Ethnic Minority Empowerment

Ethnic minority students throughout the world have experienced disproportional school failure in education systems organized, administered, and controlled by members of the dominant group. This pattern is common to minority groups in most western countries who have been conquered, subjugated, segregated, and regarded as inherently inferior by the dominant group. Educational failure is regarded by the dominant group as the natural consequence of the minority group's inherent inferiority. This process of blaming the victim is legitimized by pointing at high rates of alcohol abuse, poor hygiene, and lack of middle-class child rearing practices, all of which are viewed as manifestations of the minority group's deficiency. It is not difficult to recognize in this picture the operation of racism that is embedded inextricably in the workings of the society itself. The process of blaming the minority group for its own failure effectively screens from critical scrutiny the way in which the educational system produces school failure among minority students.