Cultural Biases in Transitional Writing Courses and Their Effect on Hispanic Students in Texas

Defining Culture, Ethnicity, Race, And Racism

Culture, ethnicity, race, and racism are concepts that often intersect because all three draw attention to people’s differences. Nonetheless, these three concepts signify distinctive ideas. Culture envelopes the traditions, customs, and language(s) of the group(s) with which a person identifies; an ethnicity is a group that shares the same culture; race, for most academics, is a construction that highlights primarily physical differences, not always for good reasons; and racism is the belief that a race or an ethnicity or a culture is above another. In this chapter, the term ethnicity is used to refer to the different groups analyzed throughout, which include Hispanics, Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Native Americans.

While this study focuses on culture, it is worth noting that cultural differences can—and often do—provoke racism although not always intentional. Studies that point to cultural incongruences as an influential factor in academic failure are not new. In 1987, Frederick Erickson directed attention towards the politics of culture in education, suggesting that culture does not have to be a barrier if teachers practice what he called “culturally responsive pedagogy.” A decade later, Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) proposed “culturally relevant pedagogy” that “not only addresses student achievement but also helps students to accept and affirm their cultural identity while developing critical perspectives that challenge inequities that schools (and other institutions) perpetuate” (p. 469). Nevertheless, because AP teachers are accountable for students’ scores in AP standardized tests, teachers are compelled to teach to the contents of the exam without much consideration for students’ cultural backgrounds.