Volume 1, Issue 2

Many at-risk students face myriad problems that are pervasive, multifaceted, and socio-historical. These problems sometimes lead them to anger, frustration, hate, hostility, and rage. In the educational system, these problems frequently lead to stigmatization as well as misidentification, mislabeling, misplacement, and misinstruction. Ironically, too often, the students are blamed by the same system that fails to design innovative programs to respond to their behavioral and learning styles. In this article, I describe how to manage anger and optimize the educational potential of at-risk students using the Comprehensive Support Model (CSM).

With the increasing enrollment of multicultural students in public schools, it is necessary to understand how to provide appropriate services to students from diverse backgrounds. Testing situations are also increasing with the addition of the No Child Left Behind Act. In order to accurately assess whether students are performing poorly due to not understanding the material or whether their poor performance is due to test anxiety, three different assessments show promise: The Test Anxiety Scale for Children (TASC), the Lie Scale for Children (LSC), and the Defensiveness Scale for Children (DSC). These assessments will help to determine the level of test anxiety and whether or not children are being defensive or lying when they take the TASC. If test anxiety exists in the classroom, the classroom teacher can provide treatment in conjunction with the school counselor. In this article, we discuss how to assess test anxiety and how to apply several cognitive-behavioral techniques for addressing it for more effective multicultural learning and teaching.

The principles of psychology are an effective, yet underutilized resource within American schools. Teachers can take advantage of established interventions from the field of psychology and apply them to their classrooms in a realistic, straightforward manner, while still remaining in the role of the educator. A large part of cognitive-behavioral therapy involves teaching individuals about how their thoughts, feelings, and actions are interrelated. Specifically, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) teaches one how to thrive in situations that may be beyond one’s control, while combating the self-defeating thoughts or behaviors likely to develop under such circumstances. For these reasons, REBT has the potential to positively impact students, particularly those in multicultural settings who face the barriers of stereotyping and discrimination. This article explains how teachers and counselors can utilize REBT strategies to empower urban students. These skills allow educators to acknowledge the challenges within their students’ environment, without giving them permission to render themselves helpless. Consequently, REBT is a valuable tool for the multicultural learner because it recognizes and respects the power within the individual to positively influence his or her own future.

Oppositional culture theory is a widely accepted explanation for disparities in academic performance between middle class Whites and middle class African Americans. The authors make the case that oppositional culture theory has its roots in cultural deficit theory popularized in the early 1960s and present a significant body of evidence to refute it. They express concern that oppositional culture theory is a form of victim blaming that distracts attention from numerous forms of racism that remain as virulent and ubiquitous barriers to academic achievement among African Americans.

A multicultural curriculum is one that includes all cultures that make up the United States, and social class is one factor to address when considering such a curriculum. Social class is often misperceived as the middle class social strata, because it is the core structure within the United States. Culture is a social personality structure, and it involves language, sanctions, values, gender identity, family constellation, ethnic and racial identity, and acculturation. If a multicultural educational curriculum is implemented, the needs of all students are addresses and such a curriculum has to explore the impact of race, social class, and gender on education.