Experience, empathy and strategic essentialism

Policy Futures in Education, 2005

Iris M. Young, Chantal Mouffe, and Ernesto Laclau are known for their political perspective on the politics of difference. The politics of difference concerns the fundamental question of political subjectivity. They argue against the essentialist belief that there is a fixed identity, instead promote the celebration of multiple and diverse values within society as reflecting the nature of difference. This article provides a genealogical examination of the discursive construction of these new attempts to define a philosophical basis for difference. The theories on difference and identity of Young, Laclau and Mouffe have been described and critiqued in this article. Such an examination will provide a better understanding of the notions of political agency presented in these new attempts. This may also lead us to a better understanding of the depth implicit in such notions as emancipation and empowerment notions these new theories have led us to.

In recent years, Multiculturalism has entered the arena of social debate. From public policy proposals to curriculum innovations, the United States is struggling to define and model a multiculturalist stance that is faithful to our form of liberal democracy and that can assist citizens in flourishing as human beings within our society. Within education, multiculturalism functions as both pedagogical method and curricular innovation. From elementary through collegiate programs, educators are urged to include multiculturalism, take a multicultural perspective and 'celebrate diversity.' Clashes occur within the political and educational arenas as we try to sort out the meanings and implications of multiculturalism. At the heart of the debate are the conflicting interpretations of this concept that short circuit the discourse among the supporters of multiculturalism. This paper will explore the varying concepts of 'multiculturalism' that function to govern education today. We will discover that there are a number of quite different viewpoints as to the nature and function of diversity in a classroom and society at large. Congruent with this discovery is the crafting of a number of questions that invite our community of inquiry to explore the boundaries of the meanings and implications of this potent notion. Let us start with some beginning questions:

Race Ethnicity and Education, 2002

This paper examines complexities involved in the classroom application of critical pedagogy and antiracism education. It examines the concept of border crossing as a tool for progressive classroom teaching. In educational theory, difference is seen as an analytic tool that students use to examine the ways in which dominant cultures create practices of terror, inequality and exclusions. It has also been argued that through the use of difference as an analytical tool, radical educators should be able to allow students to revise what 'difference' is by crossing over into cultural boundaries that make possible narratives, languages and experiences that provide a resource for rethinking the relationship between the center and margins of power as well as between themselves and others. When teachers use 'difference' as an analytical tool, they are said to be involved in what has been loosely referred to as border pedagogy. This is a pedagogy that moves beyond the opening up of diverse cultural and historical spaces for students. It allows for an understanding of the fragile nature of identities that are transforming into borderlands characterized by different languages, voices and experiences. Drawing from the author's experiences as a Black woman teacher-educator in a predominantly white institution, the paper critically examines the limits of border pedagogy when teaching about and through 'difference', and concludes by offering suggestions for future practices in teacher education programs.

Pädagogik, 2008

2003

George Richardson: One of Ted Aoki's most important contributions to the field of curriculum scholarship is the insight that curriculum is much more process than product. For Aoki, curriculum is best imagined as a negotiatory act that takes place between curriculum understood as formal plan and curriculum understood as lived experience . In a broad sense, it is in this complex negotiatory space that we all craft our professional identities and "overcome mere correctness, so that we can see and hear our doings as teachers harboured within pedagogical being, so we can see and hear who we are as teachers" (Aoki, 1992, 27). In many ways, the performance that follows below announces itself from the (in)between spaces that Aoki has characterized as "a multiplicity growing from the middle" (Aoki, 1992, 19). By voicing the tensions pre-service teachers experience in their teacher education program between multiculturalism as plan and multiculturalism as lived experience, and between their idealized personal and professional identities and the identities they must negotiate, we hope our performance provides helpful insights into problematics and possibilities of developing a curriculum for cultural diversity.

: In L. Wong & S. Guo (Eds.) Multiculturalism in Canada: Theories, Polices and Debates (pp.289–310). Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

While the theoretical framework of this chapter is preserved from our earlier article published in a special edition of Canadian Ethnic Studies (Galczynski, Tsagkaraki, & Ghosh, 2012), all of the media reports included previously have been replaced with more recent news stories — thus adhering to the authors’ commitment to drawing on “current” events, as well as illustrating the regularity with which news media is founded upon multicultural themes. As in our previous work, this chapter deconstructs six Canadian- and American-based news stories, allowing us to continue exploring the politics of difference and to further unpack the concept of multiculturalism within the classroom.

2016

This article reviews advances of interest to multicultural educators and researchers in the complementary disciplines of multicultural education and educational anthropology including the culture concept; biological and sociological conceptions of “race; ” postmodern understandings of identity and subjectivity; and ethnographic accounts of how students ’ school experiences are shaped by globalization, immigration, class culture, neoliberalism, and popular culture. We further consider ways that teachers can support students from diverse backgrounds and identify sociocultural approaches to understanding educational policy impacts and appropriation. Our hope is to narrow the distance between these two fields so that common aims can be even more effectively realized.

GDR bulletin, 1997

Engaging Difference discusses how to develop strategies to engage difference that work for both students and professors in multicultural classrooms. The contributions to this volume discuss specific pedagogical techniques (for example, the use of novels, web resources, and personal narratives) and the ways in which these have been applied in the classroom and in related educational activities. One contribution addresses the issues related to the freedom of speech in diverse classrooms. The essays are rooted in relevant theoretical perspectives from active learning literature, including emerging approaches on intersectional pedagogies. All authors are practitioners engaged in teaching in college, and several have previous high school teaching experience. They openly discuss challenges related to teaching in diverse classrooms and suggest pedagogical strategies to thrive in diverse environments.

2008