Studying Teacher Education, 2013
Vol. 9, No. 2, 141–151, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2013.808049

RESEARCH ARTICLE
A Transformational Journey: Exploring our multicultural identities
through self-study
Amber Strong Makaiau* and Anne Reilley Freese
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, USA

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(Received 15 August 2012; final version received 13 April 2013)This article reports a self-study of multicultural identities in a public high school ethnic
studies class and a university multicultural education course in Hawai‘i, a uniquemulticultural setting in which no ethnic group is in the majority. Participants are thetwo authors and 117 of their high school and university students. Three important
findings emerged from constant comparison analysis of students’ and authors’ personal
multicultural narratives, reflections, and coursework. First, a personal-constructivistcollaborative approach to self-study in an intellectually safe classroom environment
provides both students and teachers with a context for challenging their sociallyconstructed assumptions about race, culture, and ethnicity and supports the unpackingof previously held stereotypes and biases. Second, the students’ narratives aretransformational teaching texts. The formal and informal sharing of personal stories
helps students and teachers to be more thoughtful about the complexity of identities,
develop new understandings of their own and others’ multicultural identities, and gaina critical consciousness about the connection between self-understanding and prejudice
reduction. Third, self-study is a multicultural pedagogy that promotes social
perspective taking, tolerance, and understanding of diversity through personaltransformation. The article concludes by encouraging multicultural educators totransform traditional classroom pedagogies so that the journey to understand otherpeople begins with the self.
Keywords: self-study pedagogy; multicultural identity; multicultural education; selfknowledge; personal transformation; prejudice reduction

Colleges of Education across the country have recognized the need for teachers andstudents in the USA to be multiculturally educated. Research indicates that many
preservice teacher education programs are still struggling to find ways to meet this needeffectively (Cockrell, Placier, Cockrell, & Middleton, 1999). This study contributes to thisgrowing body of research by describing an approach to teaching multicultural education
with diverse students in Hawai‘i. In this article we, a professor at a large university and ateacher at a public high school, discuss how we incorporated aspects of self-study as aframe for teaching multicultural education and ethnic studies in our respective teachingcontexts. In addition, we discuss how, together with our students, we were able tochallenge our assumptions and beliefs and uncover our subtle and not-so-subtle biases.
Our study had two interrelated goals. By studying our teaching and our students’ learning,
we hoped to improve our teaching and, at the same time, gain a deeper understanding of
how to help our students and ourselves explore our multicultural identities.

*Corresponding author. Email: amakaiau@hawaii.edu
q 2013 Taylor & Francis

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Context
The teaching and research in this study took place in Hawai‘i. Those of us who live in
Hawai‘i recognize that our island home is often defined by the diversity of its people(Okamura, 2008). In a state where no one ethnic group is in the majority (Grant & Ogawa,1993), people have learned to “get along” (Okamura, 2008, p. 11) by adapting to a
multitude of behavioral nuances. And, although they are not perfect, our ethnic
relationships are typically “distinguished by their tolerance, equality, and harmony”(Okamura, 2008, p. 7). This makes teaching multicultural education different from othercontexts. Our unique context and rich diversity provide opportunities for everyone to be
exposed to and participate in informal cultural experiences in our homes, communities,
and schools on a daily basis. Amber reflects on her early experiences:
As a Caucasian born and raised in Hawai‘i, my first multicultural experiences were informal.
In the small neighborhood that I grew up in I learned that when we gave freshly baked cookies
to Mrs. Adachi she would be obligated to give us a return gift and we should accept it. I came
to expect that Chinese New Year’s was the loudest day of the year because Mr. Ho waswarding off evil spirits with his firecrackers. I also learned to keep quiet when my father’sbusiness associates from the “mainland” walk around our house with their shoes on eventhough I had been scolded to never enter the house without first taking my own shoes off.
(Amber’s personal reflection, 2006)

