Title
Learning and Living Difference That Makes A Difference: Postmodern Theory & Multicultural Education
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
July 2002
Publication Title
Multicultural Education
First Page
2
Last Page
10
Disciplines
Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sociology
Abstract
The application of postmodern theory to a transformative understanding of multiculturalism can make a difference. Multicentered culture, antiessentialist race consciousness, and political equity—aspects of a transformative multiculturalism put forward in 1996 by Newfield and Gordon—can be juxtaposed with elements of a postmodern theorization of society as a consumer-driven economy saturated with multiple mediated unstable, fragmented, and evolving discourses and cultural interaction. This theoretical construct can be illustrated with research data from college classrooms and specifically an analysis of the television show The X-Files. This analysis shows how a discussion of whiteness creates larger discussion of transformative multiculturalism in which difference makes a difference. Moreover, a postmodern transformative multiculturalism sees universities as ideological sites in the production and reproduction of hegemony.
Recommended Citation
Walter R. Jacobs. "Learning and Living Difference That Makes A Difference: Postmodern Theory & Multicultural Education" Multicultural Education (2002): 2-10.
Comments
This article originally appeared in Multicultural Education in Volume 9, Issue 4. It is copyrighted by Caddo Gap Press and may not be reproduced, distributed, or sold without explicit permission from Caddo Gap Press.
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