ED387274 RC019967
Title: Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom.
Author(s): Delpit, Lisa
Pages: 215
Publication Date: 1995
ISBN: 1-56584-179-4
Available from: EDRS Price MF01/PC09 Plus Postage.
Availability: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 500 Fifth Ave., New York,
NY 10110 ($21).
Language: English
Document Type: Book (010)
Geographic Source: U.S.; New York
Journal Announcement: RIEFEB1996
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)
Descriptors: Alaska Natives; American Indian Education; Black Education;
*Cultural Differences; *Culture Conflict; Elementary Secondary Education;
Ethnic Bias; Ethnocentrism; Higher Education; Language Variation;
Minority Group Teachers; *Minority Groups; *Power Structure; Teacher
Attitudes; *Teacher Education; *Teacher Student Relationship
Identifiers: African Americans
