Multiculturalism and Sociocultural Identity

Histories and Varieties of Multiculturalism

While not inaccurate, the commonsense conception of multiculturalism as a discourse that celebrates diversity and promotes tolerance is incomplete and partial because this liberal or celebratory form of multiculturalism is actually one of several. Liberal multiculturalism is the dominant and most well-known form in what is in fact a continuum that spans the political spectrum from conservative multiculturalism (which involves maintaining the status quo while managing diversity) through liberal multiculturalism (which is mainly about celebrating diversity and promoting tolerance) to critical or revolutionary multiculturalism (which advocates inclusion and empowerment of marginalized cultures and promotes equity and social justice). While American multiculturalism does not have a definitive originary moment, the civil rights movement and the establishment of ethnic studies could be identified as a general beginning and the so-called political correctness debates of the 1990s its most prominent moment to date. While Canadian multiculturalism also has its origin in a period of foment (in this case the struggle for representation of the people of Quebec, the French language and culture in Canada, as well as other European ethnic groups in an Anglo-dominated Canada), there is a definitive moment when multiculturalism was established formally as official policy in the 1970s with the government of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Although the United States has not followed Canada's lead, Australia has multiculturalism as official policy.

Even with some differences in histories, rationales for establishment, and official versus unofficial status, multiculturalism and especially multicultural education are remarkably similar in Canada and the United States, dominated in both contexts by the celebratory form and with strong proponents and detractors. While multiculturalism is most closely associated with liberalism, detractors also span the political continuum, with interesting results. Conservative detractors in both countries see multiculturalism as divisive, a discourse and approach to education that undermines national unity and traditional knowledge heritage by stressing differences between people and promoting other knowledge traditions. There are some significant differences between the two national contexts, however. For example, leftist detractors in the United States and Canada diverge on strategies developed to address what they see as the weaknesses of dominant liberal multiculturalism, which include a tendency to underplay race, racism, and sociocultural inequity in favor of seeing the population in cultural terms and celebrating a false level playing field of cultural diversity. These similarities and differences are reflected in multicultural education. Liberal, celebratory multicultural education dominates as the preferred approach in both Canadian and the United States. In the United States, critical educator detractors have advocated various versions of equity and social justice, including critical, revolutionary, and insurgent multicultural education. Leftist Canadians, however, adopted a strategy that had been initiated in Britain instead, namely, eschewing multiculturalism and advocating an antiracist education alternative.

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