Multicultural Education

A Source Book, Second Edition

Patricia Ramsey, Leslie R. Williams, Edwina Vold

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781135582203
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The second edition of this source book contains essays and annotations on a number of issues related to multicultural education. The authors define multicultural education as a process-oriented creation of learning experiences that foster an awareness of, respect for, and enjoyment of the diversity of our society and world. Inherent in this definition of multicultural education is a commitment to create a more just and equitable society for all people. This book, then, offers suggestions relevant to the teaching of all children, all teaching and curricular decisions, and every aspect of educational policy.

1
The Evolution of Multicultural Education: A Sociopolitical Perspective

I dance in and out of circles, spaces and thoughts
Glad to be invited into yours
For often I find myself tapping and twirling
My way, my words, into your worlds
Unwelcoming to me
But I know I shan’t wait to be invited
For by some I never will
And if I stop this movement
This leaping, shuffling, sashaying in and out
Of your conversations
I will, my people will, you and I—
We—all will die
The slow death perpetuated by
That disease, dis-ease, di-sease of oppression
That multiculturalism seeks to fight.

NADJWA E.L.NORTON (2002)

Over the past 30 years, the field of multicultural education in the United States has become recognized as one of the avenues of school reform. Strongly supported by some constituents and opposed by others, multicultural education has different connotations, according to the lenses through which it is viewed, and its scope and content have continued to be issues of debate. It has grown from a relatively defined domain to a widely inclusive one. The field has engendered educational practices, elaborated theory, and, recently, informed a range of research efforts. Whether one agrees or disagrees with its premises, an important part of one’s professional life as a teacher or teacher educator today is knowledge of the forms and content of multicultural education. This text aims to provide a guide for teachers and teacher educators who are interested in either an introduction to this complex field or an opportunity to extend their knowledge.

The roots and evolution of multicultural education reflect the sociopolitical context in which it has developed in the United States. In this chapter we review the social, political, and educational policies that have both encouraged and thwarted the multicultural movement and its antecedents. Current trends and controversies and future directions are also discussed. In addition, to place this evolution in a broader perspective, we conclude by describing briefly the multicultural movements in several other countries.

DEFINING GROUPS AND TERMS

Before discussing the history of multicultural education, we need to define commonly used, yet often confused, terms: race, ethnicity, and culture. The word race is popularly used to refer to biological and genetic traits that distinguish one among populations that have originated from different regions. In the past few hundred years, three broad racial groups have been commonly identified— Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. However, racial divisions and oppression often occur within these groups, such as the Nazi view that all non-Aryans, even if members of the Caucasoid race, were racially inferior. Throughout human history, “racial” distinctions, even in the absence of any pronounced physical differences, have been used by dominant groups to justify the subjugation, enslavement, or both, of other groups (e.g., the Romans considered the Britons less than human and fit only to be slaves).

Smedley (1993) offers the following analysis that illustrates how in the United States the concept of race has been intimately tied to economic and social opportunism for the past 400 years. Before the English began to come to North America, they had developed a notion of the “savage other” when they were conquering the Irish during the 16th century. This belief crossed the Atlantic with the colonists and enabled them to justify their genocide of the Native Americans in the 17th and 18th centuries. Driven by the desire to gain control over the land and derive income from it as quickly as possible, the colonists needed slaves and so adapted their concepts of the “savage other” to justify the enslavement of Africans. The Framers of the Constitution and other early statesmen of the United States created elaborate and contradictory ideologies in order to permit slavery in a new society predicated on individual rights. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries many “scientific” reports and the popular press supported the notion that Africans were a race apart. These “reports” illustrated the extremes to which scholars would go to justify slavery and economic and educational discrimination. During the waves of immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, these racialized views were extended to support the exclusion, mistreatment, or both of certain (particularly Asian) groups.

We now know that there is more intrarace than interrace genetic variability (Quintana, 1998) and that there are no valid biological bases for distinguishing racial groups. However, in the United States (and many other countries) racial distinctions continue to be socially constructed and widely believed. Recent “scientific” works such as The Bell Curve (Hernstein & Murray, 1994) often misrepresent findings or disconnect them from their social, political, and economic contexts in order to “prove” the genetic basis of racial superiority and inferiority. Despite the lack of any scientific evidence of biological differences, the content and significance of racial categories continue to be defined by social, economic, and political forces (Omi & Winant, 1986). Racial categories, in turn, influence the social status and life prospects of families and children, those who are racially privileged and those who are targets of discrimination.

