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Question: Jerome Bruner (1996) discusses the effects of our culture and environment on education. Overrepresentation of culturally and linguistically diverse students (CLD) is still a huge issue in our schools. This is such a scary thought, since our schools are continuing to become more and more diverse. My question is, how can we reach rural schools that may not be as knowledgeable to inform them of the overrepresentation of CLD students in certain categories of special education and how this can be changed? Also, why can’t educators have more training in diversity?

Passage: Jerome Bruner describes the cultural impact of education by stating, “For you cannot understand mental activity unless you take into account the cultural setting and its resources, the very things that give mind its shape and scope” (Bruner, 1996, p. X-XI).
Personal connection: I personally connected to the preface of this chapter, because so many students that I am currently working with are so greatly impacted by their immediate environment. For example, a child that I tested last week came to school and could barely keep his eyes open. I asked him why he looked so tired, and he explained to me that his mother was up all night crying and upset since his father left the house that evening. He explained that his mother was not working, so his dad got so mad that he left. The other children in his class were concerned about what their mother’s packed for lunch that day, while this particular student had to sit and wonder about his family’s financial situation and if his father would ever come back home. Furthermore, he was worried on whether or not that he would have food at home and what was currently going on at his house while he was at school.

Outside Connection: Another scholar recognized that individuals are impacted by their environments. Bronfenbrenner (1979) recognized that there are many systems acting on individuals. These systems include the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Bronfenbrenner categorized the different levels of influences are how they play a role. In the particular example I gave above, this student’s microsystem is strongly affecting him, since this is the setting in which he lives. Many of the descriptions of poverty that Bruner (1996) discussed in the preface would be categorized into Bronfenbrenner’s macrosystem. For example, this would include cultural contexts like SES and poverty. Regardless of what system is affecting the child, it is important that educators are able to identify that there are many factors that are acting on a child and how they learn. I think that is why it is so important to get background information on kids before being referred for special education.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press