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ERIC Number: EJ831977
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Jul
Pages: 5
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1521-0960
EISSN: N/A
I Am from a Very Small Town: Social Reconstructionism and Multicultural Education
Parks, Marguerite W.
Multicultural Perspectives, v8 n2 p46-50 Jul 2006
"I am from a very small town in which almost the entire population is made up of White middle class society." This statement is a reoccurring theme of final Multicultural Education (MCE) papers by preservice teachers at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (UW Oshkosh). Although this sounds like an innocuous statement, over the past 12 years the author has discovered what a tremendous difference there is between her students and herself. The author was raised in the South and bussed to an all-Black school as part of the desegregation process in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It was not until her parents moved to Iowa when she was in junior high school that she first saw the "all White world" of her students. The focus of this article is on her students' first encounter and exploration of the issue of White privilege and how this concept could impact their classrooms. Could these same preservice teachers perpetuate a continued idea of White superiority in their classrooms because it is a part of their cultural norm? If this is the case, what can be done to change the system? These questions guide the philosophy and methodology the author chooses to center her course on, which are founded in the philosophy of social reconstructionism. (Contains 5 footnotes.)
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Iowa; North Carolina; Wisconsin
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A