The literature is a stand against racism

The argument

Teaching multicultural literature in a classroom setting allows both students and teachers to develop a better understanding of other cultures and their differences. Literature does this in a way that description alone cannot: a novel or a poem presents a culture from the inside, through the people living in it, rather than as a set of facts about a group observed from outside. Multicultural literature enables students to explore cultural customs and diverse language — the specific texture of how people live, speak and observe, rather than the summary version. By learning these differences, students will likely evolve to become more sensitive and understanding of cultures different from their own, and to stand against racism. The connection between the two is not incidental: prejudice depends on a group remaining abstract, and sustained attention to particular people in particular circumstances is what makes the abstraction hard to hold. The effect works in both directions. When students have exposure to multicultural literature they learn to empathize with those who experience discrimination, because they encounter that discrimination as something happening to a character whose life they have been following rather than as a statistic. At the same time it prompts them to reflect on their own cultural viewpoints and stances, which are ordinarily invisible to the person holding them and become visible only when set beside an alternative. The classroom setting matters as much as the texts. Promoting discussion about cultural difference teaches students greater cultural understanding, because it requires them to articulate and defend a reading in front of people who read it differently. In a time when society is opposing bigotry, multicultural literature is therefore a way to promote better understanding in the next generation — reaching students early, and through a subject they are already required to study.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Having open classroom discussions about multicultural literature and cultural differences does not always reach students. Teachers don't have the proper guidelines on how to teach multicultural literature, resulting in students not grasping the whole idea behind what they are reading Students should discover these resources on their own if they please. But mandating that teachers and schools adopt multicultural literature causes more controversy than is worth the trouble.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Exposure to a text is not the same as understanding a culture, and the premise assumes the transfer. What a curriculum actually delivers depends on selection, framing and how discussion is led, and a poorly framed unit can confirm existing assumptions as readily as unsettle them, particularly where a culture is presented through a single narrative. [Rejecting P2] The empathy claim is offered without evidence, and the research is mixed. Some studies report short-term effects on perspective-taking from reading literary fiction, replications have been inconsistent, and effects on attitudes measured weeks later are generally small. [Rejecting P3] The step from individual understanding to standing against racism is the largest and least supported in the argument, since attitude change and behaviour change come apart. The conclusion is also about a curriculum requirement, which needs its own case — what it displaces, who selects the texts, how teachers are prepared — the ground the counter raises directly. A stronger version of this position would rest as well on students seeing themselves represented, and on the merit of the works as literature, neither of which the argument uses.