Culture and Self in Multicultural Education: Reflections on Discourse, Text, and Practice

Abstract

Drawing principally from anthropological critiques of contemporary American multiculturalism, this interpretive analysis of multicultural education in the United States suggests that discourse, text, and practice in the multicultural domain are imbued with unexamined assumptions concerning such basic concepts as culture, self, and individual identity. The article provides a critical analysis of these ideas and their presentation in multicultural discourses and illustrates how they are shaped by dominant core American cultural frames of reference. It argues that a more reflexive multicultural discourse is needed, both to advance research on the implementation of multicultural education, as well as to promote more genuine forms of multicultural teaching and learning. Furthermore, a reflexive or self-aware multiculturalism would allow us to focus on developing models for learning culture that can promote real transformation in the way we conceptualize and practice education in plural societies.

“Yeah, but I still don't want to deal with it”. Changes in a Teacher Candidate's Conceptions of Inclusion

“…Teacher educators need to be careful that their interactions with teacher candidates do not reflect that there is one "proper" way to think about inclusion. In order to build a trusting environment where individuals are encouraged to challenge prior assumptions and beliefs, they need to be sure that their instruction does not result in teacher candidates feeling a need to "parrot" the right themes in their courses (Hoffman, 1996).…”

Cultivating Agents of Change in Children

“…In the classroom, cultural capital is defined as validating and teaching the norms associated with those in power (e.g., English only learning, the achievements of white-Europeans over people of Color 2 ). A critical perspective to multiculturalism can restructure classroom knowledge by creating awareness of social issues among students within their communities via engaging them in critical dialogue within the classroom (Hoffman, 1996). Moreover, this approach aligns with Freire's (2000) notion that reflecting on how power is reinforced by social structures can lead to action.…”

Preparing teachers for intercultural education

“…Competence in intercultural education is not an extra facet of teachers' professionalism but should become an integral part of that professionalism. Various authors (CochranSmith, 1995(CochranSmith, , 2000Gay, 2002;Hoffman, 1996;Ladson Billings, 1995a, 1995bNieto, 1999;Villegas & Lucas, 2002) presuppose an extended professionality of the teacher, a willingness and ability to reflect on the interconnection between the different aspects of this professionality in relation to the social, economic, political and cultural conditions of teaching. Education needs to be extracted from the rigid level of the classroom and placed in a broader social context.…”

“…Partly to address the problem that primary schools do not always provide the kinds of teaching advocated by teacher education programmes, Cochran-Smith (1995) emphasizes the need not only to teach preservice teachers the best current practices, but also to give them a critical perspective of the diversity of critiques of these practices. Hoffman (1996) puts the accent on learning the basic principles of the anthropological method rather than on experience. This method works from a holistic and comparative perspective that furthers exploratory and reflective learning.…”

“…Critical theorists on intercultural education agree that teachers should be trained to take ethnic-cultural diversity and racism seriously, to be able to reflect critically on them in relation to their professional agency, and know how and be able to implement several intercultural approaches (Carter & Goodwin, 1994;CochranSmith, 1995CochranSmith, , 2000CochranSmith, , 2001Gay, 2002;Hoffman, 1996;Ladson-Billings, 1995a, 1995b. In the literature on intercultural education and teacher education, different accents are placed on how this ideal could be developed.…”