Diversity Issues in Education & International Education

1. Diversity Issues in Education & International Education PRESENTER Francis Offiong, Ph.D. Webster University TN Campus

2. Diversity Issues in Education & International Education Co Presenter: Tina Prelow, Ph.D. Physician Behavioral Hospital Shreveport LA

3. Objectives • Understand ~ - the foundation of education • Discuss ~ - diversity concepts affecting education • Examine ~ - some of the key issues in education • Explore ~ - current diversity initiatives in U S education

4. Diversity Issues in Education Background: • The world is a rich and diverse place full of interesting cultures and people. • U S is a multiethnic and multicultural society where people live and learn to treat each other with fairness and respect

5. Diversity Issues in Education Background: • The 21st Century global concept of organizations includes educational institutions. • U S organizations and educational institutions are affected with the paradigm shift to multiculturalism. • While respecting the values of diversity of the market that every one operates within.

6. Education • John Dewey, a prominent American philosopher and educational reformer, whose ideas are extensive and influential in education, in his publication “Education As a Necessity of Life” (1916) wrote that ~ • Education is primarily a transmission through communication and that communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession.

7. Education • The broad phases of education: • Formal Education - Public Education • Informal Education - Family education -Religious and moral education - Informal education historically began with the Greeks and Romans before western education

8. Public Education • Classification: - Elementary Education - Secondary Education - Post Secondary or Higher Education

9. Post Secondary Education • Formal types: • General Education • Vocational Education • Graduate and Education

10. The American System of Higher Education • Distinctive Characteristics: • Autonomy • Competition • Responsiveness (means paying attention to students, faculty, alumni, Foundation, corporation and government) {Derek Bok, 1986}

11. Examples of some US Educational institutions’ Goals • Developing effective communication • Strengthen problem solving capacities • Improve analytical abilities • Develop awareness and understanding of the contemporary world

12. The American Educational Institution • Comprises of: • The Anglo Saxon Whites, African Americans, Hispanics and American Indians and Asian Americans etc. • Every race shares each other’s racial and ethnic group’s diversity in colleges/ universities. • However race is one of the most volatile and divisive issues in American higher education.

13. Diversity In Education • According to Research and Developmental Education Publication; vol. 23, 2009; The 19th century brought substantial changes and chaos to American Higher Education. • Despite the European and English heritage, American colleges and universities were shaped by the North American, geographic, political, social and religious conditions ( Seldon,1960)

14. Diversity In Education (contd) • Despite America’s long tradition of being the melting pot, multicultural appreciation and global citizenship remain as foreign concepts in many U S colleges and universities. • The nation’s growing changes in demographics have propelled the need to understand diversity and its related issues in education.

15. Multiculturalism • Multiculturalism has been a center of the national debate and a challenge on campuses as well as in public-school curricula. • Beyond political correctness, a working definition of “multiculturalism” begins with the recognition that the US cultural heritage does not begin and end only with intellectual products of the western Europe. (Marable,1995)

16. Multiculturalism • The debate therefore across the academy concerning “Multiculturalism” relates to the proper approach to the teaching of different cultures, ethnicity and gender issues, and their integration within core curricula.

17. The Institutions Many colleges and universities have incorporated in curriculum: • African American studies • Hispanic American studies • Asian American studies • Native American Indian studies • Latin and central American – Caribbean studies

18. Multiculturalism and Education • The cultural foundation of the United States draw much of their creativity and originality from African, Latino, American Indian and Asian elements (Marable ,1995)

19. Multiculturalism and Civic Education • American advocates of multicultural education want to transform the entire school curriculum to make it more inclusive and less bias but their central interest is in the social studies program and especially the teaching of history. (Melzer, Weinberger and Zinman, 1998)

20. International Education Issues • # 1 The issues of education in industrialized countries has been how to establish greater formal equality of opportunity for all. • #2 Designing an inclusive educational system that makes provision for individual differences - called diversity is a challenge.

