The Multiple Advantages of Multiculturalism
I am a first-generation Iranian-American. I have very white skin though, so when I told people this they would tell me that I’m not Iranian enough. Or they would call me a terrorist because I was not American enough. I never really felt like I had a place, I was not enough of either to have an identity. Many other multicultural children have this same feeling, especially in the American school system with our monocultural education system that encourages kids to conform rather than explore their diversities.
What if we had a way of improving our children’s education by, instead of expanding forwards, broadening our school systems to become more inclusive? To become more inclusive in the way of ensuring the best education possible for every child, catering specifically for their own needs and perspective.
Children from multicultural backgrounds often feel as though their educational and social systems are not made for them — despite over a quarter of children in the U.S. being immigrant born, these children feel as though the American system is catering to an imagined norm that doesn’t fit the American reality of diversity. In an interview I conducted with my brother, Arman Long, he said “growing up as both Iranian and American made me more open minded but also made me feel like I didn’t belong.” This experience is widespread among multicultural children, as I had very similar experiences to my brother and several of my multicultural friends agreed when I asked them about this. This mentality is not great for children who are learning.
The school system is pushing them to embrace a singular idea of American culture so that they won’t be bullied. An article from the US National Library of Medicine “found that a higher level of acculturation stress among immigrant youth was associated with higher odds of perpetration and victimization (bullying)”. The bullying of children who are not exactly “American” is troubling and shows that they get punished if they do not assimilate to their peers standards of American. In order to battle this statistic I think it would be important to expand the acceptance and diversity in schools.
Encouraging kids to use their bilingualism or multi-layered identities has revealed a greater level of creativity than when they conform to a monocultural perspective. Carmel Saad, and several other researchers from California, explored the creativity of Chinese-Americans in bilingual and monolingual contexts and it found that “Biculturals who better integrate their cultural identities exhibit more creativity, but this only occurs in situations that make both cultures salient.” Conjecturing from this, if we broaden our schools’ tolerance and encouragement of multicultural identities then multicultural children’s creativity and success will improve.
This is not meant to imply that monocultural kids would be at a disadvantage if education was reformed. A push for greater flexibility and individuality in the treatment of each child at school, with a special focus on cultural identities, would most likely benefit all children.
Education has continued to evolve throughout the years, and we’ve made incredible strides in the amount of kids that are educated and go to college. Now we are in a stable position to critique the teaching methods we have established and build upon them to suit our ever more globalized society.