What are some key points of postcolonial theory? You may consider the following

Question

What are some key points of postcolonial theory? You may consider the following specific questions How does postcolonial theory challenge mainstream international management, and why does this matter for practical reasons of daily working and management? Discuss the meaning of specific concepts from postcolonial theory, and give examples. You may use hypothetical examples on how the concepts apply in management and work, or actual examples from your work experience, academic literature, the news, and so on. Connect to the transcript/video of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s talk, the ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ Https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en (This link provides the video to the left, and also has a written transcript of the talk). How does ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ illustrate key points of postcolonial theory? What are some specific practical consequences in global management of ‘The Danger of a Single Story’? What ware some stigmatised or overlooked experiences, from module readings, which challenge ‘A Single Story’?

Explanation / Answer

Key Points of Post Colonial Theory:-

post-colonialism: Broadly a study of the effects of colonialism on cultures and societies. It is concerned with both how European nations conquered and controlled "Third World" cultures and how these groups have since responded to and resisted those encroachments. Post-colonialism, as both a body of theory and a study of political and cultural change, has gone and continues to go through three broad stages:

ambivalence: the ambiguous way in which colonizer and colonized regard one another. The colonizer often regards the colonized as both inferior yet exotically other, while the colonized regards the colonizer as both enviable yet corrupt. In a context of hybridity, this often produces a mixed sense of blessing and curse.

alterity: "the state of being other or different"; the political, cultural, linguistic, or religious other. The study of the ways in which one group makes themselves different from others.

colonial education:  the process by which a colonizing power assimilates either a subaltern native elite or a larger population to its way of thinking and seeing the world.

diaspora: the voluntary or enforced migration of peoples from their native homelands. Diaspora literature is often concerned with questions of maintaining or altering identity, language, and culture while in another culture or country.

essentialism: the essence or "whatness" of something. In the context of race, ethnicity, or culture, essentialism suggests the practice of various groups deciding what is and isn't a particular identity. As a practice, essentialism tends to overlook differences within groups often to maintain the status quo or obtain power. Essentialist claims can be used by a colonizing power but also by the colonized as a way of resisting what is claimed about them.

ethnicity: a fusion of traits that belong to a group–shared values, beliefs, norms, tastes, behaviors, experiences, memories, and loyalties. Often deeply related to a person’s identity.

exoticism: the process by which a cultural practice is made stimulating and exciting in its difference from the colonializer’s normal perspective. Ironically, as European groups educated local, indigenous cultures, schoolchildren often began to see their native lifeways, plants, and animals as exotic and the European counterparts as "normal" or "typical."

hegemony: the power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all, often not only through means of economic and political control but more subtly through the control of education and media.

hybridity: new transcultural forms that arise from cross-cultural exchange. Hybridity can be social, political, linguistic, religious, etc. It is not necessarily a peaceful mixture, for it can be contentious and disruptive in its experience. Note the two related definitions:

catalysis: the (specifically New World) experience of several ethnic groups interacting and mixing with each other often in a contentious environment that gives way to new forms of identity and experience.

creolization: societies that arise from a mixture of ethnic and racial mixing to form a new material, psychological, and spiritual self-definition.

identity: the way in which an individual and/or group defines itself. Identity is important to self-concept, social mores, and national understanding. It often involves both essentialism and othering.

ideology: "a system of values, beliefs, or ideas shared by some social group and often taken for granted as natural or inherently true" (Bordwell & Thompson 494)

language: In the context of colonialism and post-colonialism, language has often become a site for both colonization and resistance. In particular, a return to the original indigenous language is often advocated since the language was suppressed by colonizing forces. The use of European languages is a much debated issue among postcolonial authors.

abrogation: a refusal to use the language of the colonizer in a correct or standard way.

appropriation: "the process by which the language is made to 'bear the burden' of one's own cultural experience."

magical realism: the adaptation of Western realist methods of literature in describing the imaginary life of indigenous cultures who experience the mythical, magical, and supernatural in a decidedly different fashion from Western ones. A weaving together elements we tend to associate with European realism and elements we associate with the fabulous, where these two worlds undergo a "closeness or near merging."

mapping: the mapping of global space in the context of colonialism was as much prescriptive as it was descriptive. Maps were used to assist in the process of aggression, and they were also used to establish claims. Maps claims the boundaries of a nation, for example.

metanarrative: ("grand narratives," "master narratives.") a large cultural story that seeks to explain within its borders all the little, local narratives. A metanarrative claims to be a big truth concerning the world and the way it works. Some charge that all metanarratives are inherently oppressive because they decide whether other narratives are allowed or not.

mimicry: the means by which the colonized adapt the culture (language, education, clothing, etc.) of the colonizer but always in the process changing it in important ways. Such an approach always contains it in the ambivalence of hybridity.

nation/nation-state: an aggregation of people organized under a single government. National interest is associated both with a struggle for independent ethnic and cultural identity, and ironically an opposite belief in universal rights, often multicultural, with a basis in geo-economic interests. Thus, the move for national independence is just as often associated with region as it is with ethnicity or culture, and the two are often at odds when new nations are formed.

