Guardians, school administrators, and businesses increasingly require an education system to best prepare kids for a highly diversified culture and public economy. Generally, diversification comprises color, ethnic origin, class, sexuality, sexual orientation, age, and religious and political convictions (Cushner, 2014). While it was previously centered on enhancing intercultural understanding, new notions about diversity and equality have emerged, refocusing attention on expanding human knowledge and experience, a concept known as unity in multiplicity (Cushner, 2014). Any internationally aware teacher will understand that classroom diversity is no longer a far-fetched concept when it comes to education. Thus, this can be achieved through innovation that exposes students to other expertise and civilizations or a global student population that creates a diverse, multicultural instructional learning environment.
The Range of Diversity
Diversification comprises the features and traits that differentiate persons and societies. The number of components that characterize diversity is virtually infinite. During an individual’s development, their distinctive genomic, behavioral patterns, encounters, and education all contribute to their identity as a person (Felder, 2021). These experiences contribute to society’s diversity and evolution, permitting people to stay in touch and gain from one another. According to Felder (2021), the diversity range alludes to various human distinctions, including ethnicity, racial background, sexuality, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, physical capabilities, religious value system, nationality, and political opinions.
The Implications for Educators in Creating Open and Inclusive Educational Settings
Multicultural education entails students from diverse backgrounds learning alongside one another in the same group. Inclusive instruction values variety and each child’s special commitment to the lesson (Lütge & Merse, 2020). Each child feels secure and has a feeling of connection in a truly comprehensive environment. Students and their guardians are involved in the process of developing learning objectives and making choices that impact them. School personnel are equipped with the training, encouragement, mobility, and resources required to develop, inspire, and fulfill all kids’ demands (Lütge & Merse, 2020). The implications for educators in providing open and inclusive educational settings are as discussed herein.
Increases Learner Performance
Diversification enriches the educational experience. Diverse classrooms have been shown to have a significant influence on student achievement. According to (Cushner, 2014), students who live in multicultural surroundings accomplish more and work harder. Additionally, when instructional strategies incorporate the individuals and their diverse experiences, students gain a deeper understanding of a discipline as they examine it from various angles. Therefore, this provides students with a wider perspective and prepares them for detailed insights.
Improved Teaching Faculty
Instructor diversity is just as critical as it is for learners. Educational establishments are progressively recruiting educators with a diverse range of experiences. Thus, this assists pupils in developing an affinity for professors, who then organize their teaching to meet the diverse needs of their pupils (Cushner, 2014). Culturally relevant curriculum design takes precedence, in which a teacher emphasizes not just academic achievement but also cross-cultural awareness and competency, activism, and critical insight.
Improved Critical Thinking Capacities
Diversity in the schoolroom enables students to explore views and suggestions other than those they have already established or were molded by relatives and friends during their formative years. By exposing students to ideas that are diametrically opposed to theirs, they can reflect objectively on their beliefs and explore the world in new ways. As Cushner (2014) notes, variety engagement fosters creativity, invention, judgment, and problem-solving abilities. Additionally, variation stimulates learners’ intellectual functioning in ways that uniformity does not.
Impacts of Educational Policies on Children from Different Cultures
Over the last few decades, renowned higher education executives, legislators, and scholars have collaborated to advocate for race-conscious enrollment rules that allow institutions to remain ethnically and culturally diversified. One of the initiatives is the K-12 Education Program, which is dedicated to crafting guidelines for a new curriculum paradigm founded on the ideals of social equality and access for everyone (Chatterji, 2018). As a result, the article explores the impact of such regulations on children from diverse cultural backgrounds.
The K-12 education policy improves children’s instructional outcomes across various educational environments. The potential advantages of classroom diversity illustrate that exposure to diversification improves critical reasoning and problem-solving capabilities (Chatterji, 2018). Other beneficial characteristics correlated with academic accomplishment include student satisfaction and performance, basic understanding, and academic self-confidence. A diverse student body enriches the learning atmosphere by exposing pupils to individuals with vastly different priorities.
Children’s exposure to pupils who are unlike them and the innovative ideas and difficulties that such engagement provides results in better cognitive abilities, including conceptual understanding. There is evidence that children who have favorable connections with students of diverse racial origins develop more receptive brains and engage in more stimulating classroom discussions (Chatterji, 2018). Improved learning occurs in these settings due to the direct connection of complex notions to case studies derived from multiple situations.
Additionally, educational practices result in a growth in children’s multicultural and cross-racial awareness, comprehension, and tolerance. Instructional guidelines ensure that diversification in the classroom benefits learners’ potential to demonstrate interracial compassion, tolerance, and the ability to live with and learn from individuals from different walks of life (Chatterji, 2018). K–12 education administrators conclude that there is extensive proof that intergroup interactions and cross-racial communication strengthen intercultural sentiments about an entire group and minimize racism and hidden biases (Chatterji, 2018). Thus, educational policies in the United States play a crucial role in ensuring that instructional settings accommodate children from diverse cultures.
Relationship between Curriculum and Classroom Environments and Multicultural and Environmental Issues
The classroom and curriculum environments synthesize the class’s interpersonal, psychological, and instructional components. Cushner (2014) emphasized that numerous components of the classroom environment can influence learners’ motivation and that motivated children invest greater effort in instructional activities. Curriculum environments can be learner-centered, with a strong emphasis on the child’s demands, or knowledge-centered, emphasizing assisting students in developing a thorough comprehension so they can apply it in new circumstances and contexts.
Concerns about multiculturalism include various issues and orientations, including race, religion, ethnic origin, tradition, sexual preference, and disabilities. Culture, defined as the practices, beliefs, and achievements of numerous individuals and organizations at any given moment, has a significant impact on how people connect and perceive one another, constructively and adversely (Cushner, 2014). Environmental issues have been identified as those that have a detrimental impact on the ecosystem due to human activity. While global warming can occur due to natural factors, human activity has accumulated greenhouse gases.
The relationship between the variables described above is that curriculum and classroom environment provides a platform where diversification and environmental issues are addressed. The incorporation of multicultural instruction, a contemporary teaching paradigm in the curriculum, tries to instill concepts of equity in all pupils, regardless of their traditions, ethnic origins, races, religious views, or socioeconomic status (Cushner, 2014). It is a highly effective method of instruction since it encompasses all learners’ values, histories, and perspectives in a class. Moreover, curriculum and classroom settings have nature studies that take students through the factors that have brought about the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and ways to mitigate them. Therefore, through such learning, school surroundings nature environmentally sound individuals capable of providing solutions to the current climate change crisis.
References
Chatterji, A. K. (2018). Innovation and American K–12 education. Innovation Policy and the Economy, 18(1), 27-51. Web.
Cushner, K. (2014). Human diversity in education. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Felder, F. (2021). Celebrating diversity in education and the special case of disability. Educational Review, 73(2), 137-152. Web.
LĂĽtge, C., & Merse, T. (2020). Approaching diversity in education: Pedagogic and queer perspectives. In The praxis of diversity (pp. 175-197). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.