Thinking Critically about Difference: Analytical Tools for the 21st Century

Abstract

This article examines a critical cultural thinking framework advanced to develop an analysis of difference as it pertains to race, gender, and sexuality. We examine student journals to document their use (or lack therein) of these critical cultural thinking concepts and how these concepts influence students' understanding of difference. While there are a number of tools that students can rely on for thinking critically, we advance four concepts that are central for the development of a critical cultural consciousness. ¹ The critical cultural thinking skills we identify in this article are (1) organic experience, (2) relational analysis, (3) historical analysis, and (4) conception of power relations. We argue that these tools are central for an intellectual understanding of difference. As the student journals analyzed in this article demonstrate, in the absence of these tools of inquiry, much of the campus discourse reverts to oppressive frameworks, which not only serve to oppress students of color, women, and gay and lesbian students but also erodes the practice of citizenship that is crucial for the development of educational democracy.

Margaret Zamudio is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wyoming. Her research focuses on issues of race, class, and gender, critical race theory, immigration, and labor.

Francisco Rios is a professor in the Education Studies department at the College of Education at the University of Wyoming. His research interests include teachers of color, Latinos in education, and preservice teacher education with a multicultural focus.

Angela M. Jaime is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Studies, College of Education at the University of Wyoming. Angela specializes in the research of American Indian education, women's studies, diversity, and multicultural education.

Notes

¹ We use the term “critical cultural consciousness” as well as related terms to distinguish critical thinking about difference and diversity from more generic or general forms of critical thinking.

² English-only instruction, changing student names to more Euro-American names, and a curriculum that denigrates the colonized group while also lifting to mythic status the colonizing group are just some examples of this deculturalizing process.