Enriching the focus on ethnicity and race

Here?s how to create an open dialogue to help students understand the importance of ethnic identity.

By APA?s Task Force on Diversity Issues at the Precollege and Undergraduate Levels of Education in Psychology

The 1990s has been characterized as the decade of ethnicity, and students and teachers alike have welcomed the increased attention to race and ethnicity issues in the classroom.

This enriched focus is the result, in part, of a shift in emphasis away from cultural assimilation toward recognition of the role played by ethnic identity in people?s lives.

Below are some discussion points you can use in your classes to enhance students? understanding of race and ethnicity.

Clarifying definitions

Helping students understand and appreciate the complexity of ethnicity and race and racism is certainly a class lecture in itself. Teachers of psychology can help students recognize the influence of ethnic identity. Begin by helping them to understand easily confused terms such as ?racism,? ?prejudice,? ?race? and ?ethnicity.?

Despite evidence that there is only one human race, with many variations on that one race, the term ?race? generally assumes biological differences that are most evident in physical appearances?a kind of pseudosubspeciation.

?Race? has social meaning often accompanied by stereotyping; it suggests one?s status within the social system and introduces power differences as people of different ?races? interact with one another. ?Ethnicity,? on the other hand, connotes common culture and shared meaning. It includes feelings, thoughts, perceptions, expectations and actions of a group resulting from shared historical experiences.

?Racism? and ?prejudice? deal with the forming of unfounded and often inaccurate opinions about a group, leading to biased behavior against members of that group. From the mistaken notion that humans may be divided into clearly defined racial groups and that these groups vary in capabilities and aptitudes, racism gives permission to individuals to treat ?racial groups? differently.

The power of labels

The recent and highly controversial change in ethnic classifications on the U.S. Census form could lead to a class discussion on ethnic classifications and the power of labels. Key questions for a class discussion on the topic might be:

? Who should decide on a group label?

? What are the issues of group identification?

? What do racial identity theories help us to understand about use of ethnic labels?

Most Native Americans, for example, describe themselves according to tribal membership. However, in the United States we have generally used the terms ?Indian,? ?American Indian? and ?Alaska Native? to define the original inhabitants of this continent.

The use of racial terms and their sociological and psychological implications for all ethnic groups must be understood in a historical context, which will enhance students? understanding of the political nuances of ethnic labels. These labels were assigned and used originally to separate or define the group as different from the majority culture.

If there are ethnic-minority students in the class, you as the teacher must allow them to determine their own ethnic label and then encourage the class to honor this choice. The goal is to respect the individual?s or group?s decision about what to call itself. Having the opportunity to choose is empowering.

Health as a poignant example

Engaging your class in a discussion on health psychology is an excellent and nonthreatening opportunity to introduce important issues about race and ethnicity. Historically our approach to health prevention and health-care behaviors has centered on white middle-class practices that have become the norm, but should not be. Racial and ethnic lifestyle influences whether one seeks care at all, as well as whether a particular intervention or treatment is effective.

As a teacher, you can introduce a discussion about health by asking students to list factors that contribute to high mortality and morbidity rates among ethnic-minority groups. Although this is a complex issue, readily identifiable factors are socioeconomic status, cultural beliefs and practices, dietary patterns and progression of disease.

For example, due to the presence of various ethnic restaurants that serve foods unique to a particular group, most students are aware that dietary patterns vary across ethnic groups. What students may not know is that the American Cancer Society has found that in some Asian populations, the low-fat, high-fiber diet results in a lower rate of colon-rectal cancer. But as Asians become more westernized in their dietary practices, rates of colon-rectal cancer increase, which is attributed to increased consumption of fat.

Lack of sensitivity to dietary habits of different ethnic groups presents problems when treatment includes dietary recommendations contrary to an ethnic group?s cultural beliefs and practices. Providing students with a series of examples of ethnic group health behaviors will begin creating an awareness of and sensitivity to the importance of ethnic and racial differences as they affect health. Moreover, demonstrating this point through discussion allows movement away from the idea that white Americans are the norm to which all racial and ethnic groups should be compared?a common problem that must be avoided if, as a teacher, you are going to create a classroom that welcomes dialogue about race and ethnicity.

The issue of intelligence

Another example where racism and race are evident is in the much-debated topic of intelligence. In the 1994 publication ?The Bell Curve,? authors Richard J. Herrnstein, PhD, and Charles Murray strongly suggested that the ethnic and racial group differences among intelligence scores are essentially genetically based. They went even further in suggesting that low IQ scores are responsible for conditions such as low income and unemployment, as well as for welfare dependence and inappropriate parental behavior.

In suggesting that IQ is inversely related to such conditions, Herrnstein and Murray believe that social programs will have little or no effect since they cannot overcome the problem of heritability. These findings create the opportunity for an instructor to discuss what is meant by IQ, how it is often inappropriately measured and how results from such tests are often inappropriately used.

In 1972, Robert Williams, an African-American psychologist, developed the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity to demonstrate that testing of information indigenous to one?s culture can result in higher IQ scores for those with a different cultural background from the mainstream. The instructor must help students understand that historically the mental measurement movement disregarded racial differences and uniformly used intelligence test results of people of various ethnic and racial backgrounds to support theories of intellectual superiority of one ethnic group over another.

Today, specific criteria have been developed for test fairness when using the same test with different ethnic groups to control for these extraneous differences. As an instructor you also can include the idea of variability in IQ scores across racial groups, indicating that while some people do poorly, many do quite well (for example, IQ scores of Asian Americans are slightly higher than those of whites).

However you decide to include race and ethnicity into your particular curriculum, it is important not to try to force the material into your course by devoting only one week to the topic. Your students will appreciate your approach more if the material you decide to integrate is infused gently and is not marginalized. They will certainly come away with a more accurate understanding of the concepts when this is done genuinely and throughout the course.

This article is the fourth in a series by the APA Board of Educational Affair?s Task Force on Diversity Issues at the Precollege and Undergraduate Levels of Education in Psychology. The group is working to promote the teaching of psychology as a more inclusive discipline. The task force seeks to find constructive ways of supporting teachers? efforts to convey research findings on diverse groups and address such issues as gender, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation and disability.

The task force members are A. Toy Caldwell-Colbert, PhD; Ruth E. Fassinger, PhD; Joseph J. Horvat, Jr., PhD; Joe Lamas; Linda Mona, PhD; John N. Mortisugu, PhD; and Carole E. Wade, PhD.

This article is dedicated to the memory of the late Dalmas Taylor, PhD.

More Resources

? ?Handbook of Multicultural Counseling,? Multicultural Health Counseling, p. 535?548, edited by J.G. Ponterotto, J.M. Casas, L.A. Suzuki & C.M. Alexander (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1995).

? APA Div. 45 (Society of Ethnic Minority Issues) ?Focus: The evolution of labels,? edited by M.P.P. Root (June, 1990).

? ?Creating an Inclusive College Curriculum: A Teaching Sourcebook from the New Jersey Project,? integrating the new scholarship into introductory psychology, p. 292?298, edited by E.G. Friedman, W.K. Kolmar, C.B. Flint and P. Rothenberg, pages 292?298) (New York: Teachers College Press, 1996).

? ?Teaching of Psychology,? infusing black psychology into the introductory psychology course, p. 12?21, (L. Whitten, 1993).