The Ambiguities of Multicultural
Education
The Ambiguities of Multicultural
Education
By: Kogila A. Moodley
From: Currents Fall 1984 pp.5-7
© 1984 Urban Alliance on Race Relations
From: Currents Fall 1984 pp.5-7
© 1984 Urban Alliance on Race Relations
Much of the ambiguity surrounding the policy of multiculturalism
also applies to multicultural education. It incorporates notions
of cultural pluralism, special needs, and more recently,
anti-racism as a means to change attitudes. Underlying these is
the pervasive sense of cultural harmony which overlooks the prime
goals of equality of opportunity and equality of condition.
A somewhat static conception of "culture" is implicit in most
views of multicultural education. Culture is seen as a set of more
or less immutable characteristics, attributable to different
groups of people. These are used to identify people and often
produce stereotypes, contrary to intention. (Rosen, 1977). The
notion of culture which the Royal Commission's Book lV (1969:11)
espouses as an afterthought under the heading "The Cultural
Contributions of Other Ethnic Groups" in 1969, reveals a lyrical
fiction that bears little resemblance to minority reality.
"Culture", the Commission waxes, "is a way of being thinking and
feeling. It is a driving force animating a significant group of
individuals united by common tongue and sharing the same customs,
habits and experiences."
If one takes the public definition of the two most stigmatized
ethnic minorities in Canada, Native people and "East Indians",
neither of the cultural attributes fits their experience. Native
people are neither united by indigenous language nor customs and
habits. So-called Indo-Canadians, who arrived in Canada from four
continents and as members of three world religions (Hinduism,
Christianity, and Islam) and various subsects (Ismailis, Sikhs,
Protestants), are even more split in the ideological lenses they
use to interpret different experiences.
What unites all groups regardless of origin, is not an alleged
common culture but common exposure to manifold discrimination and
being an "outsider". It is this unifying experience of conflict
with and uneasy accommodation to mainstream culture that unites
the minorities. Past ideological formulas for making sense of a
different social environment in precolonial America or
post-colonial India offer little useful guide to coping with
Canadian challenges apart from giving a sense of dignity to
contrast with the low status in the country of adoption.
Uncritical heritage maintenance per se can be a hindrance rather
than a facilitator to meaningful survival The cultural baggage of
immigrants is continually examined for what is useful and
meaningful in the new society and some aspects discarded as being
culture-specific to another place and time. The outcome of this
process amounts to a new ethnicity that has little in common with
the reified notion that official multiculturalism intends to
preserve nor is it identical with melting into a dominant
mainstream.
The extension of welfare state provisions together with the much
more diverse ethnic and occupational composition of immigrants
since the late 1960's have created a new ethnicity in Canada. This
is reflected in a much greater variety of responses on the part of
newcomers and hosts alike that in turn amounts to a new Canadian
cultural configuration for educational policy.
It is this dynamic aspect of culture which is everywhere visible
and yet ignored. Seemingly homogeneous groups are in fact
disparate, are at different stages of acculturation, are
geographically dispersed, hail from different parts of the world,
represent a tremendous array of regional linguistic and religious
difference. Above all they only seem unified by their goal of
success in mainstream society. There are few societies which
better illustrate Malinowski's argument that culture contact
produces a third cultural reality for immigrants, which is neither
the original nor the new host culture. (Malinowski
1945:20-26).
The complex problem of perpetuating different cultural traditions
within the school in a pluralistic configuration is evident.
Foremost is the challenge to teachers as unauthentic agents of
cultural transmission. Expecting teachers to communicate cultural
content from highly complex cultures, without reifying,
fragmenting and trivializing them to the ridiculous is not
unproblematic. In many instances the value incongruence between
mainstream teachers and those of other groups is a real barrier.
This is not to deny the need for teachers to come to terms with
their own ethnocentrism, and to have knowledge of the cultural
backgrounds of their students. However, as David Kirp (1979: 132)
points out, the paths to be avoided are a descent into mindless
multiculturalism on the one hand and a determined effort to
preserve the past for the sake of preservation.
Education about different cultures in schools need not imply a
challenge to the hegemony of mainstream education. In South
Africa, for example, ethnically based education has been used to
limit the aspirations of subordinated groups. As Farrukh Dhondy
and others have argued in Britain, about the history of the Raj in
India,"Two hundred years of rule may have bred a complete
understanding of Indian civilization, culture and habits, but this
understanding did not alter the structure of Empire." (Stenhouse,
et al 1982:18). Similarly, Jones and Kimberley suggest that
"uncritical use of multiculturalism has been seen as way of
defusing conflict and pacifying vocal members of affected
minorities" (Tierney,:144).
