My Multicultural Self

Objectives

• Students will identify at least 5 facets of their multicultural selves
• Students will reflect on how any one identity facet shapes the way they view the world
• Students will understand the many reasons that miscommunication can occur

Materials

• Teacher prepares model of their own identity before presentation
• Copy of student handout (PDF) for each student

Introduction
What is culture? It is a shared system of meanings, beliefs, values and behaviors through which we interpret our experiences. Culture is learned, collective and changes over time. Culture is generally understood to be "what we know that everyone like us knows."

The following exercise explores the roots of cultural learning by naming aspects of identity important to each individual. It highlights the multiple dimensions of our identities and addresses the importance of self-identification.

Step One
The teacher should complete a handout in advance to serve as a model for students. Use an overhead or simply draw your multicultural self-components on the chalkboard. Example:

Mrs. Fattori
Mother – Teacher – Buddhist – Biracial – Marathon Runner

Share how each of your identity bubbles is a lens through which you see the world. Mrs. Fattori might share, for instance, that when she became a mother she became stronger and more sensitive, stronger for having made and given life as well as knowing she would do anything to protect her child. But she also became more sensitive to young life of all kinds around her, whether it be other children, nature or a student just learning to love a certain academic subject.

Step Two
Distribute a handout to each student and give the following directions: "Place your name in the center figure. Use the identity bubbles to name aspects of yourself that are important in defining who you are."

Allow students time to silently reflect on what they have written. Invite them to form pairs and share why the descriptors they chose are important to them. If time permits, invite pairs to introduce one another to the class.

For middle school/high school students:
Form small groups around the same or similar descriptors, i.e.. daughters, softball players, band member. Discuss similarities and differences among those of the same "group."

Step Three
Have students reflect on how each individual identity colors and shapes the way they view and interact with the world. The teacher can use her own identity shells to illustrate this concept. Mrs. Fattori, for example, might share how being biracial allows her to be a part of two worlds.

When the teacher is sure that students understand this concept, discuss as a class or in small groups:

• How would you feel if someone ignored one of your multicultural identity bubbles?
• Can you see how ignoring one of your identity bubbles could cause miscommunication? Can anyone give an example?
• Do you have more than these 5 identities?
• If your 5 identity bubbles are communicating with a group of 5 others, how many identities are interacting? (30 minimum)

Set up the next step by sharing with students that we have many identities in our multicultural selves. Not being aware of our own or others' identities causes miscommunication.

Step Four
Our identities are NOT static. We are shaped and reshaped by what goes on around us and our identities constantly change as well. Give examples:

• A parent dies and this reshapes the way we see the world
• We fall in love and this reshapes the way we see the world
• We fall out of love and this reshapes the way we see the world
• We experience an act of violence and this reshapes the way we see the world

So, what we once knew to be true about our selves and others can change over time. For this reason, we should always try to suspend judgment, ask questions of others and talk with those different from us as much as possible.

Adapted from EdChange Multicultural Pavilion.

 

Conflict Resolution and Peace
Teachers can use these quotes from famous individuals to facilitate student reflection on the importance of conflict resolution.

Objectives

• Students will read and interpret quotes to their peers
• Students will learn to paraphrase
• Students will grow more comfortable sharing with their peers
• Students will increase their listening, summarizing and paraphrasing skills

Materials

• Teacher cuts quotes into individual strips of paper

Step One
When students enter the room, have these quotes cut into slips of paper and placed on individual desks. Write on the board that they are to read the quote on their desk and put it into their own words.

Step Two
Have students stand and say, "In 30 seconds, when I say ‘go,' take five steps and share with a classmate what your quote is and then tell them what it means to you."

Step Three
To increase listening skills, a major component of culturally responsive conflict mediation, after one student shares their peace quote with another student, the second student then paraphrases back what they believe they have heard. This not only increases students' skills in listening, but also checks for comprehension.

Follow-Up Activities
You can also have your students write reflective papers (no more than a paragraph or two) about their quotes as well. Hang them up in the classroom for all to read.

The quotes we've used are from around the world. Why not have students find quotes from current people they admire who are famous or from those that they admire in their own communities? Have students bring in the quotes and place them on a Peace bulletin board.

As a comprehension check to see if students understand these lessons, have students paraphrase these quotes on conflict, conflict resolution and peacemaking.

 

Checking on Stereotypes
Always guard against the tendency to believe that everyone within a given identity group believes the same way.

Objectives

• Students will identify stereotypes they've experienced or heard
• Students will discuss how these stereotypes are not always true
• Students will identify specific ways to break down stereotypes

Materials

• 3x5 index cards for students

Stereotypes represent a belief or assumed knowledge of an entire group based on an experience with or information about a member or members of that group. It is an easy way of categorizing complex individuals.