Ethnicity refers to “primarily sociological or anthropological characteristics, such as customs, religious practices, and language usage of a group of people with a shared ancestry or origin” (Quintana, 1998, p. 28). Ethnic groups remain identifiable within the larger cultural environment for a variety of reasons, such as their recent arrival, discrimination practiced by the larger society, by their own choice—or any combination of these. In addition to sharing common cultural roots, members of ethnic groups often have similar physical characteristics and occupy the same socioeconomic status. Ethnicity, like race, implies a degree of social isolation from the mainstream. People may choose to live in communities with families similar to themselves and discourage intermarriage or other forms of outside contacts (e.g., the Amish communities), they may be marginalized and excluded from the dominant group (e.g., African Americans), or both of these may occur.

The status of ethnic groups shifts with changing social and political circumstances. For example, early in the 20th century, Irish immigrants were considered by the American “mainstream” to be a distinct and despised ethnic group. Now their descendants are fully assimilated (Quintana, 1998). In contrast, many (but definitely not all) Mexican Americans have continued to live in separate communities and neighborhoods for several generations and are often the target of prejudice and discrimination. Some groups (e.g., Chinese Americans, Native Americans) are described in both racial and ethnic terms; others such as African Americans are almost always referred to in terms of race (Phinney, 1996).

Virtually every person has been socialized by a culture and in many cases by more than one. Cultures may be defined by many factors, such as national origin, gender, religion, occupation, geographic region, sexual orientation, generation, abilities or disabilities, and leisure activities. In the United States most people belong to several cultural groups. The extent to which a person identifies with a particular group is often a matter of individual preference and life history, and it frequently shifts across contexts and with developmental and historical changes (Gollnick & Chinn, 1998). Each culture has a particular way of perceiving, evaluating, and behaving (Goodenough, 1976). It “imposes order and meaning on our experiences. It allows us to predict how others will behave in certain situations” (Gollnick & Chinn, 1998, p. 4). All children, to varying degrees, absorb the values of their immediate culture(s). Even those who reject their culture are reacting to the mores they learned. With the exception of some groups (such as those defined by sexual orientation), cultural groups do not necessarily experience the prejudice and social distance from the dominant group that many racial and ethnic groups do (Phinney, 1996).

In this volume we distinguish among race, ethnicity, and culture, as defined in the preceding paragraphs. However, many authors use these terms differently and in some cases interchangeably. When reviewing resources and materials, readers need to ascertain how writers are defining and using these terms.

THE HISTORICAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE ROOTS OF MULTICULTURALISM

The historical and current trends in multicultural education reflect the disparate histories and status of racial, ethnic, and cultural groups in this country. People have entered the continent now called “North America” under a variety of circumstances. The most common theory (although alternative ones are currently emerging) is that the earliest human inhabitants migrated from Asia over an ice mass (where the Bering Strait now exists) that connected Asia and the North American continent during an ice age or another time when the sea receded. When people first migrated to the Americas is a topic of much debate (Banks, 1991). As groups came, however, they settled in different locations all over North America, and many continued to move into Central and South America.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, a series of European invasions decimated and dominated the native populations. Driven by a quest for gold and a desire to bring Christianity to the “New World,” the Spanish and Portuguese conquered much of what we now call South and Central America, Mexico, Texas, and California. Beginning in the 17th century, waves of settlers from Northern and Western Europe came to the eastern seacoast of North America. Often escaping persecution and poverty, they came to settle and build better lives for themselves. However, their obsession for “conquering the wilderness” and their assumptions of racial superiority wreaked havoc on the lives of the native people. Despite strong resistance from many groups, the Europeans, armed with guns, took over the ancestral lands of virtually all of the “Indian” (a misnomer that reflected the geographical confusion of the earliest European explorers) Nations, destroying their communities and livelihoods. Thus, from the 16th century onward, the inhabitants of all the countries in the Americas have been divided between conquerors and conquered.

Some groups came to live within the boundaries of the United States by force, rather than by choice. The Europeans brought enslaved people from Africa who entered the United States in bondage, endured more than 200 years of slavery, and are still the targets of racially driven discrimination. As the United States expanded, the Mexicans who lived north of the Rio Grande and in California became a conquered people. For some indigenous people, it was the second time that they were so subjugated.

Immigrants from southeastern Europe who came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often encountered discrimination. However, they were able to fit into the rapidly expanding industrial base of the economy and to some extent fulfill the dreams of a better life that had led them to leave their home countries. Laborers from Asian countries, particularly China, were encouraged to immigrate in order to provide cheap labor. However, unlike their European counterparts, Asian workers were not allowed to bring in their wives and families and were expected to return to their homelands when their labor was no longer needed.

