Mapping a “Multicultural Teacher” and Its Critical Reflection: The Aboriginal Teachers’Definitions of Situations

Author: Ya-Hsuan Wang(Graduate Institute of Education, National Chung Cheng University)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 54, No. 2
Date：June 2009
Pages：1-27
DOI：10.3966/2073753X2009065402001

Abstract：

With the increasing trend on multicultural education, teachers are expected to appreciate other cultures and eliminate personal and national ethnocentrism so that they can understand that a specific culture is not intrinsically superior or inferior to another. This research, focused on the concept of multicultural teacher, rethinks the dialogue between qualitative researchers and Aboriginal schoolteachers. Empirical data were collected by situation interviews with 13 Aboriginal teachers and discussed from the viewpoints of critical multiculturalism. The author links the research findings into some discussing questions as follows. The Aboriginal teachers in this study, when being asked to conceptualise the multicultural teacher, merely value Aboriginal cultures without referring to the non-Aboriginal cultures. It is discussed whether the viewpoint seeing Aboriginal cultures as multicultural education is a sort of mono-cultural perspective or not. Furthermore, Aboriginal teachers demand for a ‘due recognition’ from others in an affective sense of understanding and appreciation. It is further discussed that if such a Taylorian recognition is mono-cultural Aborigine-centred, a sense of essentialist, or an ideal utopian. Finally, some suggestions about multicultural literacy are proposed.

Keywords：multicultural teacher, Aborigines, the definition of situation, recognition

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