Development Education and Multi-Ethnic Education: Some Tensions. Development Education Paper No. 21.

Overview & Synopsis

The document examines the relationships between multi-ethnic and development education in Great Britain. Multi-ethnic education, initially with a national focus, has a global dimension, and development education, initially with a global focus, has a national and even local dimension. A common interest in human diversity and human inequalities would seem to unite development and multi-ethnic education. Both approaches are engaged in helping the pupil to make sense of an essentially hierarchical world and have adopted a cross-curriculum strategy of education. Were it not for the importance of the concept of "self-image" within multi-ethnic education, its aims would be happily complementary with those of development education. From a multi-ethnic viewpoint, development education is criticized for: inculcating or reinforcing attitudes of white Western superiority; for damaging the self-image of the black or brown child within Western society; for its preoccupation with poverty, disasters, and catastrophes; and for being more successful in formulating questions than in devising solutions. However, it appears that a complete accommodation of multi-ethnic sensitivities would necessarily eliminate the welfare focus of development education. Such a strategy would constitute a futile attempt to disguise the real nature of the contemporary world and could only reinforce complacency. (NEC)