Multicultural Education:Chapter 8

For Freedoms Sake

Citizen of the Free World

• Individuals should have the capacity to choose• Individuals should have the power to act to

attain one’s purpose• Individuals should have the ability to help

transform a world lived in common with others

What limits human freedom?

• The cultural encapsulation (nutshell) into which all individuals are socialized

• Multiculturalism:– Multiculturalism encourages immigrants and other

minorities to retain their foreign cultures by not assimilating into the Euro-American culture

Community Cultures

• Individual and group values, beliefs and stereotypes

• Cultures enable people to survive• Cultures also restrict freedoms to make critical

choices and actions to reform society

Education in a Pluralistic Society

• Should– Affirm and help students understand their home

and community cultures– Help free them from their cultural boundaries

Education in a Democratic Society

• Should create and maintain a civic community with goals to:– Work for a common good– Help acquire knowledge, attitudes, and skills

needed to participate in civic action to make society more equitable and just

– Create a multicultural education

What Constitutes AMERICAN identity and who should participate in

formulating the canon used to shape curriculum

• An "educational canon with respect to some subject is the set of rules for determining what materials -- ideas, methods, heuristics, texts, data -- are essential for someone to learn if he or she is to grasp adequately that subject

1990 Movement

• Voices launched a movement to infuse content about ethnic groups and women into – School, college, and university curriculums– Creating a debate about multicultural educationMedia publications rather than scholarly journalso Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New

Republico Popular media instead of educational forum

Western Traditionalists vs the Multiculturalists

Western Defense– Criticizes where multiculturalism is taking the

nationMulticulturalism - Fails to pay attention to the fact that multicultural

education emerged out of Western democratic ideals

Major goal of Multiculturalist

• Close the gap between the Western democratic ideals of equality and justice and societal practices that contradict those ideals– Such as discrimination based on race, gender and

social class

New Leaders

• To participate in genuine discussions, dialogue and debates

• To formulate visionary and workable solutionsTHE CHALLENGECreatively deal with the increased diversity in the

US and the worldTransform the problems related to racial, ethnic,

cultural, language, and religious diversity into opportunities and strengths

Share Power

• Both sides need to put the power on the table and to negotiate and share– Western traditions hold the balance of power via

schools, government, and publishing– African or Asian perspectives are thru the eyes of

European concepts and paradigms generally studied under the “Age of Discover” when the Europeans arrived

Facing Realities

• Census 2008 – 28 of Americans were of color• By 2020 – ½ nations’ students will be of color– These individuals have a right to study their

culture and in shaping a curriculum canon that reflects their experiences, histories, struggles and victories

Facts

• Multicultural advocates– Cultures need to be legitimized in the curriculum– Acknowledgement of African contributions to

European civilization be acknowledged– Facts about women and people of color and their

victimizations be told in an effort to reform society– Scholarly works and literacy by minority groups

Reinterpret Western Civilization

• To acknowledge various groups’ dreams against all odds– Provide a more truthful, complex and more

diverse version of the West– Describe ways in which African, Asian, and

indigenous American cultures influenced and interacted with Western Civilization

Myths

• Western is homogenous• It owes few debts to other civilizations• Privileged and upper class European American

males are they only key actors

Classrooms

• Should be a forum which multicultural debates concerning the construction of knowledge takes place

• Social construction reflects:– Perspectives– Experiences– Values of the people and cultures that construct itALL VOICES should be heard in the classroom

Toward the Democratic Ideal

• Multiculturalism– Reformulate and transform Western canon, not

purge the curriculum– Write more about the intersections of

multicultural content and Western centric canon– As a product of the Western Ideals,

multiculturalism seeks human dignity, equality and freedom

– Freedom movements are symbols of structural exclusion

Goals of Freedom Movement

• Full inclusion of victimized groups into Western Institutions

• Create a nation – state that actualizes• Not about diversity, but designed to reduce

race/class/gender divisions in the US and world

Educating for Freedom

• Mainstream Education– Rarely have opportunity to identify, question and

challenge their cultural assumptions: beliefs, values and perspectives

– Few opportunities to be free from monocultural views that devalue other cultures

– Inability to function within other American cultures and lack motivation to seek benefits• School forces them to learn and home and in their

communities

• All students need the skills of a multicultural education to understand others and thrive in a rapidly changing world