Re-naming, re-imagining America: multicultural curriculum as classification struggle

Abstract

This article analyses conflict over multicultural education in the United States as an example of what Pierre Bourdieu terms ‘classification struggle’. By classification struggles, the author means struggles over those symbolic representations of social divisions that help to construct a hierarchical social order. In particular, following Bourdieu, efforts that ‘aim at retrospectively reconstructing a past fitted to the needs of the present’ are emphasised. Consequently, the author focuses particularly on contests over the reconstruction of United States history. To begin, he asks what is at stake in how a nation and its past are symbolically constructed. He then identifies specific ways in which multiculturalism engages in classification struggle and consider the nature of resistance to those efforts. Next, he illustrates limitations in multiculturalism's success in effecting changes in symbolic classification. Finally, he concludes by suggesting the implications of the analysis for answering the question ‘In what sense, can a curriculum be imagined as a national curriculum?’