While a focus on improving teachers‟ and institutions‟ practices to include diverse students is important, a lack of analysis of deeper assumptions and values means that change is limited (Haggis, 2006). In particular, there can be a lack of analysis of power relations involved in diversity, as “diversity is not only a powerful concept; it is a concept of power” (Zepke & Leach, 2007, p. 664). Critical transformative perspectives are concerned with
40 exposing how the practices of the dominant culture foster inequality and oppression, and they seek to develop a democratic vision that contributes to social justice. Teachers share knowledge in ways that challenge existing structures of domination both within and beyond the classroom, such as hierarchies of gender, race, class and religion, and they support learning that serves “to educate students for the practice of freedom rather than the maintenance of existing structures of domination” (hooks, 2003, p. 46). Teachers use student-centred pedagogies but also engage in a process of dialogue “to enable students to think critically about issues of power and inequality” (Tomalin, 2007, p. 625). Reynolds and Trehan (2001) describe critical pedagogies as processes of education which question assumptions and taken-for-granted knowledge, make power relations and vested interests transparent, acknowledge the social nature of experience and its authority in developing ideas, and promote the ideal of a society based on justice. Critical transformative
perspectives can have an individual focus where students engage in critical reflection and draw on their own diverse identities and backgrounds to understand and change how they are positioned in the world, or a social focus that develops an understanding of relations of power and how social groups can change oppressive social structures (Zepke, 2008).
Influenced by Freire‟s pedagogy, Baltodano (in Darder, 2002) believes teaching can be a “subversive force and a political calling” (p. 208), which challenges not only students‟ beliefs and practices but calls into question a teacher‟s own social and ideological location. With other faculty members, she strives to create democratic classrooms enabling dialogue that supports personal and social empowerment. As teacher educators, they aim to prepare competent and critically aware preservice teachers who can become agents of change and social justice. Dialogue and developing student voice are important in critical
transformative educational approaches but Mayuzumi et al. (2007) argue that discussions about diversity should not just be about voice—the ability to speak from differing
positions—but also the need to be heard. As Japanese students at a Canadian university, they ask if they are listened to only when they talk about their ethnic background or international perspectives, and challenge educators to consider the notion of diversity within the power relations in higher education and the larger society.
While many teachers using a critical transformative approach promote dialogue across difference, some educators note that social power relations are reproduced in the classroom and these can prevent students from speaking (Ellsworth, 1989). Jones and Jenkins‟ (2007)
41 questioning of who it is that desires dialogue in higher education led them to a different pedagogical approach to student diversity. They divided their undergraduate class into two groups that were taught separately for part of the time: Pakeha and Polynesian (including Māori students). They found that Pakeha students were upset that they were separated from their Māori peers, but most of the Māori students enjoyed the opportunity to develop ideas amongst themselves. Jones and Jenkins consider that, given New Zealand‟s colonial history, indigenous students may not want to engage in dialogue. Dialogue across
difference may be difficult due to political, economic and cultural differences within most societies. In particular, since minority and indigenous students are already familiar with dominant Western views and interests, the value for these students of cross-cultural engagement in the classroom may be minimal compared with the value for students from dominant cultural groups who have less understanding of other cultures. The question is: „whose needs are being served in cross-cultural engagement?‟ Jones and Jenkins suggest that parallel rather than joint critical inquiry into relationships between dominant and indigenous or minority groups can offer powerful opportunities for cross-cultural learning.
Another critical transformative approach in New Zealand is that of Kaupapa Māori
pedagogies, which question the dominance of Pakeha interests in education and “assert the validity of Māori knowledge, language, custom and practice” (Wilkie, 2006, p. 47). One response to Pakeha dominance has been the establishment of wananga, higher education institutions providing programmes based on knowledge of ahuatanga Māori (Māori tradition) according to tikanga Māori (Māori custom). Another response has been the provision of support services for Māori within mainstream higher education systems. Bringing a Kaupapa Māori framework into higher education institutions can improve the participation and achievement of Māori students. Wilkie discusses a Kaupapa Māori intervention in post-graduate education that supports Māori doctoral students, arguing that the increasing number of Māori graduating with doctoral degrees benefits all of New Zealand.
A critical transformative approach that goes beyond simply including diverse students is proposed by MacDonald and Bernado (2005) who argue that far from being deficient, students whose identities are ignored or devalued by social power systems develop potentially powerful skills for critical inquiry. These authors define diversity as “a
42 personal perceptions, and judgments about others” (p.2). They believe that educational practice can be enhanced by drawing on the unique competencies of students who live in multiple worlds, and especially those whose skills and knowledges are marginalized. Because marginalization is a product of social power, those with less power in a given context are more likely to be judged as deficient, but at the same time most likely will understand power dynamics better than those who hold more power. MacDonald and Bernado suggest that students who have creative responses to marginalization and skills to deal with multicultural identities be positioned in the middle of the curriculum to help others learn about power, critical inquiry and multiple perspectives.
Categories of difference such as ethnicity, class, gender, and ability are social
constructions. The many ideas about what difference is, and how it is constructed, defined and employed in different contexts emphasize that difference is political (Johnson & Pihama, 1995). The notion of difference therefore needs to be interrogated (Mayuzumi et al., 2007). It can be understood as inherent qualities within individuals or groups, as divergence from a norm, or as constructed within social relationships. Johnson and Pihama (1995, p. 75) note that “Difference has been constructed in ways which set up groups and individuals in oppositional contrasts to each other.” The meaning of difference is only significant in a system where such differences matter; difference is socially constructed and defined from a particular position, usually that of the dominant social or cultural group. The dominant group occupies the positions of a norm against which other groups are measured and found deficient or deviant (Young, 1990). Dominant or privileged groups are perceived in neutral terms, while other groups are marked as different or „other‟. Otherness can be understood as “processes of marginalization in which those with more social power make inclusion/exclusion decisions about others or are unable or unwilling to even acknowledge them” (MacDonald & Bernado, 2005, p. 3).
Some writers suggest that identity based on categories (such as ethnicity, gender etc.) is a double-edged sword (Humphrey, 1999). Because some identities experience oppression within the dominant Western culture, people who share a particular form of oppressed identity need to group together for safety, healing and celebrating their difference.
However, that difference can end up being reinforced and sustained within the society that oppresses the group, and potential alliances with other oppressed groups may be
43 identities instead of realizing the fluid nature of any category (Thomas, 1999; Tomalin, 2007). This form of „identity politics‟ can be seen as “reinscribing the very boundaries it seeks to challenge” (Thomas, 1999, p. 114), leading to greater divisions and increased tensions between identity groups (Rata & Openshaw, 2006). These problems with
structural approaches to difference and diversity, along with the awareness of the dynamic nature of identity and the multiple forms of difference that are ascribed to or chosen by individuals, have challenged educators and led to discussions about diversity from poststructural perspectives.