Myths of monoculturalism: narratively claiming the other

Abstract

This paper reports on monocultural education narratives associated with marginalizing newcomer English-as-a-New-Language learners and their families. These narratives emerged through a three-year long critical ethnography in the schools of a Midwest town (Unityville). The collective, social stories emerged as ‘story seeds’ through interviews and positioned the storytellers as knowledgeable in relation to the newcomer others. The stories reproduced monocultural myths about the school itself and privileged the storytellers and those with whom they identified. The primary analytic tool was reconstructive horizon analysis through which four main stories were articulated. All of them involved a myth of monoculturalism: ‘When my grandfather came here …,’ ‘Latinos are the new blacks,’ ‘Sink or swim,’ and ‘Go home.’ The Self/Other relations of the monocultural myths will be articulated and the way the collective stories structure those relations will be examined.

Keywords:

• Critical ethnography
• narrative and myth
• ESL
• ENL
• multiculturalism
• schooling
• new language learners

Notes

1. A pseudonym.

2. Ku Klux Klan – a white separatist, protectionist movement whose history includes significant violence toward African-decent peoples in the US in order to maintain what they perceive as their deserved culturally dominate position.

3. These reports are drawn from the state Department of Education Website, but the details are not provided in order to protect the confidentiality of the district.

4. The methodological aspects of these are ideas are drawn from Carspecken’s (1996) approach to critical ethnography.

5. For a good theoretical exploration of these ideas, see Carspecken (2003).

6. Taken from Ed Brantmeier’s fieldnotes, 2 September 2005.