----- Original Message -----
From: "Herb Coleman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 9:36 AM
Subject: The need for teaching diversity
>>
> Diversity is the idea that people are different and different for more
> than just individual reasons. Culture, background an social sub group
> influences affects the way n which we see and inter act with the world.
>
> It is important to teach because many Americans are myopic in their
> understanding of the human family. They wrongfully assume that everyone
> is just like them or just like they see on TV.
My experience, especially in academia, is exactly the opposite:
People wrongfully assume that everyone is different--*especially* groups.
It is fabulously funny that academics are intentionally encouraging
balkanization, ethnophobia, and reactionary nationalism in the guise of
"progresssive" education.
> There is a difference between "knowing" and understanding (and the rest
> of Bloom's taxonomy). For example even as a graduate student, it wasn't
> until late in my program that really understood the differences between
> collective and individualist cultures.
The notion of collectivist and individualist cultures is controversial,
not at all established fact. In my view (and that of numerous scholars)
these differences typically appear only at the extreme ends of
distributions, say between the USA and Japan, and are generalizations that
do not always apply. They are nowhere near as predictable as, say, sex
differences in cognition and sexual behavior, a topic I dare say is usually
ignored or discounted in discussions of "diversity."
Many of my students are
> surprised when we discuss Lisa Delpit's research on communication style
> differences between urban and suburban Americans. These differences
> often lead to African American children been seen as trouble makers when
> in fact there's a difference in what are thought to be shared meanings.
Great, but, again, when one brings up human sex differences, which
actually *are* well established and exist cross-culturally, everyone is up
in arms. Apparently "diversity" only applies to culture.
Paul Okami
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