While on the one hand this unique multicultural context provides opportunities for informal
cultural experiences and gives us insight into a variety of cultures and traditions, on theother hand this familiarity can mislead us to think that we have a deeper understanding ofmulticulturalism. It leads many of us to assume that we are multicultural as a result of ourinteractions and experiences. It also makes the institutional forms of racism that exist in
our state (Okamura, 2008) very difficult to see, and therefore address. Students in Anne’s
university class often question why they have to take a multicultural education course.
Many of them assert that they already know about different cultures from growing up in
Hawai‘i. But as we can see from Amber’s later reflection below, knowing about othercultures is not what multicultural education truly involves and does not challenge our thinking:Since I grew up in Hawai‘i I decided it would be best to attend college away from home, andfor this reason I chose a university in California. It was at this time in my life that I had one of
my biggest lessons about my multicultural identity. I was conducting interviews with students
in a middle school Language Arts class that I was observing, when a thirteen-year old Latino
boy blurted out, “Ms. Amber, I wish I could be White like you.” At the time I could hardly
believe it. I grew up “Haole” in Hawai‘i, and for my entire life I wanted to be anything but
White so that I could have avoided the “outsider” treatment that I got in some of my favorite
local hangouts. So there I was, miles away from home, and my assumptions about my own
cultural identity were thrown into question. Why would someone want to be white? What did
it mean to be white? In Hawai‘i? In California? (Personal reflection, 2006)

Amber’s reflection raises the question as to how we could engage our students in reflecting
on their personal experiences at a deeper level as Amber did. How could we help ourstudents challenge their assumptions, critically inquire into their beliefs and biases, andexplore their unique cultural identities? Perhaps an important question could be posed toour students: What does it mean to be Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Hawaiian, or “local” in
Hawai‘i? And what does it mean to get along? We wanted to scratch beneath the surface
and critically confront the seemingly harmonious nature of our diverse society andexamine the myth of the “multiracial paradise” (Okamura, 1998, p. 265) that we live in.
We wanted to draw upon the rich diversity of cultures, ethnicities, social class, andreligions in our classrooms, and to move away from the notion that studying
multiculturalism is about studying the other (McIntyre, 1997).

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Our goal was to implement a pedagogy that was appropriate to our multiculturalcontext because we found that texts from the Continental United States were notparticularly relevant to the unique characteristics of our students’ diversity. Therefore, in
our classes we wanted to uncover, along with our students, the layers and layers ofassumptions, views, and biases that needed to be peeled back. We wanted to implement apedagogy that allowed our students and ourselves to wrestle with and unpack tensions andstereotypes, and to arrive at new understandings of our multicultural identities; a pedagogy
that challenged us, and our students, to take risks and not gloss over the sensitive issues.

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Theoretical Frameworks
Dewey (1916) argued against seeing teaching as the transmission of ready-made ideas tostudents, saying:
No thought, no idea, can possibly be conveyed as an idea from one person to another . . . Only
by wrestling with the conditions of the problem at first hand, seeking and finding [his or her]own way out, does [a person] think. (p. 188)

But how do you help a student find her own way? More specifically, in our case, how could
we problematize multicultural education in such a way that our students would be open to
discussing and examining their ideas about the sensitive topics that fit under the complex
phrase multicultural education? How could we provide our students with opportunities totransform their understanding of race, class, and culture and explore the complexities ofour racial paradise?
Banks (1997) writes extensively about the role of a multicultural curriculum inpromoting tolerance and equity through personal transformation and social action(pp. 23– 24). Given the task of designing curriculum to achieve these goals, educators
typically construct a multicultural pedagogy based upon the theoretical foundation ofsocial perspective taking (Markstrom-Adams & Spencer, 1994). This is a “process bywhich individuals develop the ability to see the world imaginatively from the perspectiveof someone other than themselves” (Markstrom-Adams & Spencer, 1994, p. 85). Students
are often encouraged to do this by discussing, “concepts, issues, themes, and problems
from several ethnic perspectives and points of view” (Banks, 1997, p. 24). Implicit in thisprocess is the assumption that students and teachers have a highly developed ability to seethemselves and to make “comparisons of similarities and differences between the self andothers” (Markstrom-Adams & Spencer, 1994, p. 95).
We asked one another: Can we make this assumption of our students? Of ourselves?
And if not, how do we facilitate the development of our students’ and our self-knowledge,
including our personal, social, cultural, and ethnic identity (Erikson, 1968; Jensen, 2003)?
We attempted to answer these questions by drawing upon aspects of self-study andincorporating them in our multicultural pedagogy/curriculum. Our involvement in thisapproach was profoundly personal. We realized that we needed to confront our own
assumptions and beliefs and redefine our perceptions about race, class, and culture if wewere to become effective culturally responsive educators (Castagno & Brayboy, 2008).
And since risk taking, openness, and vulnerability are critical aspects of self-study, we
recognized that we needed to model these qualities and share our stories and our biases andassumptions.
To push the boundaries, and look outside our comfort zone of practice, we
incorporated a “personal-constructivist-collaborative” self-study approach (Beck, Freese,& Kosnik, 2004, p. 1256). We started with ourselves (the personal aspect) and reflected on

