Critical
Traditions in Education
Critical
theory is a very loosely defined field (Quantz, 1992)
that refers to "a whole range of theories which take a critical view of
society and the human sciences or which seek to explain the emergence of their
objects of knowledge" (Macey, 2000; p. 74).
This
�critical view� has often been described as being in opposition to, or at least
qualitatively different from, mainstream educational discourse (Sedgwick &
Edgar, 2002; McLaren, 2001). As part of this oppositional
stance, educators using this approach have usually emphasized that their work
is designed to benefit the people they teach and study (Densin
& Lincoln, 2000).
Simon
and Dippo make this desire central in their
influential criteria for judging critical educational research, for example, by
stating that it must occur "within a public sphere that allows it to
become the starting point for the critique and transformation of the conditions
of oppressive and inequitable moral and social regulation" (1986; p. 197).
However,
it is also true that educators and researchers of every stripe, including those
that might be described as mainstream, often express the same desire to make a
difference to those they teach and study.
So
what makes �critical� work critical?
The
Roots of Critical Theory
According
to Macey, and Edgar & Sedgwick, critical theory
developed critical theory primarily out of Marxist conceptualizations of
ideology and secondarily, Freud's writings on illusion. As I outline below,
quite a few theorists were responsible for this development. Of course, Marx
and Freud have fallen out of favor in the academia of our era, tainted by the
practical failures of the movements they inspired on the one hand, and a
questioning of the scientific assumptions that informed their work on the
other. As Foucault pointed out, however,� "Freud and Marx have opened the
field up to something besides themselves" (1975; p. 612). In our time, it
is impossible to escape their legacies and, I believe, foolish not to examine
their ideas carefully.
In
The German Ideology (Marx and Engels, 1976a), originally published in 1846,
they described ideology as being idealized sets of ideas, conceptions,
theologies, or notions that separate real individuals from the material basis
of their lives. In opposition to the systems developed by the German idealist
philosophers, they posited materialistically based models of how social
relations, consciousness, language, divisions of labor, and ideologies are
constructed. This has important implications for the conceptualization of how
history develops (Marx's concentration on and belief in historical progress was
nothing if not modernist). Rather than Hegel's world spirit (Geist) determining the course of history, Marx and Engels
emphasized how real people in concrete situations influenced the course of
historic change.� As has been often
quoted, Marx asserted in 1852 that people
����������� make their
own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they�������������
����������� do not
make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
����������� circumstances
directly encountered, given and transmitted by the past.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
(Marx, 1976a; p. 398)
�����������
It is
clear that classical Marxism, with its positivistic emphasis, focused on how
people interact with external reality and was quite weak when it came to
examinations of ontological and epistemological assumptions (Giddens, 1995).� Marx
and Engels addressed these issues only peripherally, principally in passages in
which they examined ideology. They argued that successive ruling classes
develop the ideas that reflect its world outlook into a hegemony that appears
to be the only legitimate representation of reality, a point pithily expressed
in this quote from the Communist Manifesto of 1848: "The ruling ideas in
each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class" (Marx & Engels,
1976b; p. 125). At no time, however, did they deal in any detail with how these
ruling ideas are adopted by oppressed peoples. Looking at ways oppression is
reinforced through means other than the threat of physical violence became the
task of later theorists and activists.
�����������
Lenin,
the most famous of these, criticized many of the leading revolutionaries of his
day for underestimating the importance of ideological struggle. In 1901, he
stated that without a systematic program of agitation and propaganda on the
part of revolutionary organizations, "the working-class movement is
subordinated to bourgeois ideology" (Lenin, 1969; p. 49). Under his
leadership, ideological work became the chief task of the Bolsheviks.
Accordingly, Lenin stressed the importance of overcoming the worship of
spontaneity in attacks he made on those who "stress the drab everyday
struggle (economists) and by those who call for the most self-sacrificing
struggle of individuals (terrorists)" (1901: 94). Both of these groups,
Lenin bitterly contended, engaged in highly counter productive activities
because they discounted or oversimplified the power of ideology.
