Reflections Journal

Developing Multicultural Educators: Chapter 2 – Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Racism

Review – What did I learn?

Chapter two discusses stereotyping, prejudice, and racism. There were many things that this chapter reveled to me. The main emphasis that I gained from this chapter was the difference between stereotyping, prejudice, and racism.  Stereotyping is the creation of categories of people in order to put the people into groups sharing a single trait or a shared characteristic. Stereotyping is a cognitive way opposed to an emotional or behavioral way of judging people (Noel, 2008). Examples can be traits such as gender, size, skin color, and maybe even hair color.  Being prejudice is assuming something about someone, but in this case it is because you are judging them even before you get to know them.  Racism is defined as a belief based on the person feeling that their race is superior to any other race (Noel, 2008).

   When stereotypes are formed it helps us organize and simplify the world, to group objects and people. We also stereotype to help process the information and experiences we encounter every day. Many individuals stereotype to help avoid having to get to know the person, possibly based on what they see on the outside of the other individual. People will tend to put themselves in an in-group and those that are not like them in the out-group. Those in the in-group will assign negative characteristics to the people in the out-group (Noel, 2008). A major issue when forming stereotypes about groups of people is that this may become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

   When forming prejudices our book breaks up prejudices into five different theories; Racial and Cultural Difference Theory, Economic Competition Theory, Traumatic Experience Theory, Frustration-Aggression Theory, and Social Control Theory (Noel, 2008). The five theories help explain how prejudices are formed in each person. Prejudices exist in all people and we must learn to identify that we have these prejudices. By identifying our prejudices it allows us to understand why we have these prejudices and how we can react to them and even learn about cultural differences from them. Many people create their prejudices due to two categories in the Traumatic Experience Theory whereas the individual reacts from a primary or secondary source (Noel, 2008). A primary source is where an individual has a direct experience with a group/culture in a negative way. A secondary source is when an individual takes the prejudice from another person’s experiences.

  There are four types of racism, one being unaware/unintentional, unaware/self-righteous, aware/blatant, and aware/covert racism. During a discussion in our class a colleague asked which we thought was worse being aware or unaware. Most people were unsure which was worse, being aware that we are racist or that we are unaware. Some people that are aware of their racism may join hate groups to help support their feeling of their race being superior to other races. Whereas others who may not realize they have racist tendencies might make comments, gestures, or actions that can make another culture very uncomfortable.

Reflect – What did it mean to me?

   This chapter really made me think about many different aspects of stereotyping, prejudice, and racism that I may have in my own life and how I portray it onto others. Many of my prejudices have come from a mix of the primary and secondary source from the Traumatic Experience Theory. As I had mentioned in my reflection of chapter 1, growing up, I never saw a difference the race of people around me. Everyone was the same, just a different color. Then as I moved to a town that had many migrant workers, I started forming some opinions about the way they acted, along with comments from other people about the migrant workers. As my life went on, I had noticed that I had kept that one stereotype in mind about that culture of people. Then six years ago, I met a man who had children of that culture, which made me have to start rethinking the way I felt. I have always thought about this, but in reading this chapter, it really brought it to the forefront of my mind. Although I feel I do a really good job of not stereotyping or having prejudices, I do know (especially after reading this chapter) that I have different aspects to work out in my own life.

Refine – How will I use the information in my classroom?

  As an educator, I must be careful in not using stereotypes and prejudices in my classroom. It is important for me to get to know the students based on who they are, not what people feel about their race, gender, skin color, hair type or anything that would put them at a disadvantage or advantage. Even last week it was commented that I had a lot of Asian students in my class. Once that was said, someone commented that “at least your math test scores will be high”.  Today I regret that I didn’t say anything to that teacher. I knew what she was saying was just a stereotype, but these are the things that need to stop being said. I do have one Asian student that is very quick in math, whereas I have another who is very low in math, with the others falling somewhere in the middle. In my classroom, I have always tried to be as fair to everyone as possible. Studies have shown that teachers tend to ask boys more math and science questions than they do girls. Due to this, I have always tried to make sure that I ask the girls and boys questions equally. Stereotypes, prejudices, and racism come in all forms and can be something very simple, but we need to not let people make other people feel superior or inferior just because of the culture they were brought up in or the color of their skin.