Culture and Self in Multicultural Education:
Reflections on Discourse, Text, and -
Practice

Diane M. Hoffman
University of Virginia


Hoffman

Although at present there is much debate concerning the nature and goals 
of multicultural education, in one form or another, multiculturally 
oriented teaching practices, texts, and curricula are in fact rapidly 
becoming a part of the school experience for many American children. At 
the same time, critical inquiry into the delivery and implementation of 
multicultural education broadly defined, and the discourses and texts 
that frame or purport to teach multicultural perspectives, lags far 
behind. While accepting the notion that some forms of multicultural 
education can contribute larger goals of educational and societal 
justice, I argue here that current conceptualizations of 
multiculturalism lack a critical self-awareness about their own 
assumptions regarding such basic concepts as culture, self identity, and 
difference. Indeed, while proponents and opponents of multicultural 
education debate one another over the merits of multiculturalizing the 
curriculum, for example, neither in fact has come to terms with the ways 
in which they both-share culturally embedded and often parochial notions 
about the critical terms of their discourse.

As Field and Labbo (1994), Gibson (1984), Grant and Millar (1992), and 
Sleeter and Grant (1987) note, there is a great need for more and better 
research on the implementation of multicultural education in schools. 
One of the most difficult and persistent problems to be addressed is 
what some researchers have identified as fundamental gaps between theory 
and practice in multicultural education (Brown & Kysilka, 1994; Cole, 
1986; May 1994; Merelman, 1993; Wilhelm, 1994). In particular, according 
to Gibson (1984), the field of multicultural education "abounds with 
untested and sometimes unsupportable assumptions regarding goals, 
strategies, and outcomes" (p. 109). Indeed, Gibson suggests, unless 
these assumptions are made more explicit, multicultural education as a 
whole risks being dismissed not only as ineffective but as potentially 
encouraging of even greater educational inequities.

Moreover, in spite of the widely differing interpretations applied to 
multicultural education in the United States, and the existence of 
diverse perspectives on multiculturalism in many plural societies around 
the world, many multicultural discourses do seem to share certain 
fundamental assumptions about the nature of self, culture, and identity. 
It is for precisely this reason that multicultural education per se as a 
solution to perceived problems of pluralism appears most developed in 
the U. S. and other nations within the Western cultural sphere of 
influence, such as the U. K., Canada and Australia.' Olneck (1990) 
suggests that, taken as a whole, these discourses can be considered a 
symbolic order that constructs and constrains action and choice. In this 
respect, then, it is critical for multicultural educators to become more 
aware of how the elements of that symbolic order are constituted or 
culturally embedded, so that we may move toward a more self-aware 
multiculturalism with greater potential to inform practice.

Hallway Multiculturalism

For some months a few years ago, the hallways of a graduate school of

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Culture and Self in Multicultural Education

education where I spent some time were decorated with numerous brightly 
illustrated posters made by students as part of their required course 
work. They were clearly aimed at promoting an awareness and 
understanding of multiculturalism. Many featured photo collages of 
"visibly ethnic" faces accompanied by some statement of a multicultural 
theme: For example, "These children are all smiling, because all their 
cultures are respected in the classroom"; "RESPECT: Find out what it 
means to me''; "Multiculturalism: Breaking Down the Wall"; "The world is 
multicultural: Is your curriculum?"; "All Cultures are One"; "Diversity 
for Unity: The Multicultural Experience." Key words such as: 
"DIVERSITY," "DIFFERENCES," "INDIVIDUALITY," "RESPECT" were printed in 
large block letters on many of the posters.

As an anthropologist of education, I knew I ought to applaud such 
efforts at fostering multicultural awareness. Yet, every time I walked 
down the hall my instinctive reaction was far from positive. I was not 
sure exactly what bothered me, but it seemed somehow that the overall 
effect was one of ideological conformity — as if the students had all 
been programmed to think in exactly the same way, with the same images 
and same words. The very fact that the "lessons" of multiculturalism 
were so codified seemed to undermine the essential multicultural theme — 
an inherent openness and flexibility. Instead, there was a cant, a 
correct vocabulary, a proper way to think and be "aware." It seemed to 
me all too pre-packaged, a parroting of the "right" themes—a lesson, in 
a sense, too well learned.2

Background: Problematizing Multiculturalism

This effort to encourage a more reflexive multicultural discourse needs 
to be placed in the context of what might be considered four general 
trends in the criticism of multiculturalism.3 The first—often labeled 
conservative—concerns the philosophical and political issues surrounding 
the tension perceived to exist between an emphasis on 
pluralism/diversity  and th. need for defining a common society. The 
basic fear is that multiculturalism represents a dangerous trend toward 
social and political fragmentation that risks undermining national 
identity. A second, more research-based approach consists of documenting 
and describing programs or practices in multicultural education and how 
these often do not meet stated goals or expectations (e.g., Brown & 
Kysilka, 1994; Goodwin, 1994; Masemann, 1983; Merelman, 1993; Olneck, 
1993; Wilhelm, 1994.) As expressed in concerns about efforts to 
multiculturalize curricula simply by adding ethnic content (e.g., the 
foods, folkways, and holidays approach), for example, this critique 
focuses on how valuable goals are defeated or undermined in practice. 
The third general approach to criticism of multiculturalism is one that 
takes issue with the increased normalization of multicultural discourse 
and its resultant failure to reinvent or confront established categories 
of knowledge or relations of power.4 This critique sometimes targets an 
excessive emphasis on the individual or individual attitude change at 
the expense of needed change in larger societal or institutional 
structures (e.g., LeCompte & deMarrais, 1992;

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Sleeter,1993). More frequently, however, the focus is on the ways in 
which obsessive concern with culture masks the political and 
socioeconomic conditions that contribute to real inequity in 
contemporary plural societies— thereby making multiculturalism a safe 
way of sidestepping the important issues. Cole (1986), May (1994), 
McLaren (1995), McCarthy (1994), and Watkins (1994), among others, claim 
that because it often occurs in the absence of a transformative 
political agenda this culturalist orientation can only serve to 
reinforce the dominant Western ideology that supports existing 
inequalities. For example, McCarthy (1994) writes:

The multiculturalist strategy of adding diversity to the dominant school 
curriculum serves, paradoxically, to legitimate the dominance of Western 
culture in educational arrangements in the United States. 
Multiculturalists have failed to provide a systematic critique of the 
ideology of "Westernness" that is ascendant in curriculum and 
pedagogical practices in education. Instead, proponents articulate a 
language of inclusion. (p. 89)

