Personal Experience Environmental Justice and...

Before this semester started, I had no idea what environmental justice was. I have come a long way since then and I have learned a lot. I have learned a lot more than I will be able to talk about in this essay. For this reason I have narrowed it down to three important topics that I find interesting and I feel I have learned the most about. Three things I have learned and will take with me after this course are Environmental racism, mountaintop removal, and ecological imperialism. One thing I have learned and I will take with me after this class is environmental racism. Environmental racism is to put a minority group or any group at a disadvantage, to treat them less that or as if they are not equal to you. These people are not given the same standards as people in different neighborhoods. These people are forced to put up with having to live in conditions that are not as safe or hazard free but they have no choice because they don’t have as much power as the people putting th ose hazards there. Environmental racism is something that we should all be aware of and something that we should all strive to end. Environmental racism is one thing that I have learned a lot about and I will definitely take with me after class. Another thing that I have learned and I will take with me after class is mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal is when the top of a mountain is blown up and removed in order to acquire the coal. This is a very wasteful way of mining. They waste the treesShow MoreRelatedThe Role of a Community Counselor1735 Words   |  7 Pagesand oriented toward social justice (Lewis, Lewis, Daniels, amp; DAndrea, 2011). 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Culture and Diversity Paper

Question: Explain the importance of the information and address how to fill in the gaps. Recommend research/actions based on what you know and do not know about your topic. Suggest how to fill in the gaps you identified in Module 3. Outline a plan to solve the gap(s) identified in your topic. Answer: In the current business and cultural environment, the diversity could be observed in different aspects. The diversity and multicultural environment is an interesting field to study for multicultural classroom. The objective of this research is to study the impact of the diverse culture on the overall performance of the multicultural classroom. This research work has focused to study the effect that diversity and multicultural environment has on the overall performance of the multicultural classroom. A lot of work is already done in this area. The study of existing literature is done to analyze the known areas. The study of the existing literature suggests that the diversity and multicultural environment can have a positive impact on the overall group performance only when group members are aware of the cultural backgrounds of other students in the class. There are certain gaps in the existing literature or research work that should be bridged with the new research. The literature suggests that the group performance would depend on the type of society. However, it is not clear if the overall performance of a classroom would depend more on internal culture of the group or the external society. One of the most important issues addressed in this research work is the role of diversity management and multicultural environment in classroom. The finding of this research work could be applied to online teaching programs and as well as offline classroom programs. The students work in a multicultural classroom would be influences by a combination of internal and external factors. The internal factors would include students motivation and students attitude and perception. The external factors would include the environment provided by the leader of the classroom. The gaps in the research could be fulfilled with more research. A lot of researches have been done in this area and researcher shall focus on the existing researches. The gap in the existing research could be fulfilled with the primary research and the secondary research. The secondary research would be done in the form of literature review. It is expected that in the coming times there would be an increase in the number of classrooms with multicultural environment. It expects that diversity would increase in the classroom setting and it would be interesting to study the way diversity can impact the performance of overall multicultural classroom setting. The initial research suggests that this impact could be both positive and negative for classroom. The impact would depend on the attitude and the perception of employees and the leadership traits of the classroom leader. Module 1 I would like to research the impact of the diverse culture on the overall performance of the multicultural classroom. I would like to study the effect that diversity and multicultural environment has on the overall performance of the multicultural classroom. This era is a true global era in which organizations have expanded in different parts of the world. Today, organizations have to manage the employees across different culture. The large organizations like Google, Microsoft, Apple etc. have their presence in almost every part of the world. It is important that the employees should learn from the experiences of people from different culture and this learning should happen from early stage. Therefore, it is important that the diversity and cultural training should be provided in the classroom setting. The cultural diversity can have a profound impact on the overall performance of the classroom (Harvey, 2010). Typically, the overall performance of the classroom would depend on the performance of individual students and the individual group members. It appears that the performance of the group as a whole could be impacted based on the cultural differences and the diversity. This impact could be observed in both offline and online classroo ms. The impact could be both positive and negative in nature. The impact could be positive, as the individuals would get a platform where they can learn from the experiences of people from different cultural background. At the same time, the impact could be negative due to the intercultural conflict between team members. Therefore, it would be interesting to study the impact of diversity on overall performance level of classroom. The initial research would suggest that students in the classroom might not feel comfortable in a diverse background. The students may find it uncomfortable to speak up their minds in presence of people from difference cultural backgrounds. I believe that the multicultural classroom is an area where individuals get a platform to learn about different cultures. The classroom is a fundamental platform for people to learn. I believe that there could be both positive and negative outcome of