SCHOOL ADDJUSTMENT

Every now and then we try to provide justifications for the low achievement level among linguistic minority students in American schools.

Among other factors, we often discharge our batteries on language and cultural barriers as the main causes that prevent linguistic minority students from achieving success in school. These two main barriers, for many decades, have been appointed as responsible for preventing minority children to effectively understand the many concepts presented in the American curriculum.

Since linguistic minority students bring to school different cultural behavior patterns, they often feel insecure to the extent that their experiences and cultural values are disaffirmed by the dominant standard curriculum.

The disaffirmation process manifests itself in many forms:

1. linguistic minority students realize immediately that most of those cultural values they bring to school, are not present in the curriculum and the school environment;
2. they also realize that their lived experiences and cultural behavior patterns are not accepted by the teacher and the system in general;
3. they receive systematic signals from the school environment and the curriculum that disaffirm their realities both overtly and covertly. These signals function mostly as message systems embedded in the school structure that promote the white middle and upper class students while weeding out the majority of the linguistic minority students;
4. the reduced number and sometimes total absence of whole models from their cultural background also serve as a message system to discourage them from aspiring to certain professions which reinforces the tracking system.

Due to the factors cited above, linguistic minority students end up developing a low self-image which paralyses their motivation and aspiration levels. The lack of motivation, due to low self-esteem, coupled with linguistic and cultural barriers, provide strong arguments for the low education achievement level among linguistic minorities.

However, we still need to explain why Black Americans, who speak English (although they may not speak the Standard American English, the Black American dialect is close enough to enable them to understand and communicate efficiently with their teachers) and share many cultural similarities, continue to drop out of school in large numbers? We also need to explain why Asian students who speak little or no English and possess a culture radically different have achieved great success in American schools?

Asian parents view education very differently from Black Americans and Hispanics. Education constitutes an important means for self-advancement in many Asian cultures. Therefore, Asian students receive constant parental support and pressure to do well in school. This education value enables Asian students to struggle against other adversities such as discrimination, racism, etc., and effectively negotiate the requirements of the American curriculum.

Although the above characteristics prevail in many Asian cultures, one cannot make the generalization that all Asian parents support education equally. We also cannot generalize that all Asian students succeed in school. There is a significant number of Asians who fail educationally. Thus, the positive educational value found in some Asian cultures, only partially justify the educational success of the many Asian students.

Class is not a variable. Lower-class Chinese also do well in American schools, as do Vietnamese. Punjabi children, whose parents are low-class, also do well in school, which lead us to believe that class alone is too simplistic argument for justifying failures in school.

In summary, although I believe that language and culture play an important role in the educational success, they are not the major and only factors. I strongly believe that the family and cultural values play a very important role in the children academic lives.