Transcript Multicultural Education as Equity and Social Justice

Beyond Celebrating
Diversity: Exploring the
Multicultural Curriculum
By Paul C. Gorski
March 2008
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I. Introduction: Who We Are
1.
2.
Who is in the room?
My background and lenses
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I. Introduction: Agenda
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Introductory Blabber
Starting Assumptions
Warm-Up Activity
Conceptualizing Multicultural Education
Dimensions of Equity in a Learning
Environment
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I. Introduction: Agenda Cont’d
1.
2.
3.
Inclusion/Exclusion
Intro. to Multicultural Curriculum
Stages of Multicultural Curriculum
Development
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I. Introduction: Primary
Arguments
1.
2.
3.
Multicultural education, at its heart, is about
creating equitable and just learning
environments for all people in a learning
community
It is about curriculum, and it’s about more
than curriculum
Being a multicultural educator involves
shifts of consciousness that inform
comprehensive shifts in practice
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I. Introduction: Primary
Arguments
4. Much of the work that goes into eliminating
the achievement gap is misguided, and
creates more inequity than equity
5. There is something we can do about it
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I. Introduction: Objectives
1.
2.
Develop deep understanding of the process
of creating an equitable learning
environment (multicultural education)
Connect curriculum development to
pedagogy, classroom climate, and context
for a broad vision of “equitable learning
environment”
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II. Starting Assumptions
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II. Starting Assumption #1
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All students deserve the best possible education we
can provide, regardless of:
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Socioeconomic status or class
Gender
Religion
Citizenship status
(Dis)ability
Race or ethnicity
Sexual Orientation
Etc.
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II. Starting Assumption #2
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Multicultural education is deeper than simple
curricular content
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Pedagogy
Assessment
Classroom/School Climate
Distribution of Power
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II. Starting Assumption #3
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Education is NOT politically neutral
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We decide which readings and activities to use in
class
We decide how students are to be assessed
We decide engage (or don’t engage) students in
the learning process
And so on...
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II. Starting Assumption #4

The problem of educational inequity is one of
consciousness, not only one of practice
 Impossibility of implementing a multicultural
education if one doesn’t think and see
multiculturally
 Even with a great curriculum, I cannot teach
against racism if I am a racist
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II. Starting Assumption #5
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The “achievement gap” is not as much an
“achievement gap” as an “opportunity gap”
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II. Starting Assumption #6
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A single teacher cannot undo systemic
inequities in the school system or larger
society.
 But at the very least we can make sure
we’re not replicating those inequities in our
own curricula and pedagogies.
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II. Starting Assumption #7

I can teach multiculturally and still meet
standards.
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II. Starting Assumption #8
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Gross inequities exist in our public schools
 And these inequities, and the resulting
achievement gap, will not be eliminated by
Taco Night, the International Fair, or other
activities that, however fun, do not address
racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism,
and other oppressions in educational policy
and practice.
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II. Starting Assumption #9:
Gross Inequities
Compared with low-poverty U.S. schools, highpoverty U.S. schools have:
 More teachers teaching in areas outside their
certification subjects;
 More serious teacher turnover problems;
 More teacher vacancies;
 Larger numbers of substitute teachers;
 More limited access to computers and the Internet;
 Inadequate facilities (such as science labs);
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II. Starting Assumption #9:
Gross Inequities (references)
Barton, P.E. (2004). Why does the gap persist? Educational
Leadership 62(3), 8-13.
Barton, P.E. (2003). Parsing the achievement gap: Baselines for
tracking progress. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing
Service.
Carey, K. (2005). The funding gap 2004: Many states still
shortchange low-income and minority students. Washington,
D.C.: The Education Trust.
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (2004).
Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education: A two-tiered
education system. Washington, D.C.: Author.
Rank, M.R. (2004). One nation, underprivileged: Why American
poverty affects us all. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
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Warm-Up Activity
Calisthenics
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III. Conceptualizing
Multicultural Education
Contextualizing Multicultural
Curriculum
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III. Conceptualizing
Multicultural Education
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Multicultural education is a movement and
process for creating an equitable and just
learning environment for all students
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Definitions vary, but five key principles are
agreed upon across the literature
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III. Conceptualizing
Multicultural Education
Principle #1
Multicultural education is a political
movement that attempts to secure social
justice for individuals and communities,
regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, home
language, sexual orientation, (dis)ability,
religion, socioeconomic status, or any other
individual or group identity.
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III. Conceptualizing
Multicultural Education
Principle #2
Multicultural education recognizes that,
while some individual classroom practices
are consistent with multicultural education
philosophies, social justice is an
institutional matter, and as such, can be
secured only through comprehensive
reform.
