Confusion and frustration as catalysts for change: ‘rich points’ in multicultural education

ABSTRACT

Despite compelling need for transformational approaches to multiculturalism, the measures in place at many schools may be works in progress. Based on twelve months of fieldwork at the secondary-school level in El Ejido, Spain, and longitudinal interviews with key participants, this article examines conflicting articulations of race, racism, and civility shaping interactions in state mandated intercultural education courses. Interweaving analysis of in-class exchanges with attention to textual/audiovisual inputs and socio-historical contexts, this article employs a discourse-centred approach to untangle the tensions shaping local interpretations of race and racism, based particularly on the experiences of marginalised Moroccan immigrant youth. Drawing on Michael Agar’s notion of ethnographic ‘rich points’, or points of misunderstanding, I argue that the perspectives of diverse learners be leveraged to mindfully reconfigure top-down curricula through attention to distinctly local understandings of difference and inequality.

KEYWORDS:

• Discourse
• immigration
• multicultural education
• political correctness
• racism
• Spain

Acknowledgments

I thank my indomitable participants for their honesty and generosity. The special issue editors, two anonymous reviewers, and wonderful colleagues helped greatly advance this analysis; all shortcomings are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Maisa C. Taha http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8617-2764

Notes

1. The course title has since been changed to Valores Éticos (Ethical Values), and parents may choose to enrol their children in Catholic religion class in its place.

2. The 1995 Criminal Code for the first time made racially motived hate crimes, including anti-Semitism, a felony (Ministerio de Justicia 2011).

Additional information

Funding

Research and writing were supported by National Science Foundation (BCS-1061649) and National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation (NAEd/Spencer Foundation).