Lenin's
conception of ideology was relatively simple and straightforward. The working
class was fooled by state institutions such as schools or churches into
adopting the ideas of the ruling class. Lenin believed that working people
would adopt an alternate set of beliefs if they were properly presented to them
by a vanguard revolutionary organisation. These ideas
had to be rooted in concrete working class experiences, reformulated to include
larger contexts and then brought back to oppressed peoples in the form of
propaganda. These basic ideas were emphasised and
elaborated on by many subsequent Marxists. Some have argued that a major
theoretical divide on ideology separates such communists as Trotsky and Mao
Zedong, who stressed continuous or repeated revolutionary upheavals, from
figures such as Stalin, who adopted bureaucratic strategies (Fields, 1988;
Koestler, 1967). The former group emphasised the
importance of ideology; the latter discounted it. It is worth noting that
long-term success eluded revolutionaries on both sides of this supposed divide.
In
light of the limited achievements, failures and outright disasters associated
with various revolutionary movements, the role of ideology has become one of
the most central points of debate within academic Marxist circles. Even as
early as immediately following the creation of the
Luk�cs (1971) addressed these questions through his examination of the power
of false consciousness, reification and alienation. His most important work,
History and Class Consciousness, was originally published in 1922 and is a much
more varied, complex and subtle approach to ideology. The aspect of Luk�cs' thought that is important for my purposes here is
his reemphasis of Marx's contention that people are alienated from each other
in capitalist society through the process of commodity fetishism. Combined with
a critique of bureaucratic power that Luk�cs derived
from Weber, this process is one of reification, in which people interpret each
other's importance only in terms of the material commodities that they
represent. This process, in turn, develops into false consciousness, in which
working people break the common ties they have at the point of the production
of material goods and relate only at the level of consumption and exchange.
This leads to identification with oppressive groups and an acceptance of
subordinate status.
�������
It is
also important to note that Luk�cs also re-emphasised the Marxist notion of praxis when he referred to
Marx's 1845 contention that "philosophers have only interpreted the world
in various ways; the point, however, is to change it" (Marx, 1976b). This
famous citation, which opens Luk�cs' most important
work, highlighted the Hegelian dialectic that exists between theory and
practice. Both change and develop the other, a notion that often crops up in
the critical research tradition.
Of
the many other subsequent Marxist theorists that stand out as major influences
in the critical research tradition, none has greater predominance in our era
than Gramsci. In many ways, Gramsci
critiqued the claims that Marx, Lenin, Luk�cs and
others made for the scientific aspect of revolutionary socialism. Although
there is some dispute as to how much of his legacy is due to misinterpretations
of the terminology he employed in his censored 1935 notebooks (first published
in English in 1971), there is little question that his emphasis on agency was a
healthy contribution to the critical tradition. He questioned the inevitability
of revolution, the seemingly automatic relationship between material forces
(base) and social structures (superstructure) in society, and the claims made
by many Marxists that they have an exclusive handle on objective truth.
In terms
of my discussion here, however, the importance of Gramsci's
legacy is chiefly through his development of the term hegemony, which differs
from the concepts of ideology and false consciousness not simply because of its
greater complexity.� Through a wide
variety of institutions in civil society, the dominant class tailor-makes ideas
in ways that make them acceptable to oppressed groups. Oppressed groups
participate in this process by reinterpreting these ideas so that they are
understandable in the context of their own experiences. This is a practical and
down-to-earth process in the interests of survival. In this way, dominant
classes are able to obtain a real degree of consent of those they oppress, an
idea that Herman and Chomsky have elaborated on in their political writings
(1988). Gramsci's concept of hegemony incorporates
the idea that members of oppressed classes exercise agency and are not mere
passive recipients of the ideas of others.
In
evaluating Gramsci's contributions, it is important
to note that much of his work was first translated and widely published only in
the early 1970's and was largely unknown to many of the early theorists in the
critical tradition. In order to explain how oppressed peoples adopted the ideas
and values of oppressing groups, the
Like
that for Marx, Freud's legacy has long been controversial. The limitations of
both have been well illuminated, particularly in terms of gender and sexism.
