As demographics rapidly change in this country (Banks, 1991; Isaacs & Benjamin, 1991; Yates, 1988) it is projected that by the turn of the century one in every four Americans will be a person of color (The Commission of Minority Participation in Education and American Life, 1988). In addition, child poverty rates have increased for every racial and ethnic group since 1979 (Children's Defense Fund, 1991b). According to a report on child poverty in American (Children's Defense Fund, 1991a), two in three poor children are white, Latino, Asian or American Indian. The other one-third are African American and though an African American child is more likely to be poor, African Americans make up only a minority of poor children. During the 1980s, Latino poverty rates grew the fastest. Very young children make up a sizeable portion of children living in poverty and lack of health and resources impose many risks.

For families and children from groups thought to be outside of the mainstream and in need of additional services such as therapy, case management, etc., support is offered by a system based on white middle class values and beliefs which often do not take into account the differences people have based on ethnicity, class, race, and disability. It is clear that the challenges that face the diversity of this nation are increasing.

In attempts to challenge and understand this diversity and what it means in our lives, there is an increasing re-emergence and discussion, around terms such diversity, cultural pluralism, and multiculturalism. Questions related to what people, especially people being described as having minority* status, have experienced in this society are being asked more frequently. The responses to these questions bring up once more the need to more fully address the kinds of oppression (racism, sexism, handicapism, classism, etc.) that are at work in maintaining the status quo and giving privilege to one group over another. Multiculturalism, diversity, and cultural pluralism are being looked at more frequently across a wide variety of disciplines including the area of special education and disability studies. Though there are variations in how each term is defined and interpreted, each has a role in expanding our discussions and hopefully our actions toward challenging the important issues of prejudice, discrimination and exclusion that exist for many people, and specifically their relationship to people with disabilities, their families, and the professional community.

(FOOTNOTE: *As used here, "minority" refers to a power or dominance relationship. Groups who have unequal access to power and are considered in some way unworthy of equally sharing power, are stigmatized in terms of assumed inferior traits or characteristics (Mindel, Habenstein, & Wright, 1986, p. 8). The word itself is inadequate as many of the groups that truly are a minority in this culture (Swedish American, Dutch American, etc.) are not called such. Thus the term minority has been used within the context of power relationships and is used here because it is commonly understood what is meant.)

This article discusses the term culture and looks specifically at how it relates to what is referred to as the dominant culture. It will also look at the role multiculturalism plays in understanding the concept of culture and will suggest that by looking more closely at our own cultural identities, we expand our understanding of what happens to people in our society who are outside of the dominant culture. The concepts of assimilation and the melting pot theory are also discussed. The final section focuses on the area of disability and how the experience of disability and handicapism can be understood within a multicultural context. This raises questions related to the underlying social movements in the field of disabilities such as normalization and community integration. Finally, an annotated bibliography listing resources that can assist in informing the reader about the issues as they relate to multiculturalism and disability is presented.

What is Culture?

Simply defining the word culture is not an easy task. We all have our own conceptions of what culture is (though it has often been interpreted as something that others have) and the term has long been defined by anthropologists and others in a variety of ways. Before the late 1950s it was defined in terms of patterns of behavior and customs (Sleeter, 1990). Goodenough (1987) defines culture as a way of perceiving, believing, evaluating and behaving. Spradley and McCurdy focus on "the acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and to generate social behavior." (1975, p.5) It has also been described as the ever-changing values, traditions, social and political relationships, and a worldview shared by a group of people bound together by a number of factors that can include a common history, geographic location, language, social class, and/or religion (Nieto, 1992). Cultural development some argue, is never static but evolving (Bullivant, 1989).

According to Dirlik, culture affords us ways of seeing the world. He also says that if that definition has any bearing on efforts toward changing the world it is essential that we confront our ways of seeing (Dirlik, 1987, p. 13).

The word culture then is one that brings with it a number of interpretations and is no longer being seen narrowly (Gollnick & Chinn, 1990). In this sense, culture is more than a singular experience (i.e., ethnicity) but rather the outcome of a number of key elements (race, ethnicity, gender, disability, etc.) that are pertinent to an individual's identity. Culture can be viewed as something very personal as well as something more pervasive that effects entire groups. Much of this way of understanding culture arises in the renewal of interest in concepts such as cultural pluralism, cultural diversity, and multiculturalism.

Cultural Pluralism, Multiculturalism, and Diversity

Many words are used to discuss issues related to people's identities and the experiences that they incur because they are from a particular group deemed to be in the minority. One such term is cultural pluralism first coined in 1915 by Horace Kallen in response to the prominent idea of all ethnic groups needing to melt together (Gollnick & Chin, 1990).

Cultural pluralism is defined as a concept of an ideal multiethnic society in which various ethnic groups would have mutual respect for each other, enjoy equal rights, and be able to preserve and foster their cultural traditions (Suzuki, 1984, p. 299). However, according to Suzuki, this implies that a person's ethnicity plays the central role in determining his/her relationship to the dominant culture and assumes that the ism's (racism, sexism, classism, handicapism) will disappear if we simply learn to live harmoniously with each other. The concept of cultural pluralism, and a singular focus on ethnicity does, according to Newman, acknowledge the other forces that impact on an individual or a group, such as society's social structure (Suzuki, 1984). It instead looks at only one salient aspect of that person's experience whereas a number of other elements (gender, race, class, age, disability, to name a few) might add significantly to the experiences the person has. This can lead to the belief that ethnicity is the one static factor that determines a person's values and belief system.

