Multiculturalism Permitted in English Only

Overview & Synopsis

The authors of this article discuss the discriminatory practices through language in both multicultural and bilingual education. Bilingual education promotes academic instruction in the native language, to varying degrees, while multicultural education stresses the need to valorize and appreciate cultural differences as a process during which linguistic minority students come to voice. However, in multicultural education, the underlying assumption is that coming to voice takes place in English only. Conversely, while bilingual education offers some degree of native language use, standard native languages are preferred while students' vernaculars are denigrated and ignored, rendering bilingual education colonial-like in nature. Critical and anti-colonial literature, educational research, and current events are used to construct and support the authors' basic argument that, in order for education to truly be liberatory, it must be respectfully communicated in the vernacular of the students themselves, particularly when these students come from subordinated populations.