Stereotyping often occurs because persistent messages are reinforced by family members, in places of worship, on school campuses and through the media. Stereotyping can be subconscious, where it subtly influences our decisions and actions, even in people who do not want to be biased.

A key component in the development of culturally responsive conflict resolutions models is developing tools to identify and break down stereotyping. Stereotypes can be broken. When we bring people together to open up and honestly share who they are, stereotypes begin to shatter. We discover that other people are not the mental picture created by our stereotype.

Distribute index cards and invite students to write down a stereotype they have heard about themselves or someone close to them.

Shuffle the cards and invite a few students to select one, read it aloud and talk about how they think a person would feel to be stereotyped in that manner.

Close by sharing ways to eliminate stereotypes or by developing class or club pledges where signers commit to ending stereotyping.

Follow-Up Activity
Discussion or writing prompts
1. How did it feel to share a way you have been stereotyped?
2. Did you hear a stereotype shared today that you once bought into? If so, what was it and why did you use it?
3. What are your ideas on eliminating stereotypes?

 

Nurturing Optimal Classroom Community for Culturally Responsive Conflict Resolution
Students of conflict resolution laud facilitative mediation for its cultural responsiveness.

Objectives

• Participants will understand ways to nurture classroom community for culturally responsive conflict resolution
• Participants will reflect on specific aspects of their interaction with students

Time and Materials

• Thirty minutes in a staff meeting, in-service workshop or other professional development setting
• Copy of Questions for Reflective Practice Handout (PDF) for each participant

Framework
At its best, facilitative mediation creates positive multicultural spirit and climate, emphasizes careful, respectful listening, and results in the capacity necessary for constructive problem-solving. Its emphasis on personal (cultural) storytelling humanizes and naturally increases appreciation of "the other." Careful paraphrasing checks accuracy and completeness of understanding. Detoxifying, through reframing culturally charged language without losing essential meaning, helps communication continue through highlighting its benefits. Focus on interests that lead to some sense of shared need, or commonality, that transcend and bridge cultures. Last, but most exciting for some students, difference enhances creative option generation.

Several years ago, I asked students from around the world to evaluate the best of multicultural leadership, teaching and conflict process. Their most important experience was openly and honestly sharing and discussing feelings and opinions as they explored diverse experience. All valued encouragement to actively and seriously participate through telling their personal truth and listening to others. Skillful facilitators included and engaged all voices through exemplifying the best of open-minded sensitivity and careful listening to seek deep understanding.

In my own classrooms filled with preservice educators, classroom teachers and other practitioners, many believe that suspending judgment and treating all equally and fairly, or facilitating "equivalence of voices," is the most important guideline for cultural competence.

Students' second most popular recommendation is to have and show a true desire to understand cultures in depth and complexity. "No detail is too small." Related, once again, is the ability to encourage others to share "their uniqueness." Teachers and counselors can do so with attentiveness, sensitivity and sincere appreciation.

Other recommendations include: (1) giving speakers, whose first language is not English, sufficient time and patient attention, and (2) noticing and astutely responding to possible discomforts.

Suggested Procedures

• Introduce the professional activity by summarizing the framework, above.
• Ask teachers to complete the handout (PDF) individually.
• Ask teachers to share and reflect in pairs.
• As a follow-up activity, encourage partners to observe one another in the classroom and provide feedback on what they see.

 

 

In-Group Favoritism
This activity looks at the way in-group favoritism hurts instead of heals the conflicts we might have with each other.

Objectives

• Students will understand and be able to define in-group favoritism
• Students will identify ways they participate in in-group favoritism
• Students will identify ways they can cross social boundaries and guard against in-group favoritism

Definition
According to Social Identity Theory, social groups influence inter-group relations because people strive to maintain or enhance a positive social identity. The desire for positive self-esteem is thought to lead to the tendency to evaluate one's own group favorably in comparison to other groups, or "in-group favoritism."

In-group favoritism at its best offers a positive sense of belonging and affiliation, i.e. debaters enjoy debating with others who enjoy debating, football players encourage each other's athletic best. At its most insecure, however, in-group favoritism can lead to highly destructive and hurtful behaviors: gossiping against others, scapegoating and bullying and pressuring group members to do what they individually do not respect or feel comfortable doing.

Step One
Slowly begin leading students from the global to the local using the following examples of in-group favoritism. Be sure to make specific local connections based on your area. For example, if you're from West Virginia, are you a West Virginia University Mountaineers fan or a Marshall University Thundering Herd fan? The purpose of this activity is to slowly lead students to identify their own in-group favoritism and then identify ways to cross these social boundaries.

