Looking at Pedagogy in 3-D

The postmodern appeal to a politics of difference in radical pedagogy has been a much-needed response to neoconservative assaults on multiculturalism. It has insisted upon addressing existing social constructions of disparity rooted in perceptions of difference and identity. ¹ This appeal makes the hybrid subject, as a fusion of often conflicting racial, ethnic, class, gender, and sexual identities, an important element in transformative education and refuses the commonplace assumption that all differences are “equal.” In addition, the explicit emphasis on difference in radical pedagogy is an attempt to disturb the security of identity politics and to recognize the fragmentary nature of subjectivity. Difference among, between, and within individuals disrupts a “unified concept of identity.” ²