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6И.М. Синагатуллин (РФ), К. Кушнер (США)
НЕКОТОРЫЕ ВОПРОСЫ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ ПОЛИКУЛЬТУРНОЙ КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТИ СОВРЕМЕННЫХ ШКОЛЬНИКОВ
Ключевые слова: поликультурное образование, поликультурная компетентность, многообразие, мотивация, социализация
Аннотация: В связи с тем, что население планеты становится все более многообразным в этнокультурном отношении, встает острая необходимость организации поликультурного образования. В статье вкратце анализируется понятие поликультурного образования как важная социокультурная категория и рассматриваются некоторые вопросы формирования поликультурной компетентности современных школьников.
Multicultural education is known to have emerged in the Western countries. The civil rights movement led by African Americans in the United States promoted considerably the need for searching and shaping proper aims, content, and strategies of multicultural education. In later years, cultural revitalization movement began to increase in other countries (1; 2; 5). The main principle of multicultural education is establishing justice and equality for every member of the society, regardless of racial, ethnic, religious, gender, and social class background.
As for Russia, the country has always been ethnically and culturally pluralistic. Until the mid 1980s, bilingual or multilingual education was a more common approach instead of multicultural or intercultural education, because the Russian educational tradition made the assumption that placing a considerable emphasis on knowing another language was sufficient to understand another culture. To some extent, the spirit of multiculturalism and multicultural education has always been present on many levels of education and child development in the Russian Federation, except what has been present has rarely been articulated in terms of culture and as a concrete concept. This suggests that the very essence of multicultural education is not a completely new entity in the Russian Federation, where, as evidence suggests, multicultural education is gaining momentum very rapidly (6).
Multicultural education as a concept lies at the foundation of democracy, freedom and human rights. Both ethnocentrism and a loss of cultural and ethnic identity are incompatible with a democracy and the nature and principles of multicultural education. Banks assumes that multicultural education incorporates at least three variables: an idea, a reform movement, and a process. It is an idea stating that all students, regardless of their gender, language, ethnicity, race, culture, social class, religion, or exceptionality should have an equal opportunity to learn at school. Multicultural education is a reform movement involving changes in the total school so that all children and adolescents would have an equal opportunity to experience school success. Such an education represents also a continuing process whose goals will unlikely be fully fulfilled. A major goal of multicultural education is improving students' academic achievement and their full participation in a democratic society [2].
The factors fostering the growth of multicultural education are great in number. Let us name only some of them. First, it is a changing demographic situation. The growing migration of people throughout the world and the increase of people of Asian, African, and South and Central American origin in Canada, the United States, Australia, and northern European countries considerably diversify the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of these nations. A second factor is the rise of ethnocentrism, which may become a cause of interethnic tension and conflicts. Increasing polarization of human societies may be classified as a third factor. For instance, the negative repercussions of economic polarization considerably impact individual students, families, and educational institutions both in economically advanced and developing countries. A fourth factor is the existing and progressively growing numbers of children with physical and cognitive disabilities. Exceptional children need a nurturing care, delicate handling, and subsequent didactic approaches both in school and home environments.
Banks identifies three major groups of approaches in multicultural education: curriculum reform, achievement, and intergroup education. Curriculum reform approaches require additions
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to or changes in the curriculum content. Achievement approaches aim at increasing the academic achievement of low-income and disabled students, as well as students of color and women. Within achievement approaches, two conceptions are singled out: cultural deprivation and cultural difference paradigms. Intergroup education approaches are designed to promote the development of students' more positive attitude toward people from different racial, cultural, and gender groups [1 ]
Although all young people growing up in a global society and an ethnically diverse context require an education that prepares them to interact effectively with people different from themselves, the idea of multicultural education can be implemented to varying degree in different educational institutions. They are numerous; therefore we will name only some of them.
1. Institutions with monoethnic (monolingual) student populations. Such educational institutions are located in ethnically and linguistically homogeneous communities or countries.
2. Institutions with a bilingual learning public. Institutions of this type function in the countries such as the U.S.A., Russia, Canada, Switzerland, Romania, and Sweden.
3. Institutions with multiethnic (multilingual) learning collectives. Schools and colleges of this type may exist both in ethnically heterogeneous and in relatively homogeneous societies.
4. Institutions for exceptional students and for students with learning and behavioral problems. These institutions may be attended by children of different ethnic, racial, language, social class and religious groups from neighboring communities as well as remote locales.
5. Institutions for gifted children and adolescents, which are set up for educating children possessing special intellectual abilities and outstripping their counterparts in cognitive activity.
