Forty Years of Using Labels to Communicate About Nontraditional Students: Does It Help or Hurt?

Abstract

This article deals with two topics: how the education literature describes minority students and how to communicate with minority students effectively. An analysis of articles in the Education Index since 1950 showed that, despite increased concern for minorities in the literature, the labels used to describe them may have done much to exacerbate problems. When talking to minority students, the writers recommend using Bowen's differentiation concept to discuss racism and negotiating systems. Recognizing and responding sensitively to interethnic differences can improve the quality of communications. Este manuscrito trata dos temas: Como la literatura educativa describe a los estudiantes de minorías étnicas, y cómo comunicarse efectivamente con ellos. Un análisis de articulos en el Education Index desde 1.950 muestra que a pesar de un aumento de preocupación en la literatura por los grupos de minorías étnicas, es posible que los motes dirigidos a “cultura” han hecho mucho para exacerbar problemas sociales y educativos. También al hablar con estudiantes pertenecientes a minorías étnicas, la falta de émfasis en la historia de sus culturas podría causar problemas al intentar construir una relación. Se recomendó el uso de motes menos reactivos para cuando se habla de ellos y una fórmula para conjeturar sobre sus historias cuando se habla con ellos.

Employing noncognitive variables in admitting students of color

“…I have coined the phrase "Quest for the Golden Label," to refer to the tendency to think that finding the right label will solve the problem (Sedlacek, 1994). As Franklin Westbrook and I pointed out, in the last forty years terms such as culturally deprived in the 1950s, disadvantaged in the 1960s, multicultural and diversity in more recent years, and most recently people of color have been applied to largely the same people (Westbrook and Sedlacek, 1991). These are people whose experiences prior to college application are different from those of white (and male) middle-and upper-middle-class Americans.…”

How multiculturalism obscures racial factors in the therapy process: Comment on Ridley et al. (1994), Sodowsky et al. (1994), Ottavi et al. (1994), and Thompson et al. (1994).

“…The virtual absence of conceptualizations of the effects of race on the therapy process can be attributed, in part, to the lack of an unambiguous lexicon for differentiating racial factors from other cultural factors. Several authors (e.g., Westbrook & Sedlacek, 1991) have complained about the proliferation of concepts such as culture, culturally de-prived, multicultural, minority, and social class to allude to students of color. Ridley et al (1994) similarly criticized the inconsistent usage of cultural sensitivity to describe therapists' behavior.…”

Issues in Advancing Diversity Through Assessment

“…Differences or similarities among groups can be demonstrated through measurement. Westbrook and Sedlacek (1991) studied the labels used to describe what they called "nontraditional students" in the Education Index since the 1950s. Terms have varied from a focus on acculturation in the 1950s to disadvantaged in the 1960s, to culture-specific differences in the 1970s, to multicultural in the 1980s.…”