Diversity Issue in Education: Macroculture Focus

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Diversity Issue in Education: Macroculture Focus on Anglo-Western Values in Diverse Populations

In the United States, there has always been and will continue to be a sustained mixing of cultures and diverse backgrounds that make up the American population. However, from the traditional education standpoint, the majority of society has grown up over the past several decades in an education system that promoted values, culture, and social acceptance through the Western - Anglo point of view (Darder, 2011).

In the United States, as children grow into adults, they have been taught their priorities, their viewpoint of who and what matters in society, and what groups they should associate primarily through the Western dominated classroom (Hirsch, 2007). As these adults enter the working society, their viewpoints of culture and society have been largely defined for them through education. Education shapes the values that most adults deem essential for success in American society (Moe, 2009).

The problem with this western dominated cultural view point on society and its success values is that it isolates a large segment of the diverse population of the United States. When people are taught right and wrong and what values are culturally acceptable through education, it can either lead them to empowerment or in many cases marginalizes the person, depending on their family's personal and cultural values and history (Darder, 2011).

Examples of these potentially marginalized groups with different cultural values and history would be; African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans (Moe, 2009). These groups are the most negatively impacted when it comes to the cultural mismatches between traditional American education and their own historic culture and ...