ABSTRACT
In January 1997 I received a letter in Bristol, England-where I currently live and work-which both surprised and saddened me. In the letter, the Japanese correspondent outlined how she had left her lecturing position in Japan, where she had taught English, to undertake further postgraduate study in the USA on multicultural education. What so surprised me was her reason for doing so: she had made this move, she said, as a direct result of reading my critical ethnography of Richmond Road School in Auckland, New Zealand (May, 1994; see also, May, 1995). Perhaps I should not have been so surprised. After all, the educational innovation apparent at Richmond Road had already received international attention (see Cazden, 1989). Moreover, I had specifically argued in the conclusion to my own ethnography that the school’s approach to multiculturalism-what I had termed ‘critical multiculturalism’—was applicable internationally. In particular, I had argued that the example of this small inner-city New Zealand primary (elementary) school had much to offer to the wider debates on the theory, policy and practice of multiculturalism. I still believe this to be the case but it nevertheless came as somewhat of a shock to be taken at my word. We may all acknowledge the internationalism of academia, but it is not until an event like this occurs that you really start to believe it.
