ERIC Identifier:
ED429144
Publication Date: 1999-03-00
Author: Schwartz, Wendy
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education New
York NY.
Arab American Students in Public Schools. ERIC Digest,
Number 142.
Arab Americans in U.S. schools represent
more than 20 countries in the Middle East and Northern
Africa. They share many similarities with other
immigrant groups seeking to establish an ethnic identity
in a heterogeneous country, but they also face
additional challenges. These result especially from
negative stereotyping; racism and discrimination;
widespread misinformation about their history and
culture; and, for the majority who are Muslim, the need
to find ways to practice their religion in a
predominantly Judeo-Christian country (Jackson, 1995).
Some Muslim Arab American parents send
their children to private Muslim schools so they can
receive an education consonant with the family's
religious beliefs, but most opt for public schools (Zehr,
1999). As the number of Arab American students in public
schools has increased, so has the array of strategies
and materials for successfully integrating them. Still,
many schools have not yet acknowledged Arab culture and
history or counteracted Arab stereotyping (Suleiman,
1996). This digest reviews the resources available to
provide Arab Americans with a supportive school
environment and all students with an accurate and
unbiased education on the Middle East.
SCHOOL CLIMATE
School policies and practices largely determine how
welcome Arab American students feel. Schools can:
*Represent the Middle East, Arabs, and
Muslims accurately, completely, and fairly in the
curriculum and school activities.
*Ensure that Arab American students are
treated equitably and without prejudice by teachers and
peers, and that teachers respond to incidences of racism
and discrimination strongly and quickly, with attention
to both the perpetrators and the victims.
*Respect the customs of the native
culture and religion of Arab students.
INCLUSION OF ARAB CULTURE
Although Arab Americans may be one of the smaller
minorities in schools, they should be represented in
multicultural courses and activities to validate
their culture and educate all students about the
Middle East. Field trips can include visits to Arab
community institutions, assembly speakers can
include Arab American leaders, and film series can
include Arab contributions, for example. Schools can
involve Arab American families to familiarize
students with the various groups' celebrations,
foods, and history (ADC, 1993a).
ELIMINATION OF PREJUDICE AND
DISCRIMINATION
Because prejudice against Arab Americans increases
when political events involve Arabs, or are even
speculated to involve them, educators need to be
prepared to respond to possible harassment of Arab
American students resulting from negative news
reporting, and to invoke school policies against
hate crimes and discrimination as appropriate
(Suleiman, 1996).
Administrators and teachers should
correct erroneous information when confronted with it,
such as popular myths that all Arabs are
"...wealthy...barbaric and backward, and...have harems"
(Farquharson, 1988, p. 4). They can help students
understand that Arab Americans should not be held
personally accountable for events in the Middle East
(ADC, 1997). They can confront scapegoating by allowing
students to air their views and helping them understand
why such judgments are inaccurate and hurtful (ADC,
1997).
Schools can take care not to
discriminate against Muslims. They should not enforce
dress codes or showering requirements that violate the
Muslim tradition of modesty or require Muslim students
to engage in coed physical education classes. Educators
should ensure that girls are not ridiculed for their
head covering. They should not schedule tests on major
Islamic holidays and should allow fasting students to go
to the library instead of the cafeteria during Ramadan.
Federal law permits students to organize prayer
services, and schools should accommodate such requests
from Muslims (Council on American-Islamic Relations,
1997). Muslims across the country are now petitioning
schools to label cafeteria food containing pig products,
and some schools are already doing so (Zehr, 1999).
STAFF DEVELOPMENT
Schools can provide professional development
training and make available to their staff accurate
resource materials about the Middle East, Islam, the
various Arab groups in the U.S., and the nature and
extent of anti-Arab sentiment. Middle East
organizations and centers at local colleges offer
schools a range of services, including training,
often at no cost. For example, the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has produced a
substantial Middle East bibliography for educators
(1993b) and a guide for helping Arab parents serve
as a resource for teachers (ADC, 1993a). Followers
of Islam in particular (Arab Americans as well as
other Muslim communities) want to feel respected,
and providing teachers with information about the
religion promotes understanding. Several groups,
such as the Arab World and Islamic Resources and
School Services, conduct workshops; others,
including the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(1997), have published materials for educators.
CURRICULUM COURSE CONTENT
Arab references can be infused across the curriculum
to familiarize students with Middle East culture and
dispel myths: Arab music, Arab art, photographs of
Arab countries, American words with Arab roots,
notable Arab Americans, etc. (ADC, 1993a). Courses
in religious tolerance need to include Islam.
Anti-racism training (for educators and students)
should cite Arab Americans as a group targeted by
bigots. Schools can also offer Arabic as a foreign
language, an option available to Fairfax County, VA,
students (Zehr, 1999).
To promote critical thinking skills by
analyzing news reports, teachers can ask students to
evaluate stories for biases, unsubstantiated
accusations, or uneven treatment of Arabs and Jews that
promote racism. To identify stereotyping, teachers can
ask students to critique their textbooks, television
programs, movies, books, and news reports for negative
portrayals of Arabs; indeed, many studies document
pervasive anti-Arab attitudes in the entertainment
media, including cartoons (ADC, 1997; Wingfeld &
Karaman, 1995).
TEXTBOOKS
A scholarly evaluation of texts covering Middle East
subjects and Islam (Barlow, 1994) has documented
that many of them are "deficient" and "inaccurate"
(ADC, 1993a, p. 9). Further, children's fiction that
portrays Arab and Jewish children together is also
frequently biased against Arabs (Kissen, 1991).
Therefore, educators need to evaluate materials in
use and discard those with misinformation or biases.
Then they can work with school districts and the
state to ensure that new books are more accurate
(ADC, 1993a; Council on American-Islamic Relations,
1997).
A variety of resources are available to
facilitate this process. The American Forum for Global
Education (Kelahan & Penn, 1996) has produced an
extensive bibliography of materials on Arab history that
can be used by curriculum developers, and the Arab World
and Islamic Resources and School Services (Shabbas,
1998) has issued a large notebook for secondary school
teachers to use as a basis for a multifaceted
curriculum. In Michigan, which has the largest Arab
American community in the U.S., parents work with the
school system to produce a high quality and accurate
curriculum (ADC, 1993a).
COMMUNICATING WITH ARAB AMERICAN
STUDENTS
Arab Americans from different countries differ from
each other in culture and socioeconomic status, as
do Muslim and Christian Arabs, and newly-arrived and
second and third generation Arabs. To accommodate
the individuality of Arab families, it is important
for teachers and counselors to take the lead from
students and their parents when approaching them
about school and other related issues, and to be
knowledgeable about Arab culture as a whole (Adeed &
Smith, 1997). In general, though, recent immigrants
may experience culture shock, and feel insecure and
lonely; all Arab Americans may feel alienated
because of perceived prejudice and ridicule of their
rituals, and they may express negative feelings as a
defense (Jackson, 1997).
The counselors of Arab American students
need to respect both traditional Arab attitudes toward
usual counseling practices and the Arab communication
style in all interactions. Jackson recommends first
meeting with the student outside the counseling office
to build rapport. Group counseling should be considered
because it "reflects the Arab value of collectivism,"
and the group should be single sex. Also, a cognitive
approach may help allow students to honor their
reluctance to discuss personal feelings with strangers.
Finally, Arab clients are more comfortable sitting very
close to the counselor than are members of other groups
(Jaclson, 1995, p. 49).
Family life and harmony are crucial to
Arabs, so educators need to demonstrate respect for the
sanctity of the nuclear and extended family and the
familial role of elders. Nevertheless, when Arab
American students seem troubled, it may be productive to
determine whether their problems stem from
intergenerational differences within their family or
another source. Inviting family participation in the
counseling process regardless of the nature of the
student's problem can be useful Jackson, 1995; 1997).
Because Arabs are very sensitive to public criticism,
teachers should express concerns to Arab American
students in a way that minimizes "loss of 'face'" (Adeed
& Smith, 1997, p. 505). Finally, helping families cope
with varying levels of acculturation, language
differences, and conformity to tradition can enable
students to develop a positive identity that is both
personally satisfying and respectful of their heritage.
REFERENCES
Adeed, P., & Smith, G. P. (1997). Arab Americans:
Concepts and materials. In J.A. Banks, Teaching
strategies for ethnic studies. Needham Heights, MA:
Allyn & Bacon.
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee. (1993a). Educational outreach and action
guide: Working with school systems. Washington, DC:
Author.
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee. (1993b). Teachers' resources on the Middle
East. Washington, DC: Author. (ED 363 531)
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee. (1997). 1996-97 report on hate crimes &
discrimination against Arab Americans. Washington, DC:
Author.
Barlow, E. (Ed.). (1994). Evaluation of
secondary-level textbooks for coverage of the Middle
East and North Africa (3rd ed). Ann Arbor, MI/Tucson,
AZ: Middle East Studies Association/Middle East Outreach
Council.
Council on American-Islamic Relations.
(1997). An educator's guide to Islamic religious
practices. Washington, D.C.: Author.
Farquharson, M. (1988, March). Ideas for
teaching Arab students in a multicultural setting. Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the Teachers of
English to Speakers of Other Languages, Chicago, IL. (ED
296 575)
Jackson, M.L. (1995). Counseling youth
of Arab ancestry. In C.C. Lee (Ed.), Counseling for
diversity (pp. 41-60). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn &
Bacon. (ED 389 789)
Jackson, M.L. (1997). Counseling Arab
Americans. In C.C. Lee (Ed.), Multicultural issues in
counseling (2nd ed., pp. 333-352). Alexandria: American
Counseling Association.
Kelahan, B., & Penn, M. (Eds.). (1996).
Spotlight on the Muslim Middle East--Crossroads. A
student reader and teacher's guide. New York: American
Forum for Global Education. (ED 415 144)
Kissen, R.M. (1995, June). The children
of Hagar and Sarah. Children's Literature in Education,
22(2), 111-20. (EJ 432 622)
Shabbas, A. (Ed.). (1998). Arab world
studies notebook. Berkeley, CA: Arab World and Islamic
Resources and School Services.
Suleiman, M.F. (1996). Educating the
Arab American child: Implications for teachers.
Unpublished manuscript, Fort Hays State University,
College of Education, Hays, KS. (ED 392 864)
Wingfield, M., & Karaman, B. (1995,
March-April). Arab stereotypes and American educators.
Social studies and the Young Learner, 7(4), 7-10. (EJ
502 285)
Zehr, M.A. (1999, January 20). Guardians
of the faith. Education Week, XVIII(19), p. 26-31.
