Equality, Philosophy and

Multicultural Education

Can what is good for some be good for

everyone?

What makes something good?

Contemporary philosophers ask:

• Is it the intrinsic value it holds?

• Is it something that attracts people to it?

• Or is it simply something people delight in?

Subjectivists Theories

• Provide invaluable insight and ask questions begging the very nature of goodness and morality; i.e., the ought and the should given certain conditions and, of course, rationality,

BUT……..• there is no consensus about how

these difficulties should be resolved.

Education and Philosophy

• Both are separate disciplines yet intertwined

• Both inevitably intersect and/or extend cultural values and ideas.

• In multicultural education and/or cross-cultural education can equality be achieved?

• Will it promote happiness or something good?

Is equality the answer?

• According to Andrew Mason in his article (Equality of Opportunity and Differences in Social Circumstances), the point of equality of opportunity is to create a level playing-field.

Equal opportunity

• Globalization, study-abroad programs, immigration, and the like have alternately co-authored a level playing field.

• Yet, opportunities granted do not always mean equality.

• In fact, different ways of knowing are not often equally valued with the dominant and/or ‘scientific ideals.’

• How then should they be valued?

Points to consider…..

• Considering Kant……..

• Never use a person as a means to an end

• Never tell a lie

• Engaging the Categorical Imperative

Mill Utilitarianism

• The greatest good for the greatest number……..

• If society fails to embrace the “minority” or “multicultural model” will society lose more than mere “dominant views?”

• Might it lose much more than it stands to gain?

Critics counter this:

• Multicultural education challenges the very basis of education and knowledge exploration.

• It challenges the search for one truth and universals.

• If we embrace multicultural perspectives, then education will suffer.

Rawls’ Distributive Justice

• If we examine this under the veil of ignorance, in which, no identities are known to us and people are given equal attention, social and economic resources and access to knowledge education and all that entails, does this benefit multicultural education? Society?

• Does this promote and extend knowledge acquisition and knowledge creation?

Equality?

• Nearly every philosophy written contends that individuals have intrinsic value.

• Every culture has its own norms, its own systems of knowledge, its discovery and its perpetuation.

• Shouldn’t they be valued equally?

Why equality and equal access?

• Differences in knowledge systems and methods of discovery will ultimately reveal universal truths.

• Society will benefit.

• Inequality will merely delimit its progress, devalue and debase persons and cultures and ultimately serve as societal detriment.

References

Ethics Updates - Race, Ethnicity, Multiculturalism and Ethical Theory . Retrieved from http://ethics.sandiego.edu/theories/

Race/index.asp - 8/3/2007

Lamont, J. and Favor, C. (2008). Distributive Justice. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/justice-distributive/

Song, S (2010). Multiculturalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Retrieved from http://plato.

stanford.edu/entries/multiculturalism/

Turgeon, W. (2006). Multiculturalism: Politics of difference, education and philosophy for children. Analytic Teaching, Vol. 24(2):96-109.