Narrative Inquiry and Multicultural Education

Abstract

Narrative as a methodological approach to inquiry has a long history of making meaning for the human social world. Multicultural education began in North America as an extension of the mid-twentieth-century civil rights movement and has been taken up globally as a vehicle to include the voices of historically marginalized populations. The intersections of narrative inquiry and multicultural education, narrative multiculturalism and cross-cultural inquiry, are used by educational scholars as an approach to understanding educational issues of social (in)justice and social (in)equity. The interdisciplinary natures of narrative inquiry and multicultural education have allowed multiple disciplinary perspectives to intermix interpretations of lived experiences. How cross-cultural experiences are storied has opened spaces for new methodological possibilities. Narrative multiculturalism thrives on learning from examination of social relations. Within this understanding, multiculturalism within narrative inquiry is not something to be defined, allowing for fluidity in the conceptualization of what constitutes narrative multiculturalism.

This chapter reviews the origins of narrative inquiry and multicultural education with a focus on narrative multiculturalism as a research methodology in educational research. Then a brief overview of influential works is provided. Next, examples of current work in the field are examined. The review of previous work and current work presents insights into the productive difficulties of narrative multiculturalism. Finally, possible future pathways for narrative inquiry and multicultural education are discussed. Throughout, examples are provided of the research methods that might be used with narrative multiculturalism.