• Global in-group favoritism – Nationalism is one kind of in-group favoritism that plays out on our global stage. We see this when professional athletes compete against each other at events such as the World Cup, the Tour de France or Wimbledon. We see it at the Olympics. We see it at The Oscars when an actor from, say, Australia wins and that entire country cheers.
• State in-group favoritism – You see an example of state in-group favoritism play out in national events like the Miss America Pageant, when people from a given state root for their state representative.
• City in-group favoritism – City in-group favoritism often manifests in people's sense of place —where someone lives within the city. One side of town is generally known as the "right" side to be from, and the other is "the wrong side of the tracks." Sometimes family members want their children to only play with children from a certain area.
• School in-group favoritism – Is there place in your school where only the seniors are allowed? Does your school promote competitions where the juniors are against the seniors? Do the athletes always sit together and appear easily identifiable"? Do Advanced Placement (AP) students only hang out with other AP students?

Step Two
Now that students have multiple examples of in-group favoritism, work with students to brainstorm a list of in-groups and out-groups in your school and community. Then ask these questions regarding the positive and negative impacts of in-group favoritism:

• What favors or special privileges do people in the same groups tend to give to each other?
• How do you think it makes them feel to support their own group members over others?
• How do you think it makes others who are outside their group feel?
• What negative peer pressure (ostracism), superiority/inferiority "storytelling" and hurtful behaviors might be linked with in-group favoritism?
• How would you explain these behaviors?
• Do you know anyone who is popular and has found a way to avoid, even transcend, in-group favoritism and can relate to many groups without problem?
• How have they done so?
• If you saw in-group favoritism playing out, what might you be able to do to confront or stop it?

Step Three
In-group favoritism may be a global phenomenon, but it plays out in schools across the country. Mix It Up is a national program focused on getting groups to see the importance of crossing social boundaries.

Follow-Up Activity
Have students bring in articles and advertisements from their local newspapers that demonstrate in-group favoritism. Make connections to national issues.

 

Communication – The Total Impact of Your Message
Effective conflict resolution models explore the ways others communicate from their cultural norms.

7% are the words we speak
38% are our tone, volume, inflection and intonation
55% is nonverbal

Objectives

• Students will be able to identify the difference between verbal and nonverbal behaviors
• Students will be able to give examples of the ways we communicate differently based on our cultural and/or social upbringings
• Students will understand the many ways miscommunication can occur

Materials

• Teacher may want to have specific examples of cross-cultural communication based on the ethnicity, race and gender of the students in their classroom

Verbal communication is defined as spoken communication, including the use of words and intonation to convey meaning.

Nonverbal communication, on the other hand, is "silent" communication and includes the use of gestures, postures, position, eye contact, facial expressions and conversational distance.

If we don't understand the nonverbal communication from another culture, we can "read" another person incorrectly. Some forms of nonverbal communication are the same and universal, but others have different meanings, or no meaning, in another culture.

There are three kinds of nonverbal communication in a multicultural context:
1. Nonverbal behaviors that exist in all cultures, but which are assigned different meanings in various cultures.
2. Nonverbal behaviors that exist in some cultures, but which are assigned different meanings within respective cultures.
3. Nonverbal behaviors that have meaning in one culture but no meaning at all in other cultures.

The following are examples of nonverbal gestures that have the same and different meaning in the United States and other countries:

• Smiling: When we are happy, we usually smile. Smiling is typically an expression of pleasure. It can show affection and politeness. But it depends on the situation and the relationships. A woman smiling at a police officer doesn't carry the same message as when she smiles at a child. In Indonesian cultures, smiling is also used to cover emotional pain or embarrassment. Thus, an Indonesian student who does something wrong at school might smile to cover up their embarrassment.
• Frown: When we are sad or angry, we frown, scowl or even cry. In Iranian culture, people may express grief openly by mourning out loud. People in China, Japan and Indonesia, are more subdued when they are sad.
• The "OK" Gesture: In the United States and in many English-speaking countries, the "OK" gesture can mean that everything's fine. In France it can mean zero or nothing. In Japan it can mean "money."

The point of these three examples is that there are many ways to interpret a single nonverbal gesture.

Activity
Step One: Have students pair up and act out the following situations by using only body language:

• You can not hear your friend's voice
• You want a child to come to your side
• You want to wish your friend good luck from across the room
• You don't know the answer to a question someone has asked you
• You want to tell someone sitting close to you that class is boring
• You want to signal to your friend that the person you are talking to on the phone talks too much
• You want to express, "Oh, not again!"
• You want to tell your friend that you have just forgotten something
• You want to tell your friend to wait a second
• You want to tell your friend to slow down
• You want to tell your friend that everything is OK

Step Two: There are so many ways to miscommunicate with each other. What do we do? Here are a few sage pieces of advice:

• Suspend judgment. Don't be so quick to judge someone based on what they say or what their nonverbal communication says.
• Ask Questions. Collect more information from people. Easy questions to ask might include: "Tell me what you were thinking when you said that." "I was curious what you were feeling when you said that."
• Think of a time when you upset a friend because of an email or text message. Given what you now know about complete communication - verbal and not - why might emails and instant messenger be less-than-ideal ways to communicate?