ABSTRACT
It is impossible to discuss ‘multicultural education’ without examining what these multiplicities are multiples of; it is equally question-begging to embark on such a discussion without an examination of the culture inscribed in our primary embodiment of our conception of ‘education’: the modern, the contemporary, school. This entails looking, not just at current debates, but at the institutional framework they normally presuppose. I propose to apply my argument to the more specific issues of race, ethnicity and creed. But in my view it would be wrong to ignore the general truth that all education involves interaction and possible clash of cultures, and that, in so far as moral education is the development of the dispositions and capacities of free fellowship, the issues of cohabiting with others, with their differentness and their differences, cut across life’s categories from friendship, marriage and work, to broader local, regional, national and transnational relations. In short, you cannot expect to attach whatever is ‘educationally correct’ regarding specific things like race or gender relations to an otherwise taken-for-granted picture-and then wonder why, for all our efforts, things keep exploding in our faces.
