Content area
Full Text
ADJUSTING THE MULTICULTURAL LENS
Abstract: Multicultural education or multiculturalism, of whatever form, has been ripe for attack, demonization, exaltation, and dismissal ever since it became popular in the 1980s. While the response to multicultural education from activists, educators, critical radical theorists, conservative critics, liberal critics, and others has ranged the spectrum of opinion, rarely have the respondents engaged in serious analysis of the premises behind multicultural education and the validity or weaknesses of the premises. Rather, quick, visceral responses have been more the norm. Some important writers and thinkers have developed many provocative ideas about the meaning of "culture," the nature of multiculturalism and its implications, and the tension between "difference" and "sameness" that enable us to interrogate the conceptual nuances of multiculturalism. Although their ideas have been at the center of major discussions in the humanities and social sciences, their ideas have not significantly influenced educational practices in schools. This paper is an attempt to merge the concept of multicultural education with these compelling approaches to identity and hybridity.
Keywords: multicultural education, identity, feminism, hybridity, school
Multicultural education or multiculturalism, of whatever form, has been ripe for attack, demonization, exaltation, and dismissal ever since it became popular in the 1980s. While the response to multicultural education from activists, educators, critical radical theorists, conservative critics, liberal critics, and others has ranged the spectrum of opinion, rarely have the respondents engaged in serious analysis of the premises behind multicultural education and the validity or weaknesses of the premises. Rather, quick, visceral responses have been more the norm. Some important writers and thinkers have developed many provocative ideas about the meaning of "culture," the nature of multiculturalism and its implications, and the tension between "difference" and "sameness" that enable us to interrogate the conceptual nuances of multiculturalism. The writers I am referring to are commonly labeled feminist, postcolonial, and/or postmodern; for example, Gloria Anzaldúa, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Cornel West, Audre Lorde, Chela Sandoval, Chandra T. Mohanty, Cameron McCarthy, Homi K. Bhabha, and others. Although their ideas have been at the center of major discussions in the humanities and social sciences, their ideas have not significantly influenced educational practices in schools. This paper is an attempt to merge the concept of multicultural education with these compelling approaches to...