Risk Factors In Our Unique Cultural Context August 20, 2008 Port-of-Spain Trinidad and Tobago Dr....
-
Upload
vivien-willis -
Category
Documents
-
view
217 -
download
0
Transcript of Risk Factors In Our Unique Cultural Context August 20, 2008 Port-of-Spain Trinidad and Tobago Dr....
Risk Factors In Our Unique Cultural Context
August 20, 2008
Port-of-Spain
Trinidad and Tobago
Dr. Launcelot I. Brown
Defining Culture
The sum total of the ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another (From anthropology)
The behaviours and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group
The quality of a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits
Defining Culture cont.’
UNESCO (2002)
Culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive
spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features
of society, or a social group. It encompasses arts,
literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, values
systems, traditions and beliefs. … All the ways of life
for an entire society
Manifestation of Culture
Artifacts and Activities Food Music Literature Dress Dance Speech patterns Prism through which we view the world Organizational and family structure Attitude
The Big Point
Culture is not static. It is forever changing.
Why? The environment Technology Communication
At-risk Students
At risk of what? Dropping out of school Academic failure Problem behaviours Limited employment opportunities Implied but not stated
At risk of going to jail
The assumption
To deem the previous outcomes a risk, one has to
assume that students want to stay in school and
succeed academically to improve their employment opportunities.
One has to assume that students find attending
school to be a rewarding experience
The big question
Who is the at-risk student?
The urban poor child
The child from the single parent family
The child from the home with low maternal education
Big question cont’
The child who is economically deprived
The child who is socially deprived
The child who is emotionally deprived
A caution
We have to be careful. The aforementioned are
identified in the extant literature as risk-factors
associated with student achievement.
An association does not indicate cause
The Trinidad and Tobago Context
There is a Trinidad and Tobago culture. But there are also
sub-cultures. There is the Tobago culture, Indo-Trinidadian
culture and Afro-Trinidadian culture. There is also the culture
reflective of social class.
I would argue that in Trinidad and Tobago, while the risk
factors permeate all ethnic groups and social classes , it is the
Afro-Trinidadian, many of whom perceive themselves to be at
the bottom of the social class who is at greatest risk.
What does culture have to do with it?
There is the influence of history.
Voluntary and involuntary immigrant and the sense of
Mission (John Ogbu)
There is a difference between people who have been
uprooted from what they know, and those who build
on what they have.
Culture cont’
This fact is played out in the various enclaves all over
Trinidad and Tobago.
A culture of survival.
Learning from Marcus Garvey. Martin Henry: Jamaican Gleaner
Sunday August 17 marked the 121st anniversary of the birth
of Marcus Garvey.
One of the major problems with black people, and with the
post-colonial Caribbean in particular, is that we are not
sufficiently in love with wisdom (which is what 'philosophy'
means in the Greek: philos, love; sophia, wisdom). We do not
cultivate our own lovers of wisdom. And we do not invest
sufficiently in the enterprise of reflection. We worship sports
and entertainment. We push politics and social activism. We
don't back thought.
Call to the middle class
Rise up, you middle class, against a culture of illiteracy and vulgarity
Xolela Mangcu: The South African Times
But the middle class has never been just an economic category. Among
black people it consisted of priests, chiefs, teachers, lawyers, nurses,
doctors and businessmen and women who, while earning more than the
mass of the population, also embodied certain social and cultural values.
For the most part these values were education, faith, social responsibility
and temperance.
However, the historical role of the middle class began to wane in the 1980s.
The growing militancy and militarisation of our society gave birth to a new
phenomenon in our political culture — the celebration of violence as
spectacle, and illiteracy as authenticity.
Glorification of vulgarity
I suppose it is how you define vulgarity, or what you consider
to be vulgar
Incremental effect of bad habits
Bad habits grow by degrees
Like streams into rivers
And rivers into seas(A.N.R. Robinson)
Also good habits (L. I. Brown)
Examples from the media
Some of the DJs and the choice of music
Some of the talk show hosts
The rationale (the excuse)
“But that is we culture”
The fact is, children give legitimacy to what they hear on the
radio, especially if their parents also listen to the shows.
A culture of mediocrity
A culture of mediocrity is as a result of attitudes. Such a
culture does not foster perseverance or excellence.
The common saying in Trinidad and Tobago is:
“That could pass”
The culture of the home
Family education culture
Family social values
Family morals
The school culture
Who becomes a teacher?
How does one become a teacher?
How selective is the process to become a teacher?
How effective is the school leadership?
All these impact the school culture and as a result place some children at
Risk of school failure. However, these are also symptoms of the traditional
bureaucratic culture that so far has been able to resist the implementation
of structural reorganization.