Bullivant (1981) argues in a similar vein against overly cultural 
interpretations of multiculturalism that in the end reflect a 
reification of the concept of culture that masks continuing hegemony of 
established groups:

A great deal of reification frequently occurs in which the existence of, 
say, the "multicultural society', is taken for granted as if it were not 
only an existential reality, operating apart from and outside man, but 
also has features and characteristics upon which all are in 
agreement.... [Obvious racial differences] will not be extirpated by the 
expedient of giving the society the less contentious ``label" of 
multicultural, combined with any one of the gustatory ("salad bowl") 
textural ("social fabric," ``mosaic ) or relational ("family of the 
nation") adjuncts which we have seen to be an almost obligatory part of 
the rhetoric about multiculturalism. (pp. 228-229)

Finally, May (1994) underlines what he considers the obvious 
inconsistencies in multicultural education that, far from erasing 
minority disadvantage, only serve to perpetuate it:

The field of multicultural education as it is popularly conceived and 
practiced—is, like its predecessors, riven with theoretical 
inconsistencies and a seemingly terminal inability to translate its 
emancipatory intentions into actual practice. Multicultural education 
may be, arguably, more benign than its assimilationist and 
integrationist predecessors but, beyond its well meaning rhetoric, it is 
no more effective. It simply continues to perpetuate, in another guise, 
a system of education which disadvantages minority children. (pp. 35-36)

A fourth kind of critique is one that might be called symbolic or

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Culture and Self in Multicultural Education

interpretive, in that it seeks to identify the underlying assumptions, 
meanings, and orientations of multiculturalist discourse and practice. 
Olneck (1990, 1993), Ruskin and Varenne (1983), Giroux (1993), McLaren 
(1995), and many current anthropological critiques of multiculturalism 
that take issue with the ways culture is conceptualized exemplify this 
type of critique. The present analysis, which attempts to extend 
existing anthropological criticism of culture in multicultural 
discourse, also fits within this symbolic/ interpretive approach. Yet it 
is important to note that the critical orientations identified here are 
not, of course, exclusive; in many cases, interpretive and radical 
approaches raise similar issues, especially with regard to the hegemonic 
effects of overly culturalist views of multiculturalism. Research that 
addresses gaps between theory and practice, for example, also points to 
significant political issues involved in translating aims into effective 
practice. Because cultural and political issues interact and are framed 
within particular contexts, however, clarifying the assumptions that 
frame such discourses would appear helpful to the development of both 
theory and practice.

Concepts of 
Culture

Culture as Recipe

Arguably, culture lies at the heart of multiculturalism. Yet, while the 
very concept of culture is under attack in anthropology, arguments about 
culture in the school curriculum, for instance, occur largely "in 
ignorance of, or indifference to, this conceptual critique..." (Wax, 
1993, p. 99). Anthropologists have criticized the way the concept of 
culture has been simplified and reified to fit multiculturalist 
discourses that support visions of personal; ethnic, or national 
cultural identity that are fixed, essentialized, stereotyped, and 
normalized (e.g., Bateson, 1994; Perry, 1992; Musgrove, 1982; Turner, 
1993, Wax, 1993). The underlying theme is that culture has some kind of 
existential autonomy; it is something that "does things" to people. 
Trueba (1992, p. 80) writes:

The latitude used by researchers and, in general, by contributors to 
current education journals, suggests that culture is some sort of 
amorphous, reified, static entity that causes people to behave in 
certain ways, to express and exhibit certain values, beliefs, and 
practices....

Similarly, Erickson (1990, p. 34) writes:

Particular traits of visible culture, often treated in isolation, have 
become the basis for much of what we teach about cultural diversity

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in standard school social studies and in "multicultural education."...A 
serious danger lies in treating culture traits in isolation, fragmenting 
and trivializing our understanding of people's lifeways

While educators indulge themselves in the pinata curriculum or the 
snowshoe curriculum, opportunities for the kind of learning that leads 
to transformative understanding become increasingly rare.5

In the multicultural education literature, the tendency to see culture 
as a recipe for social behavior (e.g., Bennett, 1990, pp. 46-47) 
supports a view of cultures as separate, distinct wholes that determine 
the way their members think, feel, and act. The emphasis on cultures as 
discrete units is important, for the premise of relativistic cultural 
equality hinges on this epistemological condition of well-definedness: 
That is, unless cultures are separate, well-defined units, they cannot 
be equal. In this way, the normative acceptance of relativistic equality 
leads to views of culture that ignore the realities of fuzzy borders and 
mutual interface and interdependency.

With their marked preference for collages consisting primarily of 
photographs of various obviously ethnic faces, the hallway posters 
described earlier can be seen as one reflection of the normative role of 
notions of cultural equality in multicultural thinking. Indeed, 
multicultural teaching texts (e.g., Hernandez, 1989) abound with 
close-up photographs of ethnic faces and/or upper body shots. One is 
immediately drawn to inquire: Why the focus on faces? Why are there few, 
if any, photographs of different cultural or national settings, 
activities, and so forth? I suggest that the face is important for two 
reasons: First, it functions as a metaphor for accessible tamed, and 
nonthreatening Otherness. Faces embody a universal humanness that 
provides a familiar and comforting frame of reference. Difference is 
thus symbolically shorn of its real-life context, its interderminacy, 
and its (unspoken) potential threat. Secondly, the face embodies the 
ideal of human equality: Unlike settings, faces readily convey an 
underlying basic, universal humanity. All cultures are thereby made 
comfortable, safe, nonthreatening— and, in this reductionistic state, 
equal.

Culture as Essentialized Difference

Another striking element in the way the posters represented culture was 
the fact that single faces were rarely shown; the preference was for 
many faces juxtaposed or arrayed against a larger unifying background 
image such as the globe or earth. In this way, the cultural difference 
the faces stand for was symbolically allied with, or converted into, 
another important multicultural theme—diversity—and its flip side, 
unity. As in other popular representations of diversity such as quilts, 
salads, tapestries, and so forth that purport to recognize difference, 
the unity of cultures is a given. Difference is thereby diluted or made 
to support overarching frameworks of shared values or world view firmly 
enshrined in that privileged existential space called culture.

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While the views of culture described above might be characterized as 
essentialist, they are both more—and, paradoxically—less than that. As 
Perry (1992, p. 52) remarks, "Although multiculturalists would recoil 
from such implications, the tendency to view non-Western cultures as 
stable, tradition-bound, timeless entities shifts us dangerously back 
toward viewing others as beings who are profoundly and inherently 
different from ourselves." The hallway posters are both essentialist in 
their reduction of culture(s) to categories of otherness and 
universalist in their assumption of unspecified fundamental 
humanity/commonality. They neglect that broad middle ground that lies 
somewhere between universals and absolute difference and that provides 
the real locus for cultural exploration and understanding.

