Speaking of race and ethnic identities: exploring multicultural curricula

Abstract

New demographic patterns as well as new communication and information technologies and administrative and marketing practices have irrevocably altered schools in Australia's large cities. This study examines the ways that teachers and parents in one urban school speak about race and ethnicity in the midst of these changes. Beneath the ironic relationship between difference and sameness which underpins multicultural debate are different understandings that determine ways some belong and some do not belong within the school community. This paradoxical relationship persists, despite increasingly post‐modern definitions of identity that underpin the field of this debate. I conclude that the examination of multicultural curricula must include the normalized ways of knowing and ‘being’ identity, which underpin conversations about race and identity.

Keywords:

• ethnic identities
• multiculturalism
• race

Notes

1. See, particularly, the work of Lincoln and Guba (1985), Denzin (1989), and Guba and Lincoln (1999).

2. See, particularly, the work of Strauss (1987).

3. The research undertaken in this Australian secondary school included, in 1988, 20 interviews with teachers and 11 interviews with parents. In 1998, I interviewed 19 teachers (11 of whom I had interviewed the decade before) and nine parents (three of whom were included in my earlier research). Respondents identified themselves as Australian, Greek, Chinese, Indian, Jewish, Yugoslav, Greek, Turkish, Dutch, and Scottish, or hybrid mixtures of these. Respondents were chosen purposively, as they might identify as different ethnic groups, or because of their involvement in the multicultural programming or the administration of the school. Interviews were 1‐hour long and were open‐ended, although focused by sets of questions that initially defined the study.

4. See, e.g. Arber (1993, 1999, 2000).

5. I develop my discussion of the post‐colonial literature through a large number of quite different writings including those by Said (1978), Fanon (1990), Morrison (1992), Bhabha (1994), Spivak (1995), Young (1995), Chow (1998), Brah (1996), and Ashcroft (2001).

6. My discussion of cultural studies emerges particularly from the work of Grossberg (1996) and Hall (1997).

7. My development of the concept ‘whiteness’ emerged from readings of, for example, Frankenberg (1993), Dyer (1997), and Fine et al. (1997).

8. In a private conversation, a particular government worker explained that the implementation of these programmes took two forms: conversations with industry emphasized concepts of ‘harmony’ and ‘productive diversity’; conversations with ethnic groups emphasized notions of social justice and ethnic rights.

9. The discussion paper (National Multicultural Advisory Council 1999) notes that opinion polls undertaken in Australia reflect mixed reactions towards multiculturalism, and that although a majority of Australians continue to agree that policies of multiculturalism should be adopted by successive Australian governments, up to 40% of Australians disagree.

10. See Stratton and Ang (1998).

11. It is not possible to note all the conversations, which were undertaken during what was a large and complex study. The quotations here illustrate some ways that these ideas were commonly discussed. It is important to remember that these commonly‐expressed ways of thinking show general trends in the way people were speaking at a particular time and place. They are not meant to be used as a means of generalizing behaviour. For further discussion of these methodologies, see Arber (1993, 1999, 2000).

12. The names of the school, teachers, and parents are pseudonyms. The selected pseudonyms reflect the cultural identity claimed by respondents.

13. The quotations referred to here are derived from several interviews with different teachers in 1989 and 1998. They illustrate the consistent trope that underpinned the data whereby teachers and parents agreed with the notion of multiculturalism in principle but were disparaging of it as an indicator of policy and practice.

14. Communication aides are members of ethnic communities employed to help the schools with such tasks as translation, community contact, and organization of cultural and intercultural events. These aides are often highly educated in their own country but badly paid in Australia.

15. These references refer to the transcript name and data and lines or page number of the quote.

16. Hall (1996) argues that, in an increasingly globalized and post‐modern world, conceptions of identity have changed. His categorization has three tiers. The ‘enlightenment’ subject described the human person as essentially formed, fully‐centred, unified, and reasonable. The ‘sociological’ subject was considered as autonomous and self‐sufficient and at the same time mediated in his or her actions by the cultures and structures of the world that he or she inhabited. Most recently, Hall suggests, identity has become ‘post‐modern’, a ‘moveable feast’ in process, contingent and at odds with itself.

17. These quotes are part of the pastiche of the ways Miller spoke about Cook Islanders.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ruth Eileen Arber

Ruth Eileen Arber, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Education, Deakin University, Melbourne Campus, Burwood Rd., Burwood, Victoria, Australia; e‐mail: [email protected], teaches and researches in the area of race and ethnic relations. Her recent publications include ‘Uncovering lost dreams: re‐envisioning multiculturalism through post‐colonial lenses’, The International Journal of Inclusive Education; ‘Defining positioning within politics of difference: negotiating spaces “in‐between”’, Race Ethnicity and Education; and ‘The presence of an‐other: the prescience of racism in post‐modern times’, to be published in the Journal of Educational Change.