Running Head: ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
Articles Review
Multiculturality & Higher Education
Ernesto J. Luna
EDUC - 651. Multicultural and Special Populations
Sharon K. Anderson, Ph.D.
July 29, 2012
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ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
This paper explores different issues in multiculturalism in higher education through the
review of five different articles. All articles present approaches for understanding
multiculturalism. All five articles are written to help educators understand how postsecondary
students try to make sense of multiple identities in institutions that confront them with everchanging understanding of cultural dimensions such as gender, race, and ethnicity. Also
discussed in the articles is student-student interaction relative to intersecting identities.
Interactant-Based Definitions of Intercultural Interaction at a Multicultural University
Halualani, R. T. (2010)
This study examines how students in The Multicultural University define and make sense
of intercultural interactions. The Multicultural University houses many students from varied
cultural backgrounds. This allows researchers to examine the amount and nature of intercultural
interaction among culturally different students. The main objective of the research is to answer
the question: how do multicultural university students (from varied backgrounds in terms of
gender, age, religion, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, nationality, etc.) define and
make sense of intercultural interaction in the first place? For that purpose the author analyzes and
examines the experience of a diversified sample of students through in-depth interviews.
The students’ definitions of culture and inter-culture are shaped by how students (a)
delineate which groups are culturally different from them, (b) value and judge individual cultural
groups in society, and (c) are in relation to their own positioning in the ethno-racial power
hierarchy of the United States.
Based on those three aspects, the study finds that the historical and sociopolitical contexts
of the interactant nationalities play an important role in how students evaluate an intercultural
interaction. Another interesting finding is that the definitions and understanding of intercultural
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ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
interaction change when the cultural background of the person the individual is interacting with
changes.
Although it might seem a bit generalist at the beginning, the article presents ideas that are
supported in other readings analyzed throughout the period. The three aspects clearly identify
and explain in a very understandable way how higher education students see multiculturalism
and how it depends on different concepts and pre-conceived ideas they might have.
It is important to educators to understand these pre-conceived ideas of how intercultural
communication and relations could and should be. This appreciation of how students see their
peers helps me to understand their behavior toward certain subjects and even towards other
students and teachers. This understanding could be the basis to prepare and implement different
strategies for dealing with multiculturalism in my classroom.
White Educators Facilitating Discussions about Racial Realities
Quaye, S. J. (2012)
Facilitating discussion about race and racism in a classroom is not an easy task for
educators. Different studies show that students tend to respond differently to these discussions
when facilitated by members of their own race. The problem is that many white educators have
found themselves in a difficult position, when facing these subjects in their classrooms, due to
their lack of experience, skills, knowledge and preparedness.
The article tries to answer the question: how do educators engage students in constructive
discussions about racial realities in postsecondary classroom settings? For that purpose, the
author focuses only on exploring the role of white postsecondary educators (with mostly white
students) facilitating discussions about race in their courses.
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ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
White educators are uniquely positioned to engage white students in discussions about
race due to the predominantly white settings in which they are situated. But at the same time,
white educators are the most resistant in implementing specific measures to promote and
improve racially inclusive classroom environments.
The study focuses on two white educators’ experiences, Corrine and Dalton. Both have
experience facilitating racial discussions with white students in their courses. Both agree that in
order to engage white students at multiple levels of understanding about racial realities, they rely
upon multifaceted practices that addressed learners’ readiness to talk race and racism.
It is interesting to see how educators acknowledge and understand how the effectiveness
of talks about racism depends in part not only on the students’ race, but also on the race of the
educator facilitating the discussion. Although focused on white educators, the article presents a
method of talking about race that can be utilized by educators of any race who want to talk not
only about racism, but about any other isms.
The strategies explored in this article give us ideas on how to manage those topics better.
It also provides ideas to give to our colleagues looking for ways to handle this discussion in their
own classrooms, even more if they feel detached from the topics themselves.
Sidelines and separate spaces: making education anti-racist for students of color
Blackwell, D. M. (2010)
The way in which anti-racist education is currently conceptualized and practiced holds
very few benefits for students of color. The problem is that the reality of anti-racism in the
classroom differs from the theory presented to the students. There are pedagogical obstacles that
block instructors from positioning students of color as a central educational concern alongside
their white classmates. The article argues that anti-racist educators must reexamine their
principles and practices from the standpoint of students of color.
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ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
The author uses her own experiences as an African-American graduate student and even
includes the black feminist standpoint theory to discuss the importance of racially separate
spaces as a pedagogical intervention that can make education anti-racist for students of color.
