858086

research-article2019
EDRXXX10.3102/0013189X19858086EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHEREducational Researcher

Feature Articles

The Ethnocentric Origins of the Learning Style Idea

Thomas Fallace1

In recent years, researchers have questioned the legitimacy of the so-called myth of learning styles and expressed confusion
about exactly when and why the idea first emerged. This historical study traces the origin and emergence of the learning
style idea. The author argues that the learning style idea originated in the 1960s as part of a broader effort to reach inner-
city African American youth that certain educators deemed culturally deficient. By the time scholars developed learning
style inventory instruments for mostly white children, they removed the race-specific language, and educators quickly
forget the ethnocentric origins of the learning style idea.

Keywords: cognitive processes/development; historical analysis; history; individual differences; learning processes/
strategies; psychology

T
“ he learning-styles concept appears to have wide accep- styles had been problematic from the start, and scholars are
tance not only among educators,” Pashler, McDaniel, uncertain exactly when and how the learning style idea first
Rohrer, and Bjork (2009) reported, “but also among par- emerged. “Experts aren’t sure how the concept spread,” one
ents and the general public” (p. 106). In recent decades, the idea journalist (Kahzan, 2018) admitted in an article on the “myth”
that teachers should align their instruction with students’ par- of learning styles, “but it might have had something to do with
ticular learning style, cognitive style, and/or learner preference the self-esteem movement of the late ’80s and early ’90s” (p. 1).
has become commonplace in the literature on effective teaching. In fact, the learning style idea first emerged in the 1960s.
For example, Darling-Hammond and Baratz-Snowden’s (2005) In this intellectual history, I trace the origin, emergence, and
influential text, A Good Teacher in Every Classroom, states that early history of the learning style idea. Hollinger (1985) defines
teachers ought to develop “teaching strategies that respond to intellectual history as “the discourse of intellectuals” (p. 131).
different learning styles and approaches” (p. 22), and the My objective is to trace the long-term and immediate intellectual
InTASC (Counsel for Chief State School Officers, 2013) teach- discourses that gave rise to the learning style idea and document
ing standards invite educators to incorporate “multiple the moment in which scholars diverged from the race/ethnicity-
approaches to learning that engage a range of learner prefer- specific language that had previously been affiliated with the
ences” (p. 19). Despite the general acceptance of the learning term. In the tradition of intellectual history, I am not focused on
style idea, many recent studies (Hushmann & O’Loughlin, judging the validity of the research on learning styles, nor am I
2019; Knoll, Otani, Skeel, & Van Horn, 2017; Pashler et al., concerned with evaluating the efficacy of the learning style idea
2009; Reiner & Willingham, 2010; Willingham, Hughes, & itself. Rather, I trace the nature and evolution of the discourse
Dobolyi, 2015) have questioned the effectiveness of aligning surrounding the idea and how it connected to broader ideas,
instruction with the alleged learning styles of individual stu- contexts, and conversations about race, ethnicity, anthropology,
dents. That is, psychologists have been critical of the idea that and psychology. I define learning style—used alongside related
students and/or teachers are able to identify a specific learning terms such as cognitive style, learning preference, and thinking
style or preference through which students learn best (e.g., style—vaguely as the historical notion that individual students
visual, auditory, kinesthetic) and that teaching through that acquire and process knowledge in specific ways and that
aligned style will lead to improved learning. Although skepti-
cism and confusion over learning styles have escalated in recent
years (Lake, Boyd, & Boyd, 2017), the research on learning 1
William Paterson University, Montclair, NJ

