1. Are We Ready for Critical
Multiculturalism?
Paul Ilsley
Faculty of Behavioural Sciences
University of Helsinki
paul.ilsley@helsinki.fi
11.5.2010
2. Reframing...
Is Finland ready for multiculturalism?
Is multiculturalism ready for Finland?
Context and Definition are critical to our understandings.
3. “A human being is part of a whole, called by us
‘universe,’ limited in time and space. We
experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as
something separated from the rest-- a kind of optical
delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a
prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to
affection for a few persons close to us.”
“Our task must be to free ourselves from our prison by
widening our circle of compassion to embrace all
humanity and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Albert Einstein
4. Let’s Address the Question
It depends.
What does it mean to be an educated person in
Finland?
What are the multicultural attributes?
What are the challenges?
Competing values – valuing competition
Discourses of progressivism, goal achievement, practicality
Nationalism embedded in EU sanctions
One-way internationalism, traditions
Environment of individualism, freedom, loneliness, and
fear
5. Central Questions
What does multiculturalism mean?
What is culture?
What does it mean to be a multicultural person?
(What does it mean to be an educated person?)
Who are the stakeholders?
Whose values are served by the various definitions?
What are the implicit and explicit ideals of
multiculturalism?
7. Chorus of Writers
Critical pedagogy
Frankfurt School -> Habermas -> Marx, Kant, Hegel,
Weber…
Social Theory – power : Gramsci, Freire, Apple, Giroux,
McLaren, Foucault, Horton
Critical Women’s Studies - Lahelma, Brunilla,
Critical Race Theory, Asante, Jeffries, bell hooks
Postcolonialism
Challenges to the natural superiority of the west: Said,
Spivak, Asante
Postmodernism and Intersectionism
Diaspora, otherness, diversity – relativity of truth -
Phoenix, Quinn
8. Forms (Steps, Levels) of Multiculturalism
An attitude, a set of skills, knowledge that an individual may
possess?
An egalitarian state of affairs of a collective-- a just
organization, community, society?
An ideal of egalitarianism and justice?
9. What are the opposite terms?
Multiculturalism vs. what?
Intolerance
Apolitical localism
Corporate democracy
Nationalism
Poverty and unemployment
Injustice (e.g., racism, classism, sexism, religious
bigotry, ethnic discrimination)
10. Stakeholders Analysis-- Whose Values are
Served?
Multiculturalism is...
... a curricular device used in schools.
... a threat to nationalists.
... a marketing tool for increased profit of businesses
of various sizes and types.
... a political ping-pong greatly misused.
... an ontology looking for a context.
... a fetish of individual identity and expertise.
11. Multiculturalism is... (cont.)
Knowing another language and being at home in more than
one culture.
Reconceptualization of civil society
A pathway for giving privilege to groups that have been
victimized.
Post-colonial discourse.
The conflation of decolonization.
12. Multiculturalism is... (continued)
... a new paradigm for education in the 21st century.
... cosmopolitan idealism and the belief that we all
belong to the same moral community.
... a system of beliefs that values complex human
situations and human differences, and encourages
and enables the voices of people from all socio-
cultural strata, for the betterment of all.
15. Multiculturalism in Education
Equality in schools<---> Equality in Society?
Multicultural curricula:
Teaching multiple contexts
Understanding “we” vs. “they” issues
Instilling a sense of commitment, idealism, awareness, multicontextual
identity, peace
16. Issues in Multiculturalism
Can the utopian values someday become dominant?
Is is rooted in laws of conformity?
Does it promote a sort of colonization of its own?
Even with its utopian principles will it end up
reproducing the very values it intended to transcend?
Will it ever enjoy the sort of institutionalized cultural
power its opposite enjoys today?
17. Expanding the Educator’s Role
Understand concientization, praxis, and the social
purposes of education.
Create and live expanded social visions.
Advocate quality of life issues.
Expand social forums and tools for world-making.
Transcend boundaries of different social worlds.
Bring to the front what it means to be educated, in
terms of justice, peace, equality and liberty.