Hermeneutics and Resistance: Multicultural Teacher Education Reconsidered

Abstract

I applaud Adrienne Pickett and J.G. York for raising the topic of multicultural teacher education, since this topic has not received enough attention among philosophers of education. The underlying assumption upon which Pickett and York base their argument — that a focus on skills-based training for cultural competency in handling diverse classrooms is inadequate — is on target and supported by some of the major theorists in the field, such as Sonia Nieto and James Banks. As these theorists have argued, a deeper kind of transformation on the part of teachers must take place if we want them to become genuine multicultural educators and agents of social change. Pickett and York rightly maintain that the kind of change that is at stake here “goes beyond transferring information or skills from professors to preservice teachers,” and “involves a transformation of worldviews and assumptions that preservice teachers have carried with them for their entire lives.”