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our own multicultural identities. Then, to ensure that both our students and ourselves were
supported during the self-study process in our classrooms, we incorporated elements ofPhilosophy for Children Hawai‘i (Jackson, 2001) into our teaching practices. This helped
to build a philosophical community of learners and establish a safe environment in which
our students and ourselves could feel comfortable discussing deeply personal,
controversial, and provocative issues in an open forum.
Next, we asked our students to critically reflect and write personal multicultural
identity narratives that addressed how the characteristics of ethnicity, social class, gender,
language, and religion impacted their sense of identity. These multicultural identity
narratives addressed the personal aspect of self-study and provided us and our students
with the opportunity to critically reflect and inquire into our assumptions, biases, andbeliefs (Knowles & Cole, 1998). The “constructivist” aspect of self-study was introduced
and included elements of unending inquiry that challenged prejudice and convention, andthat respected the value of one’s experience and one’s personal construction of knowledge.
The approach was also “collaborative” in that it stressed “community, the social
construction of knowledge, inclusiveness and equity” (Beck et al., 2004, p. 1263). We
wanted to co-inquire, hear our students’ voices, and learn ways we could improve ourteaching practices.
Drawing upon the work of Clandinin (2000), we used the students’ narratives as a wayof helping them “raise their own questions about identity through stories of their own”
(p. 20). At first, the personal narratives allowed us and the students to go inward and reflect
on our multicultural identities. Then, over time, the construction of knowledge moved
from an individual activity to a social one, through discussions and the sharing of thestudents’ stories. We found that our constant conversations, questioning, and note taking,as well as the group discussions in our class community circles, created a culture ofreflection and inquiry that resulted in framing and reframing one’s thinking andacknowledging multiple perspectives. In our classrooms, the topics were collectively
negotiated (Davey & Ham, 2009) and the students arrived at deeper understandings oftheir multicultural selves through listening to and reading one another’s stories andexperiences. In each of our classes, the narratives were collected together into ananthology.
Objectives
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of self-study in our classrooms as we
positioned ourselves as co-learners with our students. We wanted to explore what
happened when we enacted an innovative pedagogy that valued student and teacher
perspectives, challenged the norms, and addressed highly personal and deeply provocativeand controversial issues. The study explored the following questions: What happens when
we implement a self-study-like approach in our multicultural classrooms? What is its
impact on ourselves? And in what ways can using self-study strategies help our students
critically engage in exploring their multicultural identities and transform their views about
multiculturalism? We viewed our students as informants into our teaching and coinquirers on a journey to arrive at new understandings about being multicultural.
Methods
The participants in our study included the two authors and 89 students in a high school
ethnic studies course and 28 students in a university multicultural education course. Data

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came from our personal reflections, discussions, and the students’ work. Using the methodof constant comparison (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), we analyzed our students’ work and ourreflections in three distinct phases. In phase one we analyzed the data separately. Away
from each other, we reorganized the data and developed initial open codes. In phase two,
to decrease researcher bias, we came together and served as critical friends (Miles &Huberman, 1994). We reviewed each other’s data and student writings and looked overeach other’s initial open codes. Then, we worked together to develop theoretical codes andanalytic themes. In phase three we wrote up our findings. In this final stage of the analytic
process we collaborated further to revise our thinking and refine the themes we had
developed.

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Findings
The discussion of our findings includes an overview of the themes that emerged fromanalyzing our students’ narratives. Our collaborative analysis resulted in the following
themes: challenging one’s assumptions, personal stories as transformational teachingtexts, and self-study: a multicultural pedagogy.

