Multicultural Education and the Protection of Whiteness

This article explores how teachers in one urban district understand and engage multicultural education in two very different school contexts. My data highlight how teachers’ understandings of multicultural education vacillate between what I call “powerblind sameness” and “colorblind difference.” In the end, I suggest that our everyday engagements with powerblind sameness and colorblind difference protect whiteness, but also that whiteness prevents us from working toward equity, justice, and democracy.