Communicating Across Differences: Toward a Multicultural Approach to Institutional Transformation

Abstract

In the two decades since Audre Lorde (1984) pointed out that we have no patterns for relating across our differences as equals (p. 115), struggles to transform higher education have come to focus on communication about and across differences. Despite these efforts, conversations in higher education about group difference and equity too often exacerbate feelings of cynicism and disenfranchisement. In this article we discuss research into the actual discourses at work in communication about the cultural politics of institutional practices. We report on an analysis of

Multicultural and Social Justice Training for Counselor Education Programs and Colleges of Education: Rewards and Challenges

“…Among the barriers noted by experts in the field include the observation that many faculty members and students are not aware of their own racial/cultural privileges, are not knowledgeable of the various forms of discrimination that continue to be manifested in the public schools and mental health systems, and do not know how to respond to the inequities and injustices that are perpetuated in contemporary society (Darling-Hammond et al, 2002). Furthermore, many students from diverse and marginalized groups in the United States reportedly feel disenfranchised as a result of the limited attention faculty members and administrators direct toward important multicultural/social justice issues that directly affect their lives as well as the lives of many of their family members and friends (Bruch, Jehangir, Lundell, Higbee, & Miksch, 2005).…”

Cultivating Voice: First-Generation Students Seek Full Academic Citizenship in Multicultural Learning Communities

“…For the purposes of this research, I use the terms space and place to refer to how students' location or place in the world (Bruch et al 2005) is impacted by their history, their demographics, and their relative proximity to power. I also use the term lived experience to embody how one's life encompasses past experiences and one's interpretation of these experiences in the context of implicit and explicit messages from the environment (schools, family, peers, culture, race, class, gender expectations) (Van Maanen 1990).…”

Multiculturalism Incorporated: Student Perceptions

“…What was most striking about the responses we gathered was how deeply they embodied ongoing disagreements over multiculturalism that are represented in popular culture and that, as we have reported previously, inform the perspectives of our own faculty (Bruch and Higbee 2002;Bruch et al 2005). Of course, multiculturalism means different things to different people in different places.…”