Challenging One’s Assumptions
The analysis of the data revealed how self-study strategies helped our students andourselves challenge our assumptions. The self-study research process, including course
reflections, class discussions, and other assignments, helped the students and ourselves
critically reflect and engage in exploring our multicultural identities. The data also
revealed that the creation of an intellectually safe classroom (Jackson, 2001) environment
was a necessary condition for this type of transformational thinking. The process of tellingand sharing one’s story in an intellectually safe community of inquiry created spaces forrethinking and digging more deeply to uncover our personal beliefs, stereotypes, biases,
and contradictions. Under these conditions, the students and ourselves challenged oursocially constructed assumptions about race, class, and gender and ultimately opened up to
new ways of seeing ourselves and each other:“Intellectual safety,” . . . is highly stressed. This encourages students to be free thinkers and it
allows the students to voice their opinions based on their various upbringings and cultural
background. “The class actually gets me to think about the world . . . ” “This class is coolbecause we are able to discuss any topic concerning culture or race. It is safe to discuss things
here and voice your opinion, it is a freedom that we don’t really have in other classes . . . ”“I’ve had hard classes before, but this one takes a lot of thinking . . . if they [the students] getit then they will leave with an appreciation for other cultures. That’s something that you can’ttake away from someone.” (High school students’ reflections, 2007)

These quotes illustrate the importance of an intellectually safe classroom environment
during the self-study process. Throughout the semester, in both the university and the highschool classroom, the students and teachers worked together to make sure that theirlearning environment was one of mutual respect. As the quotes demonstrate, intellectual
safety not only made students feel better but also helped them think better. When students
and teachers are assured that they can ask any question and state any point of view as longas respect for all persons in the classroom is honored, only then can meaningful inquiry
flourish (Jackson, 2001). This was evident in our multicultural classrooms, whereintellectual safety provided the necessary conditions for unpacking our previously held
stereotypes and biases.

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Unpacking our Previously Held Stereotypes and Biases
Throughout the self-study process, students like Brandy, a preservice teacher, recognized
the value of exploring one’s assumptions and biases. She stated, “It is a process of selfreflection and personal thought that we must go through to change our ideas or biases that
we hold” (preservice teacher reflection, 2006). The self-study project required students to
ask questions, gather information, and think critically about their findings both on theirown, and with their peers and teachers. This provided them with the time and space forpeeling back the layers of their previously held beliefs about others and themselves. Manyof the students’ narratives reflected this process.
For example, Lani, a high school student, wrote:
I realized that throughout my life I have been prejudiced towards certain ethnicities. By
researching and interviewing some of my friends I found out the things that trigger me to be
judgmental. Some are foreign languages and the way people look and act . . . I don’t reallyhave any Filipinos in my family. When I hear the Filipino language I notice I get really
irritated because I’m not used to it. But hearing pidgin or Hawaiian or Portuguese doesn’t bug
me because I was raised around it. (Student narrative, 2007)

This honest examination into previously held stereotypes and biases led Lani to ask morequestions. Among them, do I want to include these prejudices as a part of my identity?
This type of questioning, found throughout the multicultural narratives, ultimately opened
many of the students up to new ideas they identified in terms of race, class, and gender.
Jason, a preservice teacher, one of the students who became open to new ideas,
questioned his prior assumptions, and through his questioning began viewing the processof racial and ethnic identification in a new way:
When I first stepped into this class back in January, I had a general idea about what the term
“multicultural” meant – I thought to myself, I’m Asian – I’m a minority, I know what
multicultural means. Boy was I wrong. The anger and the irritation that I felt, as shown in oneof my earlier papers was directed at the wrong audience. I thought my perspective was always
right when it came to racial issues and discrimination because I am Japanese-American and I
experienced prejudice for myself. But what I had failed to do – I failed to see through anotherperson’s eyes. (Preservice teacher narrative, 2005)

While Jason became more open to seeing the world through another’s eyes, Chad was able
to find some peace about the way in which he had been discriminated against based on his
ethnicity in the past. He wrote:
This reflection essay’s purpose is to discover what really shapes who you are . . . I don’t let
those things that bother me influence me because I know they are just stereotypes and arecoming from people who don’t know what the hell they are talking about. I keep my mind
open and try to bypass all of the racial ideologies and lies that people come up with; to what,
describe differences between us. Like many of the things I have learned in this class, this has
shown me a new perspective of life and made me a better more informed person. (Student
narrative, 2007)

Chad was not alone; many of the students’ narratives described how they, too, hadtransformed throughout the self-study, and through sharing their stories of personal
discovery, the students became teachers to us, and one another.

