Jurnal Ilmiah Peuradeun

The International Journal of Social Sciences

doi: 10.26811/peuradeun.v4i3.111

Copyright © 2016 SCAD Independent Jurnal Ilmiah Peuradeun

All Rights Reserved Vol. 4, No. 3, Sep 2016
Printed in the Indonesia

MULTICULTURALISM AS AN ALTERNATIVE A CULTURAL

ORIENTATION TO EDUCATION IN THE ASPECT OF
CULTURE AS THE AXIOLOGICAL FOCUS

1Rinat Suzanne and 2Liana Nathalie

1School
of Education, Hebrew University
2
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Email: nathalie.liana@columbia.edu

Received: May 10, 2016 Accepted: Aug 23, 2016 Published: Sep 28, 2016
Article Url: https://journal.scadindependent.org/index.php/jipeuradeun/article/view/111

Abstract
Multiculturalism occurs naturally when a society is willing to accept the culture of
immigrants. Multiculturalism has been defined as a method whereby culturally
diverse groups are accorded status and recognition, not just at the individual level,
but in the institutional structures of the society. Multiculturalists’ perspectives have
had a deep influence in the social sciences, and particularly in the field of education.
Although it aims to improve society, multiculturalism has been criticized for
adopting an essentialist approach to culture, because the calling for the appreciation
and recognition of cultural variety. To achieve a situation in which culture has no
exclusive value requires reevaluation of the concepts of culture and identity as
accepted in the West over the past few centuries, examining epistemological and
ontological conceptions and how they shape political and social organizations
reflected in the nation-state. Just as culture is soft, permeable and dynamic, so too is
the cultural self and its identity. If multiculturalism seeks a solution to distinctions
that engender problems in a modern world in which many cultures are situated in
one social space, we maintain that such distinctions are problematic and even
erroneous. Modernity did not give rise to a multiplicity of cultures but rather to
extensive cultural and social variation.

Keywords: Multiculturalism, Cultural, Orientation, Education

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A. Introduction
Multiculturalism occurs naturally when a society is willing to
accept the culture of immigrants (with, ideally, immigrants also willing to
accept the culture of the land to which they have come). A distinction
should be drawn between multiculturalism that occurs simply due to the
absence of a single enforced culture, and multiculturalism which is
endorsed and actively encouraged by the government; this is often
referred to as state multiculturalism (Wiki, 2015).
Kenan Malik (2010) states that “The experience of living in a
society transformed by mass immigration, a society that is less insular,
more vibrant and more cosmopolitan, is positive” but contrasts this with
the political process of multiculturalism, which “describes a set of policies,
the aim of which is to manage diversity by putting people into ethnic
boxes, defining individual needs and rights by virtue of the boxes into
which people are put, and using those boxes to shape public policy”.
In reality, there is a spectrum between a monoculture where everyone
is exactly the same and the negative stereotype of multiculturalism where a
society is totally divided into separate ethnic communities who never
associate. In any actual society, people will mix and associate with those of
other races/cultures, while also keeping some kind of social or cultural
identity (e.g. based on religion, ethnic group, local area, sport team, gang
affiliation, goth/punk/skin/emo/etc subculture...). Complaints about
multiculturalism usually arise when people encounter members of another
subgroup but feel they are mixing too little; complaints about forced
assimilation when people are forced to associate and compromise too much.
Multiculturalism describes the existence, acceptance, and/or
promotion of multiple cultural traditions within a single jurisdiction, usually
considered in terms of the culture associated with an aboriginal ethnic group
and foreigner ethnic groups. This can happen when a jurisdiction is created
or expanded by amalgamating areas with two or more different cultures (e.g.
French Canada and English Canada) or through immigration from different
jurisdictions around the world (e.g. Australia, Canada, United States, United
Kingdom, and many other countries).

