UNICEF B

Committee: UNICEF

Topic B: The impact of religion and cultural biases on children´s education.

Director: Félix Mario Reojas Valdes

Moderator: Melissa María López Moeller

Committe background:

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. It makes a big effort to establish children's rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behavior towards children. UNICEF insists that the survival, protection and development of children are universal development imperatives that are integral to human progress, creates political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families. UNICEF is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children - victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation and those with disabilities. In coordination with United Nations partners and humanitarian agencies, UNICEF makes its unique facilities for rapid response available to its partners to relieve the suffering of children and those who provide their care. It’s non-partisan and its cooperation is free of discrimination. In everything it does, the most disadvantaged children and the countries in greatest need have priority. Its country programs promote the equal rights of women and girls and support their full participation in the political, social, and economic development of their communities.

UNICEF works tirelessly to ensure that children have access to a rights-based, quality education, to ensure that every child- regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background or circumstances- has access to a quality education. The focus is gender equalityand work towards eliminating disparities of all kinds.

The alleged problem of cultural bias is sometimes considered central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology and sociology.

Education of girls is one of the biggest dimensions of cultural bias. The “prefence for sons” that many families in East Asia display has implications for the education of girls. If girls have only to be educated to a level that ensures their marriage - which is a few notches below the educational level of their prospective husbands - then there will be a gender bias in school participation, with boys being more likely to be enrolled at school than girls.

Discrimination is one of the most significant issues related to religion in education. A lot of times it is based on arbitrary characteristics, like turbans and skin color. Dominant group members harass minority groups without thinking about the damage they are doing. This kind of discrimination can cause great discomfort of students in school, making them focus in another kind of issues instead of their grades, like their safety. For example, Sikh- Americans, often mistaken to be allied with Al Qaeda terrorists, have begun cutting their hair, which is against the religion, just so they can fit in with the rest of the children. This is an issue that can severely disrupt the learning experience of students, but this is not only an American problem, this happens in a lot of places.

In many communities there is no tradition of sending children to school and little pressure to do so; more importantly, these traditions co-exist with well established social norms that condone child labor and accept out of school children. The likelihood of children being enrolled at school may also be influenced by community-specific factors. This influence may be indirect: these factors, particularly religion, may shape attitudes towards family size and therefore influence parents’ investment in children. Communities characterized by large families have a lower proportion of children in school than communities in which family sizes are smaller. Cultural factors may have a direct influence on a child's education chances by shaping the importance that parents attach to education.

Recent trends in multiculturalism notwithstanding, education in developed countries remain culturally biased, which leads to bias in curriculum and in school testing. Even well-meaning educators fail to eliminate cultural bias in the classroom, which often results in negative educational outcomes for African-American youth. Culture plays a role in the ability of students to understand curriculum materials and therefore score well on tests. Information may be unknowingly presented in the classroom that is so culturally biased minority students unconsciously or consciously reject it. Many teachers from middle-class backgrounds fail to realize the issues of power that present themselves in classrooms where large numbers of minority children are taught.

In Islamic countries, people are taught since early education that the veil is the legitimate physical border of a woman's existence in society to protect men and the community from any possible moral and social danger and destruction they may cause. They learn that the main duty of women is considered to be taking care of the home and children etc. Teaching that women's oppressed condition and male dominance is something natural, necessary and desirable is an essential theme in school education. Women are pictured only as mothers and housekeepers. In school children learn the traditional male-female gender roles, and that women's segregation and sexual apartheid is a desirable state for women in society. This teaches children that women are inferior to and equal to only half of a man, that women belong to men, that men have the right to punish their wives if they do not obey them and that women are the potential source of corruption in society, so hijab should be imposed on them. This causes that girls suffer depression, deprive of fortitude, strength, and firmness of purpose, bad treating and terrible oppression. Girls don’t even receive the same textbooks that boys do, because “the spiritual, physical, and mental needs of boys and girls are not identical, and therefore textbooks that give them information cannot be the same”.

Free thoughts are forbidden and punishable. Superstition has influenced school course of study. This has created a dark and motionless environment for children. School pupils are taught that if they do not obey the rules, they will be burned in hell. In some societies indoctrination has been imparted to children to cause pupils to hold certain beliefs and religious values. It is forbidden for girls to laugh loudly. They are told that if they do not wear the veil properly or if their hair appears out of the veil, they will be also punished in hell and snakes will grow on their heads. This has deprived and continues to deprive children from learning and experiencing scientific advancements. It kills their creativity and replaces curiosity and desire for learning with the dark rules and values of 1400 years ago at the time of Mohammed.

According to Islamic values, which are the basis of laws in Iran, women are accused of being the source of corrupting the community and the agent of leading men astray. For this "crime" they are controlled and punished from early childhood to the moment of death.