orientalism: the process (from the late eighteenth century to the present) by which "the Orient" was constructed as an exotic other by European studies and culture. Orientalism is not so much a true study of other cultures as it is broad Western generalization about Oriental, Islamic, and/or Asian cultures that tends to erode and ignore their substantial differences.

other: the social and/or psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes another group. By declaring someone "Other," persons tend to stress what makes them dissimilar from or opposite of another, and this carries over into the way they represent others, especially through stereotypical images.

race: the division and classification of human beings by physical and biological characteristics. Race often is used by various groups to either maintain power or to stress solidarity. In the 18th and19th centuries, it was often used as a pretext by European colonial powers for slavery and/or the "white man's burden."

semiotics: a system of signs which one knows what something is. Cultural semiotics often provide the means by which a group defines itself or by which a colonializing power attempts to control and assimilate another group.

space/place:space represents a geographic locale, one empty in not being designated. Place, on the other hand, is what happens when a space is made or owned. Place involves landscape, language, environment, culture, etc.

subaltern: the lower or colonized classes who have little access to their own means of expression and are thus dependent upon the language and methods of the ruling class to express themselves.

worlding: the process by which a person, family, culture, or people is brought into the dominant Eurocentric/Western global society.

How does postcolonial theory challenge mainstream international management, and why does this matter for practical reasons of daily working and management?

Post-colonial theory is a post-positivist/reflectivist/constitutive and non-mainstream International Relations (IR)i theory which posits a critical thinking to dominant IR theories. It is assumed to offer an alternative to the Eurocentric stance and concepts of classical International Relatios theories and carry a potential to move beyond these mainstream theories, even to restructure them. Post-colonial theoreticians, like all critical scholars, have tried to shift the classical thinking in the discipline and save it from the hegemony of Western conceptions by challenging “Western-theorizing” and “decolonizing” it. However, it is not a single theory but a set of different theories. There is an immense diversity of post-colonial theory which focus on different issues such as literature, art, music, linguistics, slavery, migration, discrimination, historiography and discusses different kinds of subjugation like racism, gender, nationalism and identity. Both subaltern and post-colonial studies are based on the main aspects of colonialism and its pervasive effects which have persisted remarkably even after the end of the colonial rule. As the term implies, the historical phenomenon of colonialism, that is to say, colonial practices, the foundations of authority and imperial dominance in European colonies and/or protectorates is at the heart of the post-colonial writings. The literature, therefore, shows consensus in using the concept of post-colonialism to cover all practices used in the process 2 starting from the beginnig of colonialism till today. This paper aims to introduce some of the key arguments and issues of this theory -which was largely ignored by IR theoreticians- as well as the most important debates in recent post-colonial theory. The theory will be elaborated by analyzing the writings of the most important figures in the field such as Memmi, Fanon, Césaire and their successors like Said, Spivak, Bhabha and Chakrabarty. The influence of leading scholars as Foucault and Gramsci on the construction of many postcolonial critical accounts is the last concern of this study. In the conclusion, the potential of post-colonial theory to offer an alternative to classic International Relations theories and to create an egalitarian non-Western IR will tried to be analyzed.