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III. Conceptualizing
Multicultural Education
Principle #3
Multicultural education insists that
comprehensive reform can be achieved only
through a critical analysis of systems of
power and privilege.
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III. Conceptualizing
Multicultural Education
Principle #4
The underlying goal of multicultural
education—the purpose of this critical
analysis—is to provide every student with
an opportunity to achieve to her or his
fullest capability.
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III. Conceptualizing
Multicultural Education
Principle #5
Multicultural education is good education
for all students.
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V. Critical Concepts
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V. Critical Concepts
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Hegemony
Deficit Theory
Systemic Inequities
Cognitive Dissonance
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IV. Dimensions of
Equitable Education
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IV. Dimensions of Equitable
Education
1. What our students bring to the classroom
2. What we
bring to the
classroom
4. Pedagogy
3. Curriculum content
Adapted from the work of Maurianne Adams and Barbara J. Love (2006).
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IV. Dimensions of Equitable
Education
1. What Students Bring to the Classroom
 Past educational experiences (it’s not always
all about us)
 Complex identities, prejudices, biases
 Expectations about the roles of students and
teachers
 Varying learning styles, intelligences, ways of
illustrating learning
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IV. Dimensions of Equitable
Education
2. What We Bring to the Classroom
 Complex socializations, identities, biases,
and prejudices
 Notions about the purposes of education and
our roles as teachers
 A teaching style, often related to our own
preferred learning styles and how we’ve been
taught
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IV. Dimensions of Equitable
Education
3. Curriculum Content
 Course materials: Who’s represented in readings,
examples, illustrations
 Perspective and worldview: Whose voices are
centered, whose are “other”ed
 Is content, whenever possible, made relevant to the
lives of the students?
 What is the “hidden curriculum”?
 Are multicultural issues addressed explicitly?
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IV. Dimensions of Equitable
Education
4. Pedagogy
 Focus on critical, complex thinking and asking
critical questions
 Paying attention to inequity in classroom processes
 Attending to sociopolitical relationships (power and
privilege) in the classroom
 Acknowledging student knowledge through problemposing, dialogue, and general student-centeredness
 Using authentic assessment techniques
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VI. How We Get There:
The Equitable
Learning Environment
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
Part 1: What Your Students Bring to
the Classroom
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
A. Find ways to challenge stereotypes (both in
society and your own field)
Example: Albert Einstein as a white, male
scientist who wrote very progressive essays
about racism, imperialism, etc.
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
B. Watch for and challenge student behaviors
and relationships that reflect stereotypical
roles
Example: Men assuming the lead in lab
activities, women being “note-taker” in small
groups
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
C. Be thoughtful about how you create
cooperative teams or small groups
Example: Avoid temptation to “distribute”
people from under-represented groups
(tokenism)
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
D. Understand students’ reactions to you and
your social identities in context
Example: Even if you don’t think much about
your whiteness (for example), it may mean
something significant to students of color
who may only rarely not have white
professors
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
1. What Students Bring into the Classroom
E. Help students un-learn the ways of being
and seeing that lend themselves to
prejudice
Example: Dichotomous thinking, competitive
nature of learning (NOTE: this also means
WE have to un-learn)
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
Part 2: What You Bring to the
Classroom
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
A. Identify and work to eliminate your biases,
prejudices, and assumptions (yes, you do
have them) about various groups of
students
Example: Race/ethnicity, gender, religion,
sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic
status, (dis)ability, first language, etc.
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
B. Identify and work to broaden your teaching
style (which, according to research,
probably suits your learning style)
Note: Research shows that two elements most
effect how somebody teaches: (1) their
preferred learning style, and (2) how they
were taught what they’re teaching
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
C. Identify and work on your “hot buttons”
Question: What are the issues that set you off
to the point that you become an ineffective
educator/facilitator?
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
D. Provide students with periodic opportunities
to share anonymous feedback
Note: Students already feeling disempowered
and disconnected are not likely to approach
you about your teaching or curriculum
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
E. Share examples of when you’ve struggled to
climb out of the box and to see the world
and your field in their full complexity
Note: When we make ourselves vulnerable we
make it easier for students to do the same
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
F. Consider the significance of the professor/student
power relationship and what this means re: student
learning
Question: What might it mean to be a white male
computer science professor teaching a young
African American woman in a field historically
hostile to African American women?
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
G. Identify the gaps in your knowledge about
equity issues and pursue the information to
fill those gaps
Point: I cannot teach anti-classism if I’m
unwilling to deal with my own classism
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
H. Build the skills necessary to intervene
effectively when equity issues arise
Examples: Racist joke or comment, sexual
harassment, men talking over women
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
2. What You Bring into the Classroom
I. Mind your compliments
Point: Research indicates that educators,
regardless of gender, are most likely to
compliment male students on their
intelligence. Female students? On their
appearance.
