Identity Politics Versus Politics of Identities: Whatever Happens in the Debates on Identities in Multicultural Education?

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Multicultural/Multiethnic Education: New Insights for Schooling

Abstract

This study investigates alternative perspectives on diversity as a political engagement with the aim of challenging the binary of self/other that normalizes cultural sameness/difference as well as of committing to imaginative explorations of possibilities for more equitable education. This inquiry serves as an example of possible ways of challenging the “discovery” of preexisting self. Methodologically grounded in critical philosophical analysis, the author attempts to interrupt the aforementioned dominant educational practice by working toward alternative means to examine “how” my identities have been discursively and politically constructed. An emphasis on permanent openness and resignification of interpretations of culture invites educators to challenge the implementation of the “best” curriculum and teaching practices––usually informed by essentialized notions of sameness/difference.

Author

• Seungho Moon, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater