Multiculturalism: Right, wrong or indifferent?
Multiculturalism is the idea that countries actually consist of more than one culture. For example in the United States there are certain areas where the prominent culture is Chinese. Witness Chinatown in San Francisco. Or certain sections of New York City are predominantly of a Jewish ethnicity or culture.
As our text illustrates (Webb, Metha, & Jordan, 2010) these ideas on culture are also part of, if not problematic to, education. Many questions arise regarding teaching such subjects as History or Social Science. A main question becomes: Whose culture (or viewpoint) are we to teach? For example Columbus Day is approaching and I’ve seen some posts on Facebook regarding this from a multicultural aspect. This is good. People can understand, when properly informed, that others have their viewpoint of things. In other words the dominant (or previously dominant?) “white” viewpoint and history of Christopher Columbus and the early settlers in America may be considered a terribly unfair viewpoint from which to discuss the events that happened.
According to one of our articles (Taylor, S., n.d.) it is now happening that many white people are open to this idea but in some sections of the U.S. the dominant culture of that area is in fact influencing education and curriculum to the extent that their culture’s history is being told and the former “white” history is not mentioned.
In other areas of the world nations such as the Netherlands have swung from mono-culture to multiculture and now back to a mon-cultural approach (Why multiculturalism, n.d.). The reasoning for this basically is that many felt that the multicultural approach was forcing a national culture on those who did not want it. In other words immigrants to the Netherlands from Russia for example were required to learn and be taught (and thus identify with) Russian culture. Maybe they didn’t want that.
I see some things that are blatantly wrong and can be fixed by adjusting the viewpoint from which things are described.
Some bad aspects of this, as pointed out by (Why multiculturalism, n.d.) is that this multiculture idea ends up being a political thing called “nationalism.” And probably a large percent of people see plenty wrong in that. Others of course may not. For example, and this is another bad aspect (in my opinion), the Pithissippi Burning article (Tobia, P.J., 2009). discusses how some obviously racists elements in the north western U.S. are promoting literature which in fact advocates nationalism. In this case a twisted white supremacist nationalism.
As future (or present) educators how do we deal with this?
Learning about cultures other than ones native culture is a good place to start. And in these time here in the U.S. of a large amount of racial and cultural mixing is already well underway.
What exactly is culture? What is race? Some (Why multiculturalism, n.d.) indicate that race and culture are not real things:
“Multiculturalism restates the core of biological racial doctrines, substituting words like ‘culture’, ‘identity’ and ‘roots’ for the often discredited word ‘race’. Yet the discredited race doctrines were themselves a biological variant of older doctrines of ethno-cultural identity.”
I’d say that’s a fairly accurate statement; that we no longer consider there to actually be any deep or biological difference in people of this world. Nothing beyond the superficial. Nothing beyond how and where we grew up. But we, our actual selves, are all people.
I guess my sentimental ending to this would go as follows:
We’re all in a race. Wearing differnet tennis shoes. Some have Nikes, some Reeboks. Some no shoes at all. But we’re all running down the road to win. And winning means making decisions so as to help the most number of people that you can along the way and at the finish line. Then you run the next race with the same intent.
References:
Taylor, S. (n.d.). “The Challenge of 'Multiculturalism' In How Americans View the Past and the Future”. The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 159-165.
Tobia, P.J., February 23, 2009. “ Pithissippi Burning: Race, White Nationalism and American Culture.” The Nashville Scene.
Webb, L., Metha, A., & Jordan, K.F. (2010). Foundations of American Education. (6th Ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill.
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