For my purposes here, I concentrate on Freud's use of the term illusions, which
I believe provides a deep understanding of how the hegemonic process works as
wish fulfillment for individual people. One believes what one wants to believe
because it resolves conflict, maintains hope, or alleviates alienation. Freud
noted in 1931 that
����������� Illusions need not necessarily be
false, that is to say, unrealisable or��������
����������� contradiction
to reality. For instance, a middle-class girl may have the
��������� ��illusion that a
prince will come and marry her. This is possible; and a few
����������� such cases
have occurred. That the Messiah will come and found a�����
����������� golden age
is much less likely. Whether one classifies this belief as an
������� ����illusion or as
something analogous to a delusion will depend on one�s
����������� personal
attitude.�������������������������������������������������������
(1953; p. 31)
�����������������������������������������������������������������������������
Politically,
illusions have the power to mollify oppressed classes of people as this second
from Freud quotation illustrates:
�������
����������� No doubt one is a wretched
plebeian, harassed by debts and military
����������� service;
but, to make up for it, one is a Roman citizen, one has one�s�������
����������� share in
the task of ruling other nations and dictating their laws. This
����������� identification
of the suppressed classes with the class who rules and
����������� exploits
them is, however, only part of a larger whole. For, on the other
����������� hand, the
suppressed classes can be emotionally attached to their
����������� masters;
in spite of their hostility to them they may see in them their
����������� ideals;
unless such relations of a fundamentally satisfying kind subsisted,
����������� it would
be impossible to understand how a number of civilisations
have
����������� survived
so long in spite of the justifiable hostility of large human masses.������������������������������ ���������������������
�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
(1953; p. 13)
���������������������������������������������������������������������������������
The
The
work of the members of the
Marcuse's
work has particular interest for me because he worked extensively and
explicitly on combining the insights of Freud and Marx, the focus of his
well-known work, Eros and Civilisation (1955). He
starts by critiquing Freud's contention that civilisation
is a product of repressed and sublimated human sexual desire, a process that
provides the energy necessary for productive labour.� Marcuse contends that there is no inherent
contradiction between work and pleasure, as Freud believed. Modern capitalist
society, however, produces this contradiction by alienating, in Marx's sense,
people from their basic selves, needs and labour.
Marcuse,
in his later work, goes on to describe how Adorno's
notion of the culture industry promotes two processes: repressive desublimination and repressive tolerance. The first of
these, repressive desublimination, describes how
people are conditioned to accept whatever is offered to them by capitalist
society. Basic needs, even if they take the form of
unrestrained sexuality, is transformed into forms that support and
conform to capitalist materialism. The second of Marcuse's concepts, repressive
tolerance, is a process wherein all values and beliefs are tolerated by power
structures as long as they do not threaten basic capitalist relations. In what
appears to be for democratic reasons, all criteria for judging the worth of
beliefs are suspended. However, this extreme form of relativism also renders
all beliefs and values meaningless, since no judgement
can be made about them.
The
members of the
It is
literary criticism, however, that stands as the most influential discipline in
terms of questioning the nature of subjectivity. It is striking that many of
the better-known critical theorists of society started out as literary critics
(eg. Barthes, Benjamin, Bloom, Calvino, De Man, Eagleton, Fish, Jakobson,
Jameson, Richards, Said, Spivak, Williams). This
development is most likely due to the long-standing debates within the
discipline about the relationship between the text in question, the author who
produced it and the historical influences on its production. Literary
criticism problemitized such concepts as unified
characters, cohesive textuality, cause and effect,
narration, and point of view. These problems were extended beyond
literary texts to the apprehension of 'real life'.
Literary
criticism's influence has been chiefly felt through the work of post-structuralists such as Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard. As I described in the first paper in this series,
post-structuralism can be summarised as the rejection
of foundationalism, the belief in the existence of
unproblematic representations of factual knowledge. The touchstone for much of
post-structuralist theory is Nietzsche, who
maintained that there was no such thing as factual knowledge, just
interpretations.
Similarly,
subjectivity, as Foucault put it, must be understood as in view of the fact
that people are culturally and discursively constructed as symbolic beings
occupying culturally based sites of meaning. Each of these sites evokes a
different orientation of the self. Individuals are 'subjects' who originate
socially and take their self-image from the identity groups to which they
belong to or, more significantly, identify with. Post-structuralism is
anti-humanist, in the sense that it rejects the humanist and romantic notion
that individuals are isolated and immaterial beings who
can be thought of abstractly. In this viewpoint, individual people view reality
as having a specific history that is influenced by culture, language and the
body.
Language
is key to subjectivity because it is marked by its
ability to organise knowledge into discourse, a
thematic field of meaning in which words and symbols exchange meaning and
represent power. This lends much more subtlety to the concepts of hegemony or
ideology. We can only, in fact, conceive of what we can symbolise
through language. All meaning is textual, in Derrida's sense, because every
piece of knowledge adheres to rules of discourse and stands in relation to
others. These rules of discourse are organized and distributed, as Foucault
pointed out, in ways that are multiple, discontinuous and related to power.
