School international days: Disneyfied multiculturalism or spaces for belonging?
Are international or multicultural days demonstrable and meaningful forms of Global Citizenship Education [GCE] or just one-off trivial facades of flags, fashion and food that dodge cultural humility to gloss over the complexities of cultural identity and intercultural experiences?
My research (Ferguson & Brett, 2023) found that international school staff hold up international food fairs and celebrations of cultural difference as key examples of GCE. However, the students that I interviewed did not mention that these celebrations contribute to their development of global citizenship. Other studies have identified some limited socio-emotional benefits of multicultural days for parents and students. Yet as pedagogy, key aspects of quality, authenticity, ethics, responsibility, context and knowledges matter. So we must ask; what kind of intercultural education is delivered through these events?
Globalisation has impacted education in complex dialectic ways. One way that connectivity between the local and global is experienced is through increased social diversity which challenges nation-based education systems (Banks, 2009). Intercultural education or education for intercultural understanding is an initiative with broad aims from helping us all get along to promoting international security. However intercultural education historically came from the Global North, based on localised Western knowledge (R’boul, 2022) and when it meets neoliberal commodification, it can lack global, ethical orientation.
The shallow approaches to intercultural education are in line with the neoliberal structures that direct contemporary life. With the emphasis on privatisation, competition, performativity and marketing (see my previous post) neoliberalism, which has been theorised as a new form of colonialism for education (Sefa Dei, 2019), transforms intercultural education into a display.
Furthermore, elite international schools can be seen to use international days as rituals, identity signifiers and messages of ideal character but overall geared towards defining the institution (Bunnell, 2019; 2021). My research revealed that a culturally dominant group in the school community will voluntarily guide these events. It begs the questions; who are the cultural festivals really for and why?
Diversity is a desirable image for educational institutions. Pursued to boost intercultural capacities, but not always accompanied by a committed justice ethic for disruption of sociocultural hierarchies entrenched by coloniality, whiteness as norm (Gardner-McTaggart, 2021), and the associated silencing of knowledges. Sriprakash et al. (2022) state that this strategy, seen widely in higher education, “both creates values from human life whilst at the same time devaluing it” (p 46).
In educational settings this can manifest as“hallway multiculturalism” (Hoffman, 1996, p 546), scripted exoticized othering as in ‘saris, samosas and steel bands’ (Starkey, 2007) and ‘stomp and chomp’ diversity (Allard, 2006). This approach has been justifiably criticised for essentializing cultures and closing authentic equitable spaces for advancing intercultural education.
“projecting intercultural education as the process of managing cultural diversity or promoting equitable considerations of all cultures without political analysis of power relations may render intercultural education futile.” (R’boul, 2022, p 2)
Some research shows that school international or cultural days can be helpful for parents and students to feel a sense of belonging and identity. This has been indicated in some Nordic studies (Dewilde et al., 2021; Niemi & Hotulainen, 2015). Despite some benefits, cultural celebrations are criticised for not being enough (Gorski, 2008; Ngo, 2010). Banks (2009, p 19) classifies celebrations as a simplistic “ethnic additive” paradigm of multicultural education.
There is no doubt that educators and parents have good intentions in organising international festival days. However, as intercultural education and broadly as GCE, they are one-dimensional, unimaginative shows that avoid critical analysis. Defining culture through nation states ignores the dynamic porous complexities of cultural identity. However, there is some evidence of positive socio-psychological impact of cultural celebrations.
Schools could critically and reflexively examine approaches to diversity and intercultural education. This includes evaluating the totality of intercultural pedagogy with an ethical global perspective. Two key questions posed by Zembylas (2022) that could be a useful starting point for schools are:
“What kinds of diversity concepts are being used in a particular school/university or sociopolitical setting and why?
How are these concepts framed?” (p 129)
Furthermore, Dervin’s (2023) book The Paradoxes of Interculturality offers useful fragments for thought and reflexive statements to consider, such as “At times, interculturality is a repository of frozen ideas”
These provocations help to interrogate the power, assumptions and knowledges that dominate, to begin decentring and imagining meaningful intercultural education to build just and caring relations.
References:
Allard, A.C. (2006). ‘A bit of a chameleon act’: a case study of one teacher’s understandings of diversity. European Journal of Teacher Education, 29(3), 319-340.
Banks, J.A. (2009). Diversity, group identity, and citizenship education in a global age. In J.A.Banks (Ed.). The Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education. Routledge.
Banks, J.A. (2009). Multicultural education: dimensions and paradigms. In J.A.Banks (Ed.). The Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education. Routledge.
Bunnell, T 2019, 'Developing and institutionalising the ‘Internationally-Minded School’: The role of the ‘Numerous Fs’', Journal of Research in International Education, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 186-198.
Bunnell, T. (2021). The elite nature of International Schooling: a theoretical framework based upon rituals and character formation. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 30(3), 247-267.
Dervin, F. (2023) The paradoxes of interculturality: A toolbox of out-of-the-box ideas for intercultural communication education. Routledge.
Dewilde, J., Kolbjørn Kjørven, O., & Skrefsrud, T. (2021) Multicultural school festivals as a creative space for identity construction – the perspective of minority parents, Intercultural Education, 32(2), 212-229.
Ferguson, C. & Brett, P. (2023). Teacher and student interpretations of global citizenship education in international schools. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/17461979231211489
Hoffman, D. (1996). Culture and self in multicultural education: Reflections on dicourse, text, and practice. American Educational Research Journal, 33(3), 545-569.
Gardner-McTaggart, A.C. (2021) Washing the world in whiteness; international schools’ policy, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 53(1), 1-20.
Gorski, P. C. 2008. “Good Intentions are Not Enough: A Decolonizing Intercultural Education.” Intercultural Education, 19(6), 515–525.
Niemi, P.M. & Hotulainen, R. (2015). Enhancing students’ sense of belonging through school celebrations: A study in Finnish lower-secondary schools. International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 5(2), 43-58.
Ngo, B. (2010). Doing ‘Diversity” at Dynamic High: Problems and possibilities of Multicultural education in practice. Education and Urban Society, 42(4), 473-495.
R’boul, H. (2022). Intercultivism and alternative knowledges in intercultural education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2023.21660
Sefa-Dei, G. J. (2019). Neoliberalism as a new form of colonialism in education. In S. Chitpin and J.P. Portelli (Eds.). Confronting Educational Policy in Neoliberal Times: International perspectives. Routledge.
Sriprakash, A., Rudolph, S., & Gerrard, J. (2022). Learning Whiteness: Education and the settler colonial state. Pluto.
Starkey, H. (2007). Language Education, Identities and Citizenship: Developing Cosmopolitan Perspectives, Language and Intercultural Communication, 791), 56-71.
Zembylas, M. (2022). A decolonial critique of ‘diversity’: theoretical and methodological implications for meta-intercultural education. Intercultural Education, 34(2), 118–133.