Post-colonial theory offers a critical thinking to dominant International Relations theories while focusing on the main concepts and terminology used in the IR literature. While doing so, it uses many of the same terminology of critical theory. The post-colonial scholars in diverse fields, sharing different scholarly interests, generally focus their critique on the Western-centred thinking of the colonial world and they, therefore, intend to provide an alternative to the Western-theorizing. There is a growing body of post-colonial work, concentrating on issues including literature, language, art, racism, nationalism and so forth. The theory also involves discussion about the ways current IR theories analyze -but generally marginalize- the post-colonial world and emphasizes the requirement of a post-colonial theorizing. The post-colonial scholars further criticize IR for being a discipline which priviliges the studies of Anglo-American scholars and academic terms of Western world. Although such post-colonial thinkers contain internal differences, as Neufeld emphasizes, “there is no reason that post-colonial theory should be all of a piece.” However, Neufeld also points out that conceptualizing and respecting that plurality and also constructing and representing a theoretical tradition - as “wholly other” is a problematic move (2009, p .2). The post-colonial scholars criticize the ignorance of non-Western world both in international relations studies and IR theorizing. Neuman also notes that the role of the Third World in international relations is largely unexplored in the literature and International Relations Theory have been relatively silent on this issue. Moreover, even central concepts of IR theory including anarchy, the state, sovereignty, rational choice, alliance and the international system, as Neuman itemizes, are troublesome when applied to Third World countries. Mainstream IR theories are originated largely in the USA and interested exclusively what happens and happened in the West. In this respect, most IR theorists believe that “studying the Western experience is empirically sufficient to establish general laws” for 13 different units of analysis and few of these theoreticians look to the Third World to find evidence for their arguments (1998, pp. 1-2). It is essentially this Eurocentric attitude of Western theorists that many of the post-colonial and subaltern writers criticize. Post-colonial theory and the epistemological position of Southern countries are largely neglected in International Relaions thinking. In fact, post-colonial approaches generally criticize the existingt IR theories by employing the concepts that comply with the realities of the “core” countries but cannot explain the individuality of the post-colonial world. Moreover, since these theoreticians generally incline to treat their assumptions as universal, other cases which deviate from the general trend are regarded as a failure. For instance, since the theories of International Relations assume that the dominant actors in international system is the states, the states that cannot meet the Westphalian criteria have been accepted as illegitimate or simply being weak, failed, quasi; unable to provide the basic social and economic needs of their own citizens. International Relations scholarship is also concerned with the relations between the great powers whereas the underdeveloped parts of the system are not represented in the field. The discipline of International Relations is further criticized for being dominated by Western scholars and for not allowing many authors from non-Western countries to publish in IR journals.v Simply put, post-colonial writers intend to indicate that dominant IR theories fail to understand the dynamics of of the colonial world, therefore, the development of available approaches from below are necessary. The Eurocentric thought in International Relations is criticized by many scholars by arguing that the standard reference points of the discipline are drawn from Europe’s “internal” history and the disciplinary canon consists of European classical thought. Jones notes that the colonial past is absent in IR’s self-representation although the discipline’s founding years councides with a period when the colonial powers of Europe were occupying and controlling vast areas of the world. Moreover, the studies of IR have little to say about the decolonization period and therefore, one of the most important historical processes of the century is removed from the theories and substantive concerns of IR (2006, pp. 1-9). Krishna describes this systematic politics of forgetting of IR as a “willful amnesia” (2006, p. 89). Although the European state system and its role in world affairs since the sixteenth century is accepted as the root of modern international relations since “European history remains fundamental to our understanding of the contemporary world”, for most of the world, the major defining form of international relations is the history of colonialism and its pervasive effects on the ex-colonies (Jones, pp. 3-4 and Halperin, 2006, p. 43). For Jones, diminishing the importance of colonialism to the study of international relations is to diminish the significance of all peoples 14 who suffered colonialism. It is, therefore, a great necessity to contribute to a better understanding of international relations, its history and world order where unequal power relations prevail by confronting the colonial legacy that modern IR has failed to shed and by a critical survey of recognized IR by means of a broader form of critique that encompasses the discipline as a whole. Decolonizing knowledge and telling the real history of Europe has an important place in post-colonial and subaltern studies (2006, pp. 3-8). 4.1.Decolonizing IR and International Relations Theories In 1977, Stanley Hoffmann depicted International Relations as an American social sciencevi and more than two decades later, in 2000, Steve Smith noted that although there were promising developments within the field, particularly in the UK, including the increase in the opposition to positivism in international relations and more openness in the UK academic community, it was the US academic community that still dominated the discipline and the mainstream US literature was anything like as open or pluralist.vii Vasquez had previosuly indicated in 1998 that the discipline is dominated primarily by the parameters of the realist paradigm and further, some of the fundamental assumptions of this theory are shared by most scholars in the discipline while the assertions of other approaches are confined to a narrower group. viii Generally, the study of IR neglected the intellectuals of the global South and their roles in the continuity and change in the discipline. Mgonja and Makombe draws a postcolonial approach to critique the Eurocentric nature and character of IR discipline and its negligence on what happens or happened outside the West. The authors claim that IR