Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

86 Language Diversity in the Classroominfants, the results showed that different emotions, and different levels ofemotion, were reported, and that these differences rested upon the sexof the judge and, more importantly, on the sex attributed to the baby. Forexample, when the child was described to them as being a boy, judgeswere more likely to see its reaction to a jack-in-the-box as being moreangry and less fearful. Condry and Condry termed this the ‘eye of thebeholder’ effect; see also Condry et al. (1983), for a roughly analogous‘ear of the beholder’ one.Ladd and Linderholm provide two very telling illustrations. Samplecomments from judges who believed that the children they werewatching were from a poor school included the following:This particular classroom was in complete chaos... the teacher hasno control over her classroom... the children seemed to be boredwith the teacher when they were not doing group activities... theteacher seemed to be at her desk or in one spot while lecturing to theclass.And here are some from observers watching exactly the samevideotape, remember who thought the children on the screen werepupils from a good school:They [the children] were helping each other out... the teacher waswalking around the room aiding [lending?] her assistance whenneeded... there was not much of the teacher in front of the class...they [the children] seemed to work well on their own. Lots ofindependent, thoughtful work.The net import of these and other findings is that teachers may treatchildren unfairly, on the basis of stereotyped and erroneous views oftheir likely capabilities. 2 To break this vicious circle, difference theorists(should) advocate the provision of appropriate psychological andlinguistic information to teachers. But even the most sanguine differencetheorist has to admit the continuing strength of prevailing norms. AsCole and Bruner (1972: 176) put it: ‘the great power of the middle classhas rendered differences into deficits because middle-class behavior isthe yardstick of success’. Indeed, if difference is commonly translatedinto deficit, it may be little more than semantic quibbling to insist on anydistinction between the two. This does not mean that the game is notworth the candle far from it, since the deep-seated unfairness thatpartial or inaccurate perceptions lead to remains an important motivationfor change but it does suggest how difficult change can be.