diversity for the performance of multicultural environment. It would also depend on the quality of leader of the classroom. If an environment is established to take differences in the positive manner and to learn from the differences that the overall performance of the group could be improved (Vedder, 2010). However, if the environment exists where conflict is taken in a negative manner and people do not want to collaborate with the people from other cultural backgrounds that it can have a negative im pact on the overall performance of group. It would be interesting to study this phenomenon for classrooms where students hail from various cultural backgrounds. The focus of this research would be for both online and offline classrooms. Module 2: Literature Review Loes Pascarella (2012) argued that the performance of a classroom would depend a lot on the way its leaders shapes the students in the classroom. In a multicultural environment, the leader of the class may face certain difficulties to manage different students in the class. Several conducted studies had revealed that different leader behaviors and actions are evaluated and interpreted differently depending on their cultural environment of the classroom, and are due to differences in individuals ideas. Boyle Charles (2011) highlighted that the performance of a multicultural classroom would also depend on the society in which classroom exists. The theories of Leadership that have been traditionally developed in individualistic societies showed effective leadership as an action of producing greater and better financial outcomes, which enclose the result from a leaders behavior instead of a specific type of behavior (Ormrod, 2013). Those theories are concluded from manifestations of self-interest such as mentoring, networking and other personal initiatives which prevail in individualistic cultures. However, it is expected that leaders in collectivist cultures will consider leadership effectiveness as a long-term objective resulting from followers loyalty, extra effort and satisfaction with the leader. In addition, collectivist cultures show priority for the needs of the group, family and overall community when engaging in leadership actions (Clarke, 2010). For this reason, values of mutual commitments necessitate from leaders to give followers protection and guidance in exchange for their loyalty and commitment. Cole Case (2011) highlighted that with the spread of globalization, there is a good chance that the classroom performance would be positive in a diverse and multicultural environment. In the last decade or so the concepts of classroom has changed and today classrooms would have students from diverse background. It is important that the students from different cultural backgrounds should be able to learn from the experiences of other people. It can happen only when the information sharing is effective among the students. It is important that the students should be willing to listen to the view point of others students in the classroom. Bowman (2010) argued that the performance of a classroom would depend on the trust that students in the class can generate for other members in the class. The leader-follower concept is based on trust, the building of strong relationships. Leaders and followers are in relation with one another. Leadersmust strive for excellence in a way that builds confidence and trust. Lack of trust can have a negative impact on every interaction, communication or decision in a workplace, resulting in less agility, slowed response time and decrease profitability. Through trust a leader can enhance his/her leadership skills to engender confidence so that he/she can inspire and motivate others to excel. In order to have a positive performance or outcome of a diverse classroom, the leader should focus to generate a feeling of trust and respect among different individuals. In a multicultural context leaders are obliged to value cultural awareness and sensitivity to minimize or prevent any form of ethnoc entrism, confusion and discrimination, intended to create a workplace where harmony breaths. Mak Barker (2013) highlighted that boundaries need to be broken down across cultures within the classroom setting, so that knowledge and expertise can be shared more freely. It can be said that the cultural awareness of other cultures could also have a positive impact on the performance of the classroom. The diversity and multicultural environment can have a positive impact on the overall group performance only when group members are aware of the cultural backgrounds of other students in the class. Moreover, the students should be willing to learn from the cultures of other students. It would be correct to say that the communication would be a key for the overall performance of the group in a multicultural setting. The students or the group members shall focus on effective communication at an individual level and at organizational level so that the performance of the group as a whole could be improved. The classroom can be considered as a closed group where different students would work together with the objective to learn and take knowledge. Different students can have different ways and different methods to acquire knowledge. The multicultural environment provides a lot of opportunity to students to learn from the share values and the differences between cultures. It eventually increases the performance of the classroom as whole. Module 3 A lot of studies have been done in the area of classroom diversity and performance of the group. However, there exist few gaps in the literature that still needs to be explored. It is not clear if the group performance of the classroom would depend on the individual attitude of students or on the leadership of the leader of the classroom (Tarman, 2011). The literature review does suggest that the group performance would depend on the combination of students and leadership policies. However, it is not clear if individual behavior of students is more important or the policies adopted by the classroom leader. The literature review suggests that the performance of the overall classroom would depend on the cultural environment. The literature suggests that the group performance would depend on the type of society. In open societies like USA, Australia the group performance of a diverse group could be more as compared to the group performance of a diverse group in a closed society like China and India (Kyriakides, 2013). However, it is not clear if the overall performance of a classroom would depend more on internal culture of the group or the external society. The existing literature had limited information about the role of classroom leaders. Leaders need to know that they have to build accountability into their systems with regard to their managers taking responsibility for creating a diverse and inclusive work environment. It would be