Throughout the history of the United States ethnicities other than White have been oppressed and dehumanized into a lower class. Minorities in the United States have been institutionalized through the school system with the belief that their culture is not as good as the Euro-American culture, and if you are not Euro-American then you are “Worth Less”. This can be seen when looking at the inequity in schools when it comes to minority groups (and ELL's). This review will focus on strategies and approaches to teaching minority groups which will result in advancement to higher education. Some of the most important subjects discussed in this area are ongoing training for teachers and the restructuring of schools, helping the student create an internal identity with learning and success, small group work in the class room, and encouraging parental support.

Without proper training, teaching culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms can be challenging. Most teachers are unprepared to teach ELL's in the classroom. To a teacher this can be very frustrating, and without knowing that an ELL's unresponsiveness is due to the language barrier and not an inability to understand the material, teachers begin to place ELL's into low track and special ed classes. Some teacher education programs have reformed and “require students learn a second language so they can better communicate with language minority students”(Bartolome,2002,183). It is good that the educational system is moving toward bilingual and cultural training for prospective teachers in education. As a teacher, having an understanding of the cultural identity of your students is important in communicating with them. Unfortunately “most teacher-preparation programs do not offer courses and practicum experiences that enable students to identify and understand the role of ideology (hegemonic and counter hegemonic) in teaching”(Bartolome,2002,182).

In Lilia I. Bartolome's(2002) study, teaching methods which accelerated minority achievement “questioned dominant culture myths about the social order...One potential implication includes incorporating into the teacher-preparation curriculum learning experiences that promote or...challenge prospective teachers to consider many of the counter-hegemonic beliefs”(Bartolome,2002,182). The study showed when training prospective teachers the “areas for critical study include alternative explanations for the historical academic under achievement of minorities, meritocracy theories for explaining the existing social (dis) order and assimilationist models for understanding current race and ethnic-group relations”(Bartolome,2002,183).

Training teachers to “resist romanticizing White, middle-class, mainstream culture and reject uncritical assimilation as a goal for their students”(Olsen,1995), not only is a more effective way of teaching, but also allows more opportunity for changes to be made in the school in which they work. This is seen in an article by: James Banks2002a, he addresses “Attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and actions of the school staff” saying that “research indicates that teachers and administrators often have low expectations for language minority students”(Banks,2002a,18), and higher expectations for white and upper class students.

Teachers with multicultural education training have been shown to incorporate ideas into reforming their schools that help with minority and majority student achievement. In a study by: Laurie Olsen(1995), 32 schools ranging from elementary to high school were studied in depth, ranging from a high majority of Latino students to a high majority of white students. Schools whose reforming did not improve much were mainly focusing on how “kids are not doing very well on tests...these schools emphasize the educational program and focus their restructuring on changing curriculum and instructional strategies”(Olsen,1995,215). These schools completely miss out on the need to focus the reforming on “developing full human beings, which extends beyond academic outcomes to include self-esteem, self-knowledge, respect for diversity, etc”(Olsen,1995,225). In a study by Gilberto Q. Conchas 2007 ideas for reforming schools have shown to be effective in high achievement for minorities. The “study shows that programs based on successful integration, community building, and access to opportunities, serve as a model for how institutional mechanisms can promote the social mobility of urban minority student populations”(Conchas,2007,19). Restructuring based on the children themselves and not their test scores succeeded in creating more achievement amongst all students.

Creating a classroom atmosphere where students are told to question and think for themselves is a great way to lead children into the understanding that they are in control of what they are doing. It can create an awareness within the students of how they can relate to and impact the world. In a study by: Eric Gutstein 2007, he talks about creating a classroom setting where students can connect mathematics to issues outside the classroom. He had his students analyze an article that dealt with mortgage loans for people in their community. It showed an unequal approval rate between Whites, Latinos, and African Americans. He then asked the students “Is racism a factor?”(Gutstien,2007,56). As well as asking students to question themselves, each other, and what he the teacher is teaching them. The students themselves recognized how helpful thinking that way is, “I myself always questioned him, over and over, but it was that questioning, that ability to even question the teacher that helped me grow academically”(Gutstien,2007,62). With the opportunity to question the authority figure the student is no longer just taking in the information like a drone for a test, but really begins to think about it and understand it.

The system is set up to institutionalize minorities to believe they are (because of their ethnicity) less likely to achieve success. There are “a range of agents such as teachers, parents, community members, peers, and the media can be influential in mathematics socialization and identity formation.” During this formation “overt and implicit messages about participation, constraints, and opportunity are generated, and beliefs about one's ability to preform, one's sense of self, and one's status within various mathematical contexts are formed”(Martin,2007,151).

How the teacher performs in the classroom is critical to student learning. In other words the teacher must know how to teach the students regardless of barriers. Included are language, and cultural narratives which work against minorities. As discussed earlier teachers need to be trained to work through and over come these barriers. One main barrier being what is called “hidden curriculum” in an article by Banks(2002a). This idea of “hidden curriculum” is “defined as the curriculum that no teacher explicitly teaches,” the workings of the school which include but are not limited to: “the kinds of pictures on the bulletin boards, the racial composition of the school staff, and the fairness with which students from different racial, cultural and ethnic groups are disciplined and suspended”(Banks,2002a,20). These hidden or unknown acts of inequality are observed by students and staff, which leads to a negative, unequal social construct that portrays the non-white students as “bad”, or “not as good” as the White students.

