Multicultural

Education by Wayne
Au
Teaching for Racial and Cultural
Justice
Presentation by Abigail Hasebroock
CIEP 524; Loyola University of Chicago
Reflecting on In the past four months, we have read:
Culture and Power in the
Classroom by Antonia Darder

this The Trouble with Black Boys by

Pedro Noguera
Multiplication is for White People

semester by Lisa Delpit

The Latino Education Crisis by by
Frances Contreras and Patricia C.
What we learned and Gandara
where to go next LGBTQ Policies and Procedures by
Cris Mayo

Which conclusions have we

arrived at?
Victor Rios: Help for Kids the Education
System Ignores

Dr. Rios says he has lived two

lifetimes: one as a juvenile
delinquent and high school dropout,
and one as a sociology professor at
UCSB

His message:
Define students by what they contrib
ute, not what they lack
.

Post-Viewing Question: If we
redefine at risk students as at
promise, how does this change our
curriculum?
His book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys
discusses how urban males of color encounter the youth control
complex: punitive social control that has led to the school-to-
prison pipeline.
Summary of Rethinking Multicultural
Education
This anthology presents articles on race and culture in the classroom

Drawn from the Rethinking Schools magazine, this collection of work

focuses on creating an anti-racist social justice curriculum and education

This shift is predicated on recognizing systemic oppression based on race

and class inherent in U.S. educational settings

Main argument: Social Justice can best be achieved through a

multicultural, inclusive education that provides students with the tools to
critically analyze texts and the world around them
Five Focus Areas
Anti-Racist Orientations
The Fight for Multicultural
Education
Language, Culture, and
Power
Transformational Identities,
Multicultural Classrooms
Confronting Race in the
Classroom
Key Legislations
Proposition 203- Arizonas 2000 English-
only education
Proposition 187- Californias 1995 Save
Our State ballot initiative to make illegal
immigrants ineligible for public benefits
(found unconstitutional in 1999)
Proposition 227- Californias 1999 English
Language in Public Schools Statute
(English-only)
Oakland Unified School Districts 1996
resolution recognizing legitimacy of
AAVE/Ebonics as an African language
 Whether we are talking
about African American,
white, Latina/o, indigenous,
or model minority Asian
American students, the first
rule of educational inequality
still applies: Class matters
(Chang & Au, p. 49).
If were not dealing with
issues like why we have so
much poverty amid so
much wealth, were not
dealing with the core issues
of multiculturalism
(Sleeter, p. 40)
The indigenous peoples of
America must be accorded the
status of full human beings with
inalienable rights to self-
determination
(Bellows, p. 75).
Race and racism are a
western idea[Europeans]
treated phenotype as if it
were race, and they treated
race as if it were the primary
explanatory factor in human
social behavior (Hilliard, p.
28, 31).
Part I: Anti-
Racist
Orientations
Urban was
constructed as a code
word for race--
specifically black and
Latino-- and often for
poor (Watson, p. 78).
You have to realize
that what you recognize
as universal is, quite
often, exclusionary
(Lee, p. 13).
Sometimes it is
important to help folks
find where their talents
will best be used so as to
not destroy children
(Delpit, p. 23).
We cannot build
healthy, functioning
schools within a context
where there is no funding
available because its
going to building prisons
and police forces
(Alexander, p. 61).

Part II: The Fight for
Multicultural Education
Social studies should help
students name and explain
obstacles to justice, peace,
equality, and
sustainability not just
cover material (Bigelow, p.
98).
Its devastating to know that
history has a face to it, and that
any history that is different runs
the risk of not being taught...We
dont realize that our past
intertwines with our future
(Ortega, p. 113).
Multicultural education
should seek to draw on the
knowledge, people, and voices
of the actual communities
being studied and cannot trying to protect privileged
be relegated to individual
classes (Au, p. 84).
In Arizona, lawmakers have
ruled that Mesoamerican
knowledge is subversive
and not part of Western
civilization (Rodriguez, p.
100).
This is not just a debate
about pedagogy, about
textbooks, about historical
interpretation. Its a debate
about the kind of society
we want to live in (Bigelow, effort to create fixed standards
p. 119).
Cultural critics are trying to
protect their privileged
notions of what literature is
and should be. They are
children (Alexie, p. 93).
The Europeans asserted
their greatness and thats
what you learn about in
U.S. History, but all of us
are U.S. History
(Carberry, p. 109).
Schools need to expand
students thoughts
concerning major life
issues (Van Winkle, p. 126)
but cannot because the entire
violates the very essence of
 Everything in school--
from the posters on the
wall, to the music played
Part III: Language, at assemblies, to the
Culture, and Power books in the library--
embraces students or
pushes them away
(Christensen, p. 143).
A lack of strong verbal
Those who interpret skills among Asian
Spanish as a threat Americans suggests that
rather than a more is at stake than
marvelous resource better learning of the
are the poorer for it curriculum. There are
(Gabaldon, p. 146). consequences beyond
academia
(Tateishi, p. 156).