privileges the Eurocentric world views as an integral to the ordering and functioning of the discipline and the aspects of ‘high politics’ at the expense of Third World or peripheries (Mgonja and. Makombe, 2009, pp. 27-29). Dunn argues that the marginalization of Africa in the political field -a continent which has a long colonial history- has a correlation in the continent’s marginalization by the dominant (Western-produced) IR theories: “Africa has long been absent in theorizing about world politics.” Neorealism, for example, unabashedly focuses on the so-called “great” powers of IR. Africa and the Third World have no place in their systemic analysis (2001, p. 2). Chen also holds that here is apparently no non-Western IR theory in Asia: Re-envisioning IR in Asia is about “reorienting IR itself towards a postWestern era that does not reinforce the hegemony of the West within (and without) the discipline” (2011). As noted by Makram, relatively little research has been done on the regional, i.e. Asian, African and/or Latin American contribution to international relations 15 theories whereas the regionally dictated contextual factors shape both regional thinking and the choices of decisionmakers in policies and actions in international politics. Although the general view was that Third World countries, especially those with comparatively less resources, are not expected to be as proficient in academic research as those of the First and Second World nations, Makram examines the spectrum of Latin American contributions to to IR theorizing (2006). The post-colonial approaches mainly focus their critique on the dominant IR theory of the Cold War Years; realism, along with the theory’s state-centred and security-oriented analysis which mainly ignored the existence of the Third World and its intrinsic characteristics in international realm. Realism regards IR as a field about the politics of powerful states in the international system. The theory focuses on inter-state relations and the rise and fall of these powerful states while refering to the history of IR as successive struggles between Great Powers. The subject matter for realism, therefore, is to find the causes of war. Traditional IR theory concentrates mainly on the state while ignoring the significance of nonstate actors, particulary in the post-colonial world. It is acknowledged that the founding figures of classical and neo-realism were not in favor of including the Third World to their analysis. In his Theory of International Politics, Kenneth Waltz states that “it would be . . . ridiculous to construct a theory of international politics on Malaysia and Costa Rica... Concern with international politics as a system requires concentration on the states that make the most difference. A general theory of international politics is necessarily based on the great powers” (1979, pp. 72-73). In his texbook, Politics Among Nations, Morgenthau states that Africa, which was a “politically empty space”, did not have a history before the Second World War (1979, p. 369). The whole issue of power presented by Morgenthau is a representative of an entire set of western ideas and assumptions with little apparent reference to the Third World’s reality. Moreover, as Neuman argues, the prominent assumption of Mearsheimer’s neo-realism that “international system is anarchic” cannot be applied to most less developed countries who perceive the international system to be ordered by Great Powers and international institutions governed by these powerful states who ignore the other parts of the world. The idea of anarchy might well function within Great Powers, however, for the Third World, it sounds like a hierarchical structure that constraints their external behaviour (Mgonja and Makombe, and Neuman quoted, pp. 28-31). Anarchy loses its conceptual relevance when applied to weak countries since these states relate with the world under hierarchical conditions. Furthermore, international issues don’t always reside in the core countries, state is problematic as a primary category of IR and ignorance of what 16 goes on inside the state is assumed to be largely irrevelant in explaining developments within the international system (Tickner, pp. 309-319). While criticizing the traditional assumption of Orthodox IR that “historical recognition can be achieved only through the assumption of national identity and state form,” Saurin also asserts that the necessity to decolonize IR is as urgent as ever. He asks the crucial question of “how many works in international theory take as their historical referent or object of inquiry any non-Western states” and similar to Krishna, he argues that IR scholarship present the colonized as much through omission (2006, pp. 24-33). Holsti evaluates this state-centric approach in a rather different way and notes that wars can no longer be regarded as a contest of arms between states -or between great powers- but the rise of non-state actors as participants in wars is quite remarkable. By providing empirical data, Holsti affirms that between 1945 and 1995, ninety-nine percent of the war casualties have occurred in the Third World and the majority of these incidents are intra-state wars. As Holsti points out, wars today are less a problem of the relations between states than a problem within states. Holsti further argues that the realist and neo-realist prediction that in any system of anarchy, wars must occur with some regularity is not borne out by the data since three regions -Western Europe, South America and North America- have been free of interstate war for more than a half-century and two regions, namely Europe and North America, have been relatively free of all kinds of war during the same period (1996, pp. xi, 25, 141). I argue with Malaquias, who takes Africa as a case to analyze the position of contemporary IR theories, and argue that the mainstream IR theories devised to explain and predict the behavior of Western states are not adequate for Africa and African(ist) theories of international relations, thereby, it should be avoided to adapt essentially Western and statecentric models of IR to Africa. In the continent, state formation is still ongoing and there are a myriad of units of analysis other than the state itself, such as armed nationalist movements and ethnic groups. While situating modern IR theory as the product of European historical realities, Malaquias notes that in order to confront the hegemonic position of the state-centric approach and replace it with more inclusive conceptualizations including fundamentally different ideas about the appropriate units of analysis, the important processes, and the kind of context within which actions and processes take place, African(ist) IR theories have to develop new frameworks that take into account factors like nation and ethnicity as crucial elements to explain and predict the behavior of African states (2001, pp. 11-16, 27). Dunn is of the opinion that neo-liberals re-employ a similarly narrow “great-power” focus