Culture as Category

Perhaps the most important characteristic of culture as it is presented 
in multicultural discourses is its categoricalness. I illustrate this 
theme from an instructional unit drawn from the text Celebrating 
Diversity (Siccone, 1995) 6 Entitled "My Own Culture," the unit begins 
with brief descriptions of how different cultures celebrate the New Year 
(e.g., Ecuadoran, Chinese, Vietnamese, Native American, Jewish). This is 
followed by a list of other New Year customs involving food in various 
parts of the world. The stated purpose of the lesson is "to help 
students appreciate what constitutes a culture" (p. 68), and this 
appreciation, it is believed, "will engender a greater sense of pride in 
their culture" (p. 68). The procedure requires the teacher to write the 
word culture on the board and ask students "what they think of when they 
think of culture" (p. 68). The teacher is reminded that some coaching 
may be necessary. The text offers the following as a model:

Teacher: When I say "Chinese culture," what do you think of?

Student: Chinese food.

Teacher: Good. So food is one aspect of culture.

What do you think of when I say "Mexican"?

Student: Mariachi band.

Teacher: So, music and dance are part of culture. Good. How about

French culture?

Student: A beret or "Out, out."

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Teacher: Yes, clothes and language are part of culture. What do you 
think of when I say "Russia"?

Student: Communism.

Teacher: Forms of government and historical events also 
make up a
country's culture. (pp. 68-69)

Aside from the obvious enhancement of stereotypes and the unfortunate 
lack of awareness concerning contemporary events in "Russia,"7 the 
meta-lesson is one of categorization. The activity encourages teacher 
and students alike to think of culture in terms of categories of food, 
behavior language, government, and so forth. This emphasis on culture as 
category is far from unique in multicultural education. As Olneck (1990) 
writes,

In much of the material intended for classroom use in multicultural 
education, especially that for younger pupils, study and activity are 
centered on the content of discrete cultural practices. Culture is 
conceived as having 'components" (e.g., visual arts, music, dance 
food...) that can be learned about, imitated, and "shared" (pp. 
162-163).

In this text, the culture as category approach is reinforced throughout 
by lists of disparate practices identified by various cultural labels. 
Teachers are also instructed:

Make the point that one way of understanding culture is to see it as th 
knowledge, ideas, and skills that enable a group of people to survive in 
their environment. All people have essentially the same basic human 
needs and wants. How these needs are fulfilled in the context of the 
group's environment is what constitutes culture. (Siccone,

Students are encouraged to look at culture through the lens of 
categories that are familiar to them, assuming that needs, wants, and so 
forth are basically the same no matter where one goes. Rather than teach 
students to challenge such assumptions and to look critically at how 
they shape their own and others' thinking and behavior, this exercise 
simply reinforces the categories, values, and world views that are 
already in place. It thereby encourages superficial learning about 
difference that does little to create a real space for understanding of 
self and other.

The next activity in this unit requires students to complete a "My 
Culture Worksheet." Siccone (1995) adds, "If their heritage is 
multicultural, they may

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use a separate sheet for each culture or combine aspects from all their 
cultures on the same sheet" (p. 69). As in the previous activity, 
students are encouraged to approach the notion of culture as a set of 
fill-in-the-blanks. The fact that the "multicultural heritage" students 
are recognized here seems at first glance to be positive; yet their 
culture(s) (multiculture?) can just as easily be identified with 
categories of food, practices, and so forth as that of monocultural 
students—albeit in combination or, happily, on separate sheets.

Teachers are instructed to end the lesson with a "discussion regarding 
similarities and variations of the different cultures," perhaps by 
making a chart (Siccone, 1995, p. 69). Charts are useful here, 
obviously, because they are constructed of neat categories and labels—
the very building blocks of this lesson. Yet, the notion that cultures 
can be compared by looking at similarities and differences expressed by 
decontextualized categories is problematic. It may in fact be quite easy 
to compare eating lentil soup on New Year's eve with eating Japanese 
noodles, but what does this in fact teach us about culture? Probably not 
much about the meanings behind practices, and certainly not much about 
the broader context of meanings and values in which practices exist.8

A convenient summary of "Key learnings" includes the following 
assertions (Siccone, 1995, p. 107): "Everyone is unique; All cultures 
are special; We are all part of a family; What makes a good friend is 
the same in all cultures; I am friends with people from all cultures; 
Families, like people, are unique." Family and friends are presented 
here as cultural universals that, in their generality, have a certain 
comfortable (even vaguely therapeutic) appeal. The problem is that these 
supposed universals are grounded in a very culture-specific 
understanding of how the world works. The emphasis on people and 
families being unique, for example, has rather clear roots in an 
American world-view where the individual and his or her uniqueness are 
both highly valued and unquestioned. To say, "We are all part of a 
family," may be true in a very ideal sense anti in a spiritual sense; as 
a cultural assertion, however, it leaves much to be desired.

Likewise, the assertions, "I am friends with people from all cultures," 
and, "What makes a good friend is the same in all cultures," are 
embedded in an American value frame; it is simply not true that ideas 
about friendship (including criteria for friendship, and the kinds of 
expectations one may have of friends) are the same in all cultures. The 
approach to cultural understanding taken in this text makes a persistent 
appeal to universals that does little to help learners move beyond their 
own cultural frames of reference.

Problems of 
Practice

Perhaps, some may argue, this is as it should be. After all, we have to 
start somewhere, and all we really need to do is develop positive 
attitudes and classroom environments where all students' cultures are 
valued and/or

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special; we don't really need to expose students to the complexities of 
culture. From a practical point of view, the kinds of activities 
described in this text, and in many similar others, seem to be the only 
option. The difficulty with this view is that valuing cultural 
differences or developing positive attitudes is unlikely in the absence 
of real knowledge about culture—that is, knowledge that challenges one's 
own ways of seeing the world. Although it certainly is preferable to 
have entrenched positive views of those one does not understand to 
having prejudiced or negative views simple, reified, and categorical 
approaches to culture—no matter how well intentioned—undermine the 
importance of more accurate and complete knowledge about different 
cultural ways of life. The all-are-special theme is in short, a 
comfortable path to complacency: because we are all special, the 
reasoning goes, there is no compelling need for me to change anything 
about myself or for you to change anything about yourself. There is no 
need for any sort of critical engagement with others that might lead to 
genuinely transformative learning.