Ideology,
on the other hand, was a troublesome term for Foucault (1980), at least as I
understand him in translation. He took the term to mean that it denoted
falsity, was in reference to the concept of a unified subject, or was
subordinated to economic structures. He had little use for it. In my opinion,
however, Foucault's criticism of the term ideology is an apprehension based on
the simplistic definition that predates the process of re-conceptualization
initiated by Luk�cs. The term still has great value
and power if it is augmented with the kinds of nuances and subtleties
(including Foucault's) that I've described above.
One
final figure is important to note at this point in my argument. Louis Althussar has often been cited by theorists in Cultural
Studies as their link to continental or western Marxism. As I describe below,
Cultural Studies, as represented by the University of
Birmingham Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies, strongly influenced the
development of critical research in education. Althussar
is best known for his rigorous evaluation of Marx's basic tenets, a project
that sought to rehabilitate Marx in much the same way that Lacan
hoped to do in his reevaluation of Freud. Althussar
stressed the scientific method and economic basis of Marx's mature work and
downplayed the humanism inherent in his earlier writings. As such, he
elaborated on Marx's notion of modes of production, emphasized the need for
theory to remain internally consistent and downplayed the agency that
individuals play in history. As can be seen, much of Althussar's
work is economically deterministic and runs counter to many of the insights
worked out by Gramsci (and other theorists) I have
cited above.
However,
Cultural Studies theorists found two concepts in Althussar's
writings that were valuable: interpellation and the ideological state
apparatus. These concepts elaborate on how ideology functions in society and
parallels some of Gramsci other insights, especially
those related to the internalization of dominant ideology.
Interpellation
plays on the French words signifying 'to call on' and 'interrogation'. As a
term employed by Althussar, interpellation is a
description of how individuals are created as subjects by ideological
structures like the mass media. Individuals recognize themselves as the
subjects being addressed by these ideological structures and thus internalize
the messages and self-images they promote. The ideological state apparatus is Althussar's term for institutions such as the education
system, family, and mass media that reproduce bourgeoisie ideology and help
individuals internalize it.
In
addition, Althussar reworked the economic basis of
Marxist theory, stressing that capitalist society is a network of structures.
In his view, although economic determinacy is ultimately paramount, these
strictures enjoy relative autonomy. Althussar thus
introduced a subtler conception of state structures that explained how
institutions such as the media functioned, both as autonomous entities and as
institutions that reproduce dominant ideology.
As is
well known, Althussar led a very troubled and
contradictory life in the midst of the upheavals of the French 'New Left' of
the 1960's. Much of the theoretical debates I have outlined in this paper
worked themselves out in Althussar's life experience.
It is interesting to note, for instance, that Foucault was one of his students.
Cultural
Studies, Freire and Critical Pedagogy
Cultural
Studies originated at the University of Birmingham
Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies in 1963 led by figures such as Hall,
Williams and Hoggart. According to Kellner (2004), the scholars at the Centre were influenced
by Althussar and Gramsci
and focused
����������� on the
interplay of representations and ideologies of class, gender, race,
����������� ethnicity,
and nationalities in cultural texts, including media. They were
� ����������among the
first to study the effects newspapers, radio, television, film and
����������� other
popular cultural forms on audiences� Like the
����������� British cultural studies concluded
that mass culture was playing an
��� ��������important role
in integrating the working class into existing capitalist
����������� societies
and that a new consumer and media culture was forming a new
����������� mode of
capitalist hegemony.
�������������������������������������������������
�������������������������(webpage)
In
addition, scholars in Cultural Studies explicitly opposed the concept of 'high
culture' and consciously strove to examine forms that had been previously
designated as 'popular' or 'low'. They were also quite critical of the concept
of the aesthetic canons, such as that had been constructed for English
literature. Cultural Studies tended to condemn this privileging of a particular
set of texts or art works, typically produced by 'dead white European males',
as being ethnocentric and sexist.
The
type of fieldwork that the
Schools
became one of the prime foci of research done through the Center because of
education's important reproductive function. As Dewey, Durkheim and others have
pointed out, schools have become the principal modern
institution that transmits societal and cultural norms to the next generation.
One
of the most important of pieces of educational research that came out of the
Willis
showed that schools 'mark' working class children and limit their future career
choices. Almost as importantly, he demonstrated that schools transmit subtle
and ideological messages about the nature of the work that these kids can
expect after graduation. These messages concern
����������� the
general ambience of working life; the fascination with processes and
����������� machines;
the division between those who work with their hands and
����������� those who
work with their heads; the apparent timelessness and
����������� inevitability
of industrial organization; the atomized, repetitive nature of
����������� the work
around the corner; and the hardness and inevitability of
����������� industrial
work�����������������������������������������������������
(p. 161).
