Keeping Up Appearances: Multicultural Education in Postmodern Society

Multiculturalism has emerged as an international educational and social reform movement during the last three decades. It is an umbrella term that encompasses a number of social and educational perspectives, concerns, and reforms. Multiculturalism makes cultural and linguistic differences, gender, and physical and mental disabilities a legitimate part of the social discourse. This article argues that multiculturalism as a social policy and school reform movement is more about keeping up appearances than debating and mobilizing for effective social and economic change and educational reform. Multiculturalism focused on culture in the struggle for equity, but selectively emphasizing cultures means they ignored repressive aspects of cultures and struggle and resistance within cultural communities. Hence, multiculturalists have inadvertently supported existing power discourses in maintaining the status quo.