in their own theorizing while critiquing neorealism. He also notes that the 17 marginalization of Africa by these theoreticians is based on their view that the continent lacks hegemonic power (p. 2). It is true that although liberals stressed the centrality of non-state actors, neo-liberalism -like neo-realism- takes states as the primary actor in world politics (Smith, 1997, p. 171). Liberal IR theory, as Moravcsik puts, is a theory which contends that state-society relations have a fundamental impact on state behavior in world politics and societal ideas, interests, and institutions influence state behavior by shaping state preferences. Moravcsik, argues that there are three variants of liberal theory, namely, ideational, commercial, and republican liberalism, while noting that “the configuration of state preferences matters most in world politics -not, as realists argue, the configuration of capabilities and not, as institutionalists (that is, functional regime theorists) maintain, the configuration of information and institutions” (1997, p. 513). Nkiwane, who holds that liberalism has made a significant contribution to international relations theory, examines African challenges to liberalism in IR and question why liberal scholars have been silent with regard to Africa although in Nkiwane’s view, African examples and African scholarship lend important insights and critiques to the liberal perspective in IR -However, Nkiwane acknowledges that this negligence of Africa in theory building is not peculiar to the liberal tradition- To Nkiwane, the liberal IR theory does not take Africa seriously and African examples as well as African perspectives which are regarded as primarily of nuisance (emphasis added) value. Here, the main assumption, made by many liberal theorists is that Africa has little to contribute with respect to either liberal democracy or consumer capitalism. However, as Nkiwane puts, although liberal perspective emphasizes fundamantal rights of individuals, these individual rights and freedoms advocated by liberal theorists were applied historically in a racialized and exclusive manner in the African context, with liberalism virtually silent on this selective application and further, in the case of liberalism, Eurocentric assertions are too often represented as fact. Nkiwane criticizes liberal theorists for dismissing an entire continent as irrelevant to a theory that expounds a “universal” message (2001, pp. 103-106, 111). It is argued that critical theory also fails to address the Eurocentric nature of the knowledge production in IR, even though it interrogates many of the assumptions of conventional IR. Critical theory is claimed to ignore the Third World and its relevance in international politics despite its commitment on revealing and challenging global hierarchies and hegemonic power. Morever, critical theory has engaged very little with postcolonial scholars who also offer a critical thinking to dominant IR theories (Mgonja and Makombe and Hutchings quoted pp. 28-34). Jones suggest that: 18 Even critical IR, which claims to be centrally concerned with questions of emancipation and social transformation, has turned almost exclusively to Europe’s heritage of critical thought (Kant, Hegel, Marx, Gramsci, Adorno, Horkheimer and Habermas). Critical IR has overlooked the histories and thought of anticolonial struggles –which surely constitute major historical struggles for emancipation and social transformation in the context of international relations. It seems remarkable that few of IR’s self-identified critical theorists have sought to learn from Fanon, Cabral, or Gandhi alongside Gramsci, Adorno, and Habermas (Jones, p. 12). Marxism has clearly influenced the thinking of postcolonial scholarship. However, as pointed out by Mgonja and Makombe, Said noted that Marx was justifying Western imperialism by pointing to its potentially progressive effects. The ideas of Marx, especially on colonialism, is the main underlying reason behind the postcolonial argument that “the foundationalist and universalist assumption of Marxism need to be rejected to further a genuinely non-Eurocentric history” (pp. 32-33). However, it should also be noted that the afore-mentioned ideas of Marx and also his view that all societies go through similar stages in order to reach the last stage of historical development, namely communism and colonialism was a phase in the historical development of capitalism as well as in the national economies of the colonized territories, are criticized by the Marxist themselves within the Marxist theory. Athough in order to understand the nature of inequality, feminist approaches focus on gender politics, power relations and sexuality, Mgonja and Makombe question the relevance and applicability of these theories to non-Western women. As they note, many justify intervention by Western women in the lives of non-Western women, the idea which resembles the ideology of colonialism. Post-colonial feminists argue that this kind of ethical universalism is not only insensitive to different social contexts but also treats all women as in some sense modelled on a Western ‘norm.’ Postcolonial feminists also challenge the portrayal of women in non-Western societies as passive and voiceless victims while the Western women is portrayed as modern, educated and empowered. Mgonja and Makombe further asserts that while challenging gender oppression within their own culture, postcolonial feminists also fight charges of being “Western” (p. 33). Sudbury holds that feminist theory claimed to speak for all women while in fact ignoring black women and thus, a black feminist theory emerged since white feminists had generated their theorizing out of the experiences of white women (2000, pp. 721-722). Anghie evaluates all initiatives of “sovereignty”, “good governance”, “democracy” or the “rule of law” (the imposition of which evokes the mission civiliatrise of colonial times) as a “transference of a set of institutions and practices that have ostensibly been perfected in the European World and that must now be adopted in the non-European world if it is to make any 19 progress” (2006, p. 125). The list of the post-colonial critiques can be extended by displaying different arguments of post-colonial writers, however, the emphasis of all these critiques would be the same: the legacies of the colonial era and the negative impacts of colonialism starting from the slave trade and continuing under a neo-colonial form. Post-colonial IR theory, aims not only to reveal the Eurocentric foundations of international relations but also to decolonize the discipline by employing a different terminology and developing reasonable approaches that is more relevant to the post-colonial world. Whether these scholars would be successful to offer an alternative to mainstream IR theories and decolonize them is a question of inquriy but for now, it can at least be asserted that the diversity of post-coloial studies is also their strength.