Girl pupils are under enormous pressure in school as well as in the society. The veil (hijab) is imposed on them by force. This deprives them of free movement, the ability to play and happiness and enjoyment in social activities. School authorities spy on girls to see if they wear makeup, if they talk about boys or if they have the pictures of artists and so on. Even pupils are intimidated to spy on their parents and report to the school authority about their parent's life style or whether their female relatives offend against Islamic rules at home. This has produced a system of inquisition in schools. The environment is full of repression and control of children's minds and behavior.

Friendship among girls and boys is forbidden, considered as a sin and punishable. Girls are under strict scrutiny. Their talking, walking, laughing, dress and movement is controlled and monitored carefully. Teachers and principals punish girls physically and psychologically if their veil is not worn properly even while they play.

Separating women from men at schools, universities, sport and recreational facilities, and even in private parties and gatherings, is a concrete example of sexual apartheid. They drop out of school because they are being raped in their way to school, humiliated and degraded. This causes a low effectiveness of girls in school. There’s a high percentage of suicide in teenage girls in scholar age. Another reason of their low development at school is that they have to take care of themselves from boys beating them up and sexual prosecutors, who according to statistics, 40% of rapes are made by people in school age.

Talking about sexual matters is treated as a serious crime and sex education is unacceptable. Any relationship among boys and girls is banned. In such a milieu it is a big sin to talk about male/female bodily organs and sex education. Everything related to male/female relations is considered to be secretive, sinful and full of humiliation. The ignorance of these issues causes a lot of things, like kids don’t knowing what’s happening with them and their school mates and growing with the doubt or wrong ideas and an easier spread of HIV or other STDs. Children are normally keen to learn and experience, know about the world, learn about their bodies and their bodily functions. They want to know where babies come from and about the opposite sex. All these normal and necessary curiosities are answered by frightening tales about evil and hell. This system brings nothing but backwardness and hypocrisy.

Children should be protected against the transgressions of religion and religious sects on their rights. It is an offence to prevent children from enjoying their social and civil rights such as an education that is not influenced by culture and cultural biases, amusement and participation in social activities specific to children. Islamic education in countries under Islamic rule is systematic child abuse.

There’s a high percentage in third world countries of kids not enrolled in school because their parents don’t think education is important. Parents may invest less in the human capital of their daughters than of their sons. For example, Muslim parents may be reluctant to send their children to government schools if the alternative of going to a community-based school exists.

Girls at Islamic schools are not the only ones who suffer. Homosexuals suffer discrimination because of the acceptance of this straight supremacism: the idea that heterosexuals are superior to homosexuals. Reflecting this belief, the law in many countries denies gay people many of the basic human rights that straights take for granted.

Anyways, situations with black and gay children are different; black children who lived with their parents could count on getting love, understanding and support - and a sense of self-respect and black pride. In contrast, gay kids grow up in the prison of a heterosexual home, with straight parents who often despise, mistreat and reject them. This leaves many kids suffering from a lack of identity and low self-esteem, which can later lead to severe depression and destructive behavior patterns such as getting bad grades, alcoholism and suicide.

Some examples:

Twelve year old Rebecca Higgins was harassed by school authorities in May, 2005, when, after giving a short report on the Bible, she distributed free copies of the New Testament to her classmates. After her report, a math teacher, acting under of the school principal, confiscated the New Testaments. At the end of the school day, the New Testaments were returned. But when Rebecca tried to return the New Testaments to her classmates the next morning, she was ordered to the principal's office where she was interrogated about her religious beliefs and told that she had broken the law. Rebecca and her parents sued the school district, and the case eventually settled out of court.

Mary May, a teacher from Indiana filed suit against the school district after she and several co-workers were threatened with dismissal unless they stop holding their weekly early-morning Bible study on school property. Last April, the Seventh U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against May stating, "the school has never been used for meeting unrelated to the business of the school." This, despite of the fact that the school is open for meetings of the PTA, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, a fine arts group, and others. In Indiana, teachers are not permitted to pray or study the Bible together on school property.

In Georgia, Mr. and Mrs. Terry Roemhild were arrested after they took their children from public school in order to teach them at home, in spite of their religious convictions, and in spite of the evidence that the childrem were well educated at home. A Superior Court Judge found them guilty of criminal charge, gave them a fine and ordered them to re-enroll their children in public school.

At a public high school in Lake Worth, Florida, the principal forbade a student Bible club to meet on campus-even though the students me voluntarily and after school hours. The principal's insistence on what he perceived to be "separation of church and state" was graphically illustrated when he ordered the Bible club's page removed from the school's just printed yearbook.

Causes:

Countries’ preset cultural customs and religious practices have made their way through law and education. Countries’ laws are based on religious books, like the Quran, and everyone has to act according to what is said there, no matter if it violates people’s human rights or moral. Ignorance continues to become a factor in why many religious minorities are discriminated against daily in schools all over the country, but everyone deserves an unbiased education.