Educational Researcher, Vol. 48 No. 6, pp. 349­–355

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X19858086
Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions
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August/September 2019    349
researchers/teachers can identify a particular learning/cognitive them in terms of quantitative and technological accomplish-
style in which a student can most effectively learn. Specifically, I ments. During this time, leading African American scholars such
trace the idea of learning styles from interwar anthropological as W.E.B. Du Bois and Carter Woodson also employed a relativ-
research on cultural difference to postwar research on “culturally istic approach to culture by documenting the cultural achieve-
deprived” (Riessman, 1962) and “culturally disadvantaged” ments of Blacks in the past and present. However, White scholars
(Johnson, 1970) children to the idea that there might be a “Black mostly ignored the work of Du Bois and Woodson and contin-
learning style” (Cureton, 1978; Hale, 1982; Slaughter, 1969) to ued to employ a hierarchical model toward communities of color
the construction of several learning style inventory tools in the through the 1930s. Innate/biological explanations of racial dif-
1970s (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1975; Kolb, 1976). I demon- ference, especially among psychometricians, continued as well.
strate how the learning style idea originated in an effort to reach The Boasian view of culture slowly gained influence between
inner-city African American youth that certain educators the 1900s and 1920s, but it really did not take hold until the rise
deemed culturally deficient (Martinez & Rury, 2012; Scott, of Nazism in the late 1930s (Barkan, 1992). Anthropologists led
1997; Valencia, 1997). However, by the time scholars developed the charge to attack the racial science that the Nazis were using
popular learning style inventory instruments for mass distribu- to justify their genocidal policies against racial minorities. In
tion for presumably White children, they removed the race-­ response to the Nazis’ assault on minorities, the American
specific language and shifted the focus from identifying the Anthropological Association passed a resolution in 1938 stating:
learning styles of groups to identifying the learning styles of indi- “Anthropology provides no scientific basis for discrimination
viduals. As a result, educators quickly forget the ethnocentric against any people on the ground of racial superiority, religious
origins of the learning style idea. affiliation, or linguistic heritage” because the “psychological and
cultural connotations [of race], if they exist, have not been ascer-
tained by science” (American Anthropological Association,
Cultural Difference
1939, pp. 29–30). Shortly thereafter, Benedict (1940) published
The idea that students differed from one another in ways that Race: Science and Politics, and Montagu (1942) published Man’s
required some kind of individualized instruction originated Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. Both books were best-
during the progressive education movement (Cremin, 1961; sellers, and both drew on recent anthropological research to
Zilversmit, 1993). Scholars justified the idea of accommodating attack the scientific basis of racism. Benedict and Montagu
individual differences through child-centered rationales, which insisted that there was no scientific basis for the biological ori-
recommended hands-on learning catered to students’ interests, gins for cultural traits and that culture—in the new, contextual-
and intelligence testing, which outlined the alleged differences in ized, relativistic version of the word—was the best way to
student intellectual potential and ability. Both student-centered describe differences among people of the world. As Mead (1940)
instruction and intelligence testing recognized that student dif- asserted during World War II, “scientific research has docu-
ference was a major issue facing schools and that a rational, sci- mented the absence of any proof of reliable differences in intel-
entific approach to curriculum could meet that challenge ligence and emotional make-up; differences, that is, which are
(Kliebard, 1995; Zilversmit, 1993). However, in no way did pro- impervious to the forces of cultural change” (p. 202).
gressive educators acknowledge that students may have different The new relativistic definition of culture was a doubled-
learning styles; the focus was solely on different levels of intelli- edged sword for communities of color in the United States. On
gence, ability, knowledge, or academic potential. The idea of dif- the one hand, it removed the biological justification for racism
ferent learning styles did not emerge until after World War II in and suggested that social inequalities between Whites and Blacks
response to changes in anthropological conceptions of cultural were the result of race prejudice, unjust social policies, and cul-
difference. tural difference instead of intelligence, innate potential, or
Prior to World War II, most White anthropologists employed immutable traits. The culturally relativistic approach opened the
a hierarchical approach to culture that viewed all societies, past door for a more egalitarian view of racial difference. On the
and present, on a universal scale of sociological development other hand, the new definition of culture inspired sociologists
leading from savagery to barbarianism to civilization (Stocking, and anthropologists to replace theories of biological deficiency
1968). All of the cultures that met the criteria for civilization with newer theories of cultural deficiency that depicted commu-
were White, while all of the cultures that met the criteria for nities of color as somehow pathological, damaged, or less devel-
barbarian and savage were non-White. Thus, the ethnocentric oped than their White counterparts. As Frederickson (2002)
hierarchical model served as justification for White supremacy in explained, cultural racism “is a way of thinking about difference
the United States and the world until the late 1930s. However, that reifies and essentializes culture rather than genetic endow-
during the early 20th century, a group of American anthropolo- ment, or in other words makes culture do the work of race”
gists led by Franz Boas, and his former students Margaret Mead (p. 141). Starting in the 1960s, social scientists drew on their
and Ruth Benedict, questioned the efficacy of the hierarchical ethnographic studies of low-income communities of color to
model of culture and sought to replace it with a contextualized, construct new theories of cultural deficiency that while certainly
contingent, relativistic approach to culture based on cultural dif- less dismissive than the former biological theories of race, never-
ference (Stocking, 1968). Drawing on their ethnographies of theless approached communities of color through a deficiency
indigenous cultures, Boas, Mead, and Benedict described societ- lens, suggesting that they were somehow ontologically less devel-
ies in terms of qualitative differences instead of approaching oped than their middle-class White peers. That is, White scholars

