Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching - National University

or against people or property. Fifth-degree prejudice is genocide, which occurs when being in
favor of one group and hating the other group leads to an attempt to wholesale murder of the
members of the other group. After reading the article, teachers in cooperative groups discussed
their involvement in each of the degrees of prejudice, whether as a participant or as having had
the prejudice used in their favor or disfavor. In the case of the fifth degree, participants shared
examples of the prejudice. Next, on chart paper teachers wrote their names under the degree of
prejudice and provided a brief description of what they discussed in the group. Once the groups
finished the activity, they were asked to volunteer why their name was under a particular degree
by sharing their story. Whether they volunteered or not, just the act of having their name next to
each of the degrees of prejudice helped them take ownership and was the first step in reducing
their participation in prejudice in the future.
The second activity exemplified the strategy of the White Identity Model. After teaching
the four identities to teachers through readings, lecture, and multimedia presentation, teachers
participated in both small group and whole group discussions and wrote a self-reflective essay on
which identity they felt most represented their response to multicultural or diversity education
work at the moment. Next, they were asked to devise a plan to move in the direction of a
transformative educator. Through this strategy, teachers learned to understand and acknowledged
their own identity. This provided for the opportunity to openly discuss the way different people
saw issues of diversity. The object of this work was to encourage teachers to open themselves to
new ideas and perspectives. This led teachers to appreciate diversity and accept pluralism and to
be more responsive to how diverse students learned.
The activity associated with the third strategy, White Privilege, was based on reading and
discussing the article “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to
See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies” (McIntosh, 1988) and completing a
survey. Drawing on this article, this researcher modified a survey created by the California
Teachers Association based on situations to which being privileged or not being privileged
would likely or unlikely be true. With a partner, teachers responded to the situations by marking
whether the situation was always true (5), sometimes true (3), or seldom true (1). The tally of the
scores indicated that the higher the score, the more privileged the participant. Having teachers
volunteer to explain their scores generated discussions that led them to better understand their
privileges or lack of privileges. Small group discussions and a self-reflective essay completed the
exercise.
The fourth activity was used to demonstrate the Multicultural Infusion strategy, which
involved preparing teachers to develop lessons that incorporated multicultural principles. The
first task of this activity was to educate teachers on the following multicultural principles:
multiple perspectives, culture sharing, bridging communities, enhancing tolerance and reducing
prejudice, and promoting social justice. Once the teachers understood these multicultural
principles, they were ready to construct lessons that embedded one or more of these principles in
the curriculum they taught. Where lessons already existed, the process involved altering the
lesson. The first step in the process was to determine which multicultural concept to highlight,
based on the following considerations: the significance and importance of the principle, the prior
experience of students, and the goals of the lesson. The second step was to ensure that before the
teachers actually taught their lessons they knew how to provide direct instruction of the
multicultural education concepts to their students. When the teachers prepared their students,
they introduced the concept, brainstormed with the students as to what they believed the
principle meant, categorized the meanings the students raised, identified relationships between
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