Practitioner Research on Critical Multicultural Pedagogy: Challenging Heterosexism in a Public School

This article examines a sample of educational source materials meant to be used to foster the inclusion of Arab American components in multicultural curriculum. Even though the materials examined can be thought of as good sources (in that they did not provide outright biased misinformation), the authors identify three general areas of concern: (a) conflating, (b) essentializing, and (c) normalizing. Conclusions and recommendations include the need for more focused source material on limited subject areas, focused curriculum development on particular cultural groups, and the use of multicultural materials to promote cultural self-reflection rather than emphasizing the objectification of other groups. Although the focus of this article is on Arab American source materials, our findings can be generalized to source materials on other cultural and ethnic groups.