In ethnically and culturally pluralistic societies, different approaches to bilingual education and language policy have been and are conceptualized and implemented. A language policy is known to represents a part of a country's bigger policy; it is an important means through which many countries have attempted to respond to the linguistic and cultural diversity. For instance, in Russia, language and education policy makers have been always insightful enough to understand the need for an equitable language policy on the federal level, which should involve both internal and external interests of the country. Even though this multifaceted policy or strategy is in the continual process of being constructed, its contours are becoming more or less clear-cut as the new centennial gains momentum.
The academic public begins to understand that the language policy should take into account two stratus of Russia's young population. The school graduates of non-Russian ethnic origin are required to be proficient in their native language, Russian, and a foreign language. Optionally students of a numerically smaller ethnic group may learn the language of another non-Russian group with the representatives of which they come into a close contact in the corresponding setting or autonomous republic. The graduates of Russian ethnic background should possess their native language (which is the official language of Russia), a foreign language and optionally, as in the first case, the language of a minority ethnic group with the people of which they frequently interact and live in close proximity.
Multicultural education requires that we develop students' multicultural competency. Further, we will discuss a multicultural teacher's lesson organization and classroom management skills, focus on how the teacher should motivate children to cognitive activity and why he or she must be tolerant of pupils studying in a culturally pluralistic classroom. We will also tackle upon the intrinsic phenomenon of why we should and how we can exhibit love and sincerity to pupils. Lastly, the authors will examine some of the issues of student socialization.
Conducting a lesson usually consists of, but is not limited to, at least four stages: (1) setting the goals and preparing students for the lesson; (2) organizing the learning environment and selecting necessary means of instruction (books, reference literature, and dictionaries; didactic means of teaching; computers and related technology); (3) organizing the process of teaching and assessing learning; and (4) summing up all the procedures of the lesson.
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Goals must be declared articulately and explained. All students should know what is expected of them. When organizing the required teaching environment, a multicultural teacher should know, for example, that field sensitive and collectively minded students may feel more comfortable in a cooperative learning environment, whereas field independent children prefer working individually. Some students are susceptible to interruptions and tend to compartmentalize themselves; others are easily distracted from the topic under discussion and assist their peers in solving academic assignments. While assessing students, a multicultural teacher can apply both standardized (external) tests and more informal means of assessment (e.g., question-response techniques, performance assessment, and group discussion). At the end of each lesson teachers are required to draw lesson outcomes, which may include (1) assessing pupils' overall performance of the lesson by assigning grades and explaining the reasons for a particular evaluation decision, a step crucial in an ethnically and culturally pluralistic group of children; (2) explaining the details of home assignment and other necessary procedures; and (3) clarifying some announcements. It is necessary to draw outcomes before the end of a lesson, otherwise students' attention may be distracted and the essence of all the useful information may be lost.
An important element of teachers' professional activity in a multicultural environment is classroom management. When a teacher is unable to organize proper instruction and when things do not go well with classroom discipline, there may occur serious problems in the overall enterprise of teacher-student relations. Classroom control and teaching are closely linked and intertwined entities. Nevertheless, a proper classroom management in a multicultural milieu can not always guarantee a favorable academic atmosphere, and a highly effective instruction does not always reduce all behavior disruption problems to the minimum. When integrating multicultural content into the curriculum, the quality of classroom management largely depends on how well the educator knows students' interactional and relational styles, their core values, socialization patterns, learning styles and cognitive preferences, as well as how the educator addresses racial, ethnic, disability, and gender issues. On the whole, classroom management competency depends on the entire educational expertise of a multicultural teacher.
Controlling discipline is a problem every educator may be familiar with. In class children may disrupt the teacher's speech, sleep and lie idle on the table, refuse to speak with the teacher, tease peers, engage in quarrels with peers, threaten peers physically and verbally, use mobile phones, and throw objects. An overcrowded class is another problem. In some countries of South America, Africa, and Asia this problem is caused by population growth and a lack of economic resources. In large-size classes, some children are likely to misbehave and not to achieve properly academically. They are also often deprived of the required individualized attention. In large classes and schools, teachers are more stressed than in smaller ones. In other countries, a demographic decrease, conversely, leads to a decrease in class and school size, which may lead to various reorganizations of the educational process and educational institutions. Such was the case in Russia when its overall population steadily decreased in the 1990s-2010s.