Through
such messages, schools reinforce the feeling among these young people that
their inevitable and natural place is on the factory floor, under the
supervision of straw bosses and middle managers.
According
to Quantz, other innovative critical research into
education and youth culture that was produced by the
Birmingham Centre included that by Robins and Cohen (1978), Corrigan (1979),
Hall, Hobson, Lowe and Hall (1980), McRobbie (1978),
and Hall and Jefferson (1976). The research coming out the Center tended to
make greater use of case study methodology and symbolic interactionism.
The
What
is striking to me about this body of research is that the points of view of the
scholars involved are usually quite transparent. This demonstrates another one
of Simon and Dippo's points about critical research
in the definition I cited above: that it must address how the research itself
is limited as a form of social practice. In this scholarship, there is little
attempt to hide beyond an artificial pretence of scientific objectivity. This
is true for both the statistically based examination of schooling's
interrelationship with labour markets that Bolwes and Gintis conduct, and McLaren's detailed enthnographic
examination of rituals used in a single Toronto Catholic school. This even
involves the researchers making their close relationship to their subjects
explicit, as Wolcott does when he describes himself as a teacher in the
Kwakiutl school and village in which he works, lives
and studies.
Taking
the lead from Gramsci, these scholars also take on
the role of transformative intellectuals, to use Aronowitz
and Giroux's term, who consciously seek to effect
educational change. This means, as Simon stresses, that education should be
explicitly viewed as political practice that searches for new visions of what
schooling could be, a process he terms a pedagogy of
possibility.
This
scholarship also demonstrates a broadened of the field beyond traditional
ethnographic description to examine issues related to knowledge construction,
testing, teacher training, identity formation, and teaching methodology. As
such, the field has become increasingly better known as critical pedagogy.
One
influential study that demonstrates this broadening of concerns is Anyon's research into the way textbooks were used in one
It
was with the work of Pablo Friere, however, that
critical pedagogy came into its own. Originally published in 1970, Pedagogy of
the Oppressed (1989) has enjoyed immense popularity and influence in most
fields in education. According to Luke (2004), Friere's
work blended Hegelian dialects, Marxist materialism, Dewey's aesthetics and
Christian existentialism. The explicit influence of Christianity was new to
critical theory, and was characterized by "the recollection and recovery
of the self, with a focus on the ethics of care in the face of physical and
symbolic violence" (p. 23). As Luke puts it, even though such figures as
Young, Bernstein and Bourdieu were developing similar
sensibilities in the field of critical scholarship, Friere's
unique language "spoke more directly to the psychic memory and bodily
experience of Other" (p. 22).
Friere extrapolates on the relationships between ideology, alienation and the
physical forms of oppression, places great value on the role played by
intellectuals and is highly critical of sectarianism. What I find especially
valuable in Friere's thought is his stress on the
importance of problem solving as a key element in the construction of
knowledge. This emphasis is closely related to his criticisms of what he called
the banking model of education, the conception that learners are empty vessels
into which knowledge is poured (not unlike Descarte's
tabula rasa). In Friere's pedagogy, on the other
hand, learning is part of the construction of knowledge and is closely related
to how people interact with their environment to solve problems and complete
tasks. These tasks are not for their own sake of course. As Luke puts it, Friere's legacy means that these tasks must be activist
critiques of civil society, political economy, and the human psychology of
struggle and oppression.
The
impact of Freire's writing was also in large part due to the fact that he
practiced his pedagogy in the third world. This was an important break in the
previous pattern, which featured educational theorists almost exclusively from
Europe,
Feminist
contributions to critical pedagogy have also been immeasurable. Maturing in the
early 1980's, feminist educational research has been multi-varied and
innovative. Roman (1992) outlines three research positions taken by feminist
qualitative researchers. The first �implies uncritically that feminist research,
methods, theories and practice consist of any research done by women about
women or with women as research subjects� (p. 576). This outlook, according to
Roman, tends to romanticize and essentialize women,
frequently rejects positivist research traditions as inherently masculine and
chauvinist.
The
second position taken by feminist researchers takes the opposite view,
contending that there is no necessary shared set of experiences or interests
that unite women. What makes for research feminist according to this outlook, is its faithfulness to the political interests that
women share for greater emancipation.
