Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Sonia Nieto (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 080133103X | ISBN-13: 978-0801331039 | Publication Date: July 1999 | Edition: 3rd

Renowned author Sonia Nieto explores the meaning, necessity, and benefits of multicultural education for students of all backgrounds. This best-selling book looks at how personal, social, political, cultural, and educational factors relate to the success or failure of students in today's classrooms. The text presents a carefully considered conceptual framework-based upon an exhaustive survey of the literature-to help students understand the sociocultural context of multicultural education, and to appreciate a range of strategies for reforming and equalizing education.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

 

Explore how personal, social, political, cultural, and educational factors affect the success or failure of students in today's classroom in this best-selling text by Sonia Nieto and Patty Bode. Expanding upon the popular case-study approach, Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education examines the lives of real students who are affected by multicultural education, or the lack of it. This social justice view of multicultural education encourages teachers to work for social change in their classrooms, schools, and communities. 

  

New to this Edition

• • NEW! Chapter 7, Understanding Student Learning and School Achievement provides new research on caring, deficit perspectives, and theories on youth activism.

  • NEW! Completely updated references and research supporting the relevance and application of chapter content to today's classrooms.
  • NEW! A new case study of a Native American student that substitutes and updates the previous case study of a Native American student.
  • NEW! A classroom example of how a teacher and her students tackled the issue of Native American mascots to provide students with a concrete case of how teachers and students put multicultural education in practice.
  • NEW! An example of a teacher who exemplifies caring in her pedagogy and curriculum to show readers how caring can be manifested in ways that influence student learning.
  • NEW! A Multicultural Teaching Story about a school organized by teachers that models what multicultural education looks like in an actual school.
  • NEW! Student Self-portraits are displayed in the Part and chapter openers throughout the text.
  • NEW! Multicultural Teaching Story based on  an interview with a former high school math teacher who has helped implement a successful strategy for teaching high school math to all students
  • NEW! About Terminology feature boxes takes former chapter 2, About Terminology and reworks each section to enhance discussion of terminology issues throughout all chapters.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Sonia Nieto

Sonia Nieto is Professor Emerita of Language, Literacy, and Culture, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has taught students at all levels from elementary through graduate school and she continues to speak and write on multicultural education, the education of Latinos, and other culturally and linguistically diverse student populations. Other books include The Light in Their Eyes: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities (2010, 2^nd ed), What Keeps Teachers Going? (2003), and two edited volumes, Puerto Rican Students in U.S. Schools (2000) and Why We Teach (2005). She has received many awards for her research, advocacy, and activism, including an Annenberg Institute Senior Fellowship (1998–2000), the Outstanding Language Arts Educator of the Year from the National Council of Teachers of English (2005), the Social Justice Education Award from the American Educational Research Association (2008), and honorary doctorates from Lesley University (1999), Bridgewater State University (2004), DePaul University (2007), and Manhattanville College (2009).

 

Patty Bode

Patty Bode is the Director of Art Education for Tufts University in affiliation with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her research interests include multicultural theory and practice in teacher preparation, the arts in urban education, and the role of visual culture in the expression of student knowledge. She has published and lectured on retheorizing identity and curriculum, redefining multicultural education, and critical art pedagogy. Years of experience as an activist public school teacher and teacher educator inform her art making, research, and teaching. She has received awards for efforts in anti-racist curriculum reform and bridging theory and practice in multicultural education, including the 2010 Art Educator of the Year for Higher Education of the Eastern USA Region by the National Art Education Association, the Massachusetts 2010 Art Educator of the Year for Higher Education by the Massachusetts Art Education Association, and 2005 Multicultural Educator of the Year Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education.

 

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon; 3rd edition (July 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080133103X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801331039
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,218,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too much about race and little coverage of cultures, February 11, 2009

By 

CGScammell (Cochise County, AZ) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (5th Edition) (Paperback)

The title of this book is badly mistitled. Although this book is well cited and thoroughly researched, the authors stressed African Americans over all other races. This is a book about multi-cultural education and yet the references were mostly about African Americans. Little research was given to Hispanics, Southeast Asians, Arabs and especially Native Americans. Women and girls are given footnoted references.

I do not disagree that racism does not exist in our schools. There are sound examples of racism in this country, and especially in our public schools where tracking, self-fulfilling prophecies, overuse of Special Education and underuse of Gifted Programs for minorities still happen. The authors blame the educators, though, and not the student who may not care to get an education even when offered. Afterall, Asian Americans seem to succeed in the classroom even though they are often face with the same discrimination as African Americans. Yet they are hardly mentioned or used in comparisons of how diversity CAN succeed in public schools.

Women and girls in this book are vaguely mentioned as "females" which always bothered me. Since girls make up half of the student body and represent unique issues in the classroom, why not grant them more studies to allow them to succeed more?

Although both Nieto and Bode are accomplished educators in high esteem, this book was hard to follow at times and at other times annoying. Many of the points could have been stated in shorter essays in education journals, giving this book somehow an air of "We needed the money so we compiled all these studies into one book!"

Don't get me wrong, though, as there were some good points mentioned in this book. Chapter 4, "Racism, Discrimination and Expectations of Students Achievement" was an eye opener.

I agree with a previous reviewer who stated that the authors should have used more Hispanic studies in their multicultural education studies. This book is about MULTI cultures and not just the Black race. For areas in the West and Southwest many of the references to African Americans are muted by the majority of Hispanic students in our schools who are still educated primarily by a white teaching staff.

This book was required reading for a college course. I plan on selling this book back after this semester.

23 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Positive indepth look at multicultural education, May 23, 2001

By 

Marilyn B. Barrett "M Barrett" (Nantucket) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

Sonia Nieto has captured the essence of multicultural education because she focuses on real students in real classrooms. She helps teachers and teacher education candidates realize that their goals are the education of all the children in their classrooms and that those most different from the background of the teacher are the ones most in need of multicultural approaches. The goal is student learning, as she points out in her next book, The Light in Their Eyes, Creating Multicultural Learning Communities. I highly recommend this book to any teacher who works with children who speak other first languages than English.

12 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ineffective Approach and Little Practical Advice, April 30, 2005

By 

D. McAdams (Orem, Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education, Fourth Edition (Paperback)

I found this book of little use. The major problems created by using race as the main focus of the book include:
* Race as a subject is so overworked that nearly everyone over eight years of age has come to conclusions about race, the most important and most common of which is "I am not racist." However, given how the human brain works (selective attention, generalization, and others) and how humans interact (tribal affiliation, application of generalizations based on visual input, and so on), prejudice and therefore racism are inevitable: We are all racist whether we think so or not.
* Again, because the issue of race is overworked, the reaction of many people when race is introduced as a subject is, "Not again!" This could be overcome by a unique or fresh approach. Outside of Chapter 7, "Toward an Understanding of School Achievement", nothing new or fresh is provided.

On the positive side, the case studies are well written and well selected. In a different literary context, these case studies could be of immense value. Also, Chapter 7 has value to offer.

Yes, I realize that racial discrimination issues are critical, especially given the level of racial discriminiation that exists in the human family. However, focusing on such discrimination as the root issue has stalled civil rights. It has accomplished pretty much all it is going to accomplish. It is time to recognize that predudice is part of the human condition.

I invite Ms. Nieto or others to write a text based on the biological and sociological roots of prejudice aimed at helping the reader and, in the context of college classes, the student realize their own propensity for prejudice, recognize how it might show up, and correct the issues of their own prejudice as they emerge.