While knowledge of other cultures is important for teachers, on
balance, it is clearly less important than the concern about race
issues, and how racism permeates society and the school through
teacher attitudes, negative racial images, racial bias in schools
and society. (Affor,1983:9). Teacher attitudes stand out as a
crucial concern. Indeed an unbiased teacher working with biased
materials within an ethnocentric curriculum may well be preferable
to a biased teacher working with multiethnic learning materials
and teaching ethnic history. (ibid:10). An insensitive and naive
use of aspects of non-Western cultures that are non-functional in
Canada can just as easily undervalue and ridicule heritages out of
context and thereby further entrench their second class status. As
Kirp (1982:132) maintains,"It is in fusing what deserves to endure
with the contribution of the present that the educational system
will most effectively respond to issues of race."
Competence Not Culture is the Major Concern of Minority Group
Parents
On the whole, competence, not culture, is the major concern of
minority group parents. While these are not mutually exclusive, it
is foremost the mastery of modern as well as the retention of
functional aspects of their own traditional knowledge to which
they most aspire. The former serves their instrumental, survival
needs which are priority in the country of adoption; the latter,
their expressive needs, for which they themselves assume
responsibility. Whereas diverse cultural inclusion in the school
curriculum is an important device for raising self concept of
minority children, the majority of minority parents see their
children as educationally deprived rather than culturally
deprived. In this respect, there has been a tendency to overstate
low self-concept as a cause of minority children's failure (Stone,
1981; Musgrove, 1982). On the other hand, we overlook the fact
that self concept emerges not only from cultural recognition but
from being able to have greater mastery over one's life.
As my research among minority parents in B.C. has clearly shown,
there is a preference for competence which overrides a concern for
heritage. What most minority parents want for their children is
not condescending teaching of fragmented, diluted versions of
their culture, taught second hand by a non-authentic group member.
They expect committed, demanding teaching aimed at mastery of the
basic skills that are required to survive and succeed in the new
home country. In many instances this was the prime reason for
leaving the country of origin. Musgrove articulates a similar view
for minorities in Britain. "What 'other cultures' want from us
many would see as most worthy, distinguished, and indeed central
in our educational tradition (though perhaps a little
old-fashioned) - high moral teaching and good learning: a sense of
values and a strenuous disciplined pursuit of knowledge ... The
arguments are educational, the imperialism pedagogic" (Musgrove,
1982:180).
An example of this phenomenon is a B.C. school which established
an enrichment program for Native Indian pupils. They were removed
from regular classes to read from books containing native stories
and illustrated entirely with Native peoples' pictures. In
addition, twice a week older native community persons were invited
to teach beadwork and net-mending. Several sympathetic teachers
felt that the children who needed most attention were being
shortchanged by a well intentioned effort. Such an instance shows
all too clearly how unreal and ineffective such idealized
conceptions of Native culture can turn out. They correspond to
treatment outside the school gates, encapsulate and further
disadvantage the students who need energetic efforts at mastering
mainstream survival skills most. While such efforts may increase
greater self respect toward a forgotten heritage in the short run,
dysfunctional cultural survival shortchanges students'
opportunities in the long run.
Along the same lines Maureen Stone (1981) points to"progressive"
multicultural teaching as contributing to West Indian children's
failure in adapting to child centred teaching and learning
approaches. Quoting Gramsci she stresses the need for minority
children to acquire the dominant forms of knowledge in order to
better challenge it.
In these instances, it is clear that cultural content in the
school curriculum takes second place to other forces which stand
in the way of academic achievement. The most successful
communities are those which have taken cultural and religious
education into their hands while entrusting public schools with
the training for the marketplace.
What does this leave for schools to do with the multicultural
curriculum? It does not preclude information and awareness of the
cultural backgrounds of pupils, to better diagnose strengths and
weaknesses, as well as differences in cognitive styles. It assumes
provision for learning of heritage languages for all students who
so choose. It still calls for active anti-racism awareness
examining teacher expectations, stereotyping and bias in school
materials. It also calls for an appreciation of diversity in the
curricula material which must be integrated thematically in a
global perspective and not as an end in itself.
These basic achievement aspirations are the substance that all
minority groups share, transcending the specific differences of
country of origin, language, religious affiliation or race.