The
third position in feminist research is what Roman has called a �feminist
materialist� approach, which she outlines as an alternative to the other two.
It focuses on what Jagger (1983) describes as the
�standpoint� of women. Although there is no single form of feminine
subordination, Roman claims that feminine research occurs �when its methods,
theory and practice draw on the differences among groups of women to theorize
about what is common or different in their experiences of various forms of
oppression and privilege� (p. 578). These differences among groups of women are
their �standpoints�.
The
some important implications associated with this third position, which. First,
there is a close unity between theory, method and praxis. In contrast to
naturalist or positivist inquiry, the form of research that Jagger
advocates is tested by its usefulness in transforming the multiplicity of
female experiences in the face of oppression. Second, the depiction of reality
found in this research is contested. The consideration of power relations is
central to this approach, both in terms of what is examined and how it is
conducted. Third, feminist materialists are open to the participation of men in
research.
Queer
theory is another emerging field within critical pedagogy. Its focus is on the
experiences of gay, lesbian and bisexual students and teachers and questions
definitions of and common assumptions related to homosexuality, heterosexuality
and gender. Although a base of scholarship is undoubtedly being built, there is
little published research from this perspective at this moment. A Google search
of a popular critical pedagogy website (Stevens, 2004), for example, only
brings up four references to research with a queer focus. One of these, however
(Grace, 2001), is an exceptional resource for adult educators.
Critical
Theory and Research in Second Language Education
Critical
theory in SLE is such a relatively recent phenomenon that my copy of the
Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (Richards,
Platt and Platt, 1997) makes no mention of it. In fact, the first anthology of
academic research on the topic has only just been published (Norton and Toohey, 2004). The growing importance of the approach is
further evidenced by the fact that the Kluwer Handbook on English Language
Teaching (ed. Cummins & Davison, in press) devotes a substantial portion of
its contents to critical approaches.
Due
to the fact that SLE often occupies a critical role in multicultural societies,
critical researchers in this field have commonly drawn on critical
multicultural and citizenship theory (Chicago Cultural Studies Group, 1992;
Corson, 1990; Cummins, 1988; Isin & Wood, 1999; Kymlicka, 1992; and Young, 1987). Given the importance to
the field of the incredible speed associated with changing forms of
communication, extensive use has also been made of critical theories related to
multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996).
Judging
by Norton and Toohey's recent anthology, critical
research in SLE is focused on identity, the role of research and teacher
education in an effort to reconceptualize the field.
Issues around gender, race, sexuality, linguistic human rights, testing, the place of grammar, popular culture, and community
education are prominent concerns of the scholars contributing to this volume.
As the editors point out, the common thread in the anthology is a struggle to
make power relations explicit because "action on one's oppression comes
only with naming, externalising, and reading the
world, including the cause of one's own oppression" (2004, p. 11).
�
Conclusion:
The Limits of Liberalism and Immigrant Communities
In
arguing for an alternative approach to liberalism with SLE, Ryuko
Kubata outlines the basic tenets of critical
multiculturalism, a term, as I noted in my second paper, that
was first coined by the Chicago Cultural Studies Group. Kubata
notes that
����������� while
liberal multiculturalism values and appreciates cultural differences,
����������� it also
supports the idea all people, regardless of their backgrounds, are
����������� equal and
should have equal opportunities in society. This egalitarianism
����������� lead to
the view that each individual's academic and economic success is
����������� dependent
upon his or her own effort.�������������������������� (2004; p. 30)
When
a student fails to gain academic and economic success, on the other hand, it is
his or her own fault. Striking close to home, Kubata
goes on to say that liberal second language educators often
����������� revert to
the blaming-the-victim, no differential treatment, or the
���� �������discrimination
is everywhere arguments when confronted with such
����������� challenging
questions as, Why are black and Latino(a) students
����������� underrepresented
in certain educational programs?����
(2004: p. 30)
Mitchell�s
2001 research study of the struggles around the goals of public education in
What,
then, does this all mean for the kind of research I hope to conduct in a
Canadian immigrant community? To my mind, the common thread found in the
anthology above brings questions related to ideology and illusion to the
forefront. Naming the root causes of oppression means to unmask the means by
which oppressive ideology is propagated and, in turn, assimilated by oppressed
peoples. As I noted in the first paper in this series, I believe that the
concrete and physical sources of oppression of immigrant communities in
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