The author also explains how critical educational scholars, in an attempt to challenge the
common notions of racism, have merged the concerns of whiteness theory with anti-racist
pedagogy to expose not only how whiteness works as a system, but also how white people are
participants and benefactors of this system of privilege and oppression.
The three approaches presented in the article are straightforward and easy to understand
for readers familiarized with the concepts of racism and whiteness. It seems possible for
educators to effectively include whiteness into critical pedagogy to challenge the students’ ideas
of racism. The approaches became even more understandable through the author’s experiences
and observations as a graduate student.
It is an interesting reading for both educators and students who are trying to create an
inclusive environment to talk and understand racism and whiteness. The approaches explained in
this article give us a starting point to do more research on how to incorporate anti-racist
pedagogy in the classroom and how students might react to those conversations and methods.
Constructivist and Intersectional Interpretations of a Lesbian College Student’s Multiple
Social Identities. Abes, E. S. (2012)
The process of researching relationships among college students’ multiple social
identities is itself a complex phenomenon that reveals numerous ways in which these
relationships are conceptualized. Gay students not only are starting to understand their identities
in more complex ways, but also face issues with heterosexism and homophobia.
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ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
The use of multiple theoretical perspectives is necessary to understand the multiple
contexts in which students’ lives develop. The purpose of this research is to use constructivism
(to address power) and intersectionality (to address how multiple power structures shape lived
experience) to explore multiple interpretations of relationships among social identities. This
study especially challenges educators to embrace multiple, and even contradictory, possibilities
about lesbian identity.
The study focuses on Gia, a college student who at the time of the study was in college
and found herself at a crossroads in her development as an individual trying to make sense of her
multiple social identities. Dynamics among Gia’s privileged and marginalized identities played
out in contradicting ways as she simultaneously faced privilege and oppression. Due to her
sexual orientation, gender and social class, Gia faced marginalization, but felt privilege due to
her race. As a result Gia developed transitional meaning-making, an ability necessary to
understand how power structures shape relationships among identities while interlocking power
structures shape the meaning and nature of development and identity.
The results of the study demonstrate that together, constructivism and intersectionality
explain aspects of identity that neither framework singularly uncovers. The use of multiple
theoretical approaches is a method that deserves further research and could help not only those
who want to understand how different identities work in a postsecondary student, but also those
who are looking for a method to analyze this interaction among identities.
Pedagogy of Inclusion: Integrated Multicultural Instructional Design
(Higbee, Schultz & Goff, 2012)
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ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
Recent research in the U.S. shows that participating in a diverse learning environment
can enhance the educational experience for all postsecondary students and could help in
development of leadership, critical thinking, and cross-cultural communication skills.
The article presents integrated multicultural instructional design (IMID), a new
pedagogical model that is responsive to the growing student diversity in postsecondary
institutions. IMID focuses on teaching but also addresses other supports for learning.
In the article the term “student diversity” defines the existence of students’ diverse social
identities (race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, etc.), and “multiculturalism” defines how
professional educators consider multiple cultural perspectives in responding to these diverse
social identities.
“The primary goal of IMID is to promote the integration of multicultural content and
diverse teaching and learning strategies in postsecondary curricula, programs, courses, and
academic support services.” IMID addresses guidelines and strategies for (a) how we learn /
teach, (b) what we learn / teach, (c) how we access academic support services / how we support
learning, and (d) how we demonstrate what we have learned / how we assess learning. Educators
and students can benefit from this approach since it provides strategies to work with an open
mind and rules that help break stereotypes and pre-conceived ideas based on the different social
identities the students might have.
The end result of implementing IMID is the generation of an all-inclusive environment
that promotes creativity and the development of skills according to each student’s own diversity.
Although it is challenging to implement in one’s practice, the idea of helping the students
improve their productivity by focusing on their multiple identities is appealing enough to try it.
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References
Abes, E. S. (2012). Constructivist and intersectional interpretations of a lesbian college student’s
multiple social identities. The Journal of Higher Education, 83 (2), 186-216.
Blackwell, D. M. (2010). Sidelines and separate spaces: making education anti-racist for students
of color. Race Ethnicity and Education , 13 (4), 473–494.
Goff, E., Higbee, J. L., & Schultz, J. L. (2010) Pedagogy of inclusion: Integrated multicultural
instructional design. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 41 (1), 49-66.
Halualani, R. T. (2010). Interactant-based definitions of intercultural interaction at a
multicultural university. The Howard Journal of Communications, 21(1) 247–272.
Quaye, S. J. (2012). White educators facilitating discussions about racial Realities. Equity &
Excellence in Education, 45 (1), 100-119.