Micro-cultures and the Limits of Multicultural Education

Abstract

This essay puts forth an argument for why multicultural education in the United States is constrained in its important work to increase educational and social equity by the continuing prevalence and use of ethno-racial categories. Though differing forces are at work in other countries, these considerations for the U. S. are important because of its international influences. The core of the argument is that five essentialized categories in the U. S. context that are accepted as primary racial/ethnic identities do not reflect the fluid range of lived experiences of people in this country and around the globe.  It is further argued that a concept of “micro-cultures” provides a framework that helps to circumvent these constraints and their implications for multicultural education.  Micro-cultural identities and affinities reveal distinctive individual and group positions, prerogatives, practices, and perspectives that often are not reflective of specific ethno-racial categories.  This essay reports literature to support its argument and also provides a clear example from a digitally mediated discourse community to illuminate how micro-cultural identities and affinities of individuals are often enabled and enacted via new media. Micro-cultures contribute a new conceptual lens for multicultural education research and practice by offering more complex and nuanced understandings of individual and group cultural practices beyond ascribed categories of race and ethnicity.