Specific practical consequences in global management of  The Danger of a Single Story: Postcolonialism and Communication

In “Postcolonial Approaches to Communication: Charting the Terrain, Engaging the Intersections,” Raka Shome and Radha Hegde outline the role scholars and students have in their study of postcolonialism and communication. The two argue that we must responsibly “question and map” the intertwined relationship between the histories, contexts, and geographies of people and nations. This is an interventionist point of view advocating for informed contextualization and action.

In their overview of the relationship that exists between communication studies and postcolonial studies, they warn colleagues to beware of how “the discrete positioning of cultures without any sense of their interconnected histories reproduces the violence of colonial modernities and fixes difference in a spectacle of otherness” (263). In other words, one must be conscientious and careful of arming oneself with the knowledge of many contexts, including historical, geopolitical, racial, and cultural context of one’s subject area. In acknowledging the specific context(s) of a topic, for example Vietnamese immigration to the United States between 1975 and 1995, one is less likely to make the mistake of falling into the essential binary traps that have long reduced the world to divisions between the global North/South, East/West.

The authors warn how “institutionalized knowledge is always subject to the forces of colonialism, nation, geopolitics, and history” (251). Therefore, we must question the phenomena, effects, and affects of postcolonialism. How do our observations relate to the communication of ideas, identity, or nationalism?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of Half of a Yellow Sun, raises these types of questions in her writing. In her remarks for a TED talk, she points out the “danger of a single story” narrative. She emphasizes “how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story” and recounts her own experience growing up in eastern Nigeria reading British and American storybooks. Until she encountered Chinua Achebe and other African writers (who “saved” her), she did not know that girls like herself—with skin the color of chocolate and “kinky hair that cannot fit into pony tails” could actually “exist in literature.”

In the process of reading the Shome and Hegde article, I’ve become aware of what Homi Bhabha meant when he postulated how the “western metropole must [now] confront its postcolonial history, told by its influx of post-war migrants and refugees, as an indigenous or native narrative internal to its national identity” (254). Adichie’s excellent talk below builds on this struggle.

Some stigmatised or overlooked experiences, from module readings, which challenge ‘A Single Story’

Good instruction is good instruction, regardless of students' racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds. To a large extent, good teaching—teaching that is engaging, relevant, multicultural, and appealing to a variety of modalities and learning styles—works well with all children.

The instructional strategies outlined in this chapter reflect a sampling of the most exciting and determined efforts to change the way the United States educates its citizens. These "ideas at work" range in complexity and magnitude. They represent concepts that cut across content areas. They overlap so comfortably that they sometimes look like separate facets of a single gem. They are as much about attitude and general approach as about specific pedagogical techniques and classroom application. They have a few characteristics in common:

None of the ideas in this chapter is new. Although some of them tend to be identified with specific programs, individuals, or locations, they are presented here as generic—that is, as applicable in virtually any classroom, in any subject area. All are adaptable.

Why ideas at work rather than ideas that work? Because "ideas that work" implies a kind of guarantee of effectiveness. In the real world of the schools, however, nothing works every time, everywhere, for everyone. No single strategy, approach, or technique works with all students. But the concepts in this chapter have proven themselves over time, with a multitude of students of diverse backgrounds and widely ranging abilities.

Unfortunately, numerous barriers can prevent poor and minority students from receiving good instruction. Some of these barriers are caused by educators' attitudes and beliefs; others are the result of institutional practices. The intent of the listing that follows is not to provide a thorough cataloguing of every barrier to sound instruction, but rather to place educators on alert.

Attitudes and Beliefs

Racism and Prejudice

Despite much progress during the past few decades, racism and prejudice are still ugly realities in all sectors of life in the United States, including education. Today, racism may be less overt and virulent than in the past, but its effects can still greatly harm minority students. In fact, subtle, insidious forms of racism may be even more harmful to young people than more blatant forms.

Prejudice against the poor, of whatever race or ethnicity, is another force that works against the academic achievement of disadvantaged students. For example, some teachers of poor students don't let them take materials home, out of fear that the materials will never be returned. Yet these same students tend to be proud to have the responsibility for taking materials home and are generally exceedingly careful to return them.

Obviously teachers must avoid discriminating, consciously or unconsciously, against students because of their racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds. Such discrimination can be as blatant as imposing harsher discipline on minority students or as subtle as lowering expectations for poor children because they have "difficult" home lives. Teachers must be aware that they see students' behavior through the lens of their own culture. They must carefully examine their own attitudes and behaviors to be sure that they are not imposing a double standard. Most important, they must believe sincerely and completely that all children can learn.

Expectations

Educators must hold equally high expectations for affluent white students and poor and minority students—despite the disparity in students' backgrounds. Under the right conditions, low-income and minority students can learn just as well as any other children. One necessary condition, of course, is that the teacher hold expectations of high performance for all students.

Both high and low expectations can create self-fulfilling prophecies. Students must believe that they can achieve before they will risk trying, and young people are astute at sensing whether their teachers believe they can succeed. By the same token, teachers must truly believe their students can achieve before they will put forth their best effort to teach them. The teacher's beliefs must be translated into instructional practices if students are to benefit: actions speak louder than attitudes.

Teachers must also be sensitive to the subtle ways in which low expectations can be conveyed. According to researcher Sandra Graham of the University of California–Los Angeles, when a teacher expresses sympathy over failure, students typically infer that the teacher thinks they are incapable of succeeding, not that they simply may not have tried hard enough. Similarly, when a teacher gives students lavish praise for completing a simple task or offers help before being asked for it, students infer that the teacher thinks they are stupid. In other words, holding high expectations is not simply a matter of cheerleading; it requires insight into how students may interpret a teacher's words and behaviors.

