Multicultural and Bilingual Special Education

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Multicultural and Bilingual Special Education

• Nick Kongamnach
• Richard Cahill
• Dr. Zascavage
• SPED 520

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Multicultural Education

• America is forever changing. It has become more
  and more diverse. Our schools are made up from a
  wide variety of cultural backgrounds. Because of
  this diversity, the best way for education to be
  most effective is for it be multicultural.

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Defining Multicultural Education

• Multicultural education has taken many forms over
  the last several decades. According to Sleeter
  and Grant, multicultural education
• links race
• language
• culture
• gender
• handicap
• and social classes in working towards making the
  entire school celebrate human diversity and equal
  opportunity.

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Important Points to Remember

• Diverse students are overrepresented in special
  education.
• In multicultural education and bilingual special
  education, the special educations of culturally
  and linguistically diverse students with
  disabilities are primary
• Poverty affects a large number of culturally and
  linguistically diverse students, and its
  consequences are often confused with the effects
  of language and cultural differences
• Poverty increases risk for disabilities
• The acquisition of conversational skills does not
  guarantee proficiency in the complex language
  abilities required for academic learning

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Apply Multicultural Concepts in the Classroom

• The first step in applying multicultural
  concepts in the classroom is understanding ones
  own personal values, assumptions, beliefs, and
  attitudes.
• Also, you must have a perspective consciousness.
  This includes an awareness of and appreciation
  for other view points of other cultures.
• The next critical element is the student.
  Teaching without knowing and understanding the
  students results in ineffective teaching.

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Applying Multicultural Concepts in the Classroom

• Another element is the environment. Many
  communities are facing demographic changes. The
  implement of multicultural concepts can not be
  put in place unless the teacher also understands
  how their teaching relates and concerns the
  communities where the schools are located.
• The curriculum and instruction are probably the
  most controversial and toughest issues to deal
  with in multicultural education. Building a
  culturally relevant curriculum and teaching it
  with sometimes biased materials or factually
  inaccurate are left in our hands to deal with.

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Apply Multicultural Concepts in the Classroom

• Teachers, who imply multicultural concepts, think
  about equity issues and if their assessments
  fairly evaluate their students.
• Finally, the school, which develops its own
  culture, must have help to make sure that this
  culture is open and accepts others.

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The Students
Once teachers become aware of their own cultural
influences, they need to think of how their
students cultural influences differ from theirs
and from each other.

• It is important to keep in mind the problem of
  stereotyping.
• Students need to have a positive attitude and
  more awareness about racial differences.
• Students today have difficulty distinguishing
  between groups and among members of the same
  groups.
• Students and families in poverty are too often
  treated by teachers as willing participants in
  their situations, as if living that way were
  their choice.

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The Community

• For whatever reason, the population in the United
  States has shown many shifts and new trends.
  These changes are constantly changing our local
  communities.
• School personnel to study the demographics of
  their community. Knowing potential areas of
  concern with the community gives the school the
  opportunity to respond in a variety of positive
  ways.
• The community reflects the school and
  the school can reflect
  the community by the
  effectiveness of school personnel
  who are
  working to improve every
  
  educational opportunity available.

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The Curriculum and the Instruction

• There are many approaches in shaping a more
  diverse curriculum.
• Many teachers rely on textbooks for much of their
  curriculum. The major problem is that textbooks
  usually reflects the views of one society.

• Teachers can support multicultural concepts by
  the choices they make for instructional
  strategies.
• Cultural influences on a student might affect his
  or her learning style.
• The instructional strategies can range from
  encouraging student interaction, role play, and
  guest speakers.

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The Assessment

• One multicultural issue in dealing with testing
  is that some test that favor European American
  middle-class students.
• The use of some assessment has also resulted in
  students of low-income, English proficiency, and
  color being overrepresented in special education
  and underrepresented in gifted and talented
  classes.