An AnnoTATeD sTuDenT inTroDuCTion: ProViDing A ConTeXT For A Thesis 121populations. However, attribution of learning style or
difference based on group membership can serve to
buttress persistent deficit model orientations to teach-
ing students from nondominant communities; with-
out acknowledging both the regularity and variance
makes it harder to understand the relation of individ-
ual learning and the practices of cultural communi-
ties, which in turn can hinder effective assistance to
student learning (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003).
The key issue here is that learning styles approaches
are grounded in reductive notions of culture that con-
flate race/ethnicity with culture — a practice that often
leads to one-size-fits-all approaches and understand-
ings of the learning process of students from non-
dominant communities. Consider familiar statements
such as “My Latino students learn this way” or “I need
to teach to the cultural background of my African
American students” and even, “Asian students are
good at math.” Such generalizations are based on the
assumption that people hold uniform cultural prac-
tices based on their membership in a particular com-
munity. Culture from this perspective is something
you can observe from people’s phenotype, physical
characteristics, national origin, or language. Culture,
then, is best considered a verb or said differently, cul-
ture is better understood as people’s practices or how
people live culturally (Moll, 1998). This more dynamic
and instrumental role of culture should help us avoid
the tendency to conflate culture with race and ethnic-
ity and assumptions about people’s cultural practices.
To avoid conflating race/ethnicity with culture, I
often remind researchers and educators to invoke the
“100-percent Piñata rule” — that is, 100-percent of Mexi-
cans do not hit piñatas 100-percent of the time. While
piñatas may in fact be a prevalent cultural artifact in
many Mexican and Mexican-descent communities (and
now across many household and communities in the
Southwest), we would not make generalizations about
their use and would expect variation in piñata practices,
their meaning, value, and use. Thus, while cultural arti-
facts mediate human activity, they have varying func-
tions in use and in practice, just as there is regularity and
variance in any cultural community and its practices.Her use of “however”
distinguishes
what she sees as a
prevailing school of
thought and what
she believes should be
the case. Educators’
misconceptions
about culture are the
source of the problem
she identifies.Gutiérrez reaffirms
the issue between
two competing ideas.The lens of culture
that she has adopted
helps us understand
the nature of the
misconception that
she identifies and
solve a problem in
educating students
from non-dominant
groups. This last
sentence is her main
claim.She restates her
claim about culture.5605_GRE_60141_Ch5_106_128.indd 121 11/11/14 2:56 PM