350    EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER

perceived people of color as having a culture to the same degree shaped and distorted how new knowledge was processed (Piaget
as middle-class Whites, but that culture was still deemed some- & Inhelder, 1969). Bruner (1960) suggested that learning was a
how pathological and/or deficient (Martinez & Rury, 2012; form of enculturation to academic ways of thinking. As Bruner
Scott, 1997; Valencia, 1997). (1966) argued: “Knowing is a process, not a product” (p. 72).
Both Piaget and Bruner questioned the immutability of intelli-
gence and emphasized the importance of early childhood educa-
Personality Type and Cultural Deficiency
tion on future learning. More significantly, during this time,
By the early 1960s, several trends converged to underscore a new scholars began to consider the impact of cognitive differences, or
focus on the alleged cultural deficiency of students of color living “personality” (Allport, 1955; Jung, 1923), on learning, and a few
in cities, leading eventually to the suggestion that Black students studies even suggested that there were different ways that the
may have their own learning style. First was the rediscovery of mind approached a problem.
poverty ushered in by Harrington’s (1962) book, The Other Jung (1923) first introduced the personality traits of individ-
America. In addition to people of color, Harrington’s study also uals and how they differed in degrees of introversion, extrover-
depicted poor Southern Whites in Appalachia as part of the sion, sensitivity, intuition, thinking, feeling, judging, and
nearly 25% of Americans living in poverty. Furthermore, based perceiving. Myers-Brigg (1962) turned Jung’s personality types
on his study of the poor in Mexico City, Lewis (1961) intro- into the popular Myers-Brigg personality type inventory.
duced the “culture of poverty” thesis, suggesting that genera- Furthermore, in Psychological Differentiation, Witkin, Dyk,
tional poverty created a self-perpetuating set of pathologies that Fattuson, Goodenough, and Karp (1962) suggested that some
impoverished people transmitted across generations, making learners were “field-dependent” while others were “field-­
assimilation to middle-class life difficult for youth living in pov- independent” in their ability to solve problems; the former
erty. Controversial reports such as Moynihan’s (1965) The Negro required social support while the latter did not. In The Silent
Family and Coleman et al.’s (1966) Equality of Educational Language (1959) and the Hidden Dimension (1966), Hall stud-
Opportunity garnered further evidence that the learned cultural ied the unspoken language of gestures and nonverbal cues. He
traits of people of color may be the biggest impediment to their concluded that some cultures communicate in sophisticated
success in school and that their impoverished condition was in ways through nonverbal cues and spatial recognitions that are
part the fault of their own cultural attributes. The Moynihan missed and/or ignored by middle-class, White culture, which
report notoriously named the poor Black experience as “a tangle tended to be highly verbal. “People from different cultures not
of pathology” (p. 29), and the Coleman et al. report demon- only speak different languages,” Hall (1966) explained, “but,
strated that family background, not per pupil expenditure, was what is possibly more important, they inhabit different sensory
the biggest determinate of success in school. worlds” (p. 2). Hall included examples of how urban dwellers
Second, the Civil Rights movement brought attention to the draw on different spatial cues than those living in suburban and
plight of oppressed groups. As African American leaders won rural areas, suggesting that urban youth had different cognitive-
political and legal victories, they soon shifted their attention to cultural approaches to their lives.
issues of economic and social inequality. To combat these social Collectively, this new scholarship reenvisioned the mind as
and economic inequalities, President Johnson’s Great Society context-bound, interactive, socially mediated, and culturally
and War on Poverty initiatives funded compensatory educa- influenced. This new approach drew attention to the conditions
tional services such as the Head Start preschool program. The and environments in which students were raised by suggesting
Great Society drew federal funding and research dollars to previ- that urban students experienced the world differently than sub-
ously neglected urban areas populated by people of color. The urban and rural ones. More importantly, this work underscored
engagement of urban, African American youth became a central the idea that personalities, cultures, and environments inter-
concern for educators looking to bring equitable outcomes to vened in the way students responded to stimuli. Instead of envi-
students of color. Policymakers designed the Head Start and sioning the mind as a blank slate that behaved in accordance
other preferential and compensatory programs to address the with universal laws, as behaviorists suggested, cognitive psychol-
perceived cultural deficiencies of poor students in an attempt to ogists and cultural anthropologists forged a new interactive and
close the achievement gap between White and Black students. culturally informed approach to mind that opened the door for
However, many of the volunteers, workers, and researchers the idea that students (and/or groups of students) potentially
applied middle-class biases to urban youth, which further per- learned differently. Under this new conception, the development
petuated the view that African Americans were culturally of individual personality and acculturation of the individual to
deficient. social/ethnic groups worked conterminously. As a result, the line
Third, cognitive psychologists began questioning the alleged between the individual and his or her culture was blurred and
passivity of the human mind, as conceptualized by behavioral conflated.
psychologists, and reenvisioned the mind as open, interactive, Drawing on these developments in cultural anthropology,
and culturally contingent. Specifically, cognitive psychologists social policy, and cognitive psychology, Riessman (1962)
considered the ways that preexisting cognitive schema and cul- authored The Culturally Deprived Child. Riessman suggested for
tural attributes affected the process of learning, thus blurring the the first time that differences in student achievement might be
line between individual and group consciousness. Piaget argued due to differences in “styles of learning” (p. 64). Riessman
that the child’s mind developed through epistemic stages that identified poor Appalachian Whites, Puerto Ricans, Mexican

