Critical multiculturalism: a short introduction

1
Critical multiculturalism a short introduction

• Presentation to Integrerings- og
  mangfoldsdirektoratet
• 8.5.07
• Jeanette Rhedding-Jones
• Professor
• Early Childhood Education
• Oslo University College

2
Overview of Critical Issues

• Dissimilar discourses on diversity
• Qualities of critical multicultural perspectives
• Cultural and linguistic diversities as beyond
  normalised multiculturalism
• Shifts over time from assimilation to
  integration to transformation of the monoculture
• (with examples from personal and professional
  practice in Norway)

3
Dissimilar discourses on diversity (terms and
concepts)

• Discourses are sets of ideas that cause people to
  act and speak as they do.
• The ideas we do not have are what make us silent
  or passive in particular situations.
• Diversity is not only about cultures and
  languages. It is also about all forms of
  difference, as normalised expectations and
  practices are enacted.
• Hence who and what stands in the centre is
  displaced to the periphery, by discourses that
  challenge the power of majorities.

4
Dissimilar discourses on culture(shifts over
time)

• From discourses of the foreign to the
  transnational
• From discourses of negation (minorities as
  problems) to discourses of affirmation
  (minorities as resources)
• From discources of language to languageS,
  religion to religionS, from discourses of
  monoculturalism to token multiculturalism to
  transformation of the monoculture

5
Qualities of critical multicultural perspectives
(ing verbs)

• Questioning the ethics and power of those in the
  centre
• Changing normalised practiceand normalised
  heirarchies of power
• Critiquing regimes of expertise, including our
  own professionalism
• Moving out so others may move in
• Asking what drives a particular practice

6
Specific questions for practice

• Whose cultures?
• Whose idea of multi is this?
• What singularities are still apparent?
• How is the monocultural still embedded within
  even this desire to construct multicultures?

7
Qualities of constantly critical multiculturalismS

• Always pushing for more critical positionings,
  more critical interrogations
• Asking not where others stand and how skilled
  they are, but where you stand yourself and what
  skills you do not have
• Self-critiquing our own locations and beliefs and
  practices, turning our gaze upon ourselves and
  the practices we hold dear
• Seeing and hearing the normalised practices, and
  critiquing what is taken for granted

8
Reading diversity implications for early
childhood professionals(from JRJ 2007 in press)

• Within the fields of social inclusion and social
  justice, diversity can be seen as a positive,
  providing employing institutions with a range of
  potential.
• Diversity can be regarded as another word for
  difference that becomes marginalisation
• Ignoring diversity leads to continued dominance
  by majorities and further silencing of the
  marginalised
• The positive potentials of diversity are often
  lost through assimilation, token multiculturalism
  and cultural normalisation.

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Different views of diversity1

• Acknowledging difference benign variation or
  conflict and struggle?
• Mohanty Difference seen as a benign variation
  rather than as conflict, struggle, or the threat
  of disruption, bypasses power as well as history
  to suggest a harmonious, empty pluralism.
• To manage diversity by recruiting diverse
  people and introducing different curriculum units
  while engaging in teaching as usual, is not
  shifting the normative culture versus subculture
  paradigm.

10
Different views of diversity 2

• So-called respect for diversity and culturally
  sensitive learning environments, as defined by
  the majority
• Bernhard from discourses of developmental
  psychology, diversity is seen as a discourse of
  individual differences, where there are
  diverse pathways to development.
• Here what Mohanty critiques is apparent and what
  is not acknowledged is that that all information
  is discursively constructed.
• Harmony and individualism fit Western liberal
  humanism paradigms, where races, minority
  religions and multiple languages have no place.

11
Different views of diversity 3

• Capitalism and neo-liberalism mean managerial
  discourses will take over the hopes of
  emancipists.
• McLaren and Farahmandpur, as radical anti-racist
  educators, do not mention diveristy at all,
  because of the problems associatied with its
  definition.
• Ideologies of economic rationalism produce
  racism as a symbol of capitalist
  expliotation.
• Hence teachers are deflected from examining the
  interrelationship among race, class and gender
  oppression within the context of global
  capitalist relations.
• Following this, we must not deny the influence of
  race, class and gender.

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Different views of diversity (4)

• Managing diversity for effective outcomes a
  conservative view of diversity
• Le Roux the most effective educational
  strategy or approach is to address the
  educational needs of a culturally diverse
  classroom population successfully.
• Discourses here are positivism, business
  management and behaviourism.
• Diversity is seen in simple terms, not as
  complexities, from the point of view of those who
  manage and administer.

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Different views of diversity (5)

• Capturing diversity
• Beck appears to see diversity as a variable to
  be researched, captures and then managed. Writes
  of education issues in a diverse society.
• The focus is not on who might comprise the
  diversity and why, but on the functionality of
  the descriptor diverse.

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Implications

• Diversity is a term that should not be used
  lighty.
• It is a concept loaded with many complexities and
  innuendos.
• Critical perspectives allow for the exploration
  of implications, and challenge the relationships
  between concepts and approaches.

15
Another view (6)

• Diversity not as a noun but as a verb
  diversifying
• Viruru opposed to the idea of essence within
  the concept of relation, sees the Other as equal,
  as a presence necessary because it is different.
• To exist in relation is to be part of an
  ever-changing and diversifying process, whereas
  to be reduced to an essence is to be fixed with
  permanent attributes.
• Hence diversity not as categories.

16
Some references about ethnicity, cultures,
languages and diversity

• Rhedding-Jones, J. (2001) Shifting ethnicities
  'native informants' and other theories from/for
  early childhood education. Contemporary Issues in
  Early Childhood, 2(2) 135-156.
  www.wwwords.co.uk/ciec/content
• Rhedding-Jones, J. (2002). An undoing of
  documents and other texts towards a critical
  multicultural early childhood education.
  Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 3(1)
  90116. www.wwwords.co.uk/ciec/content
• Rhedding-Jones, J. (2004). Classroom research or
  w(h)ither development gender, complexity and
  diversity in the UK, the USA and Australia.
  Invited thematic review of Brooker, L. (2002).
  Starting School Young children learning
  cultures. Buckingham, UK Open University Press
  Grieshaber, S. and Cannella, G. (2001) (eds).
  Embracing Identities in Early Childhood
  Education Diversity and possibilities. New York,
  USA Teachers College Press and Cohen, J. (2001)
  (ed). Caring Classrooms/Intelligent Schools. New
  York, USA Teachers College Press. In British
  Educational Research Journal, 30(1) 187-193.
• Rhedding-Jones, J. (2005b). Questioning
  diversity rethinking early childhood practices.
  In Yelland, N. (ed.). Critical Issues in Early
  Childhood. Milton Keynes, UK Open University
  Press. pp. 131145.
• Rhedding-Jones, J. (2005c). Research and ethnic
  diversity. Chapter 9 in What is Research?
  Methodological practices and new approaches.
  Oslo, Norway Universitetsforlaget. pp. 107115.
• Rhedding-Jones, J. (2007a in press). Monocultural
  constructs a transnational reflects on early
  childhood institutions. Transnational Curriculum
  Inquiry 4(1) http//nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/i
  ndex.php/tci
• Rhedding-Jones, J. (2007b in press) Reading
  diversity implications for early childhood
  professionals. Early Childhood Matters.