Kevin Beckforth published an insightful article on the Huffington Post in response to the Megan Kelly comments about Santa Claus and Jesus. What is interesting about Beckforth’s article is that he highlights Kelly’s sociocultural location and privilege as playing an important role in her perspective. This is an important point that has not been brought out by the majority of criticism of Kelly’s comments, which have tended to focus on the accuracy of her claims (about Jesus, in particular). The point about privilege is that it obscures our view of the world, because we don’t have to take into consideration the viewpoints of the less privileged. It takes work to overcome the veil that results from our privilege, and most of us simply don’t make that effort.
The Atlantic just published an interesting article on the challenges faced by minority families when they enroll in prestigious, private schools (independent schools). The article highlights the large cultural divide between minority families and the school administration and teachers as they all work together to try to create positive educational experiences for their children. The article builds on a documentary created by the parents of an African American boy, who with a friend, attempt to navigate the challenging academic environment of Dalton School. What is made most salient from the article is how education is so much more than simple academic learning. Or, to put it another way, how intricately interconnected academic learning is with the social, emotional, and identity development of youth. For majority youth and their families, the social, emotional, and identity development is already in-synch with the cultural framework of the school and so it generally goes unnoticed. Sure, the best schools are attuned to the particular needs of individual students, and so when individual students struggle in any of these areas, the schools can provide the support services necessary. However, what seems evident from the article is that the schools are unfamiliar with the unique challenges of the minority youth and families who attend their schools, and so often miss or misdiagnose the signs and symptoms of youth who are struggling.
However, it is too simple to blame this particular school for being unable to handle all of these problems. Indeed, it would be a rare school that would be able to understand and even attend to these issues, especially when some of the developmental struggles take place outside of the school. For example, one of the stories described in the article is about one of the youth being teased for speaking like a white person by other African American youth in his basketball league. This story highlights the experience of being caught between two worlds, learning to cope with this reality, and having to figure out one’s identity in a radicalized world.
Should we expect schools to understand the nuances of these experiences and be equipped to handle them? Perhaps, but only if the educational model is critical and self-reflective, if it is not rooted in an assumption that its model is best and that students need to learn this model, and if it truly valorizes the lived experiences of every student and family who attends the school. These values can really only be achieved through hard work, both through a commitment to enhancing diversity among the students, faculty, and administration, but in also taking the time to follow through on the implications of diversity enhancement. That is, diversity in and of itself should not be a goal — rather, it should be a means to an end. The end is a better, more supportive academic environment for all students, and diverse perspectives, attitudes, and values can help shape the environment to reach that end.
The Huffington Post recently published an interesting article discussing how the ACA may improve Latino use of and engagement with mental healthcare. Although the prevalence rates of mental disorders among Latinos are not particularly high, the utilization of mental healthcare services is dramatically low. The research that has examined this underutilization has identified a number of community and systems-level barriers that adversely affect Latinos. These include insufficient numbers of community mental health centers, low numbers of bilingual/bicultural providers, and insurance and other finance-related obstacles. In addition, however, there is reason to believe that our existing models of mental healthcare delivery may not match well onto the cultural values and expectations of individuals from different cultural backgrounds. For example, in an article that we recently published, we found that many religious Latinos prefer their pastors because they have preexising relationships with them, an interesting datapoint that runs counter to the assumption that anonymity is critical and multiple roles should be avoided. It will be interesting to see if the ACA will address some of these issues if the focus on systems and community-level barriers proves insufficient to increase use of formal mental health services.