PERCEPTION OF SELF AND OTHERS --- A STUDY OF COLLEGE OF EDUCATION UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ RACIAL AND ETHNIC BIASES IN MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS IN HAWAI' I

McCarthy, Minako

PERCEPTION OF SELF AND OTHERS --- A STUDY OF COLLEGE OF EDUCATION UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ RACIAL AND ETHNIC BIASES IN MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS IN HAWAI' I

Files

McCarthy_hawii_0085A_11569.pdf (2.37 MB)

Date

2022

Authors

McCarthy, Minako

Advisor

Xu, Di

Department

Educational Foundations

Abstract

Strikingly brutal racial violence has occurred repeatedly in recent decades worldwide. Racial and ethnic biases have become critical and urgent topics in multicultural societies because they impact racial violence (Lawson, 2015; Park, 2017). Simultaneously, when students and teachers have biased perceptions toward others, it interferes with their learning, teaching, and growth and hinders school lessons (Jacoby-Senghor et al., 2016). This study’s objective was to examine undergraduate students’ racial and ethnic biases and learning processes sequentially. The central research question is How do undergraduate students in the college of education in a Hawaiʻi university examine their personal racial and ethnic biases? James Banks’s multicultural education and critical multicultural education theories were the theoretical frameworks, applied through a qualitative phenomenological method. Ten undergraduate students voluntarily participated in in-depth interviews. The findings showed that all participants hesitated to reveal their perceptions and bias-related stories. This reaction could be a signal of disclosing their awareness and attitudes toward their biases. Students formed their biases based on their experiences; proximity, such as family input or friends’ stories, did not always influence their biases. Also, two of the ten participants, who noted they were privileged, denied racial and ethnic biases. Finally, three multiethnic Hawaii-origin students showed biases toward Caucasians and Caucasian tourists, explained by the ingroup and outgroup relations of their positionalities. The findings contribute to the existing literature on Hawaiʻi and multicultural educational practices and theories by providing insights to help improve future multicultural communities and schools by reducing racial and ethnic-related conflicts.

Keywords

Multicultural education, Behavioral psychology, Higher education, diversity, intersectionality, Multicultural Education, prejudice reduction, racial and ethnic biases, racism

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10125/104627

Extent

212 pages

Rights

All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.

Collections

Ph.D. - Educational Foundations

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