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Learning about the history of cultural conflict helps teachers reduce it in classrooms. This book shows our common origins and reviews sources of conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East. It reveals how prejudice and stereotypes about racial and religious minorities create problems in our schools.
Beginning with the human exodus out of Africa 60,000 years ago, tension arose among ethnic groups separated by geographic barriers. Changes in population, immigration, work and the role of religion are creating clashes in society and schools.
Students from different cultural backgrounds are being thrown together as mass transportation and telecommunications shrink our world. Inclusive classrooms with respectful learning environments can be achieved when we identify the sources of tension that separate and divide us. Students are more alike than different. Knowing about our common origin and challenges will help teachers become more effective.
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
Act I: Origins and Diaspora
Chapter 1: Africa: The Motherland and Human Diversity
Chapter 2: Different and the Same: The Role of Heredity and Environment in Intellectual and Athletic Achievement
Act II: Bumps Along the Road
Chapter 3: "By the Sweat of Thy Brow": How Work Transformed Society and Created Social Inequality
Chapter 4: Upsetting Equilibrium: Population Pressure and Immigration
Chapter 5: Why We Fear and Loathe "the Other"
Chapter 6: Fundamentalism and Religious Intolerance
Chapter 7: "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" Inequality and the Roots of Terrorism
Act III: Reunification
Chapter 8: Technology, Freedom and Religious Fundamentalism
Chapter 9: How You Can Make Reunification a Reality
Postscript: How to Create Inclusive Classrooms
About the author
H. Roy Kaplan, a former executive director of the Tampa Bay region of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, teaches courses on race and ethnic relations for the University of South Florida, Tampa. The author of six other books, he was named a Hero of Education by the U.S. Department of Education.
Summary
Learning about the history of cultural conflict helps teachers reduce it in classrooms. This book shows our common origins and reviews sources of conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East. It reveals how prejudice and stereotypes about racial and religious minorities create problems in our schools.
