The educational experiences of American pupils are significantly shaped by their race and ethnicity. The racialized environments in which kids learn significantly influence their academic prospects, successes, identities, decisions, and overall experiences. The role of race and ethnicity in determining how children perceive American schools, emphasizing the impact of racialized environments on learning results, interpersonal relationships, and personal identities, have manifested in many cases in America. TheseThese complicated dynamism of race and ethnicity in educational contexts have been both positively and negatively influential to the racial minorities in the United stated are justified by the cases below.
Ethnicity contributes to increased social inequalities in American schools such that racial minorities experience high levels of injustice. According to Meador (2005), The Mexican immigrants who joined rural schools faced many hardships, especially during their attempts to fit into the sociocultural environments of America, especially during their junior and middle levels of education. According to Lewis et al. (2015), middle-childhood American children have been made to believe that Latinos possess lower intelligence than whites. Introduction and reinforcement of culture-based curriculum, funding disparities, and tracking practices contributed to cold experiences within the school environments by racial minorities. Mexican school-going girls were shaped by their ethical compositions in the American schools they attended, where they made efforts to possess acceptability from the large American population. The unpleasant experiences of the students from the Mexican ethnicity brought about poor grades, low status, and overall poor academic achievements, and therefore didn’t fall under the ‘good student’ category.
Racial segregation has led to increased crime rates and other hardships associated with crime among racial minority students. Racial discrimination plays a significant role in shaping ethnical minorities into engaging in criminal activities. Limited access to public facilities and social services and exposure to hazardous and toxic environments made some Latinos and African American students from Riverview high school willingly seek criminal groups where they felt warmly welcomed and less discriminated against. According to Lewis et al. (2015), Although Riverview high school was very popular in accommodating students with diverse racial backgrounds, it did not achieve equity between all the students, which was a continued hard normalcy for racial minorities. Racial identities continuously influenced the availability and access to academic resources, opportunities, and quality education.
According to Chhuon and Hudley (2010), Cambodian students have easily overcome the prevalent racial stereotypes in America. Asian American students are shaped into academically successful students. This situation, however, is faulty as it obscures the hardships that some Asian American students face contributing to a deficiency in the quality of education that people of Asian American origin obtain. The presumptions subjected to the racial minorities of the Cambodian students influence the student’s sense of awareness and belonging within the academic environments in America. These presumptions from the American society and the school’s community include the academic strengths and cultural backgrounds, transforming the facet of the Cambodian students who belong to the racial minorities.
Although racial identities have been associated with much negativity, studies from Chhuon and Hudley (2010) show that they have sometimes provided positive results. Racial identities played roles in providing students with educational opportunities and negotiation strategies that different students in America could use to promote ethnic equality. Ethnicity in schools effectively shapes the student’s experiences through the growth of cultural identity, belonging, and diversity within schools. Accommodating diverse ethnic groups in a learning institution contributes to a more habitable and inclusive environment where all students, including racial minorities, feel represented. Through schooling in America, students from other ethnicities other than Americans were allowed to interact socially with students of different cultural compositions. Through these interactions, a diverse and dynamic culture was developed, accommodating Americans and students from other ethnic minorities. Integration of different ethnical groups does not necessarily mean that equality would be achieved, and therefore more efforts need to be made to seek equal treatment in America.
To conclude, race and ethnicity play crucial roles in shaping students’ experiences towards schools in the United States. The racial discrimination towards students of ethnical groups that does not involve white American students brought about unpleasant experiences for the Latinos and the African Americans. Racial segregation brought about the unjust provision of school resources reduced academic chances for racial minorities, limitations to social interactions, lowered student’s self-esteem, and the poor manifestation of student’s identities. Obtaining clarity on the hardships associated with ethnic differences would be a helpful tool in creating a more equitable school environment for racial minorities in many parts of the United States. Integrating students from different racial groups brings about a rich cultural diversity where the students interact with each other, likely to cause an exchange of cultural aspects.
References
Chhuon, V., & Hudley, C. (2010). Asian American Ethnic Options: How Cambodian Students Negotiate Ethnic Identities in a U.S. Urban School. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 41(4), 341–359. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2010.01096.x
Lewis, A. E., Diamond, J. B., & Forman, T. A. (2015). Conundrums of Integration. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 1(1), 22–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649214558687
Meador, E. (2005). The Making of Marginality: Schooling for Mexican Immigrant Girls in the Rural Southwest. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 36(2), 149–164. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3651383
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