Culture and Self in Multicultural Education: Reflections on Discourse,Text,and Practice

Abstract

Drawing principally from anthropological critiques of contemporary American multiculturalism, this interpretive analysis of multicultural education in the United States suggests that discourse, text, and practice in the multicultural domain are imbued with unexamined assumptions concerning such basic concepts as culture, self, and individual identity. The article provides a critical analysis of these ideas and their presentation in multicultural discourses and illustrates how they are shaped by dominant core American cultural frames of reference. It argues that a more reflexive multicultural discourse is needed, both to advance research on the implementation of multicultural education, as well as to promote more genuine forms of multicultural teaching and learning. Furthermore, a reflexive or self-aware multiculturalism would allow us to focus on developing models for learning culture that can promote real transformation in the way we conceptualize and practice education in plural societies.