{"id":5897,"date":"2021-04-11T16:26:13","date_gmt":"2021-04-11T20:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/?p=5897"},"modified":"2021-04-11T16:31:03","modified_gmt":"2021-04-11T20:31:03","slug":"we-are-different-yet-we-are-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/2021\/04\/11\/we-are-different-yet-we-are-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe Are Different Yet We Are The Same\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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One of the great things about the data available to us is that we have interviews from multiple students as well as alumni and we can get a variety of perspectives from this. As you would expect, there are many overlaps in how students describe what the school is like given that they all attended the same school. But there are also some interesting contrasts in what the interviewees have to say about their personal experiences as well as about the school itself. The main differences that I will explore are how the responses to questions surrounding social class differed between the advantaged and disadvantaged students; and furthermore, students\u2019 perceptions of how Sankofa prepares them to deal with social differences in the real world.<\/p>\n

A major difference was how comfortably students answered questions about social class. The disadvantaged students went into greater detail about what social class means to them and how that plays a role in their school experience. A couple of them even pointed out the advantages and privileges of the wealthier students and how that benefits those students. They also addressed how their lower status impacts the way they conduct themselves at school. For example, they strive to be super polite and speak properly in order to defy the stereotypes that people will make about them. On the other hand, the advantaged students seemed less comfortable answering questions related to their social class. The wealthier students said they were aware of their privilege but never explicitly said how they benefited from it. Also, when asked about what social class means to them, none seemed to be able to give a confident answer.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, there were contrasting thoughts on how well Sankofa teaches students to deal with ethnic and cultural differences. One of the alumni interviewed who was a privileged student said that he thought Sankofa prepared him well for the outside world and to deal with social class differences. He added that he became more culturally aware and took away from his experience at Sankofa that even though people are different, we are still the same in many ways. However, an alumni, who came from a disadvantaged background, said that she did not feel well prepared to handle social differences after her time at Sankofa and that it was a culture shock when she went onto college. It is also interesting to learn that many disadvantaged students stay within their \u201ccomfort zone\u201d while at Sankofa by mostly spending time with other students like them.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span>These differences are important to pay attention to because of not only what it reveals about the social teachings at Sankofa, but it also prompts us to think more critically about elite schools in general and how they cultivate diverse learning environments. It is not enough to just diversify a school to make students more culturally aware; but in addition, schools must also instill a culture that encourages students from different backgrounds to truly appreciate each other’s differences and understand the value in doing so.<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \t <\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the great things about the data available to us is that we have interviews from multiple students as well as alumni and we can get a variety of perspectives from this. As you would expect, there are many overlaps in how students describe what the school is like given that they all attended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[277231],"builder_content":"

One of the great things about the data available to us is that we have interviews from multiple students as well as alumni and we can get a variety of perspectives from this. As you would expect, there are many overlaps in how students describe what the school is like given that they all attended the same school. But there are also some interesting contrasts in what the interviewees have to say about their personal experiences as well as about the school itself. The main differences that I will explore are how the responses to questions surrounding social class differed between the advantaged and disadvantaged students; and furthermore, students\u2019 perceptions of how Sankofa prepares them to deal with social differences in the real world.<\/p>

A major difference was how comfortably students answered questions about social class. The disadvantaged students went into greater detail about what social class means to them and how that plays a role in their school experience. A couple of them even pointed out the advantages and privileges of the wealthier students and how that benefits those students. They also addressed how their lower status impacts the way they conduct themselves at school. For example, they strive to be super polite and speak properly in order to defy the stereotypes that people will make about them. On the other hand, the advantaged students seemed less comfortable answering questions related to their social class. The wealthier students said they were aware of their privilege but never explicitly said how they benefited from it. Also, when asked about what social class means to them, none seemed to be able to give a confident answer.\u00a0 <\/p>

In addition, there were contrasting thoughts on how well Sankofa teaches students to deal with ethnic and cultural differences. One of the alumni interviewed who was a privileged student said that he thought Sankofa prepared him well for the outside world and to deal with social class differences. He added that he became more culturally aware and took away from his experience at Sankofa that even though people are different, we are still the same in many ways. However, an alumni, who came from a disadvantaged background, said that she did not feel well prepared to handle social differences after her time at Sankofa and that it was a culture shock when she went onto college. It is also interesting to learn that many disadvantaged students stay within their \u201ccomfort zone\u201d while at Sankofa by mostly spending time with other students like them.<\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

\u00a0These differences are important to pay attention to because of not only what it reveals about the social teachings at Sankofa, but it also prompts us to think more critically about elite schools in general and how they cultivate diverse learning environments. It is not enough to just diversify a school to make students more culturally aware; but in addition, schools must also instill a culture that encourages students from different backgrounds to truly appreciate each other's differences and understand the value in doing so.<\/p>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5897"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5909,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897\/revisions\/5909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}