Celebrating Diversity Vs. Addressing Power Dynamics: Exploring the Effects of University Level Multicultural Pedagogy

Background/Purpose: The mission of multicultural pedagogy is to increase students’ critical consciousness surrounding topics of social justice. In recent years, this mission of multicultural pedagogy has been criticized by theorists for exclusively focusing on celebrating diversity without also paying tribute to how privilege and power dynamics influence social structures.

Study Objectives: The purpose of the present study is to investigate the criticism that multicultural pedagogy encourages students to celebrate diversity without also encouraging students to acknowledge privilege and power differentials. Specifically, because many of the theoretical criticisms has been grounded in dialogues around race and ethnicity, the present study will explore students’ interest in celebrating racial diversity and students’ awareness that people of color lack power in society.

Hypotheses: Hypothesis 1 predicts that students enrolled in a multicultural education course will leave the course with a higher interest in celebrating racial diversity compared with students in a non-multicultural education course. Hypothesis 2 predicts that there will be no difference in students’ awareness that people of color lack power in society between students in a multicultural education course and students in a non-multicultural education course.

Methods: A quasi-experimental design was used to understand how enrollment in a multicultural education course influences students’ interest in celebrating diversity and awareness that people of color lack power in society. Participants included 1189 students recruited from a large Midwest university ranging from 18 to 45 years of age (M=19.93, SD=1.93). In terms of racial diversity, 552 participants (46.4%) self-reported as White, 514 participants (43.2%) self-reported as a person of color, and 123 participants (10.3%) failed to report their racial identification. Students were sampled from three types of multicultural education pedagogies (dialogue course (n=283, 23.8%), service learning course (n=169, 14.2%), traditional lecture based multicultural education course (n=435, 36.6%)) and one non-multicultural education pedagogy (introduction to psychology (n=239, 20.1%) that acted as a control comparison group. Participants in all pedagogies were surveyed on the first day of class (pre-test), the last day of class (post-test), and six months after the last day of class (follow-up).

Results: Two repeated-measures ANCOVAs were conducted to test hypotheses 1 and 2. Controlling for participants’ race, gender, and political ideology, initial results found partial support for both hypotheses. For hypothesis 1, students enrolled in the dialogue course and traditional lecture based multicultural education course demonstrated a statistically significantly higher interest in celebrating racial diversity after completing the course. No statistically significant effects were found among students in the service learning course or the non-multicultural education course. For hypothesis 2, students enrolled in the dialogue course demonstrated a statistically significantly higher awareness that people of color lack power in society after completing the course. However, awareness of power was not sustained and dialogue students returned to baseline power awareness 6 months after completing the course. No statistically significant effects were found among students in the service-learning course, traditional lecture based multicultural education course, or the non-multicultural education course.

Implications: Findings from the present study have implications for the teaching of university-level multicultural pedagogy.