Culture,Pedagogy,and Power: Issues in the Production of Values and Colonialization

Abstract

The problem of culture contains contradictory social interests. It gives reference in current political debates about the role of dominant traditions and disenfranchised groups, providing a point of reference to the tensions of modernization and control by the state. The concept of culture also entails the creation of social fields that contain power relations. Current educational reforms to alter participation and teaching can be viewed as discourse practices that establish forms of representation of self and other related to particular Western values. Efforts toward multicultural education may in fact normalize power relations and enable the supervision and regulation of individuals in a far more powerful way than older forms of colonialization.

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