Journal of Education and Human Development

Out of the Mouth of Babes: Students’ Responses to a Tolerance Initiative
Raphael Heaggans

Abstract
A middle school in USA has recently implemented a tolerance initiative designed for teachers to incorporate their interpretation of multicultural education into curriculum. This qualitative study focuses on students’ responses to the tolerance initiative based upon what their evaluation of how the teachers are making culture an endemic part of what they are learning in their math, language arts, and social studies’ classes. The students participated in semi-structured interviews. The data results were shared with the teachers to inform them of how students’ perception of their teaching strengths as well as area to improve. The students found the following: the social studies teacher not only incorporated aspects of their culture into her subject matter but also shared the cultural aspects of the other students in class; the language arts teacher focused more of his lessons on socioeconomics and less on other kinds of diversities; and the math teacher takes the stance that math is universal to all cultures and thus the students could not see themselves—or other aspects of diversity—in what she taught.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jehd.v5n2a1