The multicultural education approach (e.g. Banks, 1993, 2004; Nieto &
Bode, 2012; Noel, 2008; Sleeter & Grant, 2003) calls into question the view that assimilation should be the goal for every cultural group, and instead draws attention to the celebration of different aspects of human diversity, such as race, language, gender, culture, social class, and ability, promoting equal learning opportunities for all (Taylor & Sobel, 2011, pp. 18-19). James A. Banks, one of the founders of the discipline, states that “multicultural education is at least three things: an idea or concept, an educational reform movement, and a process” (2001, p. 3).
Furthermore, he believes that multicultural education includes the basic principle that everyone “should have an equal opportunity to learn in school”, despite one’s gender, social class, or ethnic, racial, or cultural background (ibid.). According to Banks, multicultural educators meet the challenge, both in theory and practice, of “how to increase equity for a particular marginalized group without further limiting the opportunities of another such group” (2001, p. 7). In order to successfully execute multicultural education, Banks suggests approaching school as a social system in which a change can be initiated. This happens, according to him, through five dimensions (p. 23):
1. Content integration (teachers integrating examples and content from different cultures into their teaching);
2. Knowledge construction (teachers helping students to become aware of how knowledge construction within a discipline is influenced by
“implicit cultural assumptions, frames of references, perspectives, and biases”);
3. An equity pedagogy (teachers altering their teaching for the benefit of the academic achievement of diverse and/or marginalized students);
4. Prejudice reduction (how students’ racial attitudes can be amended
“by teaching methods and materials”); and
5. An empowering school culture (creating an empowering school cul-ture for diverse, racial, ethnic, and gender groups by investigating various practices in school, e.g. “grouping and labelling practices, sports participation, disproportionality in achievement, and the in-teraction of the staff and the students across ethnic and racial lines”).
Banks suggests that by implementing these five dimensions in schools it is possible to transform the educational system so that it becomes more multiculturally equal. However, he also sees multicultural education as a continuing process because of its idealized and arguably unachievable goals, such as total educational equality and the elimination of discrimination in all its forms (p. 25).
Grant and Sleeter (2010) propose a developed approach to multicultural education that directs it toward social reconstructionism. The multicultural social reconstructionist education approach draws from the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire. Its intention is to “prepare future citizens to reconstruct society so that it better serves the interests of all groups of people, especially those who are of color, poor, female, and/or with disabilities” (p. 69). The multicultural social reconstructionist education approach shares its principles regarding curriculum and instructions with the multicultural education approach, but extends this approach by four practices, namely that “democracy is actively practiced in schools” (p.
69); that “students learn how to analyse institutional inequality within their own life circumstances” (ibid.); that they “learn to use social action skills” (p. 70); and
“building bridges across various oppressed groups so they can work together to advance their common interests” (p. 70).
The approach of culturally responsive teaching or pedagogy (e.g. Gay, 2010;
Taylor & Sobel, 2011; Villegas & Lucas, 2002) was developed mainly in the United States, stemming from the ideas and concerns about “racial and ethnic
inequities … in learning opportunities and outcomes that” prompted the birth of multicultural education in the early 1970s (Gay, 2010, pp. 27-28). One of the main influences in the development of culturally responsive pedagogy was the cultural difference paradigm, which was developed to critique the cultural deficit paradigm in the 1970s and 1980s (Taylor & Sobel, 2011, p. 22). The cultural deficit paradigm proposes that “students who fail in school do so because of alleged internal deficiencies (such as cognitive and/or motivational limitations) or shortcomings socially linked to the youngster – such as familial deficits and dysfunctions” (Valencia, 1997, p. xi). Contrary to this line of thinking, culturally responsive pedagogy takes a holistic approach to students’ welfare; it focuses on their academic, psychological, social, emotional, and cultural well- being. The approach also acknowledges “the knowledge, skills, and rich cultural experiences”
that are brought to school by students from diverse backgrounds (Taylor & Sobel, 2011, p. 22). Gay (2010) defines a culturally responsive approach to teaching as using “the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and affective for them” (p. 31). Concentrating on students’ strengths as assets, culturally responsive teaching can be described as “the behavioral expressions of knowledge, beliefs, and values that recognize the importance of racial and cultural diversity in learning” (ibid.).
By focusing on students’ academic achievement and overall welfare in the school context, culturally responsive teaching makes special demands of the teacher. According to Taylor and Sobel (2011), the teacher’s commitment to improving the academic performance of students is one of the guiding principles of culturally responsive teaching. In addition, the teacher has to be willing to become self-reflective, and be ready to get to know her/his students, their families, and the communities in which they live. The teacher also needs a set of skills for delivering culturally informed instructions, along with a belief in the students’
ability to succeed (p. 24-25).
