Educational Ethnographies: Deconstructing the Concept of "Hispanic"
Course# TD1337

NOTE: You must pre-register for lunch and each concurrent session you plan on attending.

Teachers, counselors, and school psychologists today routinely encounter students and families whose expectations about education, from standards of conduct to attitudes toward attendance, deadlines, special education, privacy, and family involvement, were shaped by schools in another country. Too often, American educators lack knowledge of the specific culture from which the student actually comes (e.g., rural Nicaragua) and rely on generalizations such as "Hispanic" or "Asian." Failure to understand the culture of origin of these individuals frequently leads to misunderstandings and educational blunders.

Two examples are: 1) physical contact, routine among children in some cultures, may be viewed as "sexualized acting out" by American educators; 2) a letter proposing an evaluation for special education because of a student's difficulty reading may carry unwanted implications to a family from a country where special education is synonymous with mental retardation.

This program, a version of which was presented at the Virginia Psychological Association's meeting this October, presents the results of a project completed by graduate students in School Psychology in their Psychological Foundations of Education course. The first part of the program describes the process by which students examined five Hispanic countries (Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela). The process begins by the use of text and web based sources of educational information about the countries (e.g., The Handbook of International School Psychology and The CIA Country Factbook) to answer a series of questions about education in the country (e.g., "What kinds of disciplinary actions are used?" "What kinds of special education are available?" What are the literacy rates?") Students then flesh out their answers to the questions and verify their findings by interviewing one or more informants who have lived in the country recently.

The second part of the program is a presentation of the five ethnographies, emphasizing a) critical differences among countries we, as Americans, may view generically as "Hispanic" and b) potential sources of misunderstanding.

Presented by Morgan Beale, Kristen Burley, Kara Dragon, Karol Mendoza, Tyler Rosenberg and Ashton Trice

Monday, April 6, 2009

2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Conference Room 3, Festival Conference and Student Center

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