I feel your pain through your response to the article. When teachers have to spend so much time learning all the characteristics and sensitivities of cultural groups, they have little time left to teach, With that said, throughout my counseling education, each class spent time on multicultural issues concerning the specific class I took. I WAS important to know about how cultural groups would view a white female like me. I DO need to be aware of problems which may rise in a counseling relationship otherwise I may cause great harm to the success of the counseling session. With this are said, there was a standard comment from my profs in this regard which I think could apply to how to work as a teacher to avoid insensitivity. ASK.
I used this kind of approach when I was teaching and had car duty one day. Two hispanic boys next to each other were visibly uncomfortable being together and getting quite hostile without talking together. I pulled them aside and asked them what the situation was. it turned out that they were both from Mexico, one being from the city and wone from the rural hills of Mexico. The parents of the city boy told him never to talk to a country boy for the country boy was considered "below" the city boy. Now that day, I learned diversity was a whole lot bigger than two boys from the same country, speaking the same language, looking the same were VERY diverse.
Diane