August/September 2019    351

Americans, and Native Americans as culturally deprived, yet the White educators. He implored educators “to find out what
examples in the book focused almost exclusively on urban and [Black children] have” and asked, “What do they have that is a
particularly male African American youth. In his book, Riessman strength?” (p. 65). He insisted that instead of language deficits,
used the terms “cognitive style,” “type of thinking,” “style of Black children had “great virtuosity with the music, the poetry of
learning,” and “style of thinking” interchangeably (pp. 64, 115), words” (p. 67). Citing Ellison, Castro (1971) likewise ques-
yet subsequent learning styles theorists would later distinguish tioned Riessman’s assertion that students of color had verbal
these concepts from one another (see Curry, 1983). Under the deficits and demonstrated the consistencies in the language pat-
heading, “Another Style of Thinking,” Riessman asserted, terns of African American youth, which she had studied in her
“Deprived children are capable of developing abstract, symbolic research by using drama and games to access their rich linguistic
thinking. They appear to develop this type of thinking in slower, knowledge.
more direct fashion; that is they require more examples before In an article for the Journal of Negro Education, Riessman
‘seeing the point’” (p. 115). Riessman pointed to the untapped (1964) attempted to respond to both critiques of his approach—
potential of urban youth and advocated for addressing their par- that he was too dismissive and not dismissive enough of urban
ticular style of learning, writing: Black youth. Carefully replacing the term culturally deprived
with economically disadvantaged and/or educationally deprived,
The underprivileged child has a cognitive style or way of learning Riessman again outlined “the content-centered not form-­
that includes a number of features that have unique creative centered mental approach” of urban youth and their “physical
potential: his skill in non-verbal communication (his is not word and visual style in learning” (p. 230). He also listed additional
bound). His proclivity for persisting along one line (one track deficits of the educationally deprived such as “poor auditory
creativity), his induction emphasis on many concrete examples,
attention poor time perspective, inefficient test-taking skills, and
and his colorful free association feeling for metaphor in language,
perhaps best seen in his use of slang. These potentialities,
limited reading ability” of “disadvantaged youth” (p. 230).
indigenous to his cultural heritage, must be fully explored in any Others took Riessman’s learning style idea even further.
program concerned with developing talent among underprivileged Dismissing Riessman’s relativistic approach to culture as too
groups. (p. 115) empathetic and irrational, Johnson (1970) likewise identified a
learning style of the culturally disadvantaged. However, Johnson
Although Riessman stated repeatedly that he was trying to tran- was more overt in his deficit language. “[T]he learning style of
scend the deficit approach to culture by “emphasizing the posi- the culturally disadvantaged is not efficient,” Johnson explained,
tive aspects of their culture, which, hitherto, have been largely “it is slow, physical, nonverbal, problem-centered, and concrete-
ignored” (p. xiii), it was difficult to read his characteristics of oriented—like the learning style of a young child” (p. 33).
culturally deprived children and their learning style as preferable Johnson listed further deficits of culturally disadvantaged youth,
to the learning style of mainstream, middle-class, White stu- such as “negative attitude towards intellectual tasks,” “inability
dents. In other words, despite his best intentions, Riessman to recognize adults as information sources,” “ineffectiveness to
could not completely transcend the hierarchical view of culture verbal stimuli,” “present-oriented,” “slowness with intellectual
because he judged the culture of students of color against the tasks,” and “inability to deal with multiple problems” (pp. 36–
standard of White mainstream culture. Elsewhere in the book, 39). Johnson’s assertion that the learning style of the culturally
Riessman decried the “anti-intellectualism and narrow practical- disadvantaged was “like the very young child of any culture or
ity of the deprived,” again demonstrating that he was working, at social class” linked his assessment to the largely debunked ethno-
least partially, through a deficit lens (p. 129). centric theory of recapitulation—the idea that the development
Riessman’s book received criticism from both those who of the individual retraced the sociological/psychological history
rejected his cultural relativism as well as those who thought he of the human race and that non-White cultures/minds repre-
had overemphasized the cultural deficiency of urban Black stu- sented earlier childlike stages of White cultures/minds. Pre-