The history of each group is complex and fraught with hardships and losses (see Takaki, 1993), but some groups have been able to attain a higher level of acceptance and success in the dominant society than others. Through intermarriage and educational and occupational achievement, White ethnics, who may retain some symbolic ethnic identity, have become indistinguishable from the older northern European immigrants (Alba, 1990). The lines of assimilation and advantage follow a clear pattern; people who look most similar to the settlers from Northwestern Europe enjoy the benefits of a system of racial privilege, whereas those who look the most different are excluded and disadvantaged (Tatum, 1992). One compelling example is that during World War II, when the United States was at war with both Japan and Germany, large numbers of Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps, but very few German Americans were. According to Ogbu (1978), it is not only a person’s race, but also the circumstances in which people came to be in this country that account for the patterns of disadvantage. He makes the distinction between voluntary immigrants and involuntary minorities.

Despite many hardships, voluntary immigrants willingly came to the United States for positive reasons and were free to create their own communities and to develop resources to survive in their new country. Most voluntary immigrants (especially those from Europe) were able to gain the skills and education needed to become productive participants in the economic system. The first generation often created communities of people from the same country (in some cases, even the same village) that provided support systems, a sense of continuity, and a buffer against the dislocation and discrimination that newcomers often experienced. Parents or other family members in these groups encouraged their children to pursue their education and to get good jobs; after one or two generations, many of these groups were assimilated into the dominant society.

The involuntary minorities were conquered (Native Americans, Mexican Americans) or brought in as enslaved people (African Americans). They did not have the freedom to create their own communities (in fact, Native American communities were systematically destroyed, and African American families were often separated), to attend school, to find jobs, and to carve out a place in the dominant society. Despite many reform movements and legislative attempts to eliminate discrimination against these groups, they are still overly represented among the poorly educated, unemployed, and marginalized (García Coll et al., 1996; Gibbs, Huang, & Associates, 1989).

Ogbu’s distinctions are very useful as an overview, but do not capture some of the subtle variations among the experiences of different groups. The critiques and limitations of his categories will be discussed in chapter 2.

EDUCATIONAL RESPONSES TO DIVERSITY IN THE UNITED STATES

The contradictions, inequities, and conflicts that have characterized the social and political responses to racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity have emerged in educational responses as well. Like the politicians, educators have struggled with the contradiction between the espoused principles of equality and the realities of racial advantage and disadvantage. Reflecting the volatile sociopolitical context, they have also vacillated and disagreed about focusing on individuals versus focusing on particular groups, about encouraging assimilation into the mainstream versus maintaining group identities, and about protecting the status quo versus pressing for social change.

For most of the history of the United States, the dominant educational ideology has stressed individual achievement and success and has ignored the cultural, economic, and social contexts of the students. At the same time, the quality of schools and availability of educational resources have varied widely across groups. Thus, despite the rhetoric of individual achievement and equal opportunities, schools have played vastly different roles in children’s and their families’ lives (e.g., the contrast between all-White and all-Black schools in the South before desegregation; between the boarding schools that attempted to strip Native American children of their culture and community and the elite boarding schools that prepared White European males to take their places as business and political leaders).

Despite the ideals of equal educational opportunity that accompanied their establishment, public schools have generally reflected and maintained the status quo, by ensuring that students are trained to assume their place in the social and economic hierarchy (Bowles & Gintis, 1976). Schools in middle-class communities prepare students to enter college and prestigious professions; those in poor communities train students for menial work. At some periods and by some people, education has been seen as an instrument of social reform and even transformation (e.g., the hope that desegregating schools would lead to a racially equalized and integrated society). However, at state and local levels, conservative forces geared toward maintaining the status quo have usually (although not always) prevailed.

The goals of educating children who are not part of the dominant group have reflected the conflicts between full assimilation and the maintenance of group identities, and between the principles of equality and the practices of discrimination. These tensions have been expressed at a number of different junctures in the educational history of the United States. According to Tyack (1995), over the past century, educational strategies have included discriminating against particular groups and relegating them to no or very poor schools; separating children into classes to fit their perceived or actual needs (such as vocational education); pressuring children and families to assimilate into the mainstream society; desegregating schools to secure full educational rights for all children; ignoring differences (i.e., pretending that all children are alike, regardless of their backgrounds, which is often called the “color-blind” approach); compensating for real or presumed lacks (as in programs such as Head Start for poor children); celebrating differences by honoring contributions of diverse groups; and preserving cultural and linguistic differences (through programs such as bilingual education and use of Afrocentric curriculum).

Assimilation of White Ethnics from the 18th through the Early 20th Centuries

Immigrants have always faced the question of how much to assimilate into their new culture and how much to maintain their native cultures and languages. Likewise, host countries and communities vacillate between keeping immigrants outs...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1: The Evolution of Multicultural Education: A Sociopolitical Perspective
• 2: The Social, Political, and Economic Contexts of Children’s Development and Learning
• 3: Multicultural Curriculum and Teaching
• 4: Multicultural Teacher Education
• 5: Trends, Obstacles, and Future Possibilities of Multicultural Education