Institutionalized Racism in Education - Literature Review

Essay by digby89College, UndergraduateA, November 2006

download word file, 10 pages 5.0

Introduction

Canada and the United States were both founded with a deep involvement of the exploitation, mistreatment and racism towards minorities, especially Aboriginal and African peoples. Although both countries have made great strides towards rectifying horrible mistakes of the past, there are still very serious and damaging issues that need to be addressed that include exclusion, discrimination, stereotyping and institutionalized racism (Ryan, 1998).

Institutionalized Racism is defined by wikipedia.org as the "process of purposely discriminating against certain groups of people through the use of biased laws or practices" (www.wikipdei.org). This is often committed in subtle ways; however the effects of it are anything but subtle. Institutionalized racism is prevalent in nearly all segments of Western society; what is particularly disturbing to me is the institutionalized racism that goes on in our educational system. The educational system has a huge influence on the socialization of our young people. Make no mistake about it; there has been a war on racism raging for decades in our educational system and it is the responsibility of our educators to fight on the front lines against racist and stereotypical behaviors in order for our country to truly become free and multicultural.

Studies and statistics indicate that we are losing this war and many of us are often perpetuating the stereotypes of minorities without even realizing it. It is imperative that we discontinue our ignorantly blissful view about this subject as if it doesn't exist and admit that we have a problem, look at it seriously to try to understand the root of it and implement new ideas and strategies to overcome racism and become a truly eclectic and harmonious society. This literature review will briefly cover the history of racism in Canada and the United States as well as the current situation in our educational...