard to women who were required to abandon their traditional role as housekeepers during the First World War. These individuals were virtually forced to employ all of their efforts in order to provide for their families, for soldiers on the front, and for their countries as a whole. Even with this, it is only safe to
However, the more open and creative classes were more the exception than the rule and mostly we had to endure the conservative" banking" type of education which deprived many of us of any enthusiasm for the subjects that were being taught. This was particularly depressing when the teacher required that we learn by rote and regurgitate facts and data without any critical discussion. I should also state that I often
While changes in the law will address de jure discrimination it may do little to treat with de facto discrimination. This argument is eloquently made by Goodman who posits that the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education while addressing de jure segregation did nothing for the ensuing de facto segregation that existed at the time (275). To support his position Goodman engages a multipronged approach to demonstrate
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