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
Part 3: Curriculum Content
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
3. Curriculum Content
A. Assign tasks that challenge traditional social
roles
Example: Assign men to be note-takers,
women to be group facilitators
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
3. Curriculum Content
B. Try centering the sources you previously
may have used as supplements
Example: Slave narratives as central history
texts instead of supplements to a more
Eurocentric framing of history
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
3. Curriculum Content
C. Avoid other-ing; weave diverse voices and
sources seamlessly together instead of
having separate sections or units
Example: No units on “women poets” or “Latino
voices,” etc.
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
3. Curriculum Content
D. Discuss ways people in your field have used
(and continue to use) their scholarship and
platforms to advocate for social justice
Examples: Leontyne Price, Howard Zinn,
Stephen J. Gould, Ida B. Wells, Mark Twain
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
3. Curriculum Content
E. Discuss ways people in your field have used
(and continue to use) their scholarship and
platforms to support inequity and injustice
Examples: “Science”: eugenics; “journalists”:
refusal to critique Bush foreign policy during
war-time; etc.
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
3. Curriculum Content
F. Discuss the history of oppression and
exclusion in your field and how this has
affected knowledge bases in your field
Examples: Women and STEM fields (and law,
business, etc.)
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
3. Curriculum Content
G. Vary your instructional materials as a way to
draw in students with various learning styles
Suggestion: Consider visual, tactile, aural, and
other dimensions of your instructional
materials
Note: Doesn’t mean every lesson must include
all of these, but that they’re distributed over
the course of the semester
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
3. Curriculum Content
H. Encourage students to raise critical questions, not
only about the content itself, but about how the
content is presented in educational materials
Example: Use of male anatomy as “standard”;
differentiation between “American literature” and
“African American literature” (and misuse of the
term “American”)
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
Part 4: Pedagogy
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
4. Pedagogy
A. Be very clear about how you expect students
to participate (open discussion, raised
hands, etc.)
Related suggestion: Avoid first-hand-up, firstcalled-on approach
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
4. Pedagogy
B. Never, under any circumstance, invalidate or
allow other students to invalidate concerns
of inequity raised by students from
disenfranchised groups
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
4. Pedagogy
C. Avoid putting students from disenfranchised
groups in positions to have to teach people
from privileged groups about their privilege
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
4. Pedagogy
D. Develop your facilitation skills so that you
can effectively facilitate “difficult dialogues”
about racism, sexism, classism,
heterosexism, etc.
Note: When these dialogues happen, be
comfortable advocating for equity
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
4. Pedagogy
E. Design assignments that encourage
students to apply what they’re learning to a
human rights issue
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
4. Pedagogy
F. Allow students, when possible, to choose
how they will be assessed (as people don’t
demonstrate understanding and application
in the same ways)
Example: Choice between an essay or an
application project
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
4. Pedagogy
G. Invite a colleague to observe your teaching
and provide feedback on a variety of
concerns
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VI. The Equitable Learning
Environment
4. Pedagogy
H. Use peer teaching, peer feedback, and other
peer interactions to provide students an
opportunity to learn content through a
variety of lenses
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VII. Shifts of
Consciousness for
Multicultural Educators
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VI. Shifts of Consciousness
Shift #1
I must be willing to think critically about the
things about which I’ve been discouraged
from thinking critically
 Capitalism, Consumer Culture, Globalization
 Two-party political system v. “democracy”
 Etc.
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VI. Shifts of Consciousness
Shift #2
I must acknowledge that multicultural education
is about creating equitable learning
environments for all students, so I must be
against all inequity
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VI. Shifts of Consciousness
Shift #3
I must understand inequities as systemic and
not just individual acts (and what this means
in the context of my classroom)
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VI. Shifts of Consciousness
Shift #4
I must transcend the idea of multicultural
education as “learning about other cultures”
and “celebrating diversity”
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VI. Shifts of Consciousness
Shift #5
I must be willing to discomfort and unsettle
myself and my students

Institutional likeability
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VI. Shifts of Consciousness
Shift #6
I must shift from an equality orientation toward
multiculturalism to an equity orientation
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VI. Shifts of Consciousness
Shift #7
I must move beyond the “objective facilitator”
role and actively advocate for equity and
justice
 Multicultural education is not about validating
all perspectives
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VI. Shifts of Consciousness
Shift #8
I must understand multicultural education as a
comprehensive approach, not additional
activities or slight shifts in an otherwise
monocultural curriculum
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Closing Reflection
Humility is the ability to see.
-Terry Tempest Williams
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Thank you.
Paul C. Gorski
[email protected]
http://www.edchange.o
rg
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