cultrual cultural deprivation the hispanic challenge Essay -- essays r

Cultural Deprivation: The Hispanic Challenge   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Why do some groups not succeed in academic settings? One theory brought up in â€Å"Understanding inequality† suggests that the gap in the socioeconomic status drives the inequalities in the school system. The low and working class have less time and income to intervene with schooling. This means they have less time to meet with teachers, hire tutors, and provide continuous transportation. Therefore the lower class can’t possibly compete with the middle and upper classes. Angela Valenzuela gives the accounts of some Hispanic students’ experiences in school. These students feel that it is the inferior nature of the schools in the US that contribute to the low success levels. The schools in Mexico have â€Å"teachers [that] value and nurture in their students an ability to communicate and express themselves with confidence† (Valenzuela). This is what leads to success in schooling, which the United States does not provide them. Another exp lanation to this is a theory of cultural deprivation. This is the idea that certain cognitive styles connect to different ethnic groups. It just so happens that what school demands from students is a characteristic of the White and Asian races, which is abstraction , while other less successful groups like African Americans and Latinos possess more concrete thinking. Current manifestations of this can be seen from Samuel Huntington’s article â€Å"The Hispanic Challenge.†   Ã‚  ...