Multiculturalism and Its Discontents

Abstract

For decades, educational institutions in Spain have been at the center of cross-cutting tensions between ideologies of diversity and homogeneity, particularly in relation to increased cultural and linguistic heterogeneity. This chapter examines student-teacher interactions in a multiethnic school in a rural Spanish community. This elementary school stood out for the multicultural tenets of its curriculum, which promoted a spirit of tolerance for the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of the student body. The ways in which these tenets were realized in actual practice, however, helped perpetuate the image of immigrant and minority children as the Other. In this context, I investigate how teachers play on essentialist notions of Roma and Moroccan immigrant children’s ethnic and cultural identities through a set of interrelated interactional practices, such as the regimentation of students’ narratives during class discussions. I also examine how these children attempt to resist the teachers’ essentialist formulations.

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