Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

This collection of nine essays suggests that many academic problems attributed to children of color actually stem from a power structure in which the worldviews of those with privilege are taken as the only reality, while the worldviews and culture of those less powerful are dismissed as inconsequential or deficient. Part 1 discusses controversies about the relative merits of skills-based and process-based literacy instruction for Black children, points out that minority-group teachers and parents are consistently left out of such discussions, and advocates that the education of minority-group children be based in their own culture while also providing explicit instruction in the linguistic and behavioral "codes of power" of the dominant culture. Essays in part 2 describe village primary schools in Papua New Guinea that give children a solid base in their own language and culture while preparing them for later Western-based schooling in English, discuss personal observations of culture conflict in Alaska classrooms and of ways that Alaska Native teachers adapt the curriculum to local circumstances, and report the views and painful memories of African-American and Alaska Native teachers of their teacher-education and teaching experiences. Part 3 comments on issues of cultural difference and equity in new performance-based teacher assessment, discusses the politics of teaching standard English and academic writing to African-Americans, and examines the combination of power and otherness that must be addressed to achieve effective multicultural education. This book contains an index and references in endnotes. (SV)