"Who Am I to You?" A Comparative Case Study of Positioning Moves in Multicultural Education

• In Event: Teacher Education for Cultural Diversity and Social Justice: Insights From Multiple Methods

Abstract

Resistance to multicultural education is common and related student and instructor positionalities. We use comparative case study to explore how students and instructors across five critical multicultural education classrooms enact their identity positions. We investigate how various positionalities are implicated and how they are relevant to the positional stances enacted by students in the classroom. Common student positioning includes teacher pleasing behavior and a call for solutions to the issues raised in order to side step complicity. Instructors positioned themselves according to their own social identities and appears gendered. Female instructors were expected to share personal experiences but were also at risk of being positioned as less credible by students. Reflective questioning and open dialogue positively positioned students as fellow-learners.

Authors

• Erin Feinauer Whiting, Brigham Young University

• Eric Ruiz Bybee, Brigham Young University

• Elizabeth Finlayson Harris, Brigham Young University