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In addition, multiculturalism has been defined as a method whereby

culturally diverse groups are accorded status and recognition, not just at the
individual level, but in the institutional structures of the society (Parekh,
2002). Moreover, multiculturalism involves the endorsement of harmonious
and constructive relationships between culturally diverse groups (Cashmore,
1996). Multiculturalists perspectives have had a deep influence in the social
sciences, and particularly in the field of education (Phillion, 2002; Phillion,
He, & Connelly, 2003), where it is on its way to becoming a well-established
sub-discipline sustained by a wide variety of theoretical knowledge, practical
guidelines and curricula (Banks, 1994; Bennette, 1990; Bloom, 1987; D'Souza,
1992; Ravitch, 1990; Schlesinger, 1991; Sleeter & Grant, 1988). Still the minimal
literature on the impact of multicultural educational reform has yielded its
fair share of debate and criticism and has not always been encouraging
(Freeman, 2000; Hanna, 1994; Lustig, 1997; Whitehead & Wittig, 2004).

B. Criticism and Challenge of Multiculturalism in the world

It is worth noting that the reification of culture is closely linked
with the development of the nation-state. Elias (1998) and Williams (1961)
shed light on the reciprocal relations between these two phenomena, a
process that includes transition from expression and representation of
culture as open and constantly growing, through interpersonal and group
encounters, to its conception and presentation as an organized, well-
formed, closed and fixed system of cultural items or objects, complete and
autonomous in themselves.
Although it aims to improve society, multiculturalism has been
criticized for adopting an essentialist approach to culture, because the
calling for the appreciation and recognition of cultural variety. Critics say
that it misses the mark by assuming that each group has a defined number
of participants that become similar to one another and different from
other groups by virtue of the circumstances of their birth or early
processes of socialization (for example, a Jew is a Jew and not a Christian;
Chinese are Chinese and not French).
These complete objects have been used to foster unity among
inhabitants of a given nation-state’s territory, thereby neutralizing local-

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regional and linguistically variant sub-communities that the state seeks to

incorporate into the national group. The patterns represented by the
nation-state required an operative apparatus for application, supervision
and regulation that accords its owners active, effective and exclusive
control over the means of violence in society (Giddens, 1991; Smith, 1998).
As Gellner (1997) has suggested, it was the educational system that
provided the application system.
In its most extreme formula, multiculturalism assumes that each
person has one legitimate and authentic culture whose legitimacy is
acquired by biological heredity and from whence the demand for and
right to ownership is derived by its heirs. Thus, multicultural perspectives
tend to reify culture.
Our key question therefore is the following: How wills
multiculturalism accord equality to citizens? The answer is indecisive at
best; for it appears that cultural discourse rewrites and reshapes the race
discourse that prevailed following the development of philosophy and
science in the nineteenth and early twentieth century’s (Haraway, 1991).
The context of cultural rhetoric may mellow racism, but the outcome, like
that of race theory, assigns people to a static birthplace category from
which there are no escape. As such, multicultural discourse does not
provide any innovative solution to inequality. Just as race theory explains
the “inferior” economic and social class of “marginal’ groups in society in
terms of their racial affiliation, multicultural conceptions explain it in
terms of cultural affiliation (Malik, 1996; Varenne & McDermott, 1998).

C. Multiculturalism Education and Integrated Schools in Israel

To illustrate this critique, I offer some insights from my own
research on integrated bilingual Palestinian-Jewish schools in Israel
followed by some theoretical remarks regarding possible change.
Demographically, Israel segregates its Palestinian and Jewish populations
almost completely in terms of education. There are only four integrated
schools in Israel. These schools serve today a population of approximately
1300 children and are expanding to serve K-12 students. Their aim is to

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further mutual understanding, recognition and coexistence among the