Personal Stories as Transformational Teaching Texts
The second major theme to come out of the data analysis describes how our students’stories became transformational teaching texts. At both the university and the high school,
the students’ honest and articulate multicultural narratives provided dynamic courseStudying Teacher Education

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material that captured the complexities of many multicultural issues. As our students
engaged in the process of self-study alongside one another, they had many opportunities toshare their multicultural narratives and personal stories. Sometimes this sharing wasformal, as they read final drafts of their personal narratives out loud, but often it was
informal, as they discussed questions in class and talked through drafts of their writing.
The data showed that through the formal and informal sharing of their personal stories, thestudents were more thoughtful about the complexity of identities, they developed newunderstandings of their own and others’ multicultural identities, and they gained a criticalconsciousness about the connection between self-understanding and prejudice reduction.
Self-study helped raise our own, and our students’, awareness about the complexity ofmulticultural identification and the value of multiple perspectives. Through reflection,
inquiry, and discussions, the students and ourselves began to see ethnic, cultural, and racial
identification as multifaceted and difficult to pin down. Christian was one of those students:
We were going around the circle talking about ethnicity and one of my classmates said to me,“I thought you were Asian.” This bothered me because he assumed that I was just Asian whenin my own mind I was thinking of myself as Hawaiian. Right at that moment I realized it hurts
to be discriminated against by other people. I understand his mistake because other people
might think I’m just Asian by the way I look, but what they don’t know is that I have otherethnic backgrounds. My self-concept is more diverse than others might think. (Student
narrative, 2008)

Christian commented on how his self-search awakened in him the misgivings that his
peers had about his identity. He asked, “Who defines who we are? Ourselves? Others?”
The researching, writing, and sharing of the multicultural narratives helped thestudents to think through questions like Christian’s and to arrive at new understandings ofthemselves. Chad, a self-proclaimed “Spanglish” student, wrote, “In a way, where you are
determines who you are, at least what people think you are.” He noted that “Here in
Hawai‘i, I ‘look’ like your ‘ordinary Haole,’ but in South America people can tell I am
Hispanic, and also people on the mainland notice that I am Hispanic” (student narrative,2008). With increased self-knowledge, like Chad’s, the students and ourselves began toengage more deeply in the process of social perspective taking (Markstrom-Adams &Spencer, 1994).

A Connection between Self-knowledge and Prejudice Reduction
The data showed that the multicultural narratives helped both the students and ourselves
uncover our prejudices and ultimately dismantle them. There were two distinct ways that
this occurred. First, we confronted our own prejudices as we learned about ourselves
during the writing process and second, we gained new insights by listening to others share
their stories.
In many of the students’ narratives, there was evidence that learning about themselves
helped them to reduce the prejudices they had toward others. One student wrote:
Through this investigation I found out that I contradict myself. By self-reflecting I noticed that
I say people shouldn’t judge people, but here I am judging people . . . I say that I am diverse
but then that I am also prejudice towards other ethnicities . . . Maybe If I hung out with thosecertain ethnicities and got to know them better, then I wouldn’t be judgmental towards them. I
think that I have grown a lot through this investigation. (Student narrative, 2007)

Another student used her critical reflections to tackle her racist beliefs:
Growing up in freedom conferences made a big impact on me, making me more and more
confused each time . . . They explained to me and said the White people (Haoles) stole from us

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A.S. Makaiau and A.R. Freeseand won’t give it back. At this age I didn’t know what to do so I assumed that White people werebad, so I hated all white people . . . Being racist creates racism in my life. Racism lives off of theracist remarks we make towards others . . . I have much ahead of me to learn and experience.
I blossomed into something more, my growth increases every day. (Student narrative, 2006)