dents. As Cynthia P. Deutsch (1965) argued, Boasian anthropologists in the early 20th century used the
theory of recapitulation to justify domination over non-White
Riessman’s argument on cultural relativism does not take into and premodern cultures that were characterized as childlike,
consideration the increasing industrialization of our society and undeveloped, inchoate, and savage (Fallace, 2015). By adopting
the consequent greater dependence on verbal communication the “child” metaphor, Johnson unwittingly linked his approach
which lead to a greater need for facility in verbal skills such as to the hierarchical theory of culture he was trying to challenge.
reading and writing. (p. 143) “The term culturally disadvantaged  . . 
. 
is a relative term,”
Johnson explained. “The disadvantaged materializes when the
Drawing on the research of Martin Deutsch, she insisted that child leaves his primary cultural group to function in the domi-
language acquisition was critical to learning and that the urban nant culture” (p. 3). Thus, according to Johnson, the deficits of
Black youth had verbal deficits that needed to be corrected, not the culturally disadvantaged were contingent, not absolute.
catered to. On the other end of the spectrum, African American Nevertheless, Johnson approached students of color as ontologi-
author Ralph Ellison (1963/1986) insisted that there “is no such cally less formed than their White counterparts and espoused
thing as a culturally deprived kid” (p. 65). Suggesting that Black cultural assimilation in lieu of cultural preservation.
students were culturally different, not deprived, Ellison argued By the mid-1960s, the learning style idea had first entered the
that poor African American kids could draw on a rich “social discourse via Riessman, and it did so in the context of teaching
fabric” based on “basic ingenuity” that had been overlooked by “culturally deprived” children. Riesmann’s book was not
352    EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
specifically about learning styles, yet it did represent the first Smith’s study directly challenged the idea that there was a Black
time the term had been used in an educational context as a way learning style.
to improve educational outcomes. However, not all scholars Despite evidence and argument to the contrary, the idea per-
using the cultural deprivation paradigm adopted or discussed the sisted that Blacks learned differently than Whites. Articles pub-
idea of learning style. Conversely, not all scholars who employed lished in the 1970s (Cureton, 1978; Gantt, 1972; Johnson,
the idea of learning styles linked the idea to cultural differences 1970) cited Riessman as justification for the idea that a Black or
and deficits. Even those who applied the learning style idea to culturally disadvantaged learning style could be identified and
urban youth, such as Strom (1965), used it in inconsistent ways. addressed. “Is there a black learning style, a learning style espe-
As Strom pointed out in his book, Teaching in the Slum School: cially suited to innercity [sic] students?,” Cureton (1978, p. 755)
“Not only is instruction influenced by different types of learning bluntly and provocatively asked. “I believe there is,” he answered
but recent studies suggest that children differ in their preference (p. 755). Even those who were critical of the research on learning
of learning styles” (p. 78). However, instead of outlining the styles were still hesitant to rule out the possibility that learning
divergences between the middle class and culturally deprived styles could somehow be aligned with race. As Costello and
learning style, Strom pointed to an “authoritarian method of Payton (1973) argued, “It seems necessary to separate . . . those
learning” versus a “spontaneous style of learning in which trial cultural differences which preserve diversity in our culture, and
and error, experimentation, and idea modification are utilized” those differences in learning style that limit individual develop-
(p. 78). Thus, Strom suggested that the “authoritarian” and ment and may have nothing at all to do with preserving cultural
“spontaneous” learning styles cut across class and racial types, diversity or ethnic identity” (p. 100). In summary, there were
thus paving the way for the race-blind learning style inventories several learning style typologies in circulation by the 1970s.
of the 1970s. Some scholars identified Black/White and/or assimilated/cultur-
ally deprived learning styles, while others used introverted/extro-
Is There a Black Learning Style? verted or authoritarian/spontaneous typologies. Some recognized
issues of race, ethnicity, and/or class and made it central to their
By the end of the 1960s, controversial research by Jensen (1969) rationale for why addressing learning styles was so important.
reasserted innate explanations of racial disparities in intelligence. However, by the time a few innovative scholars decided to design
