Race, Multiculturalism, Inclusion and Education Essay

Race, Multiculturalism, Inclusion and Education - Essay Example It is the hope of this author that such a level of analysis will allow the reader to at least briefly engage with the important means by which identity is formed and how the education or, and the educational process for that matter, can seek to integrate more fully and appropriately with these identities. One of the more nebulous of the concepts which has been discussed above is necessarily that of race. Ultimately, race has been used as means of categorizing humans by cultural, genetic, geographic, anatomical, linguistic, social, religious, or historical means. As a function of this, the very definition of race is something that sociologists and anthropologists continue to argue about. Due to the many determinants of race that exist, is oftentimes been decided that since no working and firm definition of what defines one and what defines another can readily be agreed upon, ethnicity, or the means by which an individual is defined as a result of culture and geographic origin, is a fa r better identifier of people. Broadly speaking, race, and racial definitions is something that the educator must integrate with; whether or not they are of the opinion that such a definition is ultimately helpful. Due to the fact that the educator is responsible not only for integrating directly with the society but also with explicating and defining the means by which past history has taken place and continues impact upon the stakeholders within the classroom, race is not a topic that can merely be brushed aside and deemed as a prior an unsuccessful method of grouping individuals. The fact of the matter is that even as academia and society as a whole differs upon an approach and appreciation for such a concept, it remains incumbent upon the educator, and educational process by extension, to continue to place a level and degree of focus upon the importance that race necessarily engenders. Regardless of the potentially flawed an incomplete understanding and appreciation for how race impacts upon the individual and society that the students might necessarily have, it is incumbent upon the educator to seek to distance himself/herself from any of these faulty pre-conceived and ultimately unscientific interpretations (Race, 2011). However, this must be done delicately in with a degree of understanding that encourages discourse while the same time maintaining civility and promoting individual and group rights within the student body. Within such a dynamic, it is possible for the educator to seek to broach the topic with as little intrusion and divergence into unhelpful interpretations and norms as is possible. Similarly, ethnicity, and its interpretation within modern scholarship, is something of the golden standard with respect to seeking to differentiate one individual/group from another. However, it should not be understood that such an approach is invariably on flawed. Rather than relying upon racial distinction as a means of defining one group from another, an d ethnic approach necessarily places the primary emphasis upon geographic region of origin and/or cultural influences that impact upon the individual. In much the same way, the educator might just as well as a a second-generation German immigrants who resided in Mexico for most of his formative years as Mexican. Further, from the educator’s standpoint, ethnicity, and the interpretation thereof, has become one of the primal