Multiculturalism And Anti Racism

BY: LUBNA , CHRISTY, JANET , SARA & ASMA

Main objectives

Gay (2013) To help teachers understand what culturally responsive teaching is by connecting

critical pedagogy and multicultural education To push teachers to understand their own privilege and teach in a way that helps

underachieving minorities to connect with education and succeed To supply teachers with information on how to teach in a culturally responsive way

Asher (2007) Presents a critical, intersectional, self-reflective view of multicultural education ‘Queering the gaze’ of teachers Traditional multicultural education “does not, ultimately, shake the patriarchal

foundations of ‘the master’s house’, much less dismantle them” (Asher, 2007, p. 65).

Objectives

Sleeter & Mclauren (2005) Tensions between standards movement and multicultural education Rather than avoiding issues such as racism, educators must concentrate on helping young people

learn about them Howard (2003) argues that the sooner educators can have honest discussions about race and

racism, the sooner we can heal old wounds “The standards movement, however, has framed curriculum largely as a commodity for individual

consumption rather than as a resource for public good” (Sleeter, 2005, p. 170)Coloma (2009) “How those in power construe racialized and colonized Others indelibly shapes the type of

education provided to them” (Coloma, 2009, p. 515) The Other as intellectually inferior, in need of civilization by the West Race a significant factor in US curriculum development for the Philippines Discourse produces knowledge, whether true or false, and that knowledge shapes institutional

practices (Coloma, 2009)

What is culturally responsive teaching?

Culturally Responsive

Teaching is a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of

including students' cultural references

in all aspects of learning 

(Ladson-Billings,1994).

“Using the cultural knowledge, prior experience, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters relevant and effective for them” (Gay, 2013)

Required reading 1: Main Ideas Teaching To and Through Cultural Diversity by Gay Geneva

• Culturally responsive teaching improves the performance of ethnically and racially diverse students.

• Used to be sufficient to include “accurate content about and comprehensive portrayals of ethnically and racially diverse groups” (Gay, 2013) 

  

How to teach in a culturally responsive way? Gay (2013) Suggests

Replace misinformed attitudes, beliefs and biases

Understand the resistance to culturally responsive teaching-this includes doubt about the validity of culturally responsive teaching as well as anticipating difficulties with implementation

Understand culture and difference as not being a choice, but an unconditional part of being human

Connect culturally responsive teaching to specific subjects/skill areas to demonstrate investment to this methodology

Remember that culturally responsive teaching encourages positive values such as: equality, justice, diversity etc.

Required reading 2 : Main IdeasUnpacking the tensions of race, culture, gender and sexuality in education by Asher Nina

What do we need to do to enable teachers to identify, engage, and unpack the nuanced, context-specific differences at the intersections of race, culture, gender and sexuality that they encounter on a daily basis? (Asher, 2007)

Picture: www.voiceofyouth.org

Asher (2007)

Argument

Multicultural education’s main focus has been on race and culture with little attention on differences of sexuality, gender and class. To address racial and ethnic tensions effectively, we need to acknowledge and engage gender and sexuality (P.69).

How can we foster critical, self-reflexive ways of teaching that promote equity and democratic ways of being? (Asher, 2007)

Students are given opportunity to

recognize and examine differences in terms of

the context-specific intersections of race,

class, gender, sexuality, culture and language.

Students can reflect critically on their own stories via autobiographical essays and reflective journals.

Results Brings theory and pedagogy together to create a safe space for

students to express their differences,

including their resistance to social

transformation through engagement.

“Autobiography can function to “queer” or to make theory, practice, and the self-unfamiliar” (Asher, 2007)

Image source: itsallaboutculture.com

Reflect/Discuss:What does “affirming diversity” mean to you and how can this be implemented in your classroom with your students?

Critical pedagogy in Multicultural education

What is multicultural education?

Started due to the civil rights and women’s movements.

Still had failure of white people & institutions to grapple with their own racism.

Critical pedagogy and multicultural education require action and question how we name ourselves and others. when we name concepts or people they become visible and easier to discuss.

Although personal experience is important to multicultural education we need to remember that even our experiences happen within social constructs and are tainted by society.