interesting to study the role of classroom leaders in the overall performance of the classroom. Culture awareness is another essential ingredient within toadys leaders attributes in todays classroom environment. The study of the literature suggests that the culture being one of the most powerful forces in the world is central to how students express themselves, perceive and interpret the world. Sometimes, values conflicts as people work together based on the lack of understanding of the different cultures from which we are all from which leads the root of miscommunication. The literature suggests that the communication is a key driver that could have an impact on the performance of the group. However, the exact nature of this impact is not known. It would be interesting to study the role of communication in the overall performance of the classroom. The diverse background of the classroom could be a positive or a negative impact on the overall performance of the classroom. The literature review suggests that the literature is divided into the impact of diversity. Some experts would suggest that diversity would have a positive impact on the group performance and some other experts suggest that diversity and multicultural environment would have a negative impact. Therefor, it would be interesting to study the impact of diversity and reach a definite conclusion. The impact of diversity on the classroom performance would also depend on the type of classrooms. For large classrooms, the impact could be less and for the small classroom, the impact could be high. Therefore, it would be interesting to study this impact. Module 4 With the above literature review and discussion it can be said that diversity has to play a major role in the education and classroom. The first thing for the effective overall performance of the classroom is that the classroom should integrate diversity into all of the processes of their teaching (Deppeler, 2010). Diversity becomes a lens for looking at, identifying, developing, and advancing talent. With the above discussion it can be said that it is vital to understand the significance of workforce diversity and attention to other cultures and, thus, our appreciation of todays global classroom village. Therefore, knowing, understanding and learning about different cultures and countries is a prerequisite when dealing with diversity and multiculturalism at classroom. It would be correct to say that classroom leaders need to have an understanding of the diverse cultures with which they work, students also need to be less sensitive if the leader does have a gap in knowledge about their culture (Burden, 2012). Often, the classroom leader is not being rude or ignorant, they simply do not know and students shall not expect them to be a mind reader. In the todays classroom setting the diversity in student is acceptable as long as the differences in the students do not impact the performance of entire class. In fact, diversity could be a key for students to understand the perspective of other students who belong to different cultures. In this way, a classroom with multicultural setting can have improved performance. The gaps in the research could be fulfilled with more research. A lot of researches have been done in this area and researcher shall focus on the existing researches. The gap in the existing research could be fulfilled with the primary research and the secondary research. My plan to fill the existing research gap is based on three phases. These phases can be discussed as: Phase 1: Base-lining the existing research work The first phase to fill the research group is to baseline the existing research work. In order to baseline the existing research work the existing literature should be studied to make meaningful conclusions. Phase 2: Develop the future goals and objectives Once the base lining is done, the next thing would be to develop the future vision of the research (Pascarella, 2012). The understanding of diverse classrooms and the conflict management in multicultural environment would help to develop the future vision and the objective of research. Phase 3: Actions to achieve future goals and vision The necessary actions to achieve the future goals and vision would be to decide the extent of primary research and the extent of secondary research that would be used in the process to fulfill the existing research gap. The process to fulfill the gap in the existing research work could also include primary research in addition to the secondary research. It is important that the process to fulfill the existing research should be a flexible process so that the changes in the process can be made if required. References Barker, M. C., Mak, A. S. (2013). From classroom to boardroom and ward developing generic intercultural skills in diverse disciplines.Journal of Studies in International Education,17(5), 573-589. Boyle, B., Charles, M. (2011). Education in a multicultural environment: equity issues in teaching and learning in the school system in England.International Studies in Sociology of Education,21(4), 299-314. Bowman, N. A. (2010). College diversity experiences and cognitive development: A meta-analysis.Review of Educational Research,80(1), 4-33. Burden, P. (2012).Classroom management: Creating a successful K-12 learning community. Wiley Global Education. Cole, E. R., Case, K. A., Rios, D., Curtin, N. (2011). Understanding what students bring to the classroom: Moderators of the effects of diversity courses on student attitudes.Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology,17(4), 397. Gay, G. (2013). Teaching to and through cultural diversity.Curriculum Inquiry,43(1), 48-70. Loes, C., Pascarella, E., Umbach, P. (2012). Effects of diversity experiences on critical thinking skills: who benefits?.The Journal of Higher Education,83(1), 1-25. Loreman, T., Deppeler, J., Harvey, D. (2010).Inclusive Education. Supporting diversity in the classroom. Routledge. Ormrod, J. E. (2013).Educational Psychology: Pearson New International Edition: Developing Learners. Pearson Higher Ed. Tarman, I., Tarman, B. (2011). Developing effective multicultural practices: A case study of exploring a teachers understanding and practices.Journal of International Social Research,4(17), 578-598. Valls, R., Kyriakides, L. (2013). The power of Interactive Groups: how diversity of adults volunteering in classroom groups can promote inclusion and success for children of vulnerable minority ethnic populations.Cambridge Journal of Education,43(1), 17-33. Van Geel, M., Vedder, P. (2010). Multicultural attitudes among adolescents: The role of ethnic diversity in the classroom.Group Processes Intergroup Relations, 1368430210379007. Wright, N. D., Clarke, I. (2010). Preparing marketing students for a global and multicultural work environment: The value of a semester-long study abroad program.Marketing Education Review,20(2), 149-162.