Chapter 13: Rethinking Resistance in Multicultural Teacher Education: Reflection and Miseducation

Two weeks into the Cultural Diversity course required of all teacher candidates at her institution, Yvonne has made a conscious decision to “turn off.” The multicultural teacher education literature describes her decision as one of resistance. Such resistance, the literature explains, is to be expected from Yvonne. As a “white, Anglo-Saxon, lower or middle-class female who has grown up in a suburban or rural area … is monolingual in English … and has attended a local college or university close to her home” (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998, p. 140), Yvonne is the “typical” candidate for teacher education. Yvonne knows little about the history and cultural practices of racial/ethnic groups different than her own (Bennett, Niggle, & Stage, 1989; Moultry, 1988; Wahab, 1989; Wayson, 1988) and her unsophisticated understanding of the social hierarchy and its effects makes it easy for her to take an individualistic view of school failure (Avery & Walker, 1993; Paine, 1989). Because of this profile, she is likely to resist learning about diversity, the scholars say, on “pedagogical change” and/or “ideological change” grounds (Rodriguez, 1998, pp. 1017-1018). Yvonne is likely to oppose the student-centered, constructivist approaches to teaching and learning advocated by diversity-oriented teacher educators, as well as the premise that using such approaches should be part of a broader struggle for social justice in U.S. schools and society. In other words, as a “typical” teacher candidate, Yvonne is predisposed to resistance before the Cultural Diversity course even begins. Her decision to “turn off” comes as no surprise. It is, after all, just evidence that Yvonne really does lack the multicultural understandings that courses like Cultural Diversity were designed to provide. This is the story the multicultural teacher education literature tells us about Yvonne.