In addition to using new self-knowledge to overcome prejudices, the students learned a lot
by listening to others share what they had learned about themselves. A university student
commented on how another student’s story provided a different perspective from his own:

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Reading about some of the struggles and pain that he had been through really shattered someof the generalizations I had held about “local boys.” His honesty and vulnerability made itsuch a powerful story. (Preservice teacher narrative, 2005)

The students were not the only ones transformed by the sharing of narratives; we, theteachers, were impacted as well.
Amber vividly remembers Kaio, one of the only African-American students in herclass, reading his narrative out loud:Some people ask me why I don’t act black, but how do black people act? Being black doesn’tmean having a grill, nice jewelry, or a pimped out car . . . Like when people call me nigger, it
doesn’t offend me, but I don’t really like it . . . I have gone through some shit in Hawaii frombeing egged walking on the street to being arrested for asking a kid for a dollar. People that don’tknow me tell me “nigger, get off our island.” But the funny thing is that I’ve lived here longer
than most of the people that tell me that . . . I’ve learned being black is difficult no matter where
and there’s always someone who is not going to like you. Just like everything you have to fightthrough it: maybe not physically, but mentally too. I have learned to accept being black and I amvery PROUD of who I am. Pride is something that can never be taken away . . . I’m glad I paid
attention in this class because it made me think of who I am. (Student narrative, 2007)

As he spoke the words in his narrative, Amber and the students in her class deeply connectedwith Kaio’s struggles and came to new understandings about his experience as an
African-American male in Hawai‘i. Listening to his story caused Amber to reflect and makechanges in her curriculum and personal relationships in her life. A product of the self-study
journey, multicultural narratives like these helped all of us scratch beneath the surface of ourcultural context and put an end to over-generalizing about individuals based on appearances.
Self-study: A multicultural pedagogy
It became apparent during the analysis of the data that self-study is a powerful tool for
multicultural educators as they work to transform traditional classroom pedagogies so thatthe journey to understand other people begins with the self. Implementing a personalconstructivist-collaborative approach (Beck et al., 2004, p. 1256) helped us see different
perspectives and move beyond one’s own unique experiences and interpretations.
The students in the university classroom wrote about how they had a deeper understanding
about the diversity of students they will have in their future classrooms. Evan stated:
I learned that one’s own story is an integral part of how and what one comes to believe andteach . . . Reading the personal narratives of others made me realize that I need to be aware of
the degrees of difference within any classroom and to be mindful and respectful of them. Also
I realized that I need to be aware of my own biases towards the differences around me . . . andrecognize the diversity surrounding me and acknowledge that diversity as I teach my students.
(Preservice teacher narrative, 2005)

Malia wrote:
I realize that multicultural education is in fact a central element of my journey as an educator.
It is much more than teaching ethnic tolerance to students; rather, multicultural education issomething that can transform student, teacher, and perhaps by extension, society itself. ThisStudying Teacher Education

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Downloaded by [Amber Strong Makaiau] at 09:57 03 July 2013class has led me to adjust the way I thought of multiculturalism and to reevaluate not only
what multicultural education means, but my entire identity as a potential teacher as well.
(Preservice teacher narrative, 2006)

