International Graduate Students’ Positionality in a U.S. Critical Multicultural Education Course

Abstract

This study describes the experience of four international students after taking a class in critical multicultural education at a predominantly white institution in the Midwest, U.S. Utilizing narrative inquiry and narrative coding to analyze students’ positionality papers, the researchers found two overarching themes: (1) Prior Experiences and (2) Perspectives on multicultural identities, with several sub-themes. The first overarching theme, prior experiences, has three sub-themes that reflect students’ identities in relation to their sociocultural backgrounds: (a) origin and national identity (b) family background and exposure (c) education and sociocultural experiences. The second overarching theme, perspectives on multicultural identities has five sub-themes that emerged from students’ personal learning and through socialization: (a) race and ethnicity (b) religion (c) gender and sexuality (d) class and privilege, and (e) culture shock. We conclude with a discussion of the findings and implications for this work.