Supplementary ReadingExploring connections to build a critical multiculturalism. In Multicultural education, critical pedagogy and the politics of difference (Sleeter, Christine & McLaren, Peter (1995)

CONT.

Need to identify with the “other” when he/she is less like us. we should not try and put the experiences of others in our own words or compare ourselves to them.

Need to understand our own privilege and decide what to do with it. The authors suggest that they use their privilege (white educated) to talk to a white audience about the destruction of white supremacy.

Ask readers to share power with non-white people by taking their intelligence seriously and supporting the “ideas, perspectives & careers” of these people.

Ask teachers to acknowledge that we are trying to fight racism in schools that are taught my mostly white females.

Connections of Sleeter & Mclauren (1995) Article with Gay (2013)

Both Gay (2013) and Sleeter & Mclaren (1995) discuss multicultural education, why it is needed and how to implement it.

Both articles express the need for more than ethnic foods and festival days. Teachers need to take action and to incorporate the autobiographies of different students and their culture and ethnicity.

Sleeter & Mclaren argue that even our autobiographies can be tainted by society.

Both articles express the need for teachers that will look at biases and stereotypes and acknowledge where they came from and who created them.

Both articles suggest that teachers need to be prepared to encounter resistance to culturally responsive teaching by articulating the tensions that may exist. Gay (2013) goes even further to suggest what those tensions may be: worry about implementation and validity.

CONNECTIONS OF SLEETER & MCLAUREN (1995) ARTICLE WITH GAY (2013)

Connections Sleeter (2005) with Asher (2007)  

Multicultural education must be ever-shifting, reflective, and political (Asher, 2007; Sleeter, 2005)

Silencing difference and ignoring multiplicities results in the oppression of marginalized groups (Asher, 2007)

An intersectional analysis that takes into consideration issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality is necessary (Asher, 2007; Sleeter, 2005)

Cont..

Concept of ‘visionary pragmatist’ (Sleeter, 2005): “Visionary pragmatists reach for what may seem unattainable, seeking ways to turn the impossible into the possible” (Sleeter, 2005, p. 182). Asher’s work in her multicultural education classes reflects this visionary pragmatism.

The culture gap between teachers and students is growing (Asher, 2007) and teachers must openly discuss issues of race and oppression to begin to ‘heal old wounds’. (Sleeter, 2005)

Critique/Questions/Reflections

What is the importance of learning about one’s self—one’s own biases and privileges—as a means of maintaining high expectations for our students?

How can we incorporate students’ cultures in order to influence teacher’s instructional methods?

What does it mean to be a multicultural educator? Relate this to your own experience as an educator.

Coloma (2009) “Destiny Has Thrown the Negro and the Filipino Under the Tutelage of America”: Race and Curriculum in the Age of EmpirE – Article OVERVIEW

Public schooling was a tool of American colonization of the Philippines and was seen by the U.S. colonial government as a way of smoothing local resistance to governance.

Schooling in the Philippines was modelled after schooling for African-Americans in the U.S. South: Filipino/as were constructed as “Negroes”

“[T]he material effects of the discursive construction of Filipino/as manifested in educational policy and curriculum which structured what teachers taught, what students learned, and what kinds of lived trajectories were made possible” (p. 497): Policy decisions were supported by the ways in which Filipino/as were discussed by people in the United States. Those discussions placed limitations on what kinds of education were thought to be appropriate for public schooling in the Philippines.

Discusses how the U.S. colonial government viewed changes made to education, but also how various segments of Filipino/a society saw these changes, e.g., seeking new opportunities for employment through liberal arts courses

Coloma (2009) – Article OVERVIEW

3 central concepts to unpack : Archaeology, Discourse, Race

Archaeology & Discourse (p. 496) – from Michel Foucault

Archaeology: Coloma describes that he will examine the specifics of the conditions surrounding the development of public schooling in the Philippines. What are the limits that determined how this system could develop? How do statements made about this system correlate with other statements? What kinds of statements were not made about this system?

Discourse: The idea that these statements described above have material effects; they “form the objects of which they speak” (p. 496). What do discourses of the public school system include/exclude? What do they make possible/impossible?