21. Second Part of Presentation • International Education Issues • Diverse Issues in the U S Higher Education • Some Diversity Initiatives

22. International education - Issues • #3 Individual Continents have different education model: • The U S uses - American Model • Europe uses i) Western European Model • and ii) Eastern European Model

23. The American Model • American model: • Consist of~ • - Primary education Level - Secondary Education level - Post Secondary Education Level

24. The Western European model • The Western European model has with it a transfer of a selected elite from primary to secondary academic school before the end of mandatory schooling. Such a transfer has until recently typically taken place after four or five years of primary school

25. The Eastern European model • The Eastern European model is based on a unitary school (Einheits-schule, ecole unique) that integrates all types of schools covering compulsory school age, be they academic or vocational. (Holmes,1980)

26. Diverse Issues in Education Prevalent issues: • Increasing cost of post secondary education • Inadequate funding for education • Inequalities of educational opportunity • Faculty Issues • Quality education • The Multiculturalism factor • The stereotypical portrayal of minorities -educational qualifications

27. Issues –Key findings • The Morrill Act of 1890, closely followed by Plessy vs Ferguson six years later encouraged states to create the dual systems of public higher education. • The record of efforts to achieve equal educational opportunity brought into existence Title VI enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The level of participation in colleges and universities has not been proportional for black, Hispanic, and American Indian students who do gain admission to traditionally Anglo, four-year institutions.

28. Racial Dilemma in Education • Race is one of the most volatile and divisive issues in American higher education. • The racial situation manifest itself in many ways, from incidents of prejudice on campuses to policy decision concerning affirmative action to debates on the introduction of multicultural elements in the curriculum. • Examples are prevalent in the students admission process to law schools and colleges

29. The Faculty Issues • As the number of non whites attending institutions of higher education increases, most colleges and universities are committed to increasing the minority representation of their faculties. • Such efforts reflect in part the commitment by the institutions to expand opportunities for minority scholars.

30. Faculty Issues • As of 1985, there were a total of 19,451 full-time black faculties. Of this total, approximately 11, 178 were employed in white institutions and 8, 273 in traditionally black institutions, HBCUs. • What is most interesting about this contemporary distributional pattern is that the problems associated with professional growth are fundamentally different depending on which of these academic environment black faculty find themselves in.

31. Under Representation of minorities • A troubling trend in ‘Law School Diversity’ shows a decade of declining statistics of African American and Mexican American student enrollment at US Law Schools. [Diverse Issues,v.26, 2009]

32. Funding of minority institutions • Although education in the U.S. is a state function the federal government has been asserting in terms of financing and programming. Another categorical issue in education is funding. • Currently, minorities are concentrated in institutions with the fewest resources and they are less likely to graduate or transfer than their majority colleagues. • The education system that many blacks attend are not properly funded and often times under funded.

33. Diversity Initiatives • According to Diverse Issues in Higher Educationpublication, p.19, April 2009: • The United States needs more lawyers from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups to serve a client pool that is increasingly diverse. • It is a challenge that law schools and the legal professions have been addressing for some time, and one in which a measure of success has been achieved.

34. Diversity Initiatives in Education • In a 20 year period that started from 1986 - 1987 academic year, minority in law school grew from 12550 to 30557, an increase of 14.3 percent. • Yes , there are more minority law students today, but the number required to serve an increasingly diverse America is a long way from being realized.

35. Initiatives • Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) is an initiative that champions the value of a liberal education—for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality. • The initiative focuses campus practice on fostering essential learning outcomes for all students, whatever their chosen field of study. Liberal Education, Winter 2010, Vol. 96, No. 1

36. Initiatives • The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has introduced an initiative based on the concept of ‘Inclusive Excellence’ to guide a national movement and campus efforts to make the success of diverse a focal point.

37. Initiatives • Inclusive excellence’ as – • i) a focus on student intellectual and social development • ii) a purposeful development and utilization of organizational resources directed at student learning • iii) attention to the cultural differences that learners bring to the educational experience that enhance educational enterprise (Journal of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, spring 2008, v.31)

38. Multicultural Education Initiative • The Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington, Seattle WA, focuses on research projects and activities designed to improve practices relating to equity issues, inter group relations, and the achievement of all students.- University of Washington, College of Education publication, 2010.

39. Conclusion • The theoretical framework of the issues as broadly discussed revealed the prevalent practices of the twenty first century education especially in higher education.

40. The End • Thank you • Q & A