Stereotypes, Prejudice, And Discrimination In American Schools

1625 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Media impact on bias

Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination has existed in America for thousands and thousands of years. Even though it is evident today that it has diminished, it is not completely vanquished. In fact, according to FBI data from 2,800 police departments, “thirty-two states revealed 4,755 bias-related crimes” (“Strategy: Diversity,” 2). Being different, whether it be race, color, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, is something that people in society seem to fear because they do not understand it, and as a result, stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination arise. To help further reduce and prevent intolerance of differences, society should make stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination a subject in American schools because it assumes all people of a certain race or gender act and behave the same way, it prevents the advancement of groups of people, and it makes incorrect generalizations about individuals.
American schools need to educate about diversity and tolerance because stereotypes make assumptions that all people of a certain race or gender act the same way. For example, according to Judith Ortiz Cofer in her essay “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria,” Latin women are commonly misportrayed as sexual objects, as uneducated, and as housemaids or waitresses. However, this “myth” is not true for all Latinas. While it is true that Latin women earn less education than white women, more Latinas today are graduating high school and are enrolling in college. Cofer, a Puerto-Rican born woman, has an education and is now a poet, a novelist, and a professor at the University of Georgia. Latin women are mistaken as sexual icons because of their choice of clothing, but their choice of clothing “is custom, n...

... middle of paper ...

...n innocently found guilty and killed just because of their looks and society believing they are perpetrators based off of false stereotypes. If schools were to promote acceptance towards all people, society would be able to better avoid forming negative stereotypes which could lead to prejudice and discrimination.
In conclusion, it is obvious through everyday life and from past history that it is still very important that society and the government address the issues of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, and promote tolerance and respect for all people by implementing curriculum and practices in American schools. However, what students learn in the classroom needs to be reinforced by the examples their parents set. Educating students about other races, gender, religious, and cultures help them understand and accept people who are different from themselves.

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Schooltalk By Mica Pollock

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Schooltalk: Rethinking What We Say About - and to - Students Every Day, Mica Pollock provides readers with fact-based information to “flip the script” of the misrepresentation of students in the education setting. Pollock demonstrates how race, gender, and ethnic labels can be detrimental to student achievement. She, then, dives in to 600 years of myths regarding social race labels and how they continue to affect humans today. By correcting race, gender, and ethnicity label myths in our minds, we can effectively advocate for these students. To conclude the book, Pollock focuses on how to devise a plan to correct our own misconceptions and foster a supportive environment for diverse students. Throughout

    Read More

  • Courageous Conversations About Race by Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton

    943 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...I feel it is my duty to encourage my students to see the beauty in such differences as opportunities for possibilities. I feel it is important to recognize one’s own heritage and race and values, but I also feel at times it is equally important to detach one’s self from such in order to allow for one to be exposed to new perspectives and alternative ways of life.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes at PHLS

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stereotypes are everywhere and can often create problems for people, however they become even more detrimental to teens, especially at schools. Writer and science correspondent for the NRA, Shankar Vedantam, in his article, “How a Self-Fulfilling Stereotype Can Drag Down Performance,” explains that stereotypes can hurt the performance of the person that it is associated with. He supports his claim by first explaining that how well people do on tests are determined by who administers the questions, then he explains that studies show that when people take tests and they are reminded of negative stereotypes that associate with them, then they don’t do as well, and finally he states that the studies are being widely ignored by all the people who should take heed of the findings, such as test makers and college acceptance people. Vedantam’s purpose is to tell you about the research conducted by Huang in order to inform you that stereotypes can affect performance on tests. In my 9th grade class at Point Loma High School, we were given questions about stereotypes from our teacher to interview two students.

    Read More

  • Racism in American Schools

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even though extraordinary changes have been made in the past to achieve racial equality, America is still racist, especially in schools. In the novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” written by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch is criticized for defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. During the 1930s, the time this novel took place, America was a very segregated country. At the time when Harper Lee wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird," America was fighting a civil rights movement. The events of racism in “To Kill a Mockingbird” reflect the time period.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In The Myth Of The Latin Woman

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stereotypes are everywhere, and there is no doubt that everyone encounters them daily. In fact, everyone uses them all the time without knowing it. Stereotypes are oversimplified and fixed images in someone’s mind about a person’s race, gender, or religion, or just about anything. They appear in the media, families, workplaces, and even schools. Unfortunately, certain races and gender roles in society tend to get exposed to harsher stereotypes, such as Latinas who are believed to only understand sexual innuendo based on their attire and seen as lesser-educated menials with dirty minds. In “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named María”, by Judith Ortiz Cofer, the author uses anecdotes and

    Read More

  • Stereotyping and Racial Profiling

    520 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stereotypes can be defined as sweeping generalizations about members of a certain race, religion, gender, nationality, or other group. They are made everyday in almost every society. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we develop these ideas about people who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand contact. Stereotyping usually leads to unfair results, such as discrimination, racial profiling, and unnecessary violence, all behaviors which need to be stopped.