Teachers must also resist the temptation to attribute student failure to lack of ability ("I've taught this concept and they didn't understand it; they must not be smart enough"). Failure to learn can stem from many other causes, such as inadequate prior knowledge, insufficient effort or motivation, lack of the right learning strategy, or inappropriate teaching. The bottom line is this: if students are not learning, the teacher needs to change the approach to teaching them.

Teachers are not the only ones who need to examine their expectations for students, however. Administrators who decide what courses their schools offer should ask themselves whether they are providing too few challenging courses. And counselors must consider whether they are steering students into undemanding courses because the students are poor, minority, or female. The expectation that all students can achieve at high levels, under the right circumstances, should be the guiding principle of every school.

Lack of Understanding of Cultural Differences

Teachers sometimes misinterpret the behaviors of poor and minority students because they do not understand the cultures they come from. White teachers can easily misread the behaviors of black students, for example. In Black Students and School Failure, Jacqueline Jordan Irvine (1990) writes:

Because the culture of black children is different and often misunderstood, ignored, or discounted, black students are likely to experience cultural discontinuity in schools. … This lack of cultural sync becomes evident in instructional situations in which teachers misinterpret, denigrate, and dismiss black students' language, nonverbal cues, physical movements, learning styles, cognitive approaches, and worldview. When teachers and students are out of sync, they clash and confront each other, both consciously and unconsciously. … (p. xix)

Only when teachers understand their students' cultural backgrounds can they avoid this kind of culture clash. In the meantime, the ways in which teachers comprehend and react to students' culture, language, and behaviors may create problems (Erickson, 1987). In too many schools, students are, in effect, required to leave their family and cultural backgrounds at the schoolhouse door and live in a kind of "hybrid culture" composed of the community of fellow learners (Au & Kawakami, 1991).

Especially in the early grades, teachers and students may differ in their expectations for the classroom setting; each may act in ways that the other misinterprets. In addition, those teachers (and they are legion) who insist on a single pedagogical style and who see other styles as being out of step, may be refusing to allow students to work to their strengths.

As Knapp and Shields (1990a) suggest, the so-called "deficit" or "disadvantage" model has two serious problems: (1) teachers are likely to set low standards for certain children "because their patterns of behavior, language use, and values do not match those required in the school setting"; and (2) over time a cycle of failure and despair is created that culminates "in students' turning their backs on school and dropping out … because teachers and administrators fail to adapt to and take advantage of the strengths that these students do possess" (p. 755).

Institutional Practices

Tracking

The most notorious of the harmful institutional practices is tracking, which dooms children in the low tracks to a second-rate education by failing to provide them with the support they need to move to a higher track. As a result, they fall further and further behind their peers. Students in low tracks are stigmatized and lose self-esteem and motivation, while expectations for their performance plummet.

In Keeping Track, researcher Jeannie Oakes (1985) says, "We can be quite certain that the deficiencies of slower students are not more easily remediated when they are grouped together" (p. 12). Yet even now the practice of tracking persists, despite the negative effects on students documented by Oakes and many other researchers. Tracking is especially harmful to poor and minority students because these students are more likely to end up in the low tracks.

Effective alternatives to tracking have included the Accelerated Schools Project, developed by Henry Levin of Stanford University, which includes accelerated programs to bring at-risk students into the mainstream by the end of elementary school and results in faster learning because students receive engaging, active, interdisciplinary instruction; and the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) program, developed by Stanley Pogrow of the University of Arizona– Tucson, which works to enhance the general thinking skills of remedial students by showing them how to work with ideas. These programs and others are aimed at helping students get up to speed, rather than permanently segregating them and feeding them a dumbed-down curriculum.

Inappropriate Instruction

Inappropriate instruction harms poor and minority students. Instead of being presented in a variety of modes, instruction in too many U.S. schools tends to be abstract, devoid of application, overly sequential, and redundant. Bits of knowledge are emphasized, not the big picture, thus handicapping global thinkers. Moreover, the largely Eurocentric curriculum downplays the experiences and contributions of minorities.

For teachers of diverse students, it is especially important to use a broad repertoire of strategies. Some children may be global thinkers; others, more analytical. Some children may learn best from lecture and reading; others, through manipulatives and other hands-on experiences. Some children may thrive on competition; others may achieve far more in cooperative groups.

Differential Access

Poor and minority students are often denied access to challenging coursework. Counselors place them in remedial or undemanding courses, and because more challenging courses often require students to have taken specific introductory courses, students can never switch to a more demanding track. Irvine (1990) cites data showing that "black students, particularly black male students, are three times as likely to be in a class for the educable mentally retarded as are white students, but only one-half as likely to be in a class for the gifted and talented" (p. xiv). In addition, the pull-out programs intended to help many of these students end up fragmenting their school day. And after pull-out programs end, students are given little support for reentering the regular classroom, so they tend to backslide when they rejoin their peers.