Valuing diversity also poses another practical problem: Who or what 
qualifies for inclusion in diversity? How can we really celebrate 
diversity without drawing artificial boundaries or engaging in cultural 
simplification/ reification? Hanna (1994) describes multicultural 
education programs ostensibly aimed at promoting diversity that end up 
trivializing and even insulting the cultures of the groups they are 
supposed to celebrate. In describing multicultural education in the U. 
K., Yates (1986) notes the difficulties involved in deciding which 
groups ought to be included:

we cannot say that the school should take account of the cultures of 
immigrants, for the UK has such a highly variegated immigrant 
population, most of whom are rarely considered. Are the Poles and the 
Irish immigrant populations constituting cultural groups with a right to 
inclusion? If we agree that West Indian and Asian cultures are 
definitely candidates, what account is to be taken of diversity within 
those groups? Are language groups to be considered distinct culture 
groups, and if so what levels of linguistic differentiation are to be 
employed...? Asian culture is no less complex, divided by religion 
caste, and class.... If we begin to recognize the complexity of cultural 
identity, then the problem of how culture relates to curriculum becomes 
more acute.... (p. 70)

In pointing out the difficulties inherent in valuing diversity, Yates 
also illustrates the way in which the concept of culture is politically 
useful: Certainly many minority groups in the U. S. as well as in the U. 
K. have used and continue to use culture as a political weapon to 
achieve concrete aims or recognition and/or better treatment within 
inequitable social structures and the version of culture most amenable 
to such uses is, arguably, a reified static, and stereotyped one. Given 
the fact that such versions of culture have

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indeed become so institutionalized, it would be misleading to claim that 
educators have complete autonomy to approach multiculturalism from an 
alternative perspective.9 Yet it is important to recognize that when 
culture becomes a means for the pursuit of group self-interest, or a way 
of getting textbooks adopted, or a tool for identity politics, it is no 
longer emancipatory; rather, it simply serves to feed the established 
categories and relations of power that thrive on simplification, 
reductionism, and universalism.

Multicultural teaching can and must do more, as Erickson (1990), McLaren 
(1995), Giroux (1993) and others have argued.l0 Yet some educators 
wonder whether more sophisticated versions of culture can in fact be 
taught in classrooms. I would respond by noting that there is nothing in 
classrooms per se that makes teaching a more complex and accurate view 
of culture impossible; in fact, the strongest evidence there is that 
sophisticated understanding can be taught is the existence of 
generations of classroom-trained anthropologists. More importantly, 
there is a literature on the teaching of anthropology that provides 
models and materials that can be used successfully even in the 
elementary grades, and it doesn't require that teachers become 
anthropologists. A number of studies have documented positive outcomes 
with such materials and methods."

If a more sophisticated and reflective understanding of culture is to be 
taught, however, one of the most important changes that needs to be made 
is proper contextualization: That is, culture cannot and should not be 
artificially inserted, bits and pieces, into everything and anything in 
the guise of multiculturalizing it; indeed, infusing culture into the 
curriculum in this way is at best futile and at worst damaging, for it 
encourages us to think that culture is simply something that can be 
dissected, categorized, and inserted into convenient slots. Rather, it 
requires a holistic and a comparative perspective that allows students 
to draw their own conclusions and abstractions from evidence, rather 
than being force fed proper attitudes or principles (such as "All 
cultures are equal/special") that in the end mean nothing without a 
grounding in a knowledge base or context. Spindler (1987, p. 466) 
writes:

Specific cultural materials, case studies, and ethnographies that are 
about people living in specific settings are basic starting points for 
inductive steps to broader generalization and abstraction—even to 
theory. The generalization, abstraction, or theoretical statement cannot 
be taught in and of itself, nor do one or two examples extracted out of 
cultural context suffice to make the generalization live. Whether we are 
teaching in the elementary school, the high school, or the 
university...it is my conviction that this is the starting point of 
effective teaching.

Indeed, it has been shown that middle-school students learn much more 
from in-depth case study that emphasizes inductive generalization than 
from deductive approaches that state generalizations about culture and 
then try

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to illustrate them (see Bohannan, Garbarino, & Carlson,1987). Yet 
teaching about culture in this way cannot occur unless the frame for 
viewing culture in multicultural discourse itself changes: For as long 
as ideologies of diversity, relativism, and feel-good psychology 
dominate the way multicultural educators conceptualize their task, 
culture will remain a casualty.

Culture and 
Identity

Identity as a Cultural Universal

A major assumption...is that all students come to school with ethnic 
identifications, whether the identifications are conscious or 
unconscious....Identity is a concept that relates to all that we 
are....The individual who has a confused, nonreflective, or negative 
ethnic identification lacks one of the essential ingredients for a 
healthy and positive personal identity. (Banks, 1988, p. 43)

Although these are fundamental givens in multicultural education, when 
seen from a cross-cultural perspective, they reveal a troubling 
universalism and Western-centrism. Indeed, a recent theme across a 
number of disciplines (and especially in anthropology) is that notions 
of identity, including the ways person and self are conceptualized and 
attendant notions such as self-esteem, are simply not the same in all 
cultures or ethnic groups, and differences in concepts of self are among 
the most profound influences on cultural and social phenomena (Ames, 
Dissanayake, & Kasulis, 1994, Marcella DeVos, & Hsu, 1985; Markus & 
Kitayama, 1991; Morris, 1994, Shweder & Bourne, 1984). In particular, 
the Western self with its strong themes of individualism, autonomy, 
uniqueness, independence, and consistency stands apart from other 
cultural understandings of self that stress social relatedness 
interdependency, commonality, self-other identification, and social 
responsiveness. Asian perspectives in particular also stress the layered 
nature of identity, with clear distinctions between social interactional 
selves and an inner core self that is not reflected in social behavior 
(Lebra, 1992, 1994).

Yet, as Fitzgerald (1993), Levine-Rasky (1995), and Markus and Kitayama 
(1991) note, American education research and discourse often simply 
assume the universality of what are, in fact, very individualistic, 
Westerncentric models of self. Alan Roland (1988) reminds us:

Although psychoanalysis repeatedly claims to deal with the universals of 
psychological makeup and ideal norms of mature human functioning, yet 
these universals, ideals, and norms were frequently contradicted in 
India and Japan. And when these norms of development and functioning 
have been applied...to Asians, Africans, and others, the inevitable 
results are that they are seen as inferior or psychopathological

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Culture and Self in Multicultural Education

a theoretical position that is tenable only if one assumes the

	inherent superiority of Western civilization and psyche
	More than

this when we universalize our findings...we take for granted 
the
Western cultural premise of universalization.... Perhaps we 
should
now add a further blow to the self-esteem of Western man: 
the
realization that the prevailing psychological maps and norms 
assumed
to be universal are in fact western-centric. (xvi, xvii)

Furthermore, Roland notes, awareness of the need to contextualize 
assumptions about identity health and functioning has not even occurred 
in relation to ethnic groups in the United States, with the result that 
"Hispanics, Blacks, and Italians are often viewed pejoratively in their 
development and functioning" (Note, p. xviii).

