Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education

The United States is experiencing a significant rise in the number of multiracial/ethnic couples and children since the mid-1960s (Root, 1996; Saluter, 1992). Public awareness of multiracial/multiethnic family life and identity has burgeoned in recent years as well, perhaps most notably in the debate leading up to the changes made by the Office of Management and Budget in their guidelines for collecting racial and ethnic data. As a result of these changes, the 2000 Census allowed individuals to identify with multiple ethnic and racial designations for the first time in U.S. history. The newly released Census data show that 2.4 percent of the general population (6,826,228) identify with two or more communities (U. S. Department of Commerce, 2001). Although the percentage of individuals from multiracial/multiethnic backgrounds varies greatly by region, they nonetheless represent a growing segment of our student population. [paragraph 1]

That pre-service teachers should understand the experiences and developmental needs of these students is clearly justification enough for including multiracial/multiethnic topics into the teacher preparation curriculum. Yet the argument forwarded here is that studying hybridity is a particularly powerful method for critically analyzing culture and race in a U.S. context. The following article will discuss pedagogical and ideological dimensions of integrating multiracial/multiethnic studies into a pre-service teacher diversity course. [paragraph 2]

Engaging in diversity work with mainstream, pre-service teachers presents well-documented challenges (Banks and Banks, 1997; McCarthy and Crichlow, 1993; Nieto, 2000). These challenges are exacerbated when multicultural issues are relegated to a single course within the sponsoring program (Jones and Black, 1995). Such structures present obvious time constraints, as well as encourage the undesirable effect of further marginalizing multicultural topics for white, middle-class students. Yet many teacher educators must work within these limits to address the complexities of human diversity as it plays out within schooling contexts. [paragraph 3]

I teach under similar conditions in a department of education at a medium-size research university. The course I offer attempts to integrate critical reflection with macro and micro level analyses of schooling in this capitalist, democratic society. Through the use of anthropological and sociological research, I generally focus on schools as sites of cultural transmission and discontinuity, identity formation (ethnic, racial and sexual), language and dialect diversity, and stratification by socioeconomic status, race, and gender.1 In light of the course parameters, which will be discussed shortly, time for comprehensive exploration of these concepts and their application across the subject areas K-12 proves difficult, if not impossible. In addition, allocating appropriate time for student reflection and in-class dialogue is crucial in light of the developmental considerations when working with mainstream, pre-service teachers (Roman, 1993; Sleeter, 1997). [paragraph 4]

Attention to diversity is to be distributed across courses in both the undergraduate and graduate programs; however, the post-baccalaureate program features a one-credit, practicum-based class in which to address diversity topics.2 Within this one-credit structure, students attend six seminars and complete a thirty-hour practicum placement at a local school over the course of one semester. Over ninety-percent of the students I work with are from mainstream (white and middle-class) backgrounds; many are first-generation college attendants, and a notable number of students from working class backgrounds are enrolled as well. [paragraph 5]

Through this diversity course, I address educational issues related to culture, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, and other social characteristics when time permits. The topics are clustered into an uneasy sequence that upon first glance conveys the false impression that these social characteristics are not interrelated, an illusion I am quick to clarify on the opening night of class.3 Each session features readings that address “big ideas” (defining theories and concepts), “trends” (broad social, theoretical and historical patterns) and educational insights “from the classroom” (related articles written by teachers). [paragraph 6]

Like many teacher educators who address diversity/multiculturalism, I expect my students to engage in critical reflection of their social location as we begin to explore how these social characteristics interact with schooling processes. Toward this end, I believe it is necessary to consistently model my own relationship to the categories of ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, etc., as we move through the semester. Charting my experiences and relative positions of privilege (as a heterosexual, female, white, black, bicultural, bidialectal, bilingual, formerly-lower-class-and-now-middle-class, thirty-something assistant professor), I establish at the first class meeting that course participants will be asked to make explicit their own backgrounds through the reading responses and class discussion. In the syllabus, students are asked to respond to questions for each session that ask them to analyze and synthesize the assigned readings; I encourage students to integrate their opinions, feelings and experiences as well.4 [paragraph 7]

In the opening session, I ask students to brainstorm ways we tend to categorize human diversity in the United States. Working on the chalkboard and on a blank template I hand out, we chart out in linear fashion the standard categories (race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, sexual orientation, etc.) and those that do not come as easily to students’ minds (dialect, language, region, color, size, age, etc.). After we have a tentative list, I introduce the concept of status and make a notation above and below for “high” and low” status; a median-point line is then drawn across the center and titled “mainstream.” We then attempt to determine how status plays out in U.S. society for each characteristic, noting which social designations carry more privilege than others. For example, a relatively simple characteristic to plot is religion, as Protestant denominations are assigned higher, mainstream status over others. After this is completed, we begin on one end as I ask students where they would place me on the hierarchy for each characteristic. Students are then asked to locate themselves on the handouts. We close the session by watching Children in America’s Schools with Bill Moyers (South Carolina Educational Television,1998), a video that examines the inequitable funding structures of U.S. schools. Throughout the semester, we refer back to this video as way to ground the students’ observations about the relationship between social status and educational inequality. [paragraph 8]

The introductory brainstorming activity is not as simplistic as I have depicted it here. In fact, it is the complexity of the activity and the concepts we address that make it powerful in several ways. Most obvious, the activity provides an opportunity for me to model how to reflect on one’s relative status in society. As mentioned earlier, students have been told that they will be exploring their own experiences throughout the semester. By modeling how to talk about my relationship to these social characteristics, I offer ways of discussing and thinking about what the general term “diversity” means to me in my life. I talk about why I use certain terms to the exclusion of others, and how my language and thinking have changed and continue to change as I learn more about people. I also note that it is okay not to be familiar with these things, or not to feel confident speaking about them. I stress that we are all on a continuum and will be learning for the rest of our lives. [paragraph 9]

