Barriers to diversity education and generational approaches in schools

Diversity in Education

From your understanding of the module materials and optional external literature, fully describe three significant barriers to diversity education and what you feel is the unacceptable effect of these barriers on the educational or organizational setting. Use substantive content to support your rationale.

Generational differences

Social experts and business entrepreneurs have both gathered that multiple generations of pupils enrolled today in higher education schools/institutions, in addition to multiple generations of personnel in business workplaces, necessitates a different training/education approach (Reeves & Oh, 2008).

For tackling generational differences, firms must retool and reevaluate around leadership, supervisory and management skills. Recent Leadership Council and Gallup Group researches report that a worker does not quit the firm; rather, he/she leaves the manager. This necessitates renewed focus on development and training of managers (Bernstein, Alexander & Alexander, 2008).

Lack of adequate administration support in lowering teacher attrition rates

While it is not the lone factor causing teacher attrition, lack of adequate administrative support clearly forms a key factor influencing teachers' choice to quit. The Center for Teaching Quality believes that leadership styles adopted by principals, their support, and communication skills impact working conditions of teachers, and in turn, their retention (Berry et al., 2008).

One recent nationwide National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality and Public Agenda (2007) survey of teachers fresh out of school (less than a year of teaching experience) revealed that 35% of newly appointed teachers in high schools were not satisfied with how their respective school administration provided guidance and leadership; while 31% were not satisfied with the resources for student instruction provided to them by school administration (Behrstock & Clifford, 2009).

Historical Trends in the Teaching Profession

Historically, in the U.S., teachers have not been held in high esteem. Males, as their means to better white-collar positions (e.g., school administration roles) utilized this role. For encapsulating these trends, the profession of teaching was regarded as an easy-access career that people with inadequate commitment could enroll into, without planning to continue with it (Lovely, 2012).

Describe the education initiative or intervention that you feel is most effective in overcoming barriers to diversity education. Incorporate related supporting source and/or author citations or references in your descriptions.

Emphasis for Generation Y

Generation Y teachers should be engaged in goal-setting and development of a vision. School leaders, by allowing them to participate school vision establishment, can adequately support these teachers. NAS Recruitment Communications (2006) states that Gen Y workers desire to participate in workplace decision-making. They wish that their opinions be considered, and their originality appreciated. Since employees of this generation are creative, innovative, and driven to make the world a better place, school leaders/administration that encourages expression of these teachers' values will probably profit from higher teacher morale as well as an overall stronger school community (Behrstock & Clifford, 2009).

Module-5 Response- Multicultural Issues in Education

Hanley (1999) writes that the time is ripe for the implementation of 'Multicultural Education'. Carrying the 60's and 70's legacy -- an era of significant social change in which Americans were compelled to reconsider their cultural legacy -- the multicultural education trend was introduced during the nineties for dealing with the educational requirements of a struggling society that found it hard to accept that it is in fact, a fusion of multiple cultures, rather than mono-cultural. Much of America's covert and overt national conflict regarding race, gender, ethnicity, and social class is grounded in the myth of the "superior" White culture. Consequent to such a misplaced perception, all other cultures had to be assimilated into this superior culture. The power imbalance between subjugated and dominant cultures has caused centuries of resistance, aggression, and resentment. Fortunately, the idea that differences in culture enrich, and do not diminish, society finds wider acceptance.