In a multiculturalism that purports to be a true reflection of cultural 
diversity, basing views of what constitutes healthy identity on Western 
norms of continuity, clarity, consistency, assertiveness, individuation, 
and so forth is especially problematic. Instead, multicultural discourse 
needs to be informed to a much greater extent by knowledge about and 
awareness of indigenous cultural psychologies that may or may not share 
the basic Western developmental paradigm.

Identity as Property and Choice

Multicultural discussions on identity often speak of it as something one 
"has": For example, "All students have an ethnic identity," or "Every 
student has a culture."12 The relationship between person and culture is 
one of possession: That is, one "owns an identity" as if it were a 
house, a car, or some other tangible asset. Despite the assumed 
political usefulness of this notion from the point of view of at least 
some minority group members, the ownership formulation can also be seen 
as a reflection of the mainstream American materialism and the property 
rights that make ethnicity compatible with the dominant economic 
structure of American society (see Olneck, 1990). To extend the notion 
of property so far into the conceptualization of personal identity is, 
perhaps, the very epitome of an American world view in which power and 
control derive precisely from ownership and property rights.

The property formulation is itself supported by another assumption: 
There is basically a one-to-one relation between self and culture 
characterized by a clear, fixed, commitment to a particular cultural or 
ethnic identity. In this model, gaps or points of nonconformity, degrees 
of distance, freedom, or flexibility that do in fact characterize 
identity in the real and infinitely more complex world of culture as it 
is lived are absent. Postmodern analyses make a similar point, but from 
a more political perspective: McLaren (1995) notes that concepts of 
fixed identity reflect an essentialism that has no place in a 
critical/emancipatory multiculturalism:

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Identity formation needs to occur in what Homi Bhabha calls the ''third 
space of translation." Translation requires that identities— especially 
cultural identities—be seen as decentered structures that are 
constituted only in relation to otherness....Otherness always intervenes 
to prevent the subject from "fixing" itself in a closed system of 
meaning.... (p. 109)

Yet multicultural discourses continue to insist on a clear ethnic or 
cultural identity as something necessary to every individual. In many 
texts exercises requiring students to define their cultural identity are 
common— presuming, of course, that students actually have a clearly 
defined cultural identity to begin with: For example, "[Select] two 
works from a reading list one of which...should be similar to your own 
cultural identity, the other different in some way" (Ch'maj, 1993, 
p.12). For those students who may be unsure (those who evince the 
confused, nonreflective, or negative identities cited above), there is 
obviously a need to make a conscious choice or to define oneself in such 
a way that an identity is thereby created. Rather than being the natural 
outcome of a variety of lifelong learning processes and ongoing 
negotiation across cultural borders, then, identity becomes a forced 
issue, a stance to be taken or a choice to be made. In this way, it is 
reinterpreted through mainstream American values of choice, 
self-expression, and autonomy. Olneck (1990) writes:

Multiculturalists render ethnicity consistent with the core American 
norms of individual choice and individual expression...by representing 
ethnic identity as an option or voluntary choice.... By affirming and 
centering the autonomous individual whose cultural identity is a matter 
of relatively unconstrained choice, multicultural education locates 
ethnicity well within the established symbolic order through which 
Americans perceive and interpret society.... (pp. 161-162)

Masemann (1983, p. 549) writes that even in bilingual programs 
supposedly geared toward maintenance of ethnic identities in students, 
aspects of an invisible pedagogy dominate where mainstream values of 
individualism self-expression/assertion, and individual rights take 
precedence over the values and meanings of the ethnic subculture. 
Although there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with mainstream 
constructs of identity, and acquiring such ways of being is no doubt 
essential for success in the educational system as it is, a 
multicultural or bilingual education that does not recognize its own 
assumptions and functions blindly to reinforce views it ostensibly aims 
to change is a contradiction in terms.

Identity as Individual and Unique

That mainstream Anglo-American values dominate in multicultural 
discourse IS seen perhaps most clearly in the more or less ubiquitous 
emphasis on the theme of individual uniqueness: For example, "All people 
have common attributes, yet are unique" (Ramsey, 1992, p. 17). Olneck 
(1990, p. 160)

558

Culture and Self in Multicultural Education

regards the "paradigm of the unique individual" as Iying at the center 
of multiculturalism's symbolic structure. While the paradigm of 
individual uniqueness is deeply embedded in American culture, other 
cultures offer radically different views of self that stress commonality 
and dependency on others. Certainly, the uniqueness ideology is not 
without a (political) rationale: It is presumed useful in boosting 
(minority) self-esteem and, by extension, encouraging 
self-assertiveness, success, and empowerment. Yet, those cultural and 
ethnic minority groups that have their own paradigms for viewing self 
are not likely to be swayed by any multicultural educator's emphasis on 
how good it feels to be unique.

Tacit individualist paradigms of identity in multicultural education can 
also be seen in the unquestioned acceptance of stage theories in 
conceptualizing multicultural education, in which learners (or 
curricula) move from what Banks has called a "contributions" stage to a 
final (and most desirable) stage of social action/empowerment (Banks, 
1988; Sleeter, 1991). The focus is on the individual and his or her 
supposed developmental level—rather than on systemic inequalities or 
individual/system interactions. Yet, the notion that multicultural 
learning actually occurs in such progressive stages, with empowerment as 
the most evolved state, has hardly been empirically demonstrated. As 
Olneck (1990) points out, such an approach fosters a focus on individual 
differences that obscures other group processes, including those that 
shape the way the very notion of the self is defined and understood in 
its social context.

