ERIC Number: ED284809
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1986-Dec
Pages: 26
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Reproducing Visible-Minority Exclusion from the Ontario School Curriculum: An Ethnography of Educational Processes.
Haughton, Harry S.
This study examines how the Ontario (Canada) educational system serves Southeast Asians and West Indians. This is the most recent stage of a longitudinal study started about 16 years ago. The main purpose of the larger study is to examine the notion of curriculum as a social process of cultural selection engaged in by schools operating as the Ontario state's major agent of cultural transmission and acquisition. The 12 findings of the research reported represent the results of an extensive survey of the literature related to the under-achievement of these "visible minorities" in the school systems of Great Britain, the United States, and Canada. The study indicates that these groups have little input into the control of the curriculum process of Ontario schools. Other findings are: (1) despite the initiatives taken by most boards of education and the Ontario Ministry of Education in the area of multicultural education, the concept of anti-racist education has not been attended; (2) because of the failure of multicultural education to move society to the position of equity, the Ontario Ministry of Education is involved in preparing a provincial race relations (anti-racist) educational policy for all; (3) policymaking which would seek to eliminate any kind of racial, cultural, or sexual harassment in the schools has not been addressed; (4) education authorities have not conceded the limitations of multicultural education in the matter of staff development; (5) school-community relations are a one-sided flow from the school to the community, but not from the community to the school; (6) leadership continues to be defined from a Euro-Canadian perspective; (7) curriculum development and implementation are still matters which exclude visible minorities; (8) teacher and teacher training programs are inadequate for the multi-racial classroom; (9) guidance counselors have not been able to respond meaningfully to the visible minority student; (10) most boards of education and even the Ministry of Education itself have no policies or programs to guide personnel in responding to racial incidents; (11) cultural diversity and the implication for cognitive styles have not begun to receive the serious attention which a society preaching multiculturalism should display; and (12) the education system has legitimated minority exclusion from the labor market altogether in times of high unemployment. (BZ)
Descriptors: Cultural Context, Curriculum Development, Educational Assessment, Educationally Disadvantaged, Equal Education, Ethnography, Foreign Countries, Higher Education, Low Achievement, Majority Attitudes, Minority Groups, Multicultural Education, Politics of Education, Social Discrimination, Subcultures
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Policymakers; Researchers
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada; United Kingdom (Great Britain); United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A