On the mismatch between multicultural education and its subjects in the field

Abstract

This article draws attention to the growing evidence of a mismatch between sociological categorization and actors' worlds of meaning as expressed in the classroom. The mismatch is especially blatant in cases where students from disadvantaged groups are introduced to what educators and theorists presume to be the liberating discourse of multicultural education. Nurtured by recent developments in the sociology of culture, the article sheds light on this phenomenon by delving into the logic of the actors' own worlds of meaning while making a concerted effort to avoid directing prepackaged allegations of ‘false consciousness‘ at informants. The article delves into the mismatch by reviewing multicultural education sites in two national contexts, the United States and Israel. Its findings from a unique high school in Jerusalem invite researchers to explore new avenues for understanding cultural encounters at school in view of the growing multicultural reality.

Keywords:

• multicultural education
• critical liberalism
• identity politics
• politics of recognition
• false consciousness

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express appreciation to the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, which supported the research. The author would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the original draft of this article.

Notes

1. This definition is taken from the American literature. Banks also refers to the diverse expressions of the concept in Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada (2010, 5). See the Reynolds, Rizvi, and Dolby (2009) review of David Gillborn’s Racism and Education for alternative views.

2. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/ (accessed July 11, 2011). For the use of this term in sociology, see Bernstein (2005).

3. Scholars have drawn attention to the essentialism lurking behind all attempts to organize political action on the basis of social categories. See, for example, the seminal article by Linda Alcoff (1988), ‘Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory’ on feminist theory, and Lennard Davis’ (2006) ‘The End of Identity Politics and the Beginning of Dismodernism: On Disablity as an Unstable Category’ on disability studies. Put simply, scholars and activists seeking to challenge hierarchical, socially constructed categories (e.g. race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.) still need to speak in terms of the same categories they seek to undermine.

4. Schofield based her conclusions on an intensive four-year study of peer relations in an integrated middle school situated in the US northeast.

5. For a fuller introduction to Ricoeur’s ideas see, for example, Ricoeur (1970; 1981, 1987).

6. The term Sephardi (a Jew expelled from Renaissance Spain), often directed at the same population, has softer and more positive connotations, referring as it does to a set of Jewish cultural and historical traditions. The term Mizrahi is more recent, having coming into use after establishment of the State. It is more group-oriented, stigmatizing, and political in nature.

7. Specifically, the Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow, one of the more radical groups promoting ethnic equality.

8. Indications of ethnic bias can be found in the following: Although Mizrahim represent 50% of Israel’s Jewish population, no Mizrahi has ever held office as prime minister; only 8% of the country’s academics are Mizrahim.

9. Israel’s Remembrance Day, dedicated to the fallen in its numerous wars, is perhaps the most hallowed day in the Zionist national narrative.

10. This principle received strongest expression during the school’s initial years but remained vital thereafter.