Bowman (1995) emphasizes why schools must make special efforts to incorporate students' language and culture into the curriculum:
"When schools represent an Anglocentric and middle-class viewpoint, [minority and poor] students and their families often feel devalued. This experience is common to many Spanish-speaking children. For these children, the issue is less one of language (difficulty in acquiring English) than of a social context in which these children, their families, and their communities are undervalued. Instead of reinforcing children's self-confidence and self-esteem, school compromises their learning potential by rejecting their language and culture. Even more serious, by devaluing the culture of poor and minority children, teachers encourage an ominous cultural choice: Identify with family and friends and disavow the school, or embrace school culture and face emotional/social isolation. The result is that many young children opt for family and friends and become unwilling participants in school culture....
Bilingual/bicultural classes and Afrocentric curricula are attempts to 'even the playing field' so that the language and culture of these groups are perceived as equally valued and powerful. Projects such as the Kamahameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP) have demonstrated that when children are not required to renounce their cultural heritage, school achievement improves markedly (Tharp, 1989)."
