Ethnic Studies examines the culture, history and experiences of different ethnic groups and encourages participants to engage in the issues of racism, colonialism, global economic and political systems, heath degradation and our geographies of differentiation and discrimination to name a few.2 It emphasizes the social and historical study of ‘race’ and racism and raises attention to systemic power relations that arise from institutional, cultural and global productions of “race.” It is important that students see how activism and social movements can challenge social inequality. It is my hope that students’ will gain a deeper understanding that “race” is not real from a biological standpoint yet is socially constructed. I hope that students will take this new knowledge to help break down their own misconceptions as well encourage them to support social justice and become a part of the change.
As Sleeter and Zavala write in “What the Research Says About Ethnic Studies:” “An established body of research affirms: interdisciplinary ethnic studies, or the study of the social, political, economic and historical perspectives of our nation’s diverse racial and ethnic groups, help foster cross-cultural understanding among both students of color and white students and aids students in valuing their own cultural identity while appreciating the differences around them. These studies also confirm that students who participate in ethnic studies are more academically engaged, develop a stronger sense of self-efficacy and personal empowerment, perform better academically and graduate at higher rates.”3
In my classroom, I found that student misconceptions surrounding ‘race’ were broad and needed attention in order to reaffirm what the studies proved. Recently I gave a brief survey to my students prior to beginning our unit on Human Body Systems to assess my students’ understanding of the issues we planned to discuss. It asked questions including “What do you know about genetics?” “Is ‘race’ a real and accurate human trait?” “Is your IQ a predetermined trait?” “Is your ability to perform in sports a genetic trait?” “Are physical and behavioral traits between and within ‘races’ biologically determined?” “Does the environment in which someone grows up in, affect his or her trait development?”
This gave me a quick snapshot of what my students were thinking. I learned that all students believed ‘race’ to be a pre-determined biological trait. All students also believed all physical traits to be biologically predetermined but seventy percent felt behavioral traits were not. Forty-five percent of my students felt that environment did influence development while others argued that it did not affect actual traits and that traits were non alterable but the environment could affect behavior. About forty percent of students thought IQ and sports ability was in part linked to genetics, thirty percent were unsure and ten percent thought they were not genetically tied.
Students responded to the survey with a general thought that genetics is what you get passed to you from your parents and how we are a combination of their traits. I added an additional question at the end that invited students to list any questions that came to mind as they were taking the survey. Many added that they haven’t really thought about these concepts before and simply accepted what they thought to be true, while others who were unsure about IQ or sports ability to be genetically linked asked how could we determine the answer to that. Other questions addressed how the environment could shape the traits you already have within you.
Based on these discussions, I developed this unit to foster critical thinking within my students and help facilitate a greater purpose of advocating change in the way they see and respond to the world around them.