    Read More

  • A Latina In Academia Summary

    800 Words  | 2 Pages

    It can be hard for a latina woman to be taken seriously in an education based profession. Stereotypes and unfair inferences are the cause of such hardships. The ethnic studies professor at Washington State University, Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo is no exception. She faces many obstacles a latin professor likely would face while teaching students about ethnic studies. The majority of professors students encounter are often white males. Lugo-Lugo realizes this and makes countless attempts at showing her colleagues and students that she is at their level. She writes many articles about her area of expertise. What she focuses on is society's views of race, sexuality, gender and culture. In the article “A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer Service Representative: a Latina in Academia” the author Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo demonstrates usage of ethos, pathos and logos to persuade her audience to be more culturally

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In African American Society

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stereotyping has been a huge problem in society for many decades. Everyone does it whether it is race, looks, and language or body types. If society did less stereotyping our society might be a little more complicated and more peaceful. If you look different, dress different, or act different out of the norm you are being judge or stereotype. I was always taught do not judge a book by its cover. That phrase is very powerful and if society followed that phrase we could be a more peaceful community.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of TED Talks Presentation By Jen Holladay

    850 Words  | 2 Pages

    Just because other perspectives are incorporated in the classroom, this doesn’t mean that everyone will become more understanding and appreciative of other cultures. When multicultural practices have rigorous standards, allow the advancement of social communications with other cultures, and allow the advancement social justice concepts both inside and outside of the classroom, this is when students will become more appreciative of other cultures (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p.162).

    Read More

  • The Myth Of The Latin Woman Analysis

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria, an essay written by Judith Ortiz Cofer, discusses the racial stereotypes Cofer struggles with as a Latin woman who travels across America. Throughout her life, Cofer discusses her interactions with people who falsely misjudge her as a Latin woman. Additionally, Cofer mentions other Hispanic women she has met in her life, who also suffer with racial assumptions. Although several people would disagree with Cofer and claim that she is taking racial remarks too seriously, racial stereotyping is a significant issue that should not be overlooked in our society. People should not base someone’s worth by their outward appearance or their ethnic background.

    Read More

  • Language, Gender, and Culture in Society

    1684 Words  | 4 Pages

    In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into misconceptions. Usually, stereotypes are utilized to humiliate and degrade the person or group; they also do not provide any beneficial outcomes. Stereotypes focus on how a particular group acts because of the radical ideas and actions of the few, how a particular group looks, or how that group is physically lacking in some way. These stereotypes often lead to conflicts because the group does not appreciate the way it is being perceived. Seldom are the stereotypes placed on a group of people truthful and accurate. Some hardly even apply to the particular group people it claims to. It is true that how people are perceived has a big impact on how other individuals interact with them; however, people are not perceiving these groups correctly.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In Modern High School

    258 Words  | 1 Pages

    A type of stereotype in high school is the emo kid. Emo is not emotional if that were the case, everyone would be emo. Its short for emotive hardcore, a music genre that started in the 80s by a band in Washington D.C. Most people who believe that "emos" including emos themselves, commonly make this mistake another thing people think emoes do is that cut themselfs . This is not true. ¨A group at my school are emo, and they don't cut.¨ But it is a typical question they get asked by "popular" people.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes, Prejudice And Discrimination In High School

    356 Words  | 1 Pages

    This example doesn't only affect me, lots of students, teachers, and people in general are very bothered by this. For instance, last year during the SOL the teachers try very hard to keep the students walking down the hall silent, but there was one teacher standing outside my classroom who was practically yelling at the kids in the hallway to stop talking, but since she was talking so loudly it disrupted my thinking ability and I had to start over on the problem! Another instance, would also be when we are reading and there’s always one person in every class that has to keep their hands moving, playing with something, or, making a noise. In my case they were eating hot chile Cheetos puffs! Every time that they would take a bite not only would

    Read More

  • Stereotypes, Discrimination and Prejudice

    1493 Words  | 3 Pages

    If a young girl is walking alone through a park late at night and encounters three senior citizens walking with canes and three teenage boys wearing leather jackets, it is likely that she will feel threatened by the latter and not the former. Why is this so? To start off, we have made a generalization in each case. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Often, these stereotypical generalizations are not accurate. We are succumbing to prejudice by ?ascribing characteristics about a person based on a stereotype, without knowledge of the total facts?1.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Diversity In Education

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is very important for teacher educators to develop self-awareness of cultural biases and discriminatory practices as well as to exam the effects of their beliefs, their attitudes, and expectations for teacher

    Read More

More about Stereotypes, Prejudice, And Discrimination In American Schools

Open Document