In this context, the learning style idea took on new relevance as learning style inventories for mass distribution in schools, issues
an alternative to biological/innate explanations for disparities in of race/ethnicity were ignored.
school achievement among racial groups. The learning style the- Declaring itself the “first comprehensive approach to the
sis suggested that the low achievement of African American stu- assessment of an individual’s learning style in grades 3 through
dents was due more to a mismatch between the instruction of 9,” Dunn et al. (1975) published the first comprehensive
White middle-class teachers and the learning style of urban Learning Style Inventory in 1975 (p. 5). Admitting that the
Black students than it was due to innate deficiencies in intelli- “questions in the instrument” were “highly subjective and rela-
gence and/or cognitive potential (Cohen, 1969; Slaughter, tive,” Dunn et al. admitted that their inventory merely assessed
1969). In this sense, Riessman’s thesis was more liberal and how “students prefer to learn, not the skills they use” (p. 6).
humane than Jensen’s argument for the innate inferiority of stu- Dunn el al.’s inventory was complex and involved 22 areas in the
dents of color. Nevertheless, race-based learning style idea con- domains of environment, emotionality, sociological, and physi-
tinued to be attacked by those who rejected his culturally cal needs. The next year, Kolb (1976) published a simpler
relativism and those who thought he had not gone far enough in Learning Style Inventory that identified only four learning styles:
recognizing the positive attributes of Black students. convergent, divergent, assimilationist, and/or accommodationist.
One empirical study by Smith (1966) employed different Kolb cited the work of Bruner (1960), Jung (1923), and Myers-
learning styles with Jobs Corps participants of different races and Brigg (1962) as justification for his learning style inventory. In
ethnicities. Reasserting the behaviorist approach to learning, contrast, Dunn et al. did not cite any of the cognitive or anthro-
Smith concluded that race made no difference in how individu- pological research justifying the existence of learning styles, but
als learned. “As has been long maintained by behaviorists,” Smith they did cite several empirical studies demonstrating that stu-
concluded, “the burden of learning lies with the teacher and the dents learned better when instruction was aligned with their
institution of learning, not with the learner” (p. 3). Although learning style. Despite Riessman’s prominence in the literature,
Smith found that ethnicities could not be aligned with specific neither Dunn et al. nor Kolb cited him as the originator of the
learning styles, he argued that race, “particularly Negroes,” did learning style idea. Generally, those who did cite Riessman in
make a difference in regards to behavior (p. 3). Smith found that connection with learning styles tended to align certain learning
when Blacks made up over 40% of the class, their achievement styles with particular racial, ethnic, cultural groups or classes,
and behavior degenerated, but when they made up less than while those who did not cite him tended to approach learning
40% of the class, their achievement and behavior improved. styles in more individualistic terms.
This finding reinforced the cultural deficit approach to African By the time Dunn et al. (1975) and Kolb (1976) published
American youth because it implied that the cultural traits of their learning style inventories, psychologists had completely
Black students impeded their own learning, but only when the purged the deficit language from the history of the learning style
relative number of Black students was great enough to exert their idea. Neither Dunn et al. nor Kolb addressed the issue of whether
cultural influence on the rest of the class. Yet paradoxically, certain racial or socioeconomic groups learned differently. It is

August/September 2019    353

possible that scholars deliberately avoided the issue of race in an particular collective learning style tied to their culture while they
attempt to avoid the controversy that had embroiled the work of perceived White students to have individual learning styles com-
Riessman. Or more likely, they were unaware of the work of pletely independent of culture. Both views reflected a conceptual
race-specific learning style theories altogether and believed that inconsistency that reflected the ethnocentrism of the period.
race, ethnicity, and culture were completely irrelevant to the way
that individuals learn. Either way, Dunn et al. and Kolb had References
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Gantt, W. N. (1972). Language and learning styles of the “educationally
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problems can say… Frontiers of Democracy, 6(53), 200–202. THOMAS FALLACE, PhD, is a professor of education at William
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