This article criticises the role the mass media has played in constructing an idea of the Other, that is, people outside the national mainstream or other nationalities. It explains how the media promote or hinder a positive outlook on cultural diversity. Based on a review of the scholarly debate on media representations of Others, it identifies…

According to the deprovincialization thesis, interethnic contact involves a reappraisal and distancing from the ingroup. Contact can broaden one's horizon by acknowledging and recognizing the value of other cultures and thereby putting the taken-for-granted own cultural standards into perspective. The current research uses data from three surveys…

In this historical study, the author explores the early racial and cultural views of John Dewey. The author argues that, during his years at the University of Chicago, when he wrote the majority of his works on education, Dewey considered American non-White minorities to be biologically equal to Whites but socially deficient. In particular, Dewey…

The objective of this target article is to chart the potential threat to research validity in the field of giftedness research, and by implication also the study and practice of gifted education, in the light of cultural bias. It endeavours to pull together facts from a number of academic disciplines to make sense of how culture relates to…

Seeking to deepen our understandings of the ways international study abroad programs may enhance efforts to prepare culturally responsive teachers, the purpose of this case study was to explore a preservice teacher's intercultural development during a semester-long teacher education program in London, England. Such study abroad teacher education…

This paper analyzes whether ethnocentric curricula, defined as courses that focus exclusively on particular racial/ethnic groups, are more prevalent at minority-serving colleges than at mainstream institutions. Using original curricular data for a sample of tribal, Black, Hispanic, and mainstream colleges, the author found that ethnocentric…

The emphasis on multicultural education and cultural competency has been a popular subject among teacher educators and scholars (Cochran-Smith, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 1999a, 1999b; Ladson-Billings, 2003, 2006; Perry, Moore, Acosta, Edwards, & Frey, 2006; Sleeter, 2008, 2009; Sleeter & Stillman, 2005; Sleeter,1991, 2001, 2008; Sleeter…

Despite growing scholarly attention to multicultural teacher education, most scholarship focuses on teacher education students rather than those who are preparing them to teach multiculturally. This study, a grounded theory exploration of data from a survey (N = 70) of multicultural teacher educators, represents an attempt to shift some of that…

The two notions of "globalization" and "knowledge society" are often assumed to be relatively neutral descriptions of contemporary social and cultural developments, although they are embedded in discourses on power and domination. In this paper the argument is made that both these notions can be understood as expressions of an ideology of…

Counter-education that addresses seriously the challenge of loss, exile, and the deceiving "home-returning" projects accepts that no positive Utopia awaits us as "truth", "genuine life", "worthy struggle", "pleasure" or worthy self-annihilation. Loss is not to be recovered or compensated; not for the individual nor for any kind of "we". And yet,…

In this paper, the authors discuss two complementary life history research projects investigating prospective teachers' identities in relation to their race and social class. Drawing on the experiences of one student from each study, they show how both whites and students of color primarily thought about one another as "others"--people who…

Despite the vast literature on Dewey and his laboratory school, most scholars have failed to contextualize Dewey's pedagogical ideas in the intellectual currents of the period, particularly the historicist concept of social development known as recapitulation and/or correspondence theory. In this article, the author explores how and why history…

As the United States confronts increasing diversity, primarily attributable to migration and globalization trends, public schools are gradually becoming more ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse with groups including Black English-speaking students from the Caribbean. However, school personnel like administrators have the tendency to…

Although Western cultures tend to view dolphins as friendly and benevolent, in Japanese fishing communities, "iruka" (dolphins) are often viewed as food or pests. These perspectives have led to intense conflicts between Japanese fishermen and activists from the west. This article presents an exercise that simulates intercultural conflict by asking…

I explore the role and value of African music in education, by drawing from a study of Grade 5 learners at a school in the Eastern Cape, which was designed to answer the question: Could Xhosa children in South Africa sing Xhosa indigenous songs significantly better than European folk songs? The experimental group received instruction in Xhosa…