When a teacher has students who do not speak English there are “different strategies for bilingual instruction...to teach an unknown concept, use the known language; to teach an unknown language, use a known concept”(Garrison,1999,37). When the student does not have full knowledge of a language to learn a concept the teacher needs to have the resources to teach the underlying concepts for the lesson in the language known by the student. The “teacher must determine that students understand the underlying concepts of a lesson before a new concept or skill can be successfully introduced through the primary language”(Garrison,1999,38). The goal for a teacher with language learners in the classroom is to have the students achieve a “domain of known concepts and known language”(Garrison,1999,38). To achieve this in their students, teachers can use manipulative's and working in groups. Working with manipulative's, “relating new vocabulary with tangible objects is the basic premises of second language instruction”(Garrison,1999,41). This way of relating concepts with objects makes it easier for students to remember, when they “can see and touch the objects the represent while repeatedly hearing and saying the new words”(Garrison,1999,41)

Creating “student work groups provide opportunities for students to develop both listening and speaking skills in English and to increase mathematical understanding”(Garrison,1999,41). Putting students in groups is beneficial because most students “of a second language are hesitant to speak in front of the whole class, however, they will speak freely in a small group”(Garrison,1999,42). A classroom environment with “Small group settings afford all students greater opportunities to express their ideas, and they give bilingual students important practice in both receptive and expressive English”(Garrison,1999,42). Working in small groups should be taught as a basic teaching technique to all prospective teachers because it benefits all children on multiple levels.

Helping a child to create an internal identity with achievement or “an internal locus of control” has been shown to be a “significant variables among Latino high school sophomores in differentiating those who had some post secondary education (PSE) and no degree from those who went on to receive a bachelor's degree or higher”(Sciarra,2007,307-316). Creating this internal identity is even more important to have in the fields of math and science. Students who can identify themselves as achievers in mathematics and science will have a much higher chance at going to and graduating from college. Teachers can create classroom settings which teach students to in gauge in “reading the world with mathematics...to develop tentative conclusions and justifications” (Gutstien,2007,63). When teachers begin to focus on helping children build internal identities with success and controlling their own achievements then students are gaining skills which will move them into the higher percentile that will graduate from college.

The goal for using all of these techniques in teaching and training is to provide the opportunity for all students to go to and graduate from college. When minority students enter into college they might have difficulty adjusting into a school that is composed of mainly White students and culture. And it is interesting to see what helps when it comes to minority success is college, “Researchers have consistently found that perceived family support predicts social adjustment and institutional attachment to college more strongly for Latinos and other ethnic minority groups than for Whites (Kenny & Stryker,1996; Maton et al.,1996)”(Schneider,2003,540). When parents give support and positive attention to their children in the academic department, children begin to feel more confident in their schooling. A study done by Bamaca Gomez2003, has research that shows “adolescents who perceived their parents as able to help them academically also had higher academic motivation” (Gomez,2003,235). Parental support and motivation will support the child in creating an internal motivation towards their schooling. This motivation usually leads to success in schooling because it is a stronger type of support that creates an internal sense of motivation and ability to succeed.

The main things that need to be done in schools and classrooms is to reform the system to encourage parental involvement in their child's academic career whether it be checking homework, discussions in what happened at school that week, or in-school involvement. As well as proper teacher training for the classroom. Educating teachers to teach using small group work, teach the student to teach what they know and question what is known. Implementing these ideas into school reform should improve the rates in which minority and immigrant students are accepted to and graduate from college. With the hope rid the educational system of oppression and dehumanization of minority cultures in the United States.

Reference List

Banks, J. A. (2002a). Dimensions and school characteristics. An Introduction to Multicultural Education (pp. 42-58). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.

Bartolome, L. I. (2002). Creating an equal playing field: Teachers as advocates, boarder crossers, a cultural brokers. In Z.F. Beyknot (Ed.), The Power of Culture: Teaching Across Language Difference (pp. 167-191). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Publishing Group.

Conchas G. Q. (2007). Introduction. In The Color Of Success: Race and High-Achieving Urban Youth (pp. 1-19). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Garrison, L., & Mora, J.K. (1999). Adapting mathematics instruction for English-language learners: The language concept connection. In L. Ortiz-Franco, N. G. Hernandez & Y. De La Cruz (eds.), Changing the Faces of Mathematics: Perspectives on Latinos (pp. 35-48). Reston, VA: NCTM. (provided by Instructor).

Gustein, E. (2007). “So One Question Leads To Another” : Using mathematics to develop a pedagogy of questioning. In N.S. Nasir & P. Cobb (Eds.), Improving Access to Mathematics: Diversity and Equity in the classroom (pp. 51-68). New Your, NY: Teachers College Press.

Martin, D. B (2007). Mathematics learning and the participation in the African American context: The co-construction of identity in two intersecting realms of experience. In N.S. Nasir & P. Cobb (Eds.), Improving Access to Mathematics: Diversity and Equity in the classroom (pp. 146-158). New Your, NY: Teachers College Press

Olsen, L. (1995). School restructuring and the needs of immigrant students. In R. G. Rumbaut & W. A. Cornelius (Eds.), California's Immigrant Children (pp. 209- 229). San Diego, CA: Center for U.S.- Mexican Studies.

Plunkett, S W & Bamaca-Gomez, M Y (2003). The relationship between parenting, acculturation, and adolescent academics in Mexican-origin immigrant families in Los Angeles. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 25, 222-239.

Schneider, M. E. & Ward, D. J. (2003). The role of ethnic identification and perceived social support in Latinos’ adjustment to college. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 25, 539-554.

Sciarra, D., & Whitson, M. (2007, February). Predictive Factors in Postsecondary Educational Attainment Among Latinos. Professional School Counseling, 10(3), 307-316. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from MasterFILE Premier database.