Community Involvement

Community Involvement

Multicultural education is a way to expand and educate people on diversity and awareness of positive cultural differences among others. Becoming a multicultural community expands not only an individual’s perspective, but the perspective of a whole way of living.

Community involvement includes multicultural awareness and colliding with acceptance into one community. Multicultural education teaches students to become more aware and accepting, so why shouldn’t parents and the rest of the community? “Sharing life experiences helps students get to know one another and can generate a sense of belonging” (Noddings, 2005, p. 58), which means adults and community members outside of schools can also share their experiences and expand multiculturalism to all aspects of the community.

“A major goal of multicultural education is to provide all students with the skills, attitudes, and knowledge needed to function within their community cultures, within the mainstream culture, and within and across other ethnic cultures” (Banks, 2011, p. 4). Through multicultural awareness and education in schools and in the community, cultures can start to be more accepted and not feared for being something we might not know enough about.

Identify and Share Differences and Similarities

“By getting to know someone as an individual, there is less of a tendency to perceive another group as monolithic and homogeneous. This allows members of groups to recognize that even though they may differ in some ways, they may share a common identity or common goals and perceptions in others.

Find a phrase that appeals to all the groups (e.g., "better quality of life," "safe streets") and facilitate discussions about the meaning of that phrase to each person and each group. Build in time for informal social opportunities to talk, share a meal, etc. as part of these discussions.

Coordinate activities and events to celebrate the community's diversity.

Educate the different groups and the larger community about conditions and forces that help shape a group's identity and current situation. This is essential, because otherwise, groups can end up appreciating their similarities only and ignoring the structural factors (e.g., institutionalized racism) that underlie and perpetuate their differences. If the root causes for such differences are not recognized and addressed, the change that comes about from your effort will be superficial or short-lived.” (Chavis, Lee, and Bunchanan, 2001)3

                                        

Be Aware, Accepting, and Adaptive

The 3 A’s are the first step towards becoming a multicultural community through Awareness of the community’s diversity and cultures, Acceptance of other cultures different than your own, and being Adaptive to changes within your community shaping into multiculturalism. Becoming a multicultural person is not something that can be done overnight. Self-identification is the first step in the process towards becoming more aware, accepting, and adaptive to the cultural differences and changes within your community. If you can take a step back to figure out what things you would like to work on to become more culturally sensitive, then you're one step closer towards building a multicultural community.

Teach and Be Taught

This means to create community involvement, such as powwows or workshops where people across the board can meet to converse about their different cultures and backgrounds and raise awareness on multiculturalism. Teachings can also range from a single community member condensed with multicultural knowledge to inviting multiple culturally diverse people to speak and educate the community properly on their culture, community concerns and approvals.

Speak Up

Speaking up refers to having a voice within the community. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about other cultures. When you invite other cultures into your community, be respectful to their differences, and speak to them accordingly. Speaking up will raise awareness, and help bring about diversity into a community’s perspective.

Get Involved!

In order for students to develop a deeper understanding and awareness of others’ perspectives and experiences, they need to get involved. This can be helped through multiple opportunities within their community. Community involvement is another outlet for creating culturally aware and accepting members.Creating a dynamic multicultural community involves students, parents, schools, churches, local businesses, and the many other members within each community. Make sure every member involved is created as an equal.

                                         

      

Support Vs Obstruction in the Community If the more dominant group within the community is as motivated as other groups, then there will likely be more support for building a multicultural community. If the dominant group within the community does not desire to support or change the status quo, there will most likely be more obstacles and lack of support to occur.

Rate of Progress The more support given throughout the community, the more multiculturally aware people will become. Progress can move slower if not much support or work is put into the community events.

Expected Outcomes If the goal is to raise awareness, everyone involved is likely to be satisfied if they learned new things about other groups. Raising awareness helps create inclusivity. If the goal is to promote fair treatment of every group, everyone involved is more likely to be satisfied by policy change.

Challenges ·   More intensive efforts, including resources and training, are required to organize the communities ·   Intergroup tensions, such as city government and education board ·   Translation services ·   Lack of money and supporters ·   Unavailable space to meet Overcoming Challenges ·   Advocate ·   Get involved ·   Become aware ·   Share experiences and backgrounds ·   Share hardships ·   Self-identify ·   Understand multicultural education and better educate yourself!

Strategies for reaching out and communicating to the community ·   Local newspapers ·   Libraries ·   Restaurants ·   Community language learning classes ·   Faith Institutions ·   Websites ·   Community events ·   Volunteer opportunities ·   Internet chat rooms/ forums

References

Banks, J. (2011). An Introduction to Multicultural Education. (Fifth Edition) Boston: Pearson.

Chavis, Lee, and Bunchanan (2001). Cultural Competence and Spirituality in Community Building.

      Community Tool Box. From http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-

      competence/inclusive-communities/main

Noddings, N. (2005). The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to education:

     Advances in contemporary educational thought (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.