Learning & living difference that makes a difference: Postmodern theory & multicultural education

Multicultural Education, Summer 2002 by Jacobs, Walter R

Subaltern counterpublics are places where members of multiple groups do not attempt to find easy glosses of the complexities of multicultural life. They struggle with the disparate traditions and rules of the groups to which participants belong. To actualize a transformative multiculturalism in the university setting we must create classrooms as subaltern counterpublics, encouraging students to speak from their experiences, but not necessarily for their groups. We encourage students to critically explore the perspectives of others:

It is important to document the harm done by uncomprehending appropriations of cultural creations, to face squarely the consequences of mistakes in the reception, representation, and reproduction of cultural images, sounds, and ideas. But the biggest mistake of all would be to underestimate how creatively people struggle, how hard they work, and how much they find out about things that people in power never intend for them to know. (Lipsitz 1996: 412)

In a classroom as subaltern counterpublic, we simultaneously learn and live "the stories and tell the tales that will connect seemingly isolated moments of discourse-histories and effects-into a narrative that helps us make sense of transformation as they emerge" (Balsamo 1997: 161). Teachers and students both practice "teaching to transgress" (hooks 1994), practicing a multiculturalism that recognizes an America of multicentered culture, attempts to create anti-essentialist race consciousness, and places discussions of political equity at the center of debate. I now turn to an extended ilustration of how such a project may be implemented.

DEBATING WHITENESS THROUGH RECEPTION OF THE X-FILES

During the 1997-1998 academic year I conducted an ethnography of the introductory-level "media culture" sociology classes I taught at Indiana University-Bloomington. This ethnography attempts to (1) understand how students use the media and its products to form understandings about themselves and Others; and (2) build on the idea of a college classroom as a place of learning, to investigate strategies for developing critical thinking and action in order to help students actively use mediated understandings of social interaction in the classroom as well as other spaces. It is based on (1) observational data (collected by five undergraduate assistants and me); (2) analysis of assignments which were designed to encourage critical engagement with media and mediated information; and (3) analysis of meta-discursive data: comments on the course and classroom dynamics, such as in course evaluations, and the course electronic conferencing system (EC), where students post messages on a World Wide Web site to be read by classmates. I used multiple media texts to illustrate theoretical concepts, and to stimulate personal reflection and sociological analysis.

During the spring semester the class encountered an episode of the Fox TV network's show The X-Files. The X-Files is about the adventures of two FBI agents-- Fox Mulder and Dana Scully-who battle the paranormal, extraterrestrial aliens, and vast government conspiracies. On Monday, February 16, 1998 I showed the class the 60-minute episode "Post-Modern Prometheus" (Carter 1997), fast-forwarding through commercials. We had a brief discussion of the show afterwards, and more extensive analysis during the next class period, Wednesday the 18th.