Section IV: Transnational Identities, Multicultural Classrooms

Section four of Rethinking Multicultural Education: Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice focuses on the theme of culture and the variety of ethnicities that comprise and shape our communities within the classroom and society. Specifically, the eight authors in this section use their work to put a face on immigration by illustrating numerous perspectives regarding race, arranged marriages, and citizenship/deportation. All of these areas are addressed and displayed through a variety of narrative perspectives. Through real life stories from students and teachers, readers get a realistic and unrefined view of prejudices that were experienced and encountered within educational environments in North America.

THE ROLE OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

        After reading part four of Rethinking Multicultural Education, readers learn that prejudices are simply not instilled within our youth from birth, however, exposure and influential factors within primary and or secondary discourses may be a determinant for racist tendencies in adulthood (Au, 2014). As an aspiring educator, after reading this collection of essays, I have learned that to promote awareness of racial and cultural prejudices within academic environments, both educators and students must work together to take action.  In fact, teachers must address the reality of discrimination and exclusion within their curriculum and push students to take a critical stance within their communities and the world more generally. Using the essays in part four as a guide, we see that a critical stance within the field of education can be rethinking and updating discriminatory classroom literacy practices. Particularly, this would be embracing not only dominant discourses in learning, but also accepting and utilizing students’ personal backgrounds within a classroom such as their primary discourses, heritage, traditions, and culture. Understanding that there are differences amongst cultures within schools, can disseminate unconscious biases that exist within society more generally.

SHIFTS IN UNDERSTANDING/PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

        Overall, by reading part four of Rethinking Multicultural Education, readers are presented with the stories of a variety of individuals that had been deeply affected by prejudices acts throughout their education. While school in North America is intended to be a safe and inclusive space for learning literacy, we see that in reality, educational experiences are not always positive or inclusive in nature. For some students, school can be a place where their primary identities are rejected and ignored. Personally, as a result of this reading, I have noticed a paradigm shift in regard to my teaching pedagogy. Prior to exploring this section, I was unaware that unconscious biases concerning prejudices and racism existed within educational environments.  However, I now understand that while Canada may appear to be an accepting multicultural nation, traditional literacy practices that are enforced in Canadian schools can in fact be discriminatory and thus, exclusive in nature for many minority students. To counteract these primary discourse prejudices within schools and literacy instruction more specifically, teachers must then understand their significant role as educators of anti-racist sentiments. To educate and infuse cultural awareness within their classroom, teachers and students must think critically and use their voice to speak out against misconceptions and stereotypes about topics such as culture, race, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  

-Lucan M.

Reference: Au, W. (Ed.). (2014). Rethinking multicultural education: Teaching for racial and cultural justice. Rethinking Schools.