Citation

McDonough T. Educ. Theory 2008; 58(3): 321-342.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Board of Trustees - University of Illinois, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1741-5446.2008.00291.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In this essay Tim McDonough analyzes a number of different positions within the ongoing discussion on multicultural education in order to provide a conceptual map of the development of the term “culture.” His examination of the discourse begins with liberal multiculturalism; moves through the stages of difference, critical, and poststructural multiculturalism; and ends with what he terms “transfigurative multiculturalism.” McDonough describes how a conception of culture as a field of collective symbolic work has been arrived at through a dialectical movement of the concept across these different phases of multicultural discourse. This review does not attempt to provide a comprehensive account of the complex discourse of multiculturalism. Rather, McDonough charts a course representative of the field for the purpose of enhancing the readers’ understanding of “transfigurative” multiculturalism, which represents a fresh approach in the continuing inquiry into democratic multicultural education in an increasingly global society.