Diversity Initiatives in Higher Education: Teaching Multicultural Education Online

Multicultural Education, Spring 2006 by Limburg, Florina, Clark, Christine

Some chapters of the book deal with the painful processes individuals have gone through in uncovering their own whiteness and white racism. Other sections of the book discuss what teachers can and have done, pedagogically and curricularly speaking, to deconstruct whiteness in their classrooms.

Lea and Helfand argue that whiteness is a pervasive social construct that makes the inequitable privileges accorded to people with lighter skin seem so matter of fact as to be invisible, and, therefore, taken for granted. Characterizing teaching as a political act, Lea and Helfand argue further that teachers need to make their classrooms into liberatory spaces where students explore their experiences of social inequities, discover shared realities that link them to all other people, and utilize their community funds of knowledge to redefine themselves within a social sphere where whiteness is no longer privileged.

Interaction with people with whom we share and do not share cultural attributes is critical in the process of self-discovery; this interaction enables us to learn to identify the effects of especially subtle forms of racism that permeate our consciousness, though often in un-, sub-, and/or dis-conscious ways.

Because some groups have been historically disadvantaged by white supremacist systems, teachers, perhaps more than any other professionals, need to learn how to question their own beliefs, practices, and experiences in order to be able to teach from an informed egalitarian location, rather than a na�ve and falsely "colorblind" one. Teachers need to identify whether or not they unconsciously subscribe to deficit theories of culture. Increasingly, teachers are called upon to dialogue with people from diverse backgrounds. To do this sincerely and meaningfully, teachers must learn about the experiences and perspectives of people of color, and continue the evolution of their racial self-understandings.

Because many of the authors represented in Lea and Helfand's collection are college-level instructors, it might seem difficult to extend their theories and practices to elementary, middle, and high school students. To successfully apply these writings to younger students, teachers need to believe in the capacity of American youth to think critically, ask critical questions, and willingly engage in the challenges of exploratory education, and then facilitate them in learning to do these things.

Kincheloe (2004) suggests that students are up to this challenge, but that teachers are often prevented-to the extent that they are made hostages to standardization-from utilizing a breadth of course material that would encourage critical examination of social structures. Commitment to a liberatory education is one of the central tenets of critical pedagogy. In it fullest expression, liberatory education promotes students' empowerment through activities that build their critical consciousness. A necessary first step towards liberatory education for all students is for teachers to confront their own deeply held beliefs about race, class, gender, and other marginalizing factors.