Theory @ MindSay

The following are the beginning ideas of my dissertation.  I have provided excerpted parts for reading and feedback.  Please do not reproduce without explicit permission from the author.

Sincerely,

Antonio Garcia

Indiana University

Wrong again, what to do?

     I have had many experiences negotiating what multicultural education is that I have come to understand that it is fundamental to begin a conversation of what it isn’t.  This can be exemplified in an interaction I had with a lady recently.  She asked me what I was studying in school and I told her “education, more specifically multicultural education.”  Her immediate response was “so you want to teach in urban schools.”  Before I countered her stereotypical response I asked her “why do you say that?”  She replied with “well those schools are the ones that are multicultural.”  This friendly exchange held deep underlying assumptions and misconceptions of not only what multicultural education is but also more specifically “who” it was for.  This is only one of many similar perceptions of multicultural education.  The underlying idea becomes understood by many as “cultural” being contingent on racial representations.  So when there are only white students many people often say that there isn’t much multiculturalness or “other” cultures present.  My goal is to counter that assumption by interviewing white teachers in predominantly white rural areas in southern Indiana.  

Defining Multicultural Education

     When people speak of diversity, multiculturalism, or pluralism they are often speaking in black and white terms.  The general notion of diversity and culture has become relegated to a misconceived categorical realm of racial visibility.  Such perception predicating race as the definitive factor on which one perceives culture to be visible is reductionist when considering the grand narrative of multicultural education seeks to manifest an egalitarian society that is just and transformative (Banks, Bennett, Gay).  Due to the historical legacy of slavery in the U.S. much of what has been considered diversity has often been racially portrayed.  Despite the fact that racism has been a central struggle in U.S. history we must also considered the struggles that have not been predicated on the color of one’s skin, i.e. class, sexuality, language, religion, politics, etc...  In looking beyond strictly racialized notions we can begin to identify the true complexity of what scholars (James Banks, Christine Bennett, Geneva Gay, Henry Giroux, Gloria Ladson-Billings, SoniaNieto, Christine Sleeter) assert to be multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism has been perceived as a racial epidemic in a sense that it poses a threat to unified national identity and monolithic culture (D’Souza, Schlessinger).  The 1960’s was not only an era of Civil Rights contestation, but also a time period of poorly defined political policies surrounding immigration, urban development and education, and addressing the politics of representation (Giroux, Mclaren).  In the decades following the civil rights the U.S. became more than a melting pot, it became a new terrain of struggle for identity, representation, and confrontation of old world ideals that othered or marginalized individuals and groups(Apple, Giroux).  Although at the forefront the struggle was waged on racism (primarily black racism) and unequal practices among a majority white society, there was much more that preceded this violent upheaval.  To reduce issues of inequality solely to a matter of race in a supposed egalitarian society is to reduce the complex nature of struggle itself.  The recognition of struggle comes through conscientização, critical consciousness (Freire, 1974).

Having consciousness is not enough to see the world and penetrate the blindness of struggle.  We must also develop a “critical” theory with our consciousness in order to participate in “the nature of self-conscious critique… develop a discourse of social transformation and emancipation that does not cling dogmatically to its own doctrinal assumptions…the necessity of ongoing critique, one in which the claims of any theory must be confronted with the distinction between the world it examines and portrays, and the world as it actually exist” (Giroux, 1983, p.8).  Critical theory as outlined by the Frankfurt school of sociology was an influential entity in the development of Paolo Freire’s ideals of critical consciousness.  I will later elaborate on the notions of critical theory as laid out by Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer.  

The consciousness of culture and defining culture is the central tenet of examination in this work.  My assertion is that the idea “culture” in multiculturalism is reductionist and antithetical to the true goals of multicultural education.  In order to overcome such an obstacle in revealing a broader campaign for social justice, equality, and equity in education and society scholars must work to formulate and approach multicultural education through novel means that attempt to redefine culture as it is defined by scholars.  Moreover, it is not just culture that needs to be centralized as problematic but also the lack of considerable attention to building a critical consciousness to locate struggle and inequality in the most hegemonic and supposed monolithic cultural settings.  

Defining culture

[…] everything in education relates to culture-to its acquisition, its transmission, and its invention.  Culture is in us and all around us, just as is the air we breathe.  It is personal, familial, communal, societal, and global in its scope and distribution (Banks & Banks, 2004, p.31)