The approach of culturally responsive teaching stems from a constructivist understanding of education. In this view, the task of education is to respect student diversity and recognize how individual and cultural differences are central aspects of the learning process (Villegas & Lucas, 2002, p. xv). Culturally responsive teaching guides students on the path towards developing a sense of agency for their own learning, and encouraging them to improve their critical thinking skills
alongside learning in order to be able to take part in the democratic process as adults (ibid.). Villegas and Lucas see “schools as social and political institutions and teaching as a social, political, and ethical activity” (p. xx). They view
“educators at all levels in the system as moral actors whose social and political values and actions shape the institutions” (ibid.).
Whereas multiculturalism has focused on the differences between different cultural groups and their right to maintain their uniqueness, interculturalism highlights communication and interaction between the people identifying with these groups. The “terminological shift from multicultural to intercultural education” took place in the early 1980s, and was widely approved by the scholars in the field (Coulby, 2006, p. 246). At the time of the shift, multicultural education was criticized from the nationalist point-of-view that defended the state’s authority in choosing the languages, religion, culture, or values that were embodied in school practices and knowledge content (p. 246). Multicultural education was also criticized from an anti-racist position, which asserted that the issues of racism were not adequately addressed (p. 247). Considering the challenges of high mobility and cultural hybridization, increasing migration, and social and cultural change that are impacting societies around the world, Bleszynska (2008, p. 543) lists a set of tasks for intercultural education in the twenty-first century. The tasks include:
• Enhancing and promoting “intercultural dialogue, co-existence, and competencies” between individuals and groups;
• Fostering “adaptation, acculturation, and integration” in societies and communities;
• Advancing “social justice, human rights, and combating racial/ethnic prejudice”; and
• Strengthening “civic society, transnational communities, and social cohesion”.
However, Coulby (2006) argues that “the theorisation of intercultural education” is not only about “spotting good practice in one area and helping to implement it in another” (p. 246). This means, according to him, that the actions and practices of schools and universities have to be completely reconceptualized in order to envision “what they are capable of doing in the future” (ibid.). In his view, intercultural theorists need to be familiar with histories, contexts, and
practices, examining them side-by-side in order to enable deeper understanding and development (ibid.). According to Abdallah-Pretceille (2006), intercultural thinking “emphasizes the processes and interactions which unite and define the individuals and the groups in relation to each other” (p. 476). She further argues that educators who lack the cultural competence to interpret and use cultural knowledge base their analyses on a normative cultural frame of reference, or model. As she explains:
… cultural training based on a knowledge of supposed cultural models can suffice as long as the representatives behave according to the identified norms and examples. The difficulties start as soon as somebody does not fit, for one reason or another, into the expected framework, because the trainee is not necessarily the prototype of his or her group. In this sense, cultural knowledge does not necessarily enhance the social relationship or the educational relationship but may, on the contrary, act as a screen or filter. To learn to see, to hear, to be mindful of other people, to learn to be alert and open in a perspective of diversity and not of differences, calls for the recognition and experience of otherness, experience that is acquired and that is practised. Other people cannot be understood outside a communication process and an exchange. (p. 477-478)
Thus, intercultural education has a keen interest in the individual’s experience of self and one’s relationship to the Other, as well as in the interaction between the individual and other members of the surrounding community or group. However, Papageorgiou (2010) criticizes this emphasis, and argues that concentrating on the individual makes education apolitical (p. 651). Moreover, he contends that intercultural education has a limited capacity to react to the challenges of globalization. In his view, intercultural education has to find a more holistic educational framework for itself. The framework that he proposes is that of
‘critical interculturalist education’ (p. 652). Since, according to Papageorgiou, critical education and interculturalism share common moral values, “the vision of a fairer world” and interest in the Other, these two approaches are compatible with each other, and together form a theoretically and morally solid framework that aims for “an inclusive and pluralistic democracy” (p. 653). There are similarities between Papageorgiou’s critical approach to intercultural education and an approach that Dervin (2014) calls ‘post-intercultural’ education, which is grounded in “a critical, socio-constructionist and anti-essentialist understanding of
‘intercultural’” (p. 72). According to Dervin, post-intercultural education, instead of concentrating on ‘culture’ as the central aspect of analysis, turns its attention to the roles that the identification and intersectionality of different identity markers play in the interaction between people (p. 73). Although the main focus of this research is not on the methods of critical interculturalist education as suggested by Papageorgiou, or the post-intercultural education presented by Dervin, certain aspects of these approaches influenced the overall orientation of the study. That orientation is visible in the attempt to direct attention towards the individual music teacher educator’s reflections and identification processes, and in the attempt to develop intercultural music teacher education by critically examining the underlying ideas, practices, and visions of the involved music teacher education programmes. Dervin’s socio- cultural approach also resonates with the study’s aim to provoke collective discussion around the issues of cultural diversity in music teacher education.
2.2. Identifying discourses on cultural diversity in music education