10 Ideologies

Ideologies are unconscious ideas about people or social groups that that determine values, behavior, and socialization. They are erroneous beliefs about external social groups that are taken for granted, but they are unable to accept that they hold this believes because they know they are wrong.

Before the French Revolution and the declaration of the human rights, it was acceptable for Europeans to consider people of African, indigenous or Asian descent inferior human beings, or consider women inferior to men. Colonization made Europeans believe they were superiors. Gradually the liberal ideas whereby all humans were considered equals revisited those old erroneous beliefs. Up to our days, people still reproduce ideas derived from colonial times, but they know it is wrong to hold those ideas, so they tend to mask them through ideologies.

A person in the driver’s license office doesn’t even care about migration. However, this officer requests extra documentation to a person with a Hispanic last name. The officer doesn’t know they hold a belief against Hispanics, but enacts it unconsciously. A male driver thinks all women should drive, but upon a car incident blames the female driver. This unconscious blaming masks the erroneous idea that women shouldn’t drive.

All of us hold ideologies since that’s a natural part of living in a traditionally unequal society. However, it is advisable to be aware of your own harmful beliefs when teaching children of other cultures.

Ideologies in the social studies

• The map of the United States in your classroom excludes Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. The map implies that those territories are not part of the United States, and makes colonization invisible.
• The map of the United States in your classroom is shown in isolation without bordering territories such as Canada or Mexico. Children generate the belief that the United States exists in isolation.
• When talking about Native American cultures, you use images from artifacts in a museum or talk in the past tense. This implies that Native Americans are people who existed in the past and that don’t exist today.
• When you talk about democracy, you show a flag of the United States, implying that only the United States holds a democracy. All other democratic countries are invisible, which implies the idea that the United States is superior. Also, you are implying the idea that democracy works in the abstract level of nationalism, forgetting that democracy involves people.
• You use the words “we” when talking about the United States in certain battle or historical war, like in the statement: “We won the World War II.” A Japanese student may not be included in that “We” statement, and this positions yourself outside of their social group.
• You teach legends about historic politicians, military, or aristocrats as facts. They most often were in the reality imperfect human beings with lots of wrongdoings, and there may be a victim to the same individual who is left invisible.

Ideologies in the language arts:

• You tell the students that words like “ain’t” “gonna” “wanna” or “y’all” don’t exist . This implies that you don’t care about the existence of people who often use these words.
• You tell the students that words like “ain’t” “gonna” “wanna” or “y’all” are incorrect. This implies that people who often say these words are incorrect human beings.
• You designate the English spoken by a bilingual person as “heavy” or “thick,” which implies that this person is heavy or a burden to you.
• You designate the English spoken by a fluent bilingual person as difficult to understand. It implies that this person doesn’t deserve the effort of engaging in communication with you.
• You use the word “silent” to certain letters. This shows the wrong belief that the written is superior. In the reality, there’s no silent letter, there’s just a word with lots of residual letters that honor the English Empire. I prefer the word “sneaky” for silent letters.

Ideologies in math and sciences:

• When talking about parts of the body, you always use the drawing of a white male child, which implies only white males have legitimate bodies.
• When talking about parts of the body, you omit genitalia. This implies the idea that certain parts of the body are shameful.
• When talking about animals, you usually refer to them as “he.” You imply that male is the gender by default, while female is the differential gender.
• When talking about robots, you refer to them as “he” because you imply that male is the gender by default, while female is the differential gender.
• When doing labs in groups of mixed-gender group, you usually approach the boy instead of the girls in the group.
• You only talk about Africa to discuss wild animals in the science classroom, and never talk about Africa in the social studies.

Ideologies about translanguaging:

Theory recently gives value to translanguaging strategies, which are sometimes felt like bad teaching practices. In fact, I was trained in some of these teaching practices that discouraged translanguaging. One big example is the usage of Google Translator in the classroom or using English to explain grammar. I was taught never use English in teaching Spanish, but using the native language in the language classroom is a translanguaging strategy, so why not? In the past, I was against Google Translator, but after learning about translanguaging, I even encourage using Google Translator. I show them how to use it wisely, but even poor usage of Google Translator is a valid translanguaging strategy. Recently ChatGPT and Large Language Models have been developed and could be more accurate than Google Translators. Assistive technology has existed for a while to support students with disabilities, so why not to use it for bilinguals? ChatGPT could also speak a translation to early readers. In my opinion, Anglo-American ideologies against multilingual diversity are behind stigmatization of translanguaging stragies.

The child translator:

In your classroom, you may have a fluent bilingual kid that may help transition the newcomer into English way easily. This is legitimate translanguaging strategy to use in the classroom. If you use the child translator with pedagogical strategy, it may empower the child and enhance social ties while making multiple languages visible in the classroom. However, overusing the child translator may imply several harmful ideologies:

• You imply that translation is an informal skill that a person gives for free.
• You show that you are not willing to make an effort to communicate with the bilingual student.
• You show the idea that Hispanics need to privilege help of others over their own school work. Translating may be a distractor to the bilingual child.
• You suggest that Hispanics need to hang out with Hispanics only, reinforcing ethnic segregation.
• The bilingual grows up believing that their skills should be unpayable, and keep offering such high-order skill for free during their life. That’s unfair and perpetuates the ideology that Spanish is unvaluable.
• You make a statement that supporting newcomers is the sole responsibility of a fellow student, which perpetuates disengagement from school into the bilingual process.

Bibliography

The above information summarizes multiple perspectives on ideologies that may be subject to complex philosophical and sociological theorization. The next list of references follow some of the readings that have influenced the ideas that I summarized above.

Agamben, G. (2011). The kingdom and the glory: For a theological genealogy of economy and governance. Stanford University Press.

Apple, M. W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Banks, J. A. (2015). Cultural diversity and education: Foundations, curriculum, and teaching (6th ed.). Pearson.

Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power (J. B. Thompson, Ed.). Harvard University Press.

Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and power (2nd ed.). Pearson Education.

Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed.). Continuum

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. Crown Publishing Group.

Van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. Sage Publications.

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. State University of New York Press.

Žižek, S. (2008). The ideology of late capitalism. Verso.