Cultural Diversity in Education

Paper Summary:

The paper reviews the article, "Serving Culturally Diverse Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance and Their Families", which is concerned about how cultural insensitivity harms children from diverse backgrounds. The paper explores why this issue is important - especially when it comes to educating young people - and outlines the difficult situations which can arise when teachers fail to understand the cultural impetuses which guide and shape behavior. Finally, the paper looks at what cultural sensitivity (and a lack thereof) means for professionals who must work regularly with non-European children.

From the Paper:

"A recent article by Gwendolyn Cartledge, Cathy Kea, and Evette Simmons-Reed (2002), "Serving Culturally Diverse Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance and Their Families," reveals the importance of cultural sensitivity when dealing with children coming from diverse backgrounds. To wit, the United States is now a nation with a remarkably polyglot population; this trend will continue. In light of this, those involved in the field of counseling and social work (and many other occupations that deal with troubled young people) will have to develop sophisticated understandings of how culture interacts with social behavior if they are to provide unbiased interventions to children afflicted by behavioral problems. Finally, the authors seem to favor an approach which recognizes that other ways of doing things need to be recognized insofar as the needs of minority children may not be assessed properly simply because the counselor or professional dealing with them is viewing their problems through the wrong cultural lens and is not appreciative of the reality that culture guides behavior (Cartledge et al, 2002)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cartledge, Gwendolyn, Kea, Cathy, and Simmons-Reed, Evette. (2002). "Serving Culturally Diverse Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance and Their Families" Journal of Child & Family Studies, 11(1): 113-126.

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