Schooling and Symbolic Violence: The Effect of Power Differences and Curriculum Factors on Hispanic Students' Attitudes Toward Their Own Ethnicity

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between two mechanisms of symbolic violence-power difference and curriculum factors and Hispanic students' attitudes toward their own ethnicity. Symbolic violence is studied in its effect on Hisp-anic students' attitudes toward their own ethnicity. These relationships are explored with a sample of sixth-grade Hispanic male and female students (n = 118) from an analytical sample of 10 elementary schools in California. The specific power-difference factors investigated are: student-power differences (percent Anglo and socioeconomic status of the school), parent-power differences, and staff-power differences. Curriculum factors are operationalized in terms of the level of multicultural curriculum in the school. Pearson product moment correlations are calculated between these school-level factors and individual Hispanic students' levels of ethnic salience in self identification and attitudes toward their own ethnic group. In general the findings indicate that these power-difference and curriculum factors are indeed mechanisms of symbolic violence as they are related to ethnic salience and attitudes toward students' own ethnic group. Differences are found in the pattern of relationships for the two dependent variables and in the strength of the relationships for males and females.