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Louise Craft

Mr. Brangaccio

Health Science 2 Honors

12 11 2023

How Respecting Cultural Diversity Begins In School

is key to providing a well-rounded education. Grasping the many cultures that make up our

school system helps students learn respect, compassion, and mindfulness toward the different

beliefs that their peers may have. Growing students’ tolerance to different cultures while in

school makes it easier for them as they become adults.

Cultural assimilation refers to a minority group adopting the cultural norms and values of

the dominant group in society. It has become a more widely discussed topic in schools present-

day because of the increasing diversity in classrooms and the need to create an inclusive learning

environment. Cultural assimilation can be found in many different ways, like clothing, language,

vernacular, and even food. Although both schools and the federal government have tried to make

headway and improve education for minority students, it’s been a hard journey. In an article by

The New York Times, it states “Education experts estimate that it takes the average learner of

English at least two years of study to hold conversations, and five to seven years to write essays,

understand a novel or explain scientific processes at the level of their English-speaking peers”

(Thompson, 2009). This article, titled Where Education and Assimilation Collide covers how

minority students in high school, mainly immigrants, are struggling to learn the way most

English-speaking American students do. This race to catch up could affect schools, as well.

Before the introduction of the “Every Student Succeeds Act,” or the ESSA, there was the “No
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Child Left Behind Act” which linked “...every school’s financing and its teachers’ jobs to student

performance on standardized tests” (Thompson, 2009). This means that a non-English-speaking

student performing poorly on standardized tests could weigh in on the school’s future, even if

that student had only been speaking English for one year.

The switch to the ESSA in 2015 from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002 was

a welcome one in schools across the nation. While the NCLB had “initial success in increasing

the test scores of minority students…” (Nolen, Duignan) it also had setbacks such as the ones

mentioned previously. The ESSA gave provisions to the NCLB, as some of the requirements of

the NCLB were viewed as undoable. The main point of the ESSA was “fully preparing all

students for success in college and careers (U.S. Department of Education). The top highlight of

this new act, as pointed out by the U.S. Department of Education, was that the ESSA “Advances

equity by upholding critical protections for America's disadvantaged and high-need students.”

Some of the “high-need” students would be minority students, especially ones who aren’t fluent

in English.

Even so, some students who do speak English regularly code-switch to fit in amongst

their peers. I believe this quote from Code-Switching: Hindi-English explains how code-

switching works very simplistically, but well, saying “Throughout the day he changes his

linguistic gears as many times as he enters into different personal and interpersonal

relationships” (S.K. Verma). The action of switching is most recognizable in the black

community, where “To avoid being accused of acting White, current evidence suggests that

many Black youth selectively code-switch between standard English and “Black English”

depending on the specific audiences that they engage with” (Durkee & Williams, Accusations of

Acting White: Links to Black Students’ Racial Identity and Mental Health). While this “Black
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English” or AAVE would be coupled together with a lack of education, it can also be more

common to see words such as “finna” in Southern American dialect. At what point do we make

that distinction in schools, where we recognize that students from different races and cultures

have different ways of communicating with each other?

If we do begin to recognize this, there are still ways that students of color are being

limited in the American school system. In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ended Affirmative

Action. Affirmative Action’s main goal was “to improve employment or educational

opportunities for members of minority groups and for women” (Brittanica). With the end of

Affirmative Action, there are fewer opportunities for people of marginalized groups to get into

higher education or universities. When the decision was reversed, U. S. Supreme Court Justice

Clarence Thomas wrote for his concurring opinion that Affirmative Action “sees the universities'

admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences. ... Those policies fly in

the face of our colorblind Constitution" (Totenburg, NPR). Even if our constitution was

“colorblind” it has become more talked about that minority students are not receiving the same

chances as others, and U. S. Supreme Court Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson wrote, “...deeming

race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life” (Totenburg, NPR). Some believe that

Affirmative Action in and of itself was discriminatory against “over-represented” students in

schools (think of the classic stereotype about Asian-Americans in top schools), and towards

white men in particular, even though “...a study conducted by Rutgers University and

commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor (1995) found that discrimination against white

men is not a significant problem in employment and that a "high proportion" of claims brought

by white men are "without merit"” (Upstate Medical University, Affirmative Action: Myth

versus Reality).
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So what are some ways that schools work to build an inclusive environment? Here at

Enloe High School, there are students who from across Wake County just to go to our school. I

take pride in the fact that Enloe is a very diverse school, where almost everyone can find

something that interests them. Here, we have a Black Student Union and an Asian Student

Association, in which both groups strive to have students build a connection through shared

culture. We even have a World Culture Day, where students taking language classes can go to

different teachers who can tell them facts and traditions from other cultures. Some of the

countries that are talked about during World Culture Day are Peru, Japan, Italy, Spain, and

Germany. While “cliques” are definitely still a thing at Enloe, I don’t think it’s as prevalent

because if you look through the hallways you’ll see kids chatting with each other, but before that

you would’ve never placed them in the same friend group. After going to Enloe for almost three

years, I’ve become friends with people who are from multiple different backgrounds, cultures,

and even countries. That just goes to show how many different kinds of people there are at

Enloe, and compared to a college made up of 30,000 unique students, we’re pretty small.

In conclusion, cultural diversity in schools in made up of many different aspects, all of

which are constantly changing. While it may take some time for everyone to put aside their

differences (maybe more than some time, but you get the gist) I think that having a diverse

school environment will only benefit students, both in the short and long term.

Works Cited

Thompson, Ginger. “Where Education and Assimilation Collide.” New York Times, 14 Mar.

2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/15immig.html.
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“Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).” U.S. Department of Education,

https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn.

Verma, S. K. Code-Switching: Hindi-English, p. 1,

https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/itl.28.03ver.

Durkee, Myles I., and Joanna L. Williams. “Accusations of Acting White: Links to Black

Students’ Racial Identity and Mental Health.” Journal of Black Psychology, vol. 41, no.

1, Dec. 2013, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0095798413505323.

Duignan, Bryan, editor. “Affirmative Action.” Brittanica,

https://www.britannica.com/topic/affirmative-action.

Totenburg, Nina. “Supreme Court Guts Affirmative Action, Effectively Ending Race-Conscious

Admissions.” NPR, 29 June 2023,

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/29/1181138066/affirmative-action-supreme-court-decision.

“Affirmative Action: Myth versus Reality.” Upstate Medical University,

https://www.upstate.edu/diversityinclusion/policies-and-procedures/aa/myth_reality.php.