two groups which for the last 100 years have been involved in what has
come to be known as an intractable conflict (Bar-Tal, 1998). To achieve
their aim, these schools are committed to bilingual (Arabic/Hebrew)
education and a multicultural educational approach which allows each
participant to get to know more about the ‘other’s’ culture while
strengthening his/her individual and collective sense of identity and
belonging (for a description and analysis of these initiatives, see
Bekerman, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2005a, 2005b; Bekerman & Horenczyk,
2004; Bekerman & Maoz, 2005; Bekerman & Shhadi, 2003).
Since the initiative is committed to sustaining educational institutions
in which Palestinians and Jews are approximately equally represented, each
family accepted to the system needs to be clearly identified as belonging to
one or the other group. However, this is not always easy. The schools
sometimes serve as a refuge for families who have dared to break social
taboos against intermarriage, and determining the classification of a child
from a mixed family is not always easy. There are other confusions as well:
for example, Armenian families who decide to send their children are, for
some incomprehensible reason, counted as Palestinian.
In the multiple interviews that I conducted with parents and teachers,
all expressed their commitment to strengthening the children’s sense of
belonging to their ethnic and religious groups. It was emphasized that getting
to know each other was important but that this should not imply giving up
“our own roots and traditions.” Practically, this increases the complexity of
the situation because it implies focusing on cultural aspects that for the most
part represent religious traditions and stereotyped cultural artifacts. In fact,
most parents of children attending the integrated schools are not very
religious. As a general rule the Jewish parents are not religious at all, and
though it is more difficult to speak about the Palestinian parents as secular, at
the most they are traditionalists and not very religious. The teachers are very
similar to the parents, but despite their personal preferences, they all seem to
find solace in religious and stereotyped cultural artifacts from the perceived
dangers of assimilation rising from the integrated adventure.

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Thus, paradoxically, an educational sphere meant to soothe

national conflicts finds itself emphasizing cultural differences. Even if, for
a moment, we find this chosen direction desirable, we should ask if that
which is offered in terms of religious or cultural artifacts does indeed do
justice to cultural traditions that are over one thousand years old. I doubt
the answer could be affirmative: can shallow representations of Hanukkah
or Idel-Fiter, or Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan, or hummus, pith, and
levivot do justice to two old and revered traditions which have been
responsible for the development of worldviews which, through the ages,
have produced profound literary and scientific products that till today
feed the imagination of a thinking humanity? But the building bricks of
these civilizations are nowhere to be found in the school curriculum--only
shadows of them, in the shape of truncated holy texts or cuisine recipes,
make an appearance on the school scene.
Still, most of the stakeholders involved in the initiative seem to be
happy with the outcomes. Parents, for the most part, find in the emphasis
given to cultural issues the justification to explain to their own communities
and families, who might be suspicious of their decision to send their children
to these schools, why sending their children to an integrated educational
initiative is not necessarily a step towards assimilation.
Parents sending their children to the integrated initiative belong to
the middle and upper-middle socioeconomic strata, and their main
interests seem to rest with the social mobility they expect these schools to
afford their children. Though in their interviews they usually justify their
participation in the integrated schools by liberal, ideological, and peace
seeking statements, parents also make it clear that their main interest is
the successful education of their children which will allow them to join
good-quality institutions of higher education in an increasingly global
world. Though Jewish parents could easily find other options, they seem
to be happy to allow their children to support their ideological liberal
stand through their participation in the integrated schools. On the other
hand, Palestinian parents know that Israel’s present reality affords them
few educational opportunities within the segregated Arab educational

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system and see in the integrated option a way out of these limitations. The
short description above should help us question whether these initiatives
are succeeding in what they set out to achieve and, despite their good
intentions, if they can achieve their aims given the limitations.
The example illustrated above resembles the ones described in the
multicultural critical literature I cited in the introduction. The problems
described therein are not specific to contexts suffering from intractable
conflict. Though not much research has yet been published regarding the
specifics of multicultural educational efforts in conflict-ridden societies,
from my experience with multiple educational NGOs (in Israel, the
Palestinian Territories, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia-
Herzegovina) it seems fair to say that multicultural educational initiatives
generally tend to replicate the approach criticized above.
Traditionally these approaches, which are based on contact
hypothesis perspectives (Allport, 1958), adopt the discourse of ‘enhancing’
awareness of the many different cultures or lifestyles that exist, even in a
classroom, or enhancing the understanding of vital connections between a
language and a culture, or enhancing the recognition of alterity. What is
most outstanding is that this approach never seems to uncover the socio-
economical-political realities that dominate conflict. The discourse of
‘enhancing cultural sensibilities’ seems to serve dominant interests well.
We should question if this discourse can effectively serve the victims of
conflict.