Identity: Problems and Prospects

The prevalence of tacitly individualistic, Western-centric values and 
views of self in multicultural discourse leads to an important 
consideration: Is a more genuine multicultural perspective on identity 
possible, and, if so, how can! should it be taught? First of all, to 
argue against current multiculturalist visions of static, clear, and 
fixed ethnic/cultural identifications is not to deny the need for 
awareness of one's own culturally shaped views of identity or to claim 
that identity is something that can be cast off or changed at will. 
Rather, it is to eschew an overly ideological perspective in favor of a 
more learning- and knowledge-based one that can help students move 
beyond fixed frames of reference to envision different or alternative 
views of self and other and, ultimately, of social relations. 
Recognizing a minority child's primary culture, for example, is still 
important; indeed, the latter can and should be used as a resource for 
teaching about cultural difference. The point is that the primary 
culture should not be construed as a limit—as something that constrains 
or determines identity, as something that is locked into place, or as 
something that the child necessarily needs to assert in a cultural 
marketplace of commodified identities.13 Teaching alternative views of 
self and culture is both practical and possible within a changed 
approach to teaching about culture; indeed, it is part and parcel of 
what genuine teaching

559


Hoffman

about cultural differences involves. To do so is not to undermine 
children's sense of themselves but to offer a richer base for 
self-development and, ultimately, social action.

Culture, Self, and Self-
Esteem

Self-esteem lies consciously at the core of what many multicultural 
educators take to be their task: "A major goal for education...is to 
help children develop positive self-concepts, to view themselves as 
worthwhile persons, and to perform accordingly....This emphasis is 
especially crucial for children from minority groups...." (Tiedt &Tiedt, 
1986, p. 23). Bennet (1990, p. 198) writes, "Individuals do not become 
open to different ethnic groups until and unless they develop a positive 
sense of self, including an awareness and acceptance of their own ethnic 
group." Feeling good about oneself, having a positive self-concept, and 
high self-esteem are generally regarded as essential to success in 
learning, both in school and out.

Yet the self-esteem discourse makes a number of assumptions that are, at 
closer examination, not tenable cross-culturally. The first is that 
selfesteem is based on a person's awareness of him- or herself as a 
unique individual with a particular constellation of abilities, 
potentials, and so forth: For example, "The experience of valuing myself 
is predicated on the awareness of myself as a distinct, unique 
individual" (Siccone, 1995, p. 3). A view of self-esteem based on this 
sense of uniqueness may be accurate for Americans, but not necessarily 
in other cultural contexts. Indeed, in many other cultures where the 
self is relationally constituted—that is, experienced defined, and known 
entirely through and by social relations with others— one's sense of 
self-worth is not predicated on any notion of individual uniqueness but 
on one's ability to maintain harmonious relationships with others (cf. 
Markus & Kitayama, 1991). In such contexts, the Western ideal of the 
individuated self that requires standing apart from others to assert its 
value might be regarded as immature or even pathological in its 
selfcenteredness.14

The second, related assumption behind the American understanding of 
self-esteem is that it is directly dependent on and manifest in 
so-called individual abilities, qualities, and performances (including 
academic performance). This formulation almost completely ignores the 
existence of different cultural models of learning in which school 
success, for example, is not at all seen as dependent on innate ability 
but on effort. It therefore does not reflect self-esteem, or require 
external validation of self's abilities, as it does for Americans. 
Describing the case of Japan, White and [Tanuichi] Peak (1980) write:

[The Japanese self] derives its identity confirmation from within, and 
needs no testing or validation in the social environment....(6) It is 
not considered as important a factor in the development of abilities and

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Culture and Self in Multicultural Education

the manifestation of behavior as it is in the West....(8) The fact that 
the Japanese consider ability development as relatively unrelated to the 
individual's basic identity, or, to put it another way, that they do not 
identify the self by the person's abilities is crucial to our 
understanding of self and society in Japan. (p. 12)

Given that academic performance is clearly independent of self-esteem 
for the Japanese, and the belief that it is effort rather than ability 
that counts, boosting self-esteem in order to encourage learning is rare 
in Japanese classrooms. In fact, teachers are far more likely to do the 
opposite—that is, encourage students to engage in critical 
self-reflection on their weaknesses (hansei). Students, parents, and 
teachers routinely avoid praising themselves and one another; instead, 
they focus on the ways in which they fall short of desired goals. In 
sum, from the Japanese point of view, it is not selfsatisfaction or 
self-celebration that serves as an adequate base for school success but 
capacity for self-critique and self-discipline. In fact, it may be true 
that a deeper and more genuine sense of self-esteem derives from the 
challenges inherent in self-cultivation and self-discipline, rather than 
from the facile self-flattery and self-celebration encouraged by 
American education discourses.

Furthermore, the assumption that the self-esteem of minority children in 
particular requires improvement is an unfortunate but important 
principle American multicultural education discourses. For one thing, 
not all minority cultures are as a rule prone to producing individuals 
with poor self-esteem, and it is certainly dangerous to assume that 
there is inherently any link between minority cultural status and low 
self-esteem.15 This perspective insidiously privileges the majority 
culture by defining it as the norm—the standard of high self-esteem 
toward which the minority should strive. Thus, when seen 
cross-culturally, the efforts of American multicultural educators to 
boost children's self-esteem by constant praise, and by encouraging self 
praise, self-expression, and self-assertiveness, may be irrelevant and 
annoying at best; at worst they may directly conflict with the kinds of 
cultural values held by the very minorities they aim to support.

There are moral issues here as well that need consideration. Teachers 
are often provided with seemingly innocent strategies for fostering 
selfesteem in children that, on closer analysis, appear both artificial 
and manipulative:

Recognize children as individuals daily. se sure that each child is 
reached directly in some way every day. Keep a special list of the 
children in your class and toward the end of the day glance at this list 
quickly. Have you had some direct contact with each child? If not, make 
a point of saying something pleasant to the children you have missed 
before they leave "My, Maria, we really had a busy day, didn't we?"

561


Hoffman

Project liking for children. Smile at children. Tell the children in 
your room that you are glad to be working with them....(Tiedt & Tiedt, 
1986, pp. 24, 25)

Echoing the same sentiments, Fennimore (1992) writes:

Teachers who want to establish a multicultural classroom environment 
consciously and thoughtfully design ways of greeting and saying farewell 
to their students each day. The greeting indicates, "This is a new day! 
I think you can be a tremendous success today." It should be extended to 
each child as he or she enters the room or the school.... (p. 73)

One can only wonder at the naivete of this approach and in the end 
question its effect on children, who are sensitive enough to know when 
the adults around them speak sincerely or speak because they have 
calculated something was missing in their performance for the day.

Such practices not only foster inauthenticity in teacher-student 
relations but also encourage patronizing attitudes of moral/cultural 
superiority. As Cole (1986) notes in his analysis of multicultural 
education and racism in Britain:

That it has been believed that teachers are morally equipped to enhance 
black self-concept means that dangerous assumptions have been made about 
the capacity of white "middle-class" teachers to ``do good" to young 
blacks. Such an approach is patronizing and allows the teacher to avoid 
examining his/her own racism and encourages an aura of cultural 
superiority. (p. 124)

Although it is wrong to ignore the existence of the variety of cultural 
backgrounds students bring into a classroom and to teach insensitively 
and blindly, it is equally wrong to assume that all students want or 
need aggressive affirmation or exploration of their cultural identity 
and selfesteem.