Race (p. 498-499)

“something that is both imposed upon and claimed by a group of people based on political reasons and not on biological, genetic or anthropological criteria” (p. 498-499). Race is a social construct, not a ‘natural’ characteristic. Understandings of race are specific to historical, cultural, and geographical contexts.

The racial logics used to construct hierarchies of race are based upon ideas of “literacy, modernity, and maturity” (p. 507) rooted in whiteness

Coloma (2009) – Article Summary (Slide 1 of 7)

“Toward a Transnational History of Race, Empire, and Curriculum” (p. 497)

Coloma argues (via curriculum studies, history of education, and ethnic studies and Asian American Studies) for the importance of research that crosses borders, looks to “historical convergences of various communities of color” (p. 498), and considers understandings of race to be embedded within social and political forces.

Coloma (2009) – Article Summary (2 0f 7)

Image: “School Begins” from Puck magazine, 1899 (credit: Wikimedia Commons). To view larger version: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:School_Begins_1-25-1899.JPG

“The Racialization of Colonized Filipino/as” (p. 499)

• In this section, Coloma analyses U.S. colonial visual culture, specifically political cartoons and photographs at the turn of the 20th century

•He discusses this image on p. 501

Coloma (2009) – Article Summary (3 of 7)

In the “School Begins” cartoon, African American manual-industrial schooling is presented as the “viable option” (p. 502) for Filipino/as.

The cartoon displays how different forms of schooling are considered to be appropriate/attainable for different racialized groups under U.S. imperial rule.

As Coloma describes, for the Filipino child seated in the front row, the alternative options of whiteness (White Americans, in the back rows), extinction (Native American, seated by the door), or exclusion (Chinese figure, outside the door) are not considered to be available and/or applicable. African-American manual-industrial schooling (figure washing the window) is considered by U.S. colonizers to be the most reasonable option for mass education in the Philippines.

“Popular media, official reports, and personal correspondence worked to produce and reinforce the racialization of Filipino/as through the White hegemonic and distorted imageries of African Americans.” (p. 503)

Coloma (2009) – Article Summary (4 of 7)

“African American Perspectives on Filipino/as” (p. 504)

Coloma describes different views held by African Americans about Filipino/as

Further implications for the fact that Filipino/as were racialized as “Negroes”

Some thinkers argued for solidarity and mutual learning (e.g. W. E. B. DuBois), others (e.g. Booker T. Washington) made arguments that African Americans were in competition with Filipino/as over scarce economic resources

Coloma (2009) – Article Summary (5 0f 7)

“Educational Curriculum, Policy, and Teacher Preparation” (p. 506)

Manual-industrial training in the Philippines was modelled after training provided to African Americans in the U.S. South

Expansion of the schooling system meant more Filipino/a teachers were hired and trained, producing tensions around how to train teachers, what should be taught to students by those teachers, and the purpose of the Normal School (i.e. teachers’ college).

While Filipino/as who were able to access a liberal arts education (e.g. through travel to U.S., or the Normal School) had access to better job prospects, most did not have this option. “[The push for a manual-industrial curriculum to racialized and colonized communities ultimately belied a seemingly benevolent yet deeply insidious agenda to keep them at the mercy of those who held the reigns of power” (p. 511). The purpose of schooling was not to create opportunity for Filipino/as but to support U.S. economic needs.

Coloma (2009) – Article Summary (6 of 7)

“The Dominance of the Manual-Industrial Curriculum” (p. 511)

Coloma comments on how the widespread use of this curriculum worked to maintain social class divides.

The educational tools of U.S. global imperialism drew on manual-industrial education forms that had been developed as remedial education. In the case of racialized minorities, this education was meant to address perceived moral deficiencies.

Students were trained to produce goods for export, maintaining economic dependence on foreign markets: part of a legacy that continues today in the Philippines.

Coloma (2009) – Article Summary (7 of 7)

“By foregrounding the educational history of the Philippines under U.S. rule, I call into question the hegemonic narrative of exceptionalism in the United States that, through historical amnesia or selective interpretation of history, disavows its imperialist past and present. I also take to task the self-righteous mission of benevolent altruism among educators who defensively dismiss their complicity in colonial and neocolonial operations.” (p. 513)

Coloma calls for serious attention to the ongoing implications of U.S. imperialism and the coloniality embedded in educational work.

