Risk Factors In Our Unique Cultural Context

August 20, 2008

Port-of-Spain

Trinidad and Tobago

Dr. Launcelot I. Brown

Defining Culture

The sum total of the ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another (From anthropology)

The behaviours and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group

The quality of a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits

Defining Culture cont.’

UNESCO (2002)

Culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive

spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features

of society, or a social group. It encompasses arts,

literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, values

systems, traditions and beliefs. … All the ways of life

for an entire society

Manifestation of Culture

Artifacts and Activities Food Music Literature Dress Dance Speech patterns Prism through which we view the world Organizational and family structure Attitude

The Big Point

Culture is not static. It is forever changing.

Why? The environment Technology Communication

At-risk Students

At risk of what? Dropping out of school Academic failure Problem behaviours Limited employment opportunities Implied but not stated

At risk of going to jail

The assumption

To deem the previous outcomes a risk, one has to

assume that students want to stay in school and

succeed academically to improve their employment opportunities.

One has to assume that students find attending

school to be a rewarding experience

The big question

Who is the at-risk student?

The urban poor child

The child from the single parent family

The child from the home with low maternal education

Big question cont’

The child who is economically deprived

The child who is socially deprived

The child who is emotionally deprived

A caution

We have to be careful. The aforementioned are

identified in the extant literature as risk-factors

associated with student achievement.

An association does not indicate cause

The Trinidad and Tobago Context

There is a Trinidad and Tobago culture. But there are also

sub-cultures. There is the Tobago culture, Indo-Trinidadian

culture and Afro-Trinidadian culture. There is also the culture

reflective of social class.

I would argue that in Trinidad and Tobago, while the risk

factors permeate all ethnic groups and social classes , it is the

Afro-Trinidadian, many of whom perceive themselves to be at

the bottom of the social class who is at greatest risk.

What does culture have to do with it?

There is the influence of history.

Voluntary and involuntary immigrant and the sense of

Mission (John Ogbu)

There is a difference between people who have been

uprooted from what they know, and those who build

on what they have.

Culture cont’

This fact is played out in the various enclaves all over

Trinidad and Tobago.

A culture of survival.

Learning from Marcus Garvey. Martin Henry: Jamaican Gleaner

Sunday August 17 marked the 121st anniversary of the birth

of Marcus Garvey.

One of the major problems with black people, and with the

post-colonial Caribbean in particular, is that we are not

sufficiently in love with wisdom (which is what 'philosophy'

means in the Greek: philos, love; sophia, wisdom). We do not

cultivate our own lovers of wisdom. And we do not invest

sufficiently in the enterprise of reflection. We worship sports

and entertainment. We push politics and social activism. We

don't back thought.

Call to the middle class

Rise up, you middle class, against a culture of illiteracy and vulgarity

Xolela Mangcu: The South African Times

But the middle class has never been just an economic category. Among

black people it consisted of priests, chiefs, teachers, lawyers, nurses,

doctors and businessmen and women who, while earning more than the

mass of the population, also embodied certain social and cultural values.

For the most part these values were education, faith, social responsibility

and temperance.

However, the historical role of the middle class began to wane in the 1980s.

The growing militancy and militarisation of our society gave birth to a new

phenomenon in our political culture — the celebration of violence as

spectacle, and illiteracy as authenticity.

Glorification of vulgarity

I suppose it is how you define vulgarity, or what you consider

to be vulgar

Incremental effect of bad habits

Bad habits grow by degrees

Like streams into rivers

And rivers into seas(A.N.R. Robinson)

Also good habits (L. I. Brown)

Examples from the media

Some of the DJs and the choice of music

Some of the talk show hosts

The rationale (the excuse)

“But that is we culture”

The fact is, children give legitimacy to what they hear on the

radio, especially if their parents also listen to the shows.

A culture of mediocrity

A culture of mediocrity is as a result of attitudes. Such a

culture does not foster perseverance or excellence.

The common saying in Trinidad and Tobago is:

“That could pass”

The culture of the home

Family education culture

Family social values

Family morals

The school culture

Who becomes a teacher?

How does one become a teacher?

How selective is the process to become a teacher?

How effective is the school leadership?

All these impact the school culture and as a result place some children at

Risk of school failure. However, these are also symptoms of the traditional

bureaucratic culture that so far has been able to resist the implementation

of structural reorganization.