Given the lack of cross-cultural validity for American multiculturalist 
notions of self-esteem, then, the question becomes how to encourage 
academic success, especially for those students who may experience real 
conflicts with mainstream culture in the schools. For some students, 
accepted techniques of self-esteem enhancement will probably be helpful; 
yet educators need to be aware of the kind of identity that is 
represented or encoded in such practices and be open to a pedagogy that 
challenges selfcomplacency and recognizes alternative visions of self. 
The latter alone holds promise for the oft-stated goals of empowerment 
for social action, for,

562

Culture and Self in Multicultural Education

unless the American cultural bias toward valuing the self at the expense 
of the collectivity is put into question, empowerment is mainly another 
word for the unquestioned dominance of an individualism that oppresses:

[The development of individualism and enhancement of self-esteem and 
self-awareness] are terms and concepts [that]...reflect western cultural 
biases, and they celebrate what to Europeans and Americans constitutes a 
healthy, well-functioning individual. To that end, they focus upon 
fulfilling the potential of individuals, rather than upon the welfare of 
collective groups. (LeCompte & deMarrais, 1992, p. 12)

The authors conclude that current visions of empowerment "operate within 
a framework which maintains the efficaciousness of dominant culture 
hegemony" (p. 26). The only practical option, then, is to question the 
concept itself and to develop models of teaching that promote reaming 
about alternatives to the way we define self and its relationships to 
others and social structures.

Hallway Multiculturalism Revisited: Toward Reformulating
Multicultural Discourse

The posters in the hallway have much more to tell us about 
multiculturalism than I have outlined here. Yet the possibilities of 
this kind of meta-inquiry hinge on the willingness of multicultural 
educators to question the now normative role of terms such as culture, 
individual, identity, diversity, and empowerment. Such discourse indeed 
constitutes a frame imbued with mainstream American cultural assumptions 
of which we are, at present, only minimally aware. As Ruskin and Varenne 
(1983) write:

We cannot ignore the possibility that America is indeed an  overarching 
structure that organizes the most powerful events in the United States, 
be they political or educational. To ignore the possibility is to 
condemn oneself to blindness and a particularly insidious form of 
righteous false consciousness that insists on the need for certain kinds 
of awareness (e.g., awareness of cultural differences) without giving 
itself the means of framing this awareness—on the grounds, for example, 
that there is no such thing as an American culture. The melting pot has 
worked. There is an American culture. It is necessary to learn the means 
of recognizing its presence, particularly in those settings where it 
hides itself. And then, when necessary, one must examine one's own 
productions so as to escape its overwhelming power. (p. 567)

Among those hidden value frames, I have argued here, are those that 
organize the way we define self and other as binary opposites, subsumed

563


by an ideology of universalism, individualism, independence, choice, and 
self-pursuit in which identities are both dear and fixed. One of the 
contributions of a more reflexive multiculturalism would be the 
development of knowledge about different cultural ways of seeing the 
self-other relationship, including more sociocentric, flexible, and 
layered visions, and moreover, an openness to seeing these other ways 
and values as a potential source of learning rather than as 
incommensurably different or, alternatively as a threat to oneself. The 
possibility and potential for individual and societal change can only be 
enhanced by greater knowledge of alternative (and particularly, from the 
U. S. perspective, more sociocentric) visions of self. Yet, because I 
have argued that cultural identity ought not to be considered as a fixed 
commodity, obviously I do not recommend learning about other cultures 
and cultural views of self merely to perpetuate stereotyped notions 
about how to manage or deal with cultural differences in the classroom, 
for example. The latter approach is implicitly biased in favor of 
dominant (hegemonic) ideologies of cultural difference that erase the 
complexity of the individual-culture relation.

From a more practical perspective, reforms in multicultural teacher 
education might address the following key issues:

1. Teaching and Learning About Culture. Pre- and in-service courses 
should provide a solid grounding in anthropological understandings of 
culture, based on extensive use of ethnographies and case study 
material. Particular attention should be paid to concepts of indigenous 
cultural psychology and the ways self and self-other relationships are 
understood stressing both intra- and cross-cultural variability. This 
training should focus on the development of a knowledge base in at least 
one nonmainstream culture and should stress the need to provide students 
with similar knowledge-based opportunities to generate their own 
concepts, abstractions, and generalizations from concrete evidence. 
Additionally, the course of study should model the holistic, comparative 
perspective that anthropologists bring to the study of culture.

2. Pedagogy. Teacher preparation must move beyond the tacit 
individualism of stage models; it must also eschew the over-emphasis on 
self-esteem building as well as that genre of multicultural teaching the 
primary aim of which is to inculcate proper attitudes through various 
self-celebratory, self assertive, explore-your-heritage sorts of 
exercises that, as we have seen often rely on reified and categorical 
approaches to culture. Instead, it might productively use methods of 
transcultural sensitization and reflective cultural analysis (see 
Spindler, 1987) that have been developed in the anthropology of 
education, paying particular attention to developing facility in 
cultural observation and interpretation. Existing research on culturally 
congruent teaching can be used as a basis for informing teachers about 
pedagogical techniques for working with diverse classrooms. 
Opportunities to develop culturally responsive teaching activities might 
also be included. This training should identify source materials (case 
studies, especially) that teachers might

564

Culture and Self in Multicultural Education

use as a basis for working together with students of diverse cultural 
backgrounds (and using their cultural expertise) to develop teaching 
units and activities geared to cross-cultural learning.

3. Critical Perspectives. Teachers must be given exposure to the various 
existing critiques of multicultural education and be encouraged to 
develop new ones. Training should give teachers opportunities to analyze 
critically samples of multicultural rhetoric, texts, curricula, 
activities, and so forth with an eye toward exploration of tacit values 
and assumptions. The important role of constant self-reflection in 
multicultural education needs to be stressed, for only the latter can 
help us to envision alternative possibilities for our own deeply 
embedded frames of reference and move us beyond given views of culture 
in schooling which serve to reinforce the status quo and dampen real 
efforts at cultural learning and change.

Most importantly, perhaps, multicultural teacher education must itself 
model the kinds of learning about culture that we want to encourage in 
students, for, if teachers fail to acquire an adequate knowledge base 
from which to look at culture, for example, there is little hope that 
they can provide such for their students.