D. A Cultural Orientation to Education (Alternative Approaches)

A critical analysis of the above-mentioned orientation might begin
by offering as an alternative a cultural orientation to education, one which
starts at the periphery and critically approaches culture, not as a reified
concept, but as one in the making.
Anthropological perspectives on culture offer such an opportunity.
Franz Boas (Boas, 1940) strove to divest cultural considerations from any
attention to race whatsoever, arguing against the prevailing conception of
culture as a kind of separate and unique monad. Margaret Mead (Mead,

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1942), emphasized the importance of acculturation, noted that a newborn

can become a member of any group irrespective of its biological cultural
heritage or the extent of variance between target and source group. As all
cultures are shown to be interconnected and active in a reciprocally self
nourishing system, the excellence of any particular culture cannot be
attributed to its associated nation.
Affiliation with a group is not a matter of identity but of identification
(Carbaugh; Varenne & McDermott, 1998) that develops along with human
activity and is shaped and reinterpreted as a kind of cultural activity
conducted together with one’s partners and neighbors. In different historical
and social contexts, the same behavioral pattern may give rise to different
kinds of group identification. According to this point of view, being, say, a
Jew or an Arab is not destiny but achievement, attained with the permission
of all partners in efforts carried out at given moments in history. We reiterate
that this complex admixture is imparted through the vigorous social activity
occurring in a particular place. “Arab” and “Jew” are not characteristics in
people’s minds but the results of work accomplished in the contexts in which
these characteristics exist, thus “Arab” and “Jew,” if at all characteristics, are
in the world, not in the head.
If multiculturalism seeks a solution to distinctions that engender
problems in a modern world in which many cultures are situated in one
social space, we maintain that such distinctions are problematic and even
erroneous. Modernity did not give rise to a multiplicity of cultures but
rather to extensive cultural and social variation. The acceptance or
rejection of one cultural shade or another has never been part of an all-or-
nothing package deal demanding total rejection or total assimilation.
Those who claim otherwise do not portray the historical world
realistically but rather perpetuate an ideological school that had
previously served identity and culture with the purpose of consolidating
priority for the ruling authority using those same tools (Hall, 1996; Zizek,
1997) to identify those who resemble them and incriminate all others. The
ruling group’s reasoning is obvious: Accounting for otherness is
preferable to accountability for it.

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E. Conclusion
Cultural development is consolidated through translation – an act
that from the outset does not address the intercultural sphere alone but also
accounts for all communicative activity between human beings, even those
who ostensibly belong to the same culture (Becker, 1995; Ortega-y-Gasset,
1957). The theoretical developments to which we alluded perceive culture as
a whirlpool more than as an island. Cultural identities reinforce their unity
not by relying on meanings from the past but by reconstructing and
reinterpreting cultural materials accessible to all (Bauman, 1999).
Consequently, the arguments propounded in this article should not be
perceived as an appeal against commitment to one community or another –
or against differentiation among groups – but rather only against their
conception as possessing any exclusive character.
To achieve a situation in which culture has no exclusive value
requires reevaluation of the concepts of culture and identity as accepted in
the West over the past few centuries, examining epistemological and
ontological conceptions and how they shape political and social
organizations reflected in the nation-state. Just as culture is soft,
permeable and dynamic, so too is the cultural self and its identity.
Furthermore, the difficulties encountered have nothing to do with the
linguistic constraints that preclude our understanding of one cultural language
or another. The impossibility of grasping the precise meaning of a given
symbol is a universal principle imprinted in all human beings. Hence, the
cultural approach that undermines “enlightenment” is the one that posits that
cultures exist within clearly delineated boundaries that are entitled to
recognition (political, social or otherwise). “Enlightenment” will be achieved
only through a cultural conception that demands equality because all human
beings are entitled to choose what they wish to be. Only such conditions accord
the appropriate universal meaning in support of variation.
Finally, we should recall that most of the world’s problems –
hunger, disease, poverty, pollution, displacement and the like – do not
originate in the term “culture” in its axiological or symbolic sense but
rather in culture as work or human interaction. It is this aspect of culture
that ought to constitute the focus for solutions.

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