Pedagogy

Pedagogy

Question 2: The Expectations and Experiences of Minority First Year Faculty

Introduction

As the racial and ethnic minority in general population of USA has been increasing, research indicates that diversified workforce in educational institutions has become vital in a way. This minority majorly covers the African American, Latino Americans, and American Indians. One of the major factors behind increasing minority faculty is increasing the pipeline of minority students, as minority faculty provides the form of role models, mentors, and educators, for minority students (Mahoney et al, 2010). Minority faculty represents a significant symbol to minority students regarding their own futures, along with their institutional commitment, and develops a comfortable environment for minority students and faculty.

However, according to report of US Census Bureau, even after four decades of equal opportunity rights legislation, African Americans and Hispanics still make up a proportionally small percentage of the faculties of higher education institutions of America. Furthermore, the Universities are also facing issue of retaining minority faculties, and mostly the minority faculties depart the educational institution in their first year. Research indicates that there are several reasons associated with the experiences and expectations of minority faculties that can lead them towards the departure from the organization, even in their first year (Roper, 2009).

Factors and Rationale

Minority teachers join the educational institutions with varying expectations and then they experience various challenges in these institutions. Teachers are encumbered with increasing accountability demands and this common pressure is confounded by the unique challenges faced by minority teachers. These complications often lead to dissatisfaction and, eventually, a decision to abandon teaching. Research and studies have suggested that there are many factors that can affect their expectations, create dissatisfaction and prompt minority teachers to leave the institutions (www.jmu.edu). Among these factors, major ones are stereotyping, discrimination, and unsupported work environment.

Stereotypes

The history of USA is full of ethnic and racial strife, prejudice, discrimination, and other. This history portrays minorities as being negative or less worthy then white Americans. According to the research, this stereotyping makes view minorities, especially Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians as being less intelligent and having poor work ethics than White Americans. Studies also suggest that Asian Americans are assumed to be more research oriented and not good at supervising people, Hispanic are assumed to be unassertive, and African Americans are viewed as being lethargic and incompetent (Roper, 2009).

Further, the media also contributes to perpetuate these stereotyping through the mass media which shapes our culture and subculture. Due to stereotyping this belief system about minorities is further cemented into cognitive structures of those members who are part of an organization (Roper, 2009). Thus, it is very much evident that this factor i.e. stereotyping very much affects the expectations and experiences of minorities teaching in educational institutes.

Discrimination

Discrimination is much more evident today as well than any other factor contributing in minority's difficulties. Even the national studies indicated that minorities know about and experience discrimination which still exists in the workplace. Today many organizations, in fact many nations, ...