The limits of pedagogy: diaculturalist pedagogy as paradigm shift in the education of adult immigrants

Abstract

Pedagogy develops through the interventions of scholars who believe injustice should not be normalised. Such interventions nonetheless subsume monoculturalist assumptions constructed within the US social and academic narrative. The top-down paradigm of ‘designing pedagogy’ is inappropriate for educating adult immigrants, whose cultural ways of being and knowing differ from other learners. Even pedagogies comprising explicit political agendas emerge from the US academy’s ideological tradition, which invisible-ises adult immigrant learners. Using sociocultural theory, psychology and philosophy, I propose diaculturalist pedagogy, which prioritises the dialogic creation of pedagogy vis-à-vis adult immigrants’ cultural ways of being and knowing as a necessary ontological distinction. Diaculturalist pedagogy challenges the reification of monoculturalism, whose authority derives from US cultural categories and ‘pre-’/‘post-’ status distinctions. This new educational scholarship disrupts traditional perceptions of adult immigrant learners while interrogating the theoretical myopia and paternalism of pedagogical prescription, evoking new potential for education for, about and with adult immigrants.

Keywords:

• Pedagogy
• paternalism
• monoculturalism
• adult education
• immigrant
• nonprofit

Acknowledgement

The author gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Dr. Anna Stetsenko for her insights and guidance in refining this document.