Coloma (2009) – Implications

What histories do we fail to account for in Canada’s educational narratives?

e.g. The place of education systems in tactics of elimination and assimilation of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people, including residential schools

Reframing our ideas about the intended purposes of schooling: When we consider intersections between race, racism, and schooling, we need to extend our thinking to consider how entire national schooling systems have been planned as explicit systems of social control, and particularly, how racial logics are used to justify this control. “Mass public schooling, for the colonizers, served as a resolution to the White man’s burden, and persists as a

legacy of Western imperialism in many postcolonial nations.” (p. 496)

For Curriculum Studies scholars (that’s us!), Coloma calls for transnational studies that acknowledge that nations are interrelated and “people, ideas, goods, cultures, and institutions” cross borders (p. 497). In transnational research, the nation is not the main unit of analysis.

The importance of discussing race in terms of specific histories; thinking about racial logics through their material outcomes

Connecting Coloma (2009) to Gay (2013) “Teaching to and through cultural diversity” (1 of 2)

While Coloma’s research has implications for how we understand education in practice, his work takes up different goals and strategies than what we see in Gay’s applied discussion of culturally responsive teaching.

Yet, like Coloma, Gay argues when we are talking about race (and culture, and ethnicity), we need to define our terms carefully. The word “diversity” can encompass a wide range of topics, so Gay asks us to make sure that we speak in terms of specifics.

Although Coloma’s work is written for a scholarly audience, Gay’s comments on how theory and research impact her practice suggest that educators might find something useful in Coloma’s remarks. She also notes that there is a range of ways that educators do or do not engage with scholarly work, and that is ok.

Connecting Coloma (2009) to Gay (2013) “Teaching to and through cultural diversity” (2 of 2)

Gay’s comments that “marginality is contextual and relative; [and] that there is something positive and constructive among people and communities most disadvantaged in mainstream society” (p. 54) echo Coloma’s interest in discussing how some Filipino/as were able to work the new public schooling system to their advantage, even though this was a system designed to deny them power.

Gay also asserts that culturally responsive teaching must not shy away from the topic of intergroup conflict. I draw a connection here with Coloma’s desire to reveal the controlling implications of schooling in colonial contexts. He makes clear that education is not inherently benevolent work, and that White America maintained its power through schooling in the U.S. South and in the Philippines. He also engages the ways in which Filipino/as were viewed by African Americans, naming possibilities both for solidarity and for concerns about competition.

Connections: Coloma (2009) readings with Asher (2007) 

Education for the Other must be examined as race has indelibly shaped the type of education that we provide

Imperialism and colonialism are key to the type of education in the US

Mass public schooling has racist and colonial roots: “mass public schooling, for the colonizers, served as a resolution to the white man’s burden, and persists as a legacy of Western imperialism in many postcolonial nations” (Coloma, 2009, p. 496)

Cont..

As American curriculum studies goes international, it must contend with the history of and ongoing imperialism and colonialism (Coloma, 2009)

Public education has a manual-industrial focus, instead of a focus on the liberal arts, and this must be contended with by the anti-racist educator

Public education was designed to assimilate and this must be contended with by the anti-racist educator

Critique/Questions/Reflections

How can we incorporate historical backgrounds, languages, cultural characteristics, contributions, critical events, significant individuals, and social, political, and economic conditions of various majority and minority ethnic groups into our classrooms?

Final Reflections  

Multicultural Education Drives Student Growth and Achievement.

References

Gay, Geneva. (2013). Teaching To and Through Cultural Diversity. Curriculum Inquiry, 43(1), 48–70.

Sleeter, Christine & McLaren, Peter. (1995). Introduction: Exploring connections to build a critical multiculturalism. In Multicultural education, critical pedagogy and the politics of difference (pp. 5-32). Albany, NY: SUNY.

Asher, Nina. (2007). Made in the (multicultural) USA: Unpacking the tensions of race, culture, gender and sexuality in education. Educational Researcher, 36(2), 65-73.

Coloma, Roland Sintos. (2009). “Destiny has thrown the Negro and the Filipino under the tutelage of America”: Race and curriculum in the age of empire. Curriculum Inquiry, 39(4), 495-519.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishing Co.