I detail this activity not only because I hope others may find it useful, but also because it deals with three themes often overlooked by traditional multiculturalist approaches to education. First, the activity addresses the contradictory aspects of power by recognizing that a single individual (like myself) may encounter both privilege and oppression (as white, black, working, and now middle class, etc.). Second, it reveals how social characteristics change over time (e.g., that Irish and Italian are no longer defined as inferior races), which places an emphasis on the formation, or social construction, of social categories. And finally, by plotting my own experiences, the activity allows me to explicitly challenge the essentialist constructs of diversity we all share as a consequence of living in U.S. society. [paragraph 10]

As McCarthy and Crichlow (1993) contend, it is imperative that we develop ways to counter the reductionist tendencies of popular multiculturalism and encourage a more relational approach to understanding diversity and education. The following section will discuss how building upon these themes through the incorporation of multiracial/multiethnic topics can foster critical dialogue around culture, race, and schooling. [paragraph 11]

Culture is a fundamental conceptual building block in my diversity course as we explore schools as sites of cultural transmission and places where discontinuities arise between the home and school cultures. Noting the myriad ways culture is defined in the readings for the second session, students are exposed to several basic interpretations of the term as material, ideational, and variable. In order to move us further beyond a superficial conceptualization of culture (“the tip of the iceberg”), I talk about a community’s culture, or Discourse, as influencing how we act, what we value, and how we display membership through mutually intelligible, meaningful acts (Gee, 1992). I underscore that through this course students will be unearthing the deeper structures of culture in order to investigate how these structures produce discontinuity and school failure. [paragraph 12]

A solid grasp of the dynamic nature of culture is necessary early on in the semester. During the second session, I extend Kottak and Kozaitis’ (1999) discussion of ethnicity to talk about heritage and context. This functions to reinforce McCarthy and Crichlow's (1993) notion of non-synchrony by distinguishing between a person’s parentage and their cultural experiences, which is also brought out in the reading responses. Here, the diversity of experiences among multiracial/multiethnic students proves illustrative and I draw upon my own experiences as a bicultural, bidialectal and bilingual person to show how identity is malleable and unpredictable. In addition, power and privilege are again stressed as students study how social identities vary across communities, how identities may encourage resistance or accommodation, and how their social identities impact their teaching and relationships with students and community members. [paragraph 13]

Unpacking the concept of race during the third session helps students to further distinguish between culture and race, as well as between ethnic and racial identity. Using the case study offered in Nieto (2000) and its accompanying chapter, pre-service teachers delve into the developmental aspects of multiracial/multiethnic identity and read about one student’s experiences. Several readings and the responses ask students to explore the ideology of race through a consideration of mixed race. It is important to note how talking about racial ideology moves away from the inclination in multicultural education to focus on racialized minority communities as “problem” communities and instead helps us to focus on the construction of whiteness and the problem of Eurocentrism in schools. The readings add depth to my initial comments about how whiteness has been constructed to protect power and privilege. In the reading responses and classroom discussion, I watch as the students actively begin to think through their democratic values, the unjust realities of our society’s economic structure, and what whiteness means in terms of educational opportunity. [paragraph 14]

In this same session, I introduce the concept of racial formation (Omi and Winant, 1986) that stresses the socially constructed nature of race. Invariably, the conversations turn to personal experiences that students have with people who do not fit neatly into the categories. I also conduct an activity using a series of slides of individuals from diverse backgrounds to discuss the “problem” of racial ambiguity. As students discuss the changing character of race over time and the complexity of identity, they begin to reject simplistic definitions of culture and race. [paragraph 15]

I have found that by studying life at the “interface”of communities in my diversity course (Phinney and Alipuria, 1996), I am able to facilitate thoughtful reflection and dialogue among mainstream pre-service teachers. Simply incorporating readings about multiracial/multiethnic topics into the curriculum is not enough. It is imperative to provide white students with opportunities and models for thinking and talking about human diversity as well as about power, privilege and schooling if we expect students to engage the content in meaningful ways. This means moving beyond benignly relativist celebrations of diversity toward more profound examinations of how we deal with culture and race and how they come to matter in schools. [paragraph 16]

I believe that my experiences as person who crosses the borders between ethnic and racial communities allow me to talk about whiteness, privilege, and oppression in ways that are thought provoking and instructive for this particular population of pre-service teachers. Yet it is my hope that these lessons may be useful for all teacher educators interested in developing methods that invite students to examine their role in addressing the inequalities of schooling in U.S. society. [paragraph 17]

1. I use three primary texts: Affirming Diversity by Sonia Nieto (2000); Rethinking Our Classrooms by Bill Bigelow (1994); and On Being Different by Kottak and Kozaitis (1999).

2. In light of the current teacher shortage in the state of Maryland, however, this course will soon be phased out because of the demand to streamline teacher preparation programs.

3. The sequence is as follows: introduction to diversity and education; culture, ethnic identity, and cultural discontinuity; the “nature” of race and racial identity; language, dialect, and socioeconomic status; sex, gender, and sexual orientation; and keys to responsive teaching.

4. The culminating project is a “mini” research paper based on an inquiry project at the practicum site. Students are asked to choose a characteristic (e.g., gender) and analyze an aspect of it to determine how well the supervising teacher, or the school, is doing in light of the research. Strengths and weaknesses often discovered allow students to understand the implications of the research to their future teaching.

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