Another strategy is involving all students in cognitive activity and continually monitoring their work. All children should be fully occupied throughout each lesson. The entire class should be in the field of vision. In addition to all this, the educator is required to take into considerations students learning preferences, their modes of interaction with peers, i.e. all the array of their eth-no-psychological characteristics. Still another technique is that the educator should avoid discussing a student's misbehavior publicly. When "punished" in front of the class, the student may find him or herself rather frustrated. If open punishment of a misbehaving student becomes a norm, this student, as well as others, may lose motivation in learning all together. Making things worse, when a pupil is constantly criticized and reprimanded, his classmates may also ridicule or even try to avoid him. In a culturally diverse collective, the importance of these requirements increases manifold. Also, it is important to be honest with and trust all students, regardless of their ethno-
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cultural characteristics and personal behavioral dispositions. In turn, children have more confidence in educators who trust and treat them sincerely.
In working in a culturally and ethnically pluralistic classroom, a crucial principle and goal is motivating students to participate in engaging cognitive activity. It is in such classrooms that children bring a variety of lifestyles and cognitive preferences from their families and communities. In fact, motivation is a necessary element in the performance of all activity, both in educational institutions and in everyday life. Pedagogues and psychologists unanimously concur that there are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. The former occurs when learners are stimulated by factors inherent in the very activity they are performing and therefore are self-motivated to participate in the activity. The latter manifests itself when they are inspired by external factors such as grades, some rewards, and praise.
A multiculturally minded educator may use the following techniques to motivate students. First, it is necessary to concentrate on strategies that promote intrinsic motivation. A teacher can more effectively maintain children's curiosity if he or she ignites their curiosity, their interests, emotions and inner desire to work at a task. An emotionally colored fact, piece of knowledge, or information is fixed and kept in a student's mind more firmly than facts pronounced, as Vygotsky says, "in a deadly manner" [8, p.134]. In this respect, Vygotsky writes that "Emotional reactions must lie at the core of the educational process. Prior to introducing a certain piece of knowledge, the teacher is required to elicit a student's corresponding emotion and relate this emotion to a novel item of knowledge under consideration... Only by passing through the student's feelings will a certain piece of knowledge be effectively acquired " [8, pp.141-142].
Second, taking into consideration students' learning styles and preferences, teachers are required to encourage them with challenging tasks which enhance their cognitive processing. It is essential to find the "golden mean" between a student's current level of competence and the difficulty of the academic task. Extremely difficult and overly simple tasks are equally undesirable during lessons and extracurricular activities. Third, educators should provide accurate verbal feedback, also considering their ethno-psychological characteristics and learning preferences. Apart from giving grades, ensuring appropriate verbal feedback on pupils' progress is an effective way to elicit their impetus to learning. Feedback should be honest, constructive, and encouraging and adequately reflect the students' current abilities. Also, the educator's verbal comments should not be very frequent for students' not to get used to hearing the educator's numerous reflexive utterances, which may only lessen their motivational effect. The same scenario, only in reverse, may occur if the educator frequently punishes a learner by frequent negative comments or by disciplining him. Children equally get used to verbal punishment. Some students even stop reacting to punitive remarks if they hear them frequently in class and school premises. Numerous reprimands may motivate a child negatively, and eventually the child may lose self-confidence and may even start disliking school..
A reliable and historically proven strategy of enhancing motivation and eliciting academic progress for some students is the extrinsic motivator of assigning grades. Each student is eager to know how correctly she has solved a concrete academic task, how well she has recited a poem, and how correctly she has translated a text from one language into another. Students want to know "where they are" and "what they should pay attention to" in learning a theme or a whole subject area.
Other things being equal, Piterim Sorokin holds that love as one of the greatest energies man has ever experienced and known. Love's properties are qualitative rather than quantitative, and the energy of love differs from other energies such as work, power, and force. A pure and altruistic love asks for nothing in exchange and contains the properties such as sympathy, kindness, friendship, devotion, respect, and reverence. Love is also a vital factor of longevity and good health. In Sorokin's view, "to love and to be loved is probably the most essential vitamin indispensable for the healthy growth of an individual" [7, p. 131]. ."The power of love exceeds the bounda-
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ries of personal relationships and circumstances. Love makes an impact on the whole social and cultural life of humankind" [7, p.134].
Experience indicates that an average individual tends to prefer the tasty to the sour, the beautiful to the ugly, a companion with a favorable disposition to the one having a disagreeable and bad temper. The teaching profession, especially when we deal with pupils from different eth-no-cultural background and with exceptional pupils, requires other approaches. We, educators, must love all children; moreover, it is the unloved pupil that an educator has to draw an uppermost attention to. Education policymakers, teachers, and parents should have a unanimous and clear understanding of the fact that every child, despite ethnic and cultural background and physical and mental impairment, is a distinctive personality, has absolute intrinsic worth and has a right to develop his or her individual potential.
