Multiculturalism discourse in Ontario Schools: Worthy of critique or facilitator of student belonging?

The ideal of multiculturalism is that all ethnocultural groups in a particular society are regarded as equal, and that individuals may identify with their cultures of choice/origin while being full participants in the national identity of the country (Fleras & Elliot, 1992). While Canada prides itself on its adaptation of official multiculturalism policy (Mackey, 2002), this policy and accompanying discourses have also been heavily criticized (Anthias & Yuval-Davis, 1992; Kirova, 2008). In the field of education, the “3-D” approach to culture, that is, integrating superficial aspects of non-Canadian cultures into curricula in the form of “Dining, Dress, and Dance”, has been criticized for treating the cultures and experiences of racialized and Indigenous students as “other” and mainstream Canadian culture as the norm (Sanghera, 2010). Such characterizations rely on the treatment of culture as objectively identifiable traditions and practices that are reliably transmitted across time and space (Gjerde, 2004). In this ethnographic study, interviews and observations with 14 White Canadian teachers and 12 students of African and Caribbean background in a Toronto area school revealed that both groups drew on multiculturalism discourse to demonstrate their knowledge of, and identification with particular nationalities and cultures. However observations also revealed the fluidity of student cultures, and consequently the difficulties that teachers may have in attempting to integrate discrete, cohesive cultures into curricula. Findings therefore support extant critiques of multiculturalism discourse, while also calling attention to the highly contextualized usefulness of 3-D narratives in supporting the identities of students who may otherwise be excluded from mainstream school cultures.