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children, whatever culture a child is from, he or she is human, able to
learn, able to think, and able to feel, and cultural differences are
small compared to these similarities" (Harrington, 1978, p. 2). In
thinking of culture in terms of educational planning, Harrington
believes that knowing something about a particular culture "... does
not excuse educators from their obligation to know the child as an
individual, unique from other individuals, and to respond to the child's
own special needs with a personally designed plan of instruction" (1978,
p. 2).
The removal of barriers
Members of the dominant culture tend to think of culture as being
observed only in other groups of people and to believe there is only
one unifying culture per group. Mehan (1981) stresses the need to
analyze language and culture in the classroom from the viewpoint of the
participants. This analysis may require several perspectivesthat of
the dominant culture and that of participants who are not members of the
dominant group. The researcher must therefore be fluent in the language
or languages spoken in the cultures to be studied.
The anthropological researcher from the U.S. involved in educational
research in the U.S. must devote a great deal more thought to research
design and the presentation of the results than has been done when
anthropologists went on a frontier expedition to study an unknown cul
ture (Burns, 1976). The researcher raised in the culture where the re
search takes place has cultural expectations which can obscure the
cultural significance of an event as it is viewed by the participants.
It is necessary to make the familiar strange rather than making the
strange familiar, as occurs in studies of unknown cultures.