Solutions

One of the things that caused the fall of the racist regime in South Africa was that progressive people of the world rose up against it, and even forced other states to boycott and break their relations with it. It was as a result of a global awakening, as well as an international mobilization, that the South African regime was defeated and brought down. This can help us call on the people of the world to mobilize and raise their voice of protest against the regime of Sexual apartheid in Iran, that affects girls from all ages. UN must take action in countries’ governments and schools that discriminate minority or weak groups. These governments should reform their laws so education can be totally equal and prejudgment and bias free. Kids in school should receive speeches about bullying and accepting others the way they are. If they can’t do this, students and teachers should receive a sanction.

Iran & Middle East.

Islam’s political efforts to bring God back into people’s lives have made the last two decades some of the darkest in people’s lives, especially of women and children. Medieval beliefs and customs have found the legal way to suppress people. . Iran’s society has suffered serious setbacks in civil rights- especially women’s and children’s. One of these devastating setbacks is religious (Islamic) education.

In various Middle Eastern countries religion (Islam) has a big impact on education and the school system. As a Middle Eastern country, Iran is an extreme case. In Iran the impact of religion on education is far from ordinary. There, Islam rules in every aspect of education. Teaching the Koran and learning it is obligatory from the first year in primary schools. Teachers must pass a religious exam to be permitted to teach. This exam includes Islamic rules, prayers, the Koran and Hadith. Religious teaching regarding women is one of the most devastating aspects of the Islamic educational system in Iran. This teaches children that women are inferior and equal to only half of a man, that women belong to men, that men have the right to punish their wives if they do not obey them, and that women are the potential source of corruption in society so hijab should be imposed on them. This causes a lot of discrimination and bad treating in schools.

Burkina Faso

Access to education is very low for citizens in general and even worse for girls and women. Not only are girls enrolled far less in schools than boys but they experience a higher attrition: chronic failure, falling behind in grade levels, and failing their exams. They are also less likely than boys to attain higher education. They do not get their fare share of education, neither in quantity nor quality. Recently, the proper place of a woman was not to be seen beyond the confines of the home.

India

In the cultural setting of rural India, where women are in paid work only if the needs of the family demand, children whose mothers worked have a lower likelihood of being enrolled at school than children whose mothers were unoccupied.

Many Dalit girls drop out because of discrimination against them by the other higher caste students. Evidence provided by journalists suggests that this is happening in about 90% of Dalit-majority schools.

Ghana

A lot of parents were reluctant to send their daughters to school because their labor was needed in the home and on farms. Resistance to female education also comes from the tradition of women being supported by their husbands. In some circles, there’s even the fear of a girl's marriage prospects scared if she is educated. Most of the girls that go to school do not continue after receiving the basic education certification. Others do not even complete the elementary level of education.

Egypt

The Ministry of Education introduced a mandatory ethics class for the first three grades of primary school in the school year 2002-03, called "morals and values education". The amount of religious education classes - three hours per week at primary level - has not been reduced for the moment being, though Islamists have expressed their fears of religious education suffering from the introduction of ethics lessons.

Critics argued that ethics cannot be separated from religion, which they say the new subject does, because it does not teach ethics from the perspective of a particular religion, and teaches Muslims and Christians together. Islamists argue that pupils are going to lose their identity and going to be confused and lose all sense of morals as a result.
A representative of the Ministry of Education said in front of the parliamentary committee that the purpose of the new ethics class was to raise a generation that is able to stand up to political conflicts.

The possibility of choosing one’s religion is not addressed. Religion is rather used as a tool to underline the merit of certain types of behavior. It is nationality, not religion, which is considered the main source of identity in these textbooks.

USA

In consideration of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, there has been a new "guidance" on prayer in schools released by the Department of Education. Robert Paige, the Education Secretary, stated that "Public schools should not be hostile to the religious rights of their students and their families". Schools are forbidden to have rules which put a stop to constitutionally protected prayer in schools. According to the First Amendment, it is prohibited for the government to sponsor religious activity. Therefore, teachers may not in any way lead their students in prayer, recitation of the Bible or other religious activities. On the other hand, these practices, such as Bible reading, praying, and starting religious clubs, must be allowed for the students on their own time just as much as non-religious activities. Government must be neutral toward religion and cannot be entangled with any religion.

Questions for the delegates.

- How is your country’s education influenced by religion?

- What is the impact of cultural biases on your schools?

- How are teachers involved in this impact?

- What are the main consequences of culture and religion being involved in school?

- How is your students’ development affected by this?

- Does your country permit religious practice at school?

- What kind of laws has your country got about religion and cultural practices?

- Is there any sanction for teacher/students who discriminate others?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-http://sitemaker.umich.edu/356.weitz/disadvantages_of_religion_in_education

- http://paa2004.princeton.edu/download.asp?submissionId=40015