Do all educators really love all children equally? The recorded human history and present-day evidence substantiate that children from ethnic minority and immigrant families, children with alternative cognitive abilities, alternative health, and alternative behavior often remain less noticed, less respected, and less loved than their mainstream peers. In reality some teachers are more favorably disposed to academically advanced students, to those behaving properly and decently, and who unconditionally obey the teacher's orders and requirements. Other teachers tend to build a more nurturing attitude toward students who are physically healthy and cheerful by nature and who simply appeal to educators owing to various subjective reasons.
A prime goal of a contemporary teacher is to exercise a strong feeling of affection for children who suffer from physical and mental illnesses and for those who misbehave. Such pupils need unconditional love and full acceptance. A misbehaving child and a child having physical and mental problems should know that the teacher's love does not depend on his academic accomplishments, manners of behavior, and physical appearance. Educators should take extra care of students from low-income families and from immigrant minority groups.
Whatever type of education, instructional style, or high tech strategy is realized in a school and whatever mode of learning styles and learning preferences children and adolescents bring to school, "if a teacher loves and treats each student as his or her own child, most of the educational and child-nurturing problems may be solved positively. Not a single internal or external factor dictated by sociopolitical circumstances, various economic reorganizations, and educational reform movements will be able to challenge and seriously hinder such teacher-student relations" [6, p.75]. Thus, when it comes to the teaching profession, loving the unloved is both the aim and the process of teacher/student interaction - it is a most humanistic quality of those who educate. Beneficial for a contemporary educator will be to remember, once in a while, the saying "That person can be referred to as industrious and perfect who performs an unloved job with a sense of love."
A teacher working with culturally diverse students is expected to understand the importance of and possess necessary skills of socializing students. According to Cushner, McClelland, and Safford, socialization processes may occur at three stages of life: primary socialization, involving the socialization of children by families and other early caregivers; secondary socialization, involving the school, neighborhood, peer group, as well as mass media, television and the Internet that is used at home; and adult socialization, involving the socialization of adults into roles for which they may have been unprepared by previous socialization [4].
Socialization is a unique process by which people learn what is required to be successful members of a given group. Socialization is such a potent and powerful process that people are hardly aware that some other realities could exist [3]. On a smaller scale, the process of socialization normally undergoes several manifestations. One result of socialization is ethnocentrism, a belief that a person's way is the best one, and a major expression of ethnocentrism is resistance to change. Another result of socialization is represented by the fact that individuals learn to perceive the surrounding reality and categorize various information they receive. Perception and cat-
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egorization are both cognitive processes shaped by socialization. Still another result of socialization manifests itself in stereotype formation. It is important for teachers to have a good understanding that students get socialized and form their cultural identity by acquiring corresponding values, attitudes, knowledge and skills through a variety of socializing agents such as family, school, church, community, neighborhood, peer group, sports, the arts, print media, workplace, and modern information and communications technology. Some of the socializing agents, such as family and peer groups, operate face-to-face; whereas others, such as mass media, utilize technological means to operate from a distance [4].
Thus, the contemporary human world is becoming diverse and continually changing. The growing diversity poses new challenges and opportunities for multicultural teachers, educators, parents, and .education policy makers. Teachers elicited by the ideas of multicultural education are expected to develop their students' multicultural competency. Among other important objectives, they should be skillful in organizing and conducting lessons, monitoring discipline, and motivating students to cognitive activity. They also need to be patient in dealing with students from different ethnic and cultural origin, treat them sincerely and unconditionally, and to help them behave in a way that is accepted by culturally pluralistic society.
1. Banks, J. A. (1994). An introduction to multicultural education. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
2. Banks, J. A. (2001). Multicultural education: characteristics and goals. In J. A. Banks & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Multicultural education: issues and perspectives (4th ed., pp.3-30). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
3. Cushner, K., & Trifonovitch, G. (1989). Understanding misunderstanding: barriers to dealing with diversity. Social Education, 53(5), 318-322.
4. Cushner, K., McClelland, A, & Safford, P. (2015). Human diversity in education: an intercultural approach (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Higher Education.
5. Lynch, J. (1986). Multicultural education in Western Europe. In J. A. Banks & J. Lynch (Eds.), Multicultural education in Western societies (pp.125-152). New York, NY: Praeger Publishers.
6. Sinagatullin, I. M. (2013). Fifteen biggest problems in education and how to solve them. New York, NY: Nova
Publishers.
7. Sorokin, P. A. (1991). Tainstvennaya energiya lubvi [The mysterious energy of love]. Sotsiologicheskiye Issledovaniya, 8, 123-131.
8. Vygotsky, L. S. (1991). Pedagogicheskaya psikhologiya [Pedagogical psychology] (V. V. Davidov, Ed.). Moscow: Pedagogika.
