2. Issues Sleeter has with Empowerment Empowerment has come to mean individual advancement. White groups of teachers that have never been involved in social activism joined the ranks. Meanings were filtered through their own ideas of difference and inequality.
3. Issues Sleeter has with Empowerment Through the study it was apparent that there was little communication between teachers and the communities. Teachers did not see the communities input as essential to the project. Because of all of this: Multicultural education had little connection with community-based movements.
4. Gutstein Purpose of Empowerment Liberation from oppression and the rehumanization of people. Analyze and affect society Students should: achieve academically, demonstrate cultural competence, understand and critique the existing social order. Develop children’s identities “The primary purpose is to empower students to critique society and seek changes based on their reflective analysis”
5. Sleeter idea of Power White people are not multicultural education’s natural constituency. Power needs to be redistributed. White educators that view themselves as the constituent base for multicultural education are missing the point of power-redistribution completely. White peoples own self-interest and point of view leads to reshaping multicultural education to their own needs.
6. Sleeter idea of Power The natural constituency is: children of oppressed groups, their parents, and their communities. Empower the natural constituency
7. Sleeter idea of Power The power holders are: administrators, classroom teachers, university professionals, and community constituents. Multicultural education is for everyone. However, with the current operation of schooling everyone does not benefit equally.
8. Gutstein Idea of Power Learn to read to read to learn Learn more about conditions of life and society This leads to engagement in social movements
9. Gutstein Idea of Power Understanding one’s own and one’s people’s development Rethinking past beliefs and teachings. A new awareness about education, pedagogy, nationalism, and politics. Contribute meaningfully to social change: take action Actively participate in social change
10. Sleeter: Point of Multicultural Curriculum Viewed by many as a set of teaching techniques. Regarded as a set of curriculum and instructional strategies to add to teaching repertoire.
11. Sleeter: Point of Multicultural Curriculum Perceptions of Multicultural Curriculum: Therapy for racial disharmony. A way of addressing differences among children. Procedural or technical. Adapt the regular curriculum to the situation.
12. Gutstein Purpose of Multicultural Curriculum So that “…students [who] are strongly rooted in their home languages, cultures, and communities, but at the same time, can appropriate what they need to survive and thrive in the dominant culture.” Eliminate racial oppression as part of a larger project to eradicate all forms of oppression. Purpose: read and write yourself into history and freedom.
13. How Multicultural Curriculum differs from what I thought it is I thought multicultural education was based on educating people about multiple cultures. As in teaching about different ethnicities, about their ways of life, and their way of perceiving life. In terms of music education I thought this meant teaching of music from several different cultures or ethnic groups. I had imagined multicultural education meant educating about several different ethnicities rather than a thing of oppression.
14. Why include a unit on social justice? According to Gutstein’s article: Problem-posing pedagogies. Poses life conditions as challenges of “limit situations” – can act and change. Prepare students to ask fundamental questions based on the analysis of their lives. Unveil Reality Why include social justice? “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King, 1986, p. 290)
15. Musical Examples Sleeter and Gutstein would NOT support as multicultural I think their choice of musical examples would differ and be subjective to the learning environment, area, and demographic of the classroom. However, I feel a pretty obvious choice based on the nature of the two articles would be Western Classical Music.
