Culture and Education: Polishing the Lenses

Abstract

Diaz, Massialas, and Xanthopoulos (1999) state that is significant confusion over definition of multicultural and what constitutes multicultural (p.2). They illustrate this confusion with example of an American elementary school event that was promoted as a multicultural fair but was actually international in focus. Each display featured a different country from around world, but none dealt with diversity of cultural groups within state or nation. Gallavan (1998) similarly discovered that many K-12 teachers equate global studies with multicultural education, leading to ineffective of both. Although multicultural education and global education share many of same concerns, former is based in a domestic intra-national context, and latter deals with issues in international or cross-national arena. Each approach has distinct emphases, histories and theories that have developed independently of one another. Diaz, Massialas and Xanthopoulos (1999) remind us that the fundamental conceptual distinction between multicultural and global education is critical because it is often blurred in school curriculum and classroom practice (p.3). In art education, too, there seems to be a great deal of confusion between what is essentially global versus multicultural in focus. For example, newly published Culture Smart. Ready-to-Use Slides and Activities for Teaching Multicultural Appreciation through Art (Rodriguez,1999) features over 115 art production activities from ten different regions of world, but fails to address adequately cultural diversity within U.S. or within other countries presented. It essentially repackages earlier similar curriculum resources such as Exploring Global Art (Needier and Goodman, 1991), under a different label. To distinguish a multicultural approach from one which is global in focus, it might be constructive to situate these two curriculum models in relation to other endeavors that are concerned with education and culture, such as comparative-international education and community-based education. Each of these offers a different lens through which to consider intersection of education and culture. Clarifying what each distinct lens has to offer may help art educators position their efforts within larger educational arena. Comparative-International Approaches As a field of study, comparative-international education emerged after World War Il due to an interest in how changes in educational provision, form, and content would contribute to eradication of poverty or end of gender, class, and ethnic based inequalities (Arnove, Altbach, & Kelly, 1992, p.1). Although much of research in this field crosses national boundaries, often complexities of a single country or system are examined in-depth as basis for future comparison with other cases. Generally, comparative-international educators focus on big picture, discerning patterns and trends in education worldwide, rather than developing curriculum for particular cultural contexts. Arnove (1999) explains three traditional dimensions of comparative-- international approaches to education. first is Scientific Dimension, wherein world is a laboratory for cross-national comparisons between interactions of variables such as cultural factors, governmental policies, and educational structures and practices. A typical scientific study in comparative-international education might rely upon quantitative data to draw conclusions about policy outcomes in different educational settings. One example of this approach in art education is study by Kamens and Cha (1992) of The Legitimation of New Subjects in Mass Schooling: 19th Century Origins and 20th Century Diffusion of Art and Physical Education. In this study, authors examined data from three different periods in as many as 123 different countries throughout world to determine when and how art and physical education were first introduced into formal curricula. …