Lack of Consequences

Unfortunately, there are few consequences for students and teachers if poor and minority students do not learn. So long as students put in the required seat time, they will receive a diploma; so long as teachers go through the motions, they will have a job. In many cases, nobody—not the education establishment, not the parents or guardians, not the politicians—protests a status quo that is woefully deficient.

Schools that have had success in teaching poor and minority students do not keep ineffective teachers on the faculty; in these schools, teachers are held responsible if their students do not learn. These schools also collaborate with parents or guardians to ensure that students who come to school and strive to achieve are rewarded.

Disciplinary Practices

Teachers sometimes punish poor and minority children more harshly than they do other children for the same offenses. Moreover, suspension is often the punishment of choice, causing students to miss valuable class time. According to Irvine (1990), "one factor related to the nonachievement of black students is the disproportionate use of severe disciplinary practices, which leads to black students' exclusion from classes, their perceptions of mistreatment, and feelings of alienation and rejection, which result ultimately in their misbehaving more and/or leaving school" (p. 16).

On the other hand, some teachers are more lenient with poor or minority students, because they believe these children have been socialized differently than mainstream children. For example, teachers might overlook boisterous or aggressive behavior among poor or minority students while chastising mainstream students for similar behavior. Teachers need to establish a clear, reasonable discipline policy and require all students to abide by it.

Involvement of Parents or Guardians

Poor and minority parents or guardians often have no opportunities to create an ongoing relationship with their children's schools; in fact, they often have no communication with the schools at all. In turn, schools tend to make few efforts to develop a relationship with poor and minority parents or guardians, who may be too intimidated or hard-pressed to initiate contact themselves. For parents who don't speak English, the language barrier can pose another formidable obstacle.

James Comer of the Yale Child Study Center has developed a process to foster good relationships among children, teachers, and parents or guardians. Parents or guardians are encouraged to be an active presence in the school. Social activities bring families and school staff together, helping parents or guardians gain trust in the school. The program has reportedly helped to lower dropout rates, among other benefits.

Unequal Access to Resources

Unequal access to resources further reduces poor and minority students' chances of receiving equal opportunities to learn. Poor and minority students typically attend schools that receive less funding than those attended by mainstream students. As a result, they are taught with inferior materials and equipment and have fewer manipulatives, laboratories, and facilities. Teachers in such schools receive less staff-development, must cope with larger classes, and have less free time.

The Negative Impact of Testing

Standardized tests can be seen as one way in which a meritocratic society reorders a widely disparate populace into hierarchies of abilities, achievement, and opportunity. In fact, the power of tests to translate difference into disadvantage is felt at many points in the world of education, most notably in the decision to place low-income and language-minority students into compensatory or bilingual education classes, where a watered-down, fragmented, and rote curriculum reinforces the disadvantages presumably diagnosed by the tests.

More than ever before, it would seem, multiple-choice tests are being used inappropriately as the ultimate measure of students' learning and capabilities—despite a wealth of evidence that undermines the wisdom of using them in this manner. Decisions that significantly affect students' academic destinies are often made on the basis of a single test score. Moreover, norm-referenced tests reinforce the attitude that some students should be expected to do poorly. To be fair to all students, assessment should be primarily criterion-referenced and, as far as possible, based on actual performances. Perhaps most important, a variety of measures should be used to assess student learning.

Lack of Bilingual Instruction

Not surprisingly, many students who do not speak English fall behind in their studies early, because they are not taught content in their native language. When they eventually learn English, they have lost so much ground in their schoolwork that they find it difficult (and sometimes impossible) to catch up with their peers. In far too many cases, these students become discouraged and drop out of school.

Overall, there is the too-common problem of organizational inertia and resistance to change: reluctance to accept bilingual programs, to hire bilingual personnel, to upgrade the status of teachers of English as a second language (ESL), to support the acquisition and development of primary-language materials, to monitor and assess the progress of language-minority students, and to deal with the unique problems facing newcomers, including their need for counseling.

The number of bilingual teachers in U.S. schools is woefully insufficient, and the use of existing bilingual teachers is far from satisfactory. Schools do not use bilingual teachers to the best advantage—that is, to take maximum advantage of their dual-language abilities. The training and staffing of ESL and "sheltered English" classes remain inadequate. Beyond staffing, there is a dearth of primary-language materials, especially for languages other than Spanish, and bilingual educators regard even those materials as inadequate.

Students who speak a language other than English need to be taught content, for a time, in their native language, while they are also given intensive training in English. When they rejoin their English-speaking peers, they will be up to speed in their studies.

Universal Teaching Strategies

Naming the barriers to the kind of schooling we want for all of our children is at least a beginning. Naming the problem allows the challenging process of treating it to begin. The next section of this chapter will outline 16 generic instructional strategies that are intended to provide assistance in treatment.

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