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Ethnic Diversity in a (Relatively) Homogeneous Space
I spent last semester studying in Denmark and every Thursday as part of my coursework I visited a very small, independent K-10th grade school. The student body (about 150 students total) was predominantly white and there were only two non-ethnic Danish students amongst the approximately 35 8th through 10th graders that I spent most of my time working with. My position at the site was one of a participant-researcher. I worked with the English teacher to lead presentations on and discussions about American culture. I served almost as an ambassador of the United States to students who had never met an American before. I ate lunch with together with the students and chatted with them during breaks. But I was also collecting notes about the classroom culture and even led group interviews at the end of my semester there to gather student perspectives on gender in the classroom – a topic I wrote my final term paper on. I share this background because I want to make clear my position in relationship to the students I worked with. I was not considered a teacher exactly, but I was also not considered a "friend."
I'm still unsure of how to process this. What is one's place (duty, perhaps?) to intervene in a new or unfamiliar situation? If I were in the position of teacher, how could I have brokered a conversation about the consequences of saying hurtful things? And in a place where there is a much different level of diversity in the U.S. schools that I've attended, how can I avoid either tokenizing or ignoring this particular aspect of identity in the single student of color in the classroom?