Julia Robinson

September 28, 2015

Dr. Walker
602
Language, Culture, Diversity, and Equity in CLD Education
As a teacher, it is important to understand the relationship among: language, culture,
diversity, and equity in CLD education. Language is what one uses to orally or symbolically
communicate with another person. Culture contains many elements such as religion, region,
beliefs, and many other things. Diversity is the mixture of multiple cultures. Lastly, equity is the
fairness present within a system. With that being said, in order to be a successful educator, one
must realize that each of these should not observed and taught separately but instead these terms
are all intertwined.
Culture contains many elements. One of those elements is language. One develops
language due to where they are born and who their parents are. This is much like culture. Culture
contains religion, beliefs, celebrations, food, recreation, region and much more. Many people
adapt the culture in which their parents practice because that is the culture they grew up learning.
Since culture contains many elements, there are multiple cultures. Culture is not determined by
ones skin color or by the language one speaks. Culture is defined as the ever-changing values,
tradition, social and political relationships, and worldview created, shared, and transformed by a
group of people bound together by a combination of factors that can include a common history,
geographic location, language, social class, and religion (136). This definition proves that
culture encompasses a vast amount of elements and one does not have to be defined by one
culture. In all, the variety and mixture of cultures creates diversity. Diversity is everywhere,
especially in the United Stated. When one goes to school there is diversity and when one begins
to work there is diversity present. This means that it is important to teach students about diversity
and the various cultures so that equity is created.

Julia Robinson
September 28, 2015
Dr. Walker
602
Although one usually adapts the culture in which their parents practice, it is important to
realize that one can contain multiple cultures. Nieto displays this with her case study with
Joaquin. Joaquin states that he a part of many cultureshe is an urban, bilingual, heterosexual,
Roman Catholic, Puerto Rican male that enjoys listening to salsa as much as hip-hop (211).
Joaquin illustrates that one does not have a single identity, instead a person is complex and they
have many identities, making him/her unique. Teachers need to teach their students that they can
have multiple identities and cultures to define themselves. In order for a student to realize this,
teachers need to teach about the various cultures. To do this, teachers must adapt multicultural
education in their curriculum. This type of education is anti-racist and strives to make students
accepting of all cultures and differences. Multicultural education implies that students must study
various works from various cultures, both their own culture and other cultures. Multicultural
education also implies that it is necessary to study various works from various cultures, because
each person is different. If one simply reads a cultural story about one person, they only get that
one story from that culture and therefore that is all that they know about that culture. This is seen
in the video, The Danger of a Single Story. Adichie discusses this issue by providing the
audience with a personal relation. She is from Africa and many were surprised that she was not
barbaric. This was because they only read a single story about her culture. To avoid this issue,
students need to learn that each person has their own story. Just because they read one story
about one culture, it does not mean that they know everything about that culture. Therefore,
studying multiple stories, makes the students become more accepting. When students understand
the various cultures and read multiple stories, instead of the single story, equity and fairness is
created in the classroom.

Julia Robinson
September 28, 2015
Dr. Walker
602
Although multicultural education has the intention to create equity, it is important to
realize that equity does not yet exist. Nieto makes this clear in, Language, Culture, and Teaching.
Our school system has a huge achievement gap. White, affluent students perform higher than
minorities and low-income students. This is not because those white, affluent students are more
intelligent, it is because of our societys lack of support. Nieto states many reason as to why the
gap exists: Low-income and minority students often receive new teachers with little to no
experience; low-income and minority students are not pushed to take higher-level classes; lowincome and minority students are not seen as having worth. All of these elements defer CLD
students from receiving as equitable education. This is a common criticism Nieto has for our
education system. In order to fix these issues, funding and education needs to change. CLD
students need to be given more support and therefore qualified and experienced teachers that
believe that they can succeed in the classroom and outside of the classroom. These students need
to have empathetic teachers who challenge mainstream knowledge and want social justice. These
qualities form successful teachers and these are the teachers these students need in order to
become successful.
Overall, in order to be a successful teacher, one must realize the relationship between
language, culture, diversity, and equity. One must realize that language forms a culture and that a
student can contain more than one culture. A teacher must be willing to adapt multicultural
education in their classroom so that their students can learn about various cultures and learn to
accept them, proving that the students are knowledge and can work successfully in diversity. In
all, multicultural education along with trained and empathetic teachers will lessen the
achievement gap and therefore will create equity in the classroom. As these elements become
one, instead of individual elements, our education system will begin to improve and close gaps.