Future research efforts in multicultural education should continue to 
explore core assumptions and ideologies in multicultural education and 
how these are reflected in practice; these efforts should also provide 
empirical evidence as to whether and/or what kinds of multicultural 
educational teaching and experience result in improved outcomes for 
students. We also need to work toward better definitions of what it is 
we want to accomplish through multicultural education and identify the 
best means to go about achieving such results. For it is only with 
empirical evidence that we can build better pedagogy that is both more 
genuinely multicultural and more emancipatory.

A precondition for change, however, is that we need to begin by 
admitting that we really do not know how to "do multiculturalism" in 
schools, despite the profusion of rhetoric that suggests the opposite. 
An ideology is in place that assumes that since innocence about culture 
is dangerous, and can lead to inequity and injustice, we must educate 
our children about culture. But when used in the service of ideology, 
culture and identity lose their educative value: They are no longer 
things to learn from but things to idolize. We must rather approach 
culture as children do, as natural and genuine explorers who are able to 
transform, and be transformed by, their encounters. We need to remember, 
as the Zen master Suzuki Shunryu reminds us, "In the beginner's mind 
there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."

Notes

'I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. While 
multiculturalism is far from being a purely American concern, 
multicultural education is a specific type of response grounded in a 
particular pedagogical and philosophical/cultural orientation

565


Hoffman

toward culture (as well as, perhaps, in a particular set of historical 
circumstances). There are ocher plural societies around the world chat 
address issues of diversity and education differently; Singapore might 
be a case in point.

2This is admittedly a very personal interpretation. The posters 
certainly cannot be taken as representing the entirety of perspectives 
in the field of multicultural education nor do they necessarily reflect 
what was taught or reamed in students' classes. My comments are thus not 
to be taken as a critique of any particular individuals or classes at 
this institution. I have used them simply as one small window to reflect 
on the ways we talk about and present multiculturalism in real 
educational institutions.

3These categories are my own. McLaren (1995) also identifies various 
positions in the multicultural debate, including what he calls 
"conservative multiculturalism" "liberal multiculturalism," 
"left-liberal multiculturalism ," and "critical and resistance 
multiculturalism ." Only the latter is deemed to possess the 
"transformative political agenda" chat can make multiculturalism 
something more than just "another form of accommodation to the larger 
social order" (p. 126).

4This approach has for some time been part of the British liberal 
critique of multiculturalism, although it has only very recently gained 
attention in the United States where criticism of multiculturalism 
generally has come from the right rather than the left.

5Turner (1993, p. 419) suggests, however, chat more sophisticated 
versions of multiculturalism in fact do see cultures not as fixed or 
immutable but as interactive and dynamic. Anthropologists thus cannot 
make a contribution to changing the ways culture is used in 
multiculturalist discourses unless they go beyond simply emphasizing 
culture's complexity to promoting an understanding of culture as 
capacity for self-production and determination.

6My aim here is certainly not to condemn all approaches to teaching 
multiculturalism nor is it to criticize any one author or text as 
misconstruing multiculturalism. It would be very difficult, in fact, to 
accomplish the latter, given the broad range of perspectives and 
activities currently called multicultural. This text is typical, 
however, of many in the field chat purport to teach multicultural 
perspectives.

7Other units in the text supposedly help students to become aware of the 
dangers of stereotyping. Yet, one wonders how much they good they will 
do if students are exposed to stereotypes inadvertency at ocher times.

8To put it simply, it is not just chat students are asked to compare 
bagels and baguettes-they are encouraged to assume chat bagels and 
baguettes are fundamentally just different expressions for the same 
dining.

91 am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

10While there are merits in the critical or emancipatory 
multiculturalism that many of these writers argue for, the 
anthropological emphasis on holist/c interpretation and cross cultural 
comparison is still lacking. Without a broad comparative perspective, 
culture is almost always subject to some form of reductionism—unless, of 
course, critical educators are there to provide the right 
interpretations of what is really going on.

"G. Spindler has developed a teaching technique called transcultural 
sensitization (see Spindler, 1987, pp. 467-480) chat could be used to 
good effect in multicultural teacher training. There exist numerous 
ocher resources on teaching anthropology chat, with some adaptation, can 
be used as resources for multicultural teaching/education; for starters 
educators might consult the special issue of the Anthropology and 
Education Quarterly (Rice, 1985) devoted to the teaching of 
anthropology.

12Perhaps here it should be noted that there are of course differences 
between culture and ethnicity that need to be taken into account in 
discussions about identity. Ethnicity has clear political connotations 
and meanings chat are not necessarily associated with culture. Yet much 
multicultural discourse confuses culture and ethnicity, often by taking 
ethnicity as the standard of analysis and remaining woefully ignorant of 
culture in the broader, more anthropological sense.

13The limiting perspective on culture is often supported by well-meaning 
efforts to reflect children's culture back to them in the classroom and 
curriculum. Unless this is done with careful attention to avoiding 
stereotypes and assumptions regarding a student's identity, the result 
is likely to reinforce the givenness and assumed limits of identity.

566

Culture and Self in Multicultural Education

14Of course, American culture recognizes the need to be able to bond to 
others in appropriate situations. Yet the very process of, or potential 
for, positive relations with others is predicted on having achieved the 
psychological maturity seen to derive from separation and individuation. 
The point is chat self-esteem makes sense in a context where 
individualism and independence from others is the norm, for, in the 
absence of a deep and abiding sense of self as connected to others, 
there must be some source of inner consistency, some independent dining 
on which to rely in the unpredictable world of human interactions. 
However, in a non-Western cultural context, the Westem insistence on the 
unique value of the self and on personal abilities and qualities is an 
unwelcome attribute that treads dangerously dose to preoccupation with 
self at the expense of a focus on self's relationality.

15Nieto (1994) describes the case of a Vietnamese boy who patency 
rejected his teacher's well-meaning efforts to boost his self-esteem by 
praising his English. Much ocher research has suggested that blanket 
assumptions regarding the lack of self-esteem among minorities (despite 
their well-intentioned origins) reflect patronizing ignorance of 
minority cultures. M. Stone's (1981) work on Blacks in England is one 
example; see also Verkuyten (1995, p. 156), who writes, "Most recent 
studies using well-established scales and adequate control groups have 
shown no relationship between ethnicity and global personal self-esteem 
among youth in different Western countries....Empirical research in 
general does not support the assumption that Afro-Americans have lower 
self-esteem."

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Manuscript received January 23, 1995
First revision received July 18, 1995
Second revision received November 16, 1995
Accepted December 18, 1995

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