Their writings capture the complex process of helping students question their assumptions,
examine their multicultural identity, and increase tolerance and understanding of thosedifferent from themselves.
As a result of the self-study journey, we all gained insight into the value of students andteachers sharing their authentic stories with one another. The collection of personal
histories exposed all of us to the variety of challenges and racial tensions the students haveencountered. We looked at stereotypes and discrimination, and saw the subtle and not-sosubtle ways in which individuals marginalize one another. Their personal narratives, sohonest and soul searching, opened all of us up to confronting our preconceived biases andprejudices. Through self-examination and the sharing of our stories, we reframed ourassumptions about others. Collectively we realized that the others were right there in ourclassrooms: they were people whom we had come to know and care about deeply.
What Did We Learn?
Our collaboration pushed us to step out of our own solitary perspectives and to engage
ourselves in conversation about our multicultural views. Our own stories helped us see therelevance of this approach in our classrooms. We shared our beliefs, personal experiences,and biases. We did not always agree, but we had one another to use as a mirror to challenge
our assumptions about Hawai‘i as a racial paradise. We leaned on one another, and weworked together to reconstruct our ideas about others and ourselves.
Drawing upon the work of Davey and Ham (2009), we saw how we benefited from theassistive collaborative role of being critical friends. Through our collaboration, we
identified tensions, different points of view, and dilemmas related to teaching. We became
more comfortable addressing controversial topics and students’ resistance. We did notignore challenges to safety in the classroom, but became vigilant in maintaining a safe
environment. We learned that if we made ourselves vulnerable as teachers, over time ourstudents would feel safe to share their personal stories. Sharing our challenges andbreakthroughs gave us confidence to keep trying. We listened more and learned to bepatient. Together we created a dynamic, collaborative learning process involving teacher
to teacher, teacher to students, and students to students.
This collaborative process helped us reframe multiculturalism as the practice of seeing
with new eyes. We witnessed how the students were teachers and informants to us, as wellas to each other. Rather than try to have students leave the class thinking the way the
instructor thinks they should think, the students experienced one another’s stories, putthemselves in another’s shoes, and began to see the complexities of ethnic identification,
prejudice, and discrimination. We learned how to work together to tackle overt acts ofracism and to uncover and dismantle hidden forms of institutionalized discrimination. And
collectively we became more aware of the individual barriers that were keeping us from
opening our minds and hearts to other points of view.
Through this study, we have developed a keener awareness of how our lived stories
and those of our students are bounded, influenced, and shaped by our personal,
institutional, and cultural stories (Clandinin, 2000). Our students’ stories and the findings
from our study have had a profound impact on us personally and professionally. The brutal
honesty of our students in disclosing life experiences that we would not have imagined
allowed us to gain powerful insights into the things you read about, but do not think

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A.S. Makaiau and A.R. Freesehappen in the lives of those we teach. We read many of the stories with heavy hearts andexperienced a different, more personal connection with our students. We learned how theirlives, their struggles, although different from our own, provided an increased
understanding of their needs and how to support them.

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Conclusions: Transformation
Using aspects of self-study in our multicultural classes helped the students frame and reframe
their assumptions about others by realizing that issues of equity, prejudice, racial biases,
ethnocentrism, and marginalization are not somewhere else, but are right in our own
classrooms. Such insights broadened their and our thinking in terms of how we need toconfront our biases and help our students better understand themselves and others. We learned
how aspects of self-study can have a significant place in our teaching about multiculturalism,
particularly because it creates a direct, personal connection to the students and ourselves.
Self-study in the context of multicultural education provided both students andteachers with an approach that creates the conditions for challenging their sociallyconstructed assumptions about race, culture, and ethnicity. In addition, self-study helped
us and our students develop the necessary texts for unpacking our previously held
stereotypes and biases so that we all could arrive at new understandings about thecomplexity of our multicultural identities, and develop a critical consciousness about theconnection between self-knowledge and prejudice reduction. For the preservice students,
these authentic multicultural texts gave them an idea of the diversity they will likely
encounter in their future classrooms. And in the high school setting, the students’narratives opened up dialogue and facilitated the transformation of their school’s culture toa place characterized by empathy, tolerance, and peace.
Incorporating aspects of self-study in our classrooms challenged us to think about
multicultural education differently. As we immersed ourselves in our ongoing study of ourpractice, we learned that “the wisdom of practice is much messier than the certainties weprovide, much more provisional than the prescriptions we offer and filled with a degree ofhuman and educational tension that cannot be ignored” (Liston, Whitcomb, & Borko, 2009,p. 110). We learned that each class has a unique culture and that teaching and learning
require “wrestling with the conditions of the problem” (Dewey, 1916, p. 188) and not
avoiding emotional and controversial issues because they make the teachers and students
uncomfortable. Clearly, reflection and self-study in the context of multicultural education
cannot be reduced to a prescriptive approach, but need to include fostering and developing
our students’ and our own analytical ability so that collectively we are better equipped tonavigate the complexities of our diverse world. In this light, self-study is not simply an
additive to our multicultural pedagogy, but rather it is an integral part of our being, what we
believe, how we know ourselves, and how we build connections between each other.
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