Minority Students
Review of Cummins' "Empowering Minority Students"
Jim Cummins, professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, considers that the personal and institutional methods of providing instruction to minority students must be redefined to improve their educational performance outcomes. He theorizes that past failures in compensatory and bilingual education has been a result of "bicultural ambivalence" and the current methodology must be reformed to empower minority students by encouraging them to embrace their native language and culture. He believes that this requires improved interactions at three levels: between teacher and student, schools and minority communities, and the cultural groups to the larger society. The framework Cummins proposes to rework the educational institution for the benefit of the minority student involves incorporating the student's language into the school program, encouraging the participation of the minority community with the school, promoting the student's use of language to improve his learning development, and the advocating of minority student support in the educational community. He believes that reaching out to the minority student body, to provide them the language tools and support necessary to reverse their failure rates, will empower them to succeed in their educational endeavors.
To expand on one point in the proposed framework, the discussion on cultural and linguistic incorporation in the curriculum presents an interesting dichotomy among minority groups. Statistics show that school dropout rates for Latin populations is about 40 to 50%, whereas other groups (i.e. The Asian population) that are not perceived with the same "inferior" status, via economic and social discrimination, may continue to thrive, despite language and cultural differences. Thus, it is conceivable that current methods of bilingual education are failing to support the whole of minority groups, and adjusting present educational systems to eliminate the attitude of minority inferiority will benefit groups like the Hispanic population.