Weve got to teach that All we can do is provide Since [USEB] is not
All children need to accepted by the white
every utterance, every students with access to
learn how to mainstream, difference
story is legitimate, that additional language
communicate with became deficit all over
they exist to help you forms. Inevitably, each
people whose language speaker will make his or again, and in the process,
process your own life, to
and culture area different her own decision about Africans in America
help you move your own
from their own life forward what to say in any context suffered from further
(Dawson Salas, p. 189). (Smith, p. 181). (Delpit, p. 174). dislocation (Smitherman,
p. 165).
Continuing development Autobiographical
of the first language has a writing is key to the There was no choice left
positive influence on positive cultural identity but to compete with
cognitive development, formation of children the whiteman on his
has practical advantages, who have been terms for survival. To do
and promotes a healthy that I knew I had to give
inhibited by negative
sense of biculturalism up part of my life (Suina,
(Krashen, p. 195).
immigration
experiences or racism p. 210).
 Writers and publishers tend
Sometimes, in order to to accommodate ELL
students by eliminating the
surface issues of race and
complexity and contradictions
class inequality, it is
in the content. But limited
necessary to move beyond English doesnt mean
our personal boundaries limited capacity for critical
(Christensen, p. 219). thinking
(Sokolower, p. 228).
It seems every teacher
How I yearned to have a who has worked in
teacher who could see Alaskas rural school
me, hear me, and dance system has a story of the
with me cultural ignorance of
(Negri-Pool, p. 250). standardized tests
(Wuerth, p. 252).
I can help students We could not just
question the aqu and dispassionately talk about
value the all [immigration], but rather we
(Schlessman, p. 270). needed to act upon it by
bringing it into our
classrooms (Picht-Trujillo &
Suchsland, p. 280).
Since teachers have
power over students, its
especially necessary to be
sensitive to issues of
intimidation, the rights of
dissent, personal privacy,
and freedom of choice
(Karp, p. 239).
There is a paucity of
literature that tells the
stories of immigrants from
other places in the world, such
as Africa or the Middle East
and books that discuss
immigration status and
citizenship
(Gonzales, p. 260).
Part IV: Transnational
Identities,
Multicultural
Classrooms
 If teachers dont question the
culture and values being
promoted in the classroom, they
socialize their students to accept
the uneven power relations of our
society along lines of race, class,
gender, and ability (Segura-Mora,
p. 292).
It is unlikely that sensitivity
and tolerance will develop,
that children will bridge the
gaps they bring to school from
their earliest days, without
specific instructions (Tenorio,
p. 290).
Everything good and
decent about our society is
the product of people
working together. But like
so much other media,
textbooks prefer to regard
social progress as the
product of great individuals
(Bigelow, p. 344).
Those in power in our
It is crucial that we
society count on the
attempt to understand
divisions among the
how the conditions in
powerless to maintain
peoples lives affect
their positions (Espinosa,
them (Tolentino, p.
p. 308).
304 )
If [race] is not an immutable,
biological fact, then race
must be a changing social
Part V: Confronting fact. And if it has changed in
Race in the the past, it can be changed
Classroom now (Smith, p. 316).
It does not make sense to Textbooks omissions
teach the Civil rights Movement were not an anomaly, but
without teaching about the part of a pattern of
separate bathrooms and KKK. ignoring racism in
Furthermore, to do so wouldnt America
be history. It would be a lie (Peterson, p. 326)
(Lyman, p. 341).

The classroom can be a
safe place for students to
not only talk back, but
also to affirm their right
to a place in the world
(Christensen, p. 364).
School display cases are
monuments; the
impromptu tour helped
students see their campus
and their school differently
(Gibbs, p. 356).
Through their discussions and
writing, students began to
reflect on how race affects
their own lives, often
incorporating the history of
their own families(Yonamine,
p. 377).
Part V: Confronting
Race in the
Classroom,
continued
themselves as architects of
This was exactly what
we wanted kids to see:
the past is not dead
(Christensen, p. 401).
We talked about how all of
us, no matter what our
race, should be angry
about injustices in our
history (Miller, p. 380).
Progressive content is not
enough...if its disconnected
from students experiencing
their own education and
makers of history, it often
reinforces their feelings of
cynicism and hopelessness
about social change
(Sokolower, p. 389).
Discussion Questions
What is a teachers role in establishing a
multicultural education?

How do we change the larger context

(the white, hegemonic culture) that
people seem to accept as a given? (p.
61)

See page 2 for a list of what

multicultural education does

Can we say that our institutions are

culturally competent?

If not, which areas do you think need the

most immediate attention? (Gerzon, 2016)
Activity: Rethinking Our Multicultural
Curriculum
Consider the population and Identify one unit of study, course, or in-
diversity of the student service Professional Development
body or staff at your
topic that could be more inclusive
school

Who is underrepresented in Take 15 minutes to restructure it using a

curriculum or culture? multicultural lens

Which social justice issues Consult suggestions (authors, texts,

affect this group of activities) in the reading
students or adults?
Then, you will present your ideas and
texts to the class
Sample: Multicultural
Literature Circles
Currently, I teach British Literature

The final unit of the year covers post-modern

British authors

In the past, teachers have taught 1984 by

George Orwell or Lord of the Flies by William
Golding (both written by and about white
men)

Instead of teaching a single text, I will run

Literature Circles where students can choose
a text written by a bicultural postmodern
British author

Students will then research, write, and discuss

the intersection of these characters identities
References
Au, W. (2014). Rethinking multicultural education: Teaching for Racial
and Cultural Justice, Second Edition. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

Gerzon, M. (n.d.). Global Citizens, Part I. Retrieved November 19, 2016,

from http://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/global-citizens-part-i/

Rios, V. (2015, November). Help for Kids the Education System

Ignores. Retrieved November 19, 2016, from
http://www.ted.com/talks/victor_rios_help_for_kids_the_education_syste
m_ignores
Supplemental Resources
Chapter 6- Schools and the New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander; Chapter 12-
Greco-Roman Knowledge Only in Arizona Schools by Roberto Cintli
Rodriguez

Ava Duvarneys 13th (documentary, Netflix)

Chapter 7- Once Upon a Genocide: Columbus in Childrens Literature by Bill

Bigelow

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver- How is this still a thing? Columbus Day

Howard Zinns The Peoples History of the United States (text)

Oliver Stones The Untold History of the United States (documentary, Netflix)