SCET Journal 2020

Broadening Diverse Perspectives

From Representational to Inclusive Diversity: Reading to Understand the Nuances within Racial and/or Cultural Groups Vivian Yenika-Agbaw and René M. Rodriguez-Astacio

With the popularity of multicultural education, En- glish teachers are now including books about diverse cultures in their curriculum. Teachers understand the benefits of exposing students to literary texts that explore cultural experiences other than those located within Eurocentric traditions, and from our experienc- es working closely with some, do make a concerted effort to be inclusive in their practice to the best of their ability. One mistake most teachers often make however, is in selecting texts conceived as “represen- tative” of particular geographical regions and/or of specific cultural groups. This can be problematic and limiting in some ways. For instance, some common titles we found through research in the grades 9-12 English curriculum for Africans, African Americans, and Latinx groups, the cultural groups of interest in this article include: Africa: Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart (Nigeria) Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country (South Africa) African American: Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . Wright Richard. Invisible Man Latinx Alvarez, Julia. How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (Dominican Republic) Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street (Mexican American) While it is great progress that American students are exposed to the experiences and cultures of the groups represented in the selections above, the text selections do not necessarily reflect the complexity of experiences and/or variety of practices within the said representational groups. In this article, we share a few ideas for English teachers to consider as they work to create an English literacy curriculum that may capture some of this complexity, particularly as it pertains to being Black and/or Latinx within our na-

tional and global settings. We focus on these groups because they continue to be marginalized in varying degrees in the curriculum. Representational versus Inclusive Diversity We prioritize diversity in this article from a race/ ethnicity perspective emphasizing culture, which eas- ily lends itself to differences amongst members of the same racial/ethnic group. To this end, we are able to distinguish between what we see as representational diversity and what we hope teachers will understand as inclusive cultural diversity. The former, we posit as one “truth” of a people (they are Black; they are Latinx), and the latter as multiple “truths” that convey similarities and differences within the same racial/eth- nic and socio-cultural groups (they are Black, Latinx, and more depending on the socio-historical context and more). What is Cultural Diversity? A loaded concept defined variously, “Cultural diversity is an extremely complex and sometimes highly personal and emotive subject. . . . It touches the very essence of who ‘we’ are; the core of our own identities” (Victoria State Government, n.p). This concept affords us unique ways to express how we are different from mainstream cultures even as we acknowledge our collective humanity within particular regions/nations or with people across continents. Understanding it as such, text selection therefore tells a story of our engagement with cultural diversity issues. Selection can be a story of one representation or of multiple representations. Is it okay for a teacher to simply represent a group with one representative text? Absolutely not! We have gone beyond this tokenistic pedagogical practice. Above all, we would be doing a major disservice to students in our class- rooms feeding them static or/and or dated images, and passing these off as the norm. We all need to rethink this practice.

South Carolina English Teacher

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