Beyond Comfort Zones in Multiculturalism: Confronting the Politics of Privilege

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

For peoples whose legal agreements, treaties and other accords and conventions with the United States have been violated, multiculturalism as a pedagogical tool often becomes suspect of reinforcing the continued reification and abstraction of their cultures and nations, with little if any real meaning for educational and social transformation. The continued oppression and repression of the exercise of self-determination for African Americans, the persistence of policies aimed at the destruction of indigenous populations and land, and the insidious continuation of classical colonialism in the case of Puerto Rico are all vivid reminders to these peoples of the racist, classist, sexist and homophobic patriarchy that characterises their status. In order to restore people's rights to fully determine their own histories, this text point out that it is imperative to destroy the material foundations that breed and recycle the ideology, discourse and cultural practices of domination. It is not enough to celebrate diversity and difference; there must be grand-scale social, political, economic and educational transformation.

Reviews

If the purpose of this critique of multicultural education is to confront thecomfort zone in most of us, the editors have succeeded... In the final chapters the authors present a new vision of multicultural education that is as transformative and revolutionary as that of Henry Giroux and Paulo Freire. This is a confrontational addition to the canon wars that will be useful supplementary reading for graduates and undergraduates enrolled in courses on multiculturalism.-Choice
"If the purpose of this critique of multicultural education is to confront thecomfort zone in most of us, the editors have succeeded... In the final chapters the authors present a new vision of multicultural education that is as transformative and revolutionary as that of Henry Giroux and Paulo Freire. This is a confrontational addition to the canon wars that will be useful supplementary reading for graduates and undergraduates enrolled in courses on multiculturalism."-Choice

Author Bio

SANDRA JACKSON is an Assistant Professor of Education at De Paul University in Chicago. JOSE SOLIS is an Assistant Professor of Education at DePaul University in Chicago. He is the author of Public School Reform in Puerto Rico: Sustaining Colonial Models of Development (Praeger, 1994).