Critical multiculturalism

If you grew up in the United States, did you celebrate Black History Month by reading stories about Harriet Tubman and eating “soul food” in the cafeteria for lunch? Did your teacher ever teach you about Native Americans, then proceed to help you make an intricately woven dreamcatcher that would filter out all of your bad dreams?

Liberal multiculturalism, illustrated by the above examples, has provided us with a framework for understanding both our unity and our diversity as members of the human race. However, the liberal approach to multiculturalism is limited by its focus on surface-level inclusion of superficial/exoticized aspects of a culture, without questioning structural systems of injustice and power. By failing to recognize embedded power structures and institutional inequities, liberal multiculturalism helps maintain the supremacy of dominant groups.

By contrast, critical multiculturalism seeks to acknowledge, question, and ultimately disrupt embedded power structures. At its core, critical multiculturalism highlights structural inequities for the purpose of redistributing power more equitably across society. It confronts race, class, gender, and other normative biases in order to improve educational, economic, and social outcomes for everyone, not just the dominant group.

Although there are many facets of critical multiculturalism, here are three core tenets that educators can use to challenge existing narratives built into standard curricula, and to equip students to critically question and transform societal inequities:

Critical multiculturalism disrupts dominant narratives that privilege a select group, for the purpose of creating a more just and equitable society.

Culture and subjugation

Subjugation of cultures occurs when the cultural values and beliefs of dominant groups are considered the norm, while the values and beliefs of non-dominant groups are “othered” and deemed inferior. Critical multiculturalism rejects the other-ing of marginalized groups by deconstructing the dominant narrative and amplifying voices that have historically been de-legitimized.

Power and domination

Critical multiculturalism strives to shine a light on power and domination through the process of critical questioning (see: PRINCIPLE: Make the invisible visible). This begins by asking what ideologies, beliefs, and grand narratives support and reinforce the power and privilege of a select group. Inequities around race, class, sexual orientation, religion, ability, and gender (any category of difference) can be identified when analyzing these master narratives. Critical multiculturalism encourages us to identify ways in which power and privilege shape our realities within education and society.

Knowledge and process

Critical multiculturalism is not a packaged solution, but a process of asking questions as a way of being in the world. There is not one way of approaching critical multiculturalism; it emerges in dialogue with the changing world in which it is situated. Knowledge acquisition occurs when critical multiculturalists ask questions like, For whom is the narrative written, whom does it serve, and who is omitted?

There are many artist collectives, as well as individual artists whose work is illustrative of a practice of critical multiculturalism. For example, the Guerrilla Girls, a feminist activist artist organization, expose and challenge the gender and racial biases reproduced within art museums by adding facts about racial and gender inequities to their billboard advertisements (see: TACTIC: Culture jamming). The artist known as Banksy fills cities with stenciled graffiti about contemporary racial and political injustices, while Ai Weiwei’s artwork challenges government cover-up and corruption. Each of these artists are exemplars of critical multiculturalism, as they all initiate conversations about voice, power, and equity.

Critical multiculturalism is essential for a democratic society because it calls upon people to consider, critique, and destabilize deep-rooted institutional structures that breed inequities. In essence, critical multiculturalism provides a framework of thinking that leads to a more just and equitable society.