Complicity with conservatism: the de‐politicizing of multicultural and intercultural education

Although multicultural education, a field dedicated to promoting equity and justice in education, continues to be the target of conservative critics, its contemporary crisis brews from within. The greatest danger to the movement toward equity and social justice that underlies multicultural education in the US comes from educators who ostensibly support its goals, but whose work—cultural plunges, food fairs, human relations activities—reflect more of a compassionate conservative consciousness than an allegiance to equity. By reviewing conceptions of multicultural education from the field’s leading US scholars and uncovering inconsistencies between these conceptions and the work people do under the guise of multicultural education, the author works toward a re‐establishment of an authentically progressive notion of the field.