Emerging from the concept of cultural pluralism as early as the 1920s was the concept of multiculturalism which has changed over the years. As part of the civil rights movement a variety of groups (women, people with disabilities, the aged) that have suffered from institutionalized discrimination brought their needs to a public forum and over this time the concept of multiculturalism broadened to include gender, race, and class (Banks & Banks 1989; Gollnick & Chin, 1990; Marable, 1992). Increasingly, attempting to at least take into account any one or a combination of each of these facets, often called microcultures, has been labelled multiculturalism (Banks & Banks, 1989; Bullivant, 1989; Gollnick & Chinn, 1990) or cultural diversity (Lynch & Hanson, 1992). It becomes a question of looking at the diversity that is a part of all of our lives. According to Nieto, "culture and cultural diversity are at the core of multiculturalism" (Nieto, 1992, p. 298).

The idea of shared knowledge and beliefs in shaping human perception adhered to more recently, is more attuned to the concept of multiculturalism. In this case, multiple standards for perceiving, believing, doing and evaluating are allowed for (Sleeter, 1990, p. 81).

In addition, it is important to acknowledge that the institutionalized forces of exclusion such as racism, sexism, and handicapism work to divide. Yet it is only by understanding the similarities that run across each of these isms that we can understand the institutionalized nature of the problem not only for people with disabilities but for all of us. For example, does the fact that a person is a woman or that she has a disability impact more on the discriminations she encounters, or is it that each factor has a strong impact in defining that person and determining his/her roles?

Accordingly, within each person and within a given culture it is essential that each person cope with these different roles. Brislin (1976) suggests the way we do so is to rank each role in terms of its importance to our own identity, acknowledging also that those identities are always changing. Since the roles we value most highly define our "primary" identities which we have either learned since childhood or been converted to as adults, all interpersonal role relationships are to some extent multicultural. It must be understood, however, that all people within a given microculture do not necessarily share all of the same values (i.e., all women, all African Americans, all people with disabilities).

Suzuki (1984) discusses superficial ways that cultural diversity and multiculturalism have been interpreted such as highlighting ethnic foods, holidays and costumes. This simple interpretation, he says, contributes little to solve the problems that face schools in a multicultural society. According to many, multiculturalism must also address the social and political issues for real change to occur (Nieto, 1992; Sleeter, 1990).

Multiculturalists believe that information and knowledge are not neutral, but reflect the interests of people in control of decision making. A multicultural perspective then shifts the emphasis from Eurocentric norms of measuring people to one of multiple perspectives (Hidalgo & Almeida, 1991). In understanding this, it is important to look at what has been called the dominant culture.

The Dominant Culture

A question that has arisen frequently is, who, aside from those we think of as white middle class, are of the dominant culture? Using the framework presented by Gollnick and Chinn (1990), this can be understood by more closely looking at those important aspects that make up our lives and define how we are viewed and in turn interact in the world.

We live in a country that holds a certain set of values and standards which impact on all of those elements. Values such as competition (Kohn, 1986), individualism (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985) freedom, defined as being left alone by others (Gollnick & Chinn, 1990), and work ethic, play a key role in defining the norms of the dominant culture. Individuals within the culture have differing degrees of power which can be seen if we look at who holds the balance of power of financial resources, top positions in mass media, schools, universities, and government (Banks, 1991).

Within these areas (race, gender, disability, class, etc.) individuals may be part of the dominant group at times and not so at other times. For example, if we look at gender, men would be dominant. If we look at the intersection of gender and race it would be white men, yet this is not to say that all white men have more power. Additional elements such as whether a white male has a disability may be a factor, or whether he is a "lower class" white male. This is true for each aspect of our identities. In this sense we may all be part of the dominant culture to some degree and at different points in our lives. A power differential is the essential element that determines what we will have access to within the dominant culture. According to Giroux (1988), it is the differing power relationships that have the greatest impact on groups and individuals in achieving and defining their goals.

A key to understanding this framework and how we all interact with the dominant culture is through a better understanding of our own identities. Edson (1989) believes that we should not seek merely to expand our awareness of other cultures or microcultures to understand the complexities of multiculturalism as the focus remains on the other (p. 9). If we focus on others we fail to examine ourselves and our own backgrounds and assumptions both personally and professionally. The institutionalized assumptions of the dominant culture limit our ability to learn, understand, and accept each other. According to Edson (1989), without critically analyzing the institutionalized beliefs of the dominant culture, which affect us all both consciously and unconsciously, we will inadequately address issues of multiculturalism so important today.

Another important aspect in understanding what dominates is to ask what assumptions about culture become institutionalized and what values and beliefs determine who is valuable, who is powerful, and what rules will be enforced. If someone is not viewed as meeting the standards of the dominant culture, and are in some way involved in receiving services, s/he is often given "help" in ways that will make that person "fit in." This has been the case for a number of groups in this culture and has certainly been true in the area of disability.

If we approach understanding differences (whatever they might be) from this perspective with the assumption that by understanding "their" values, traditions, and beliefs we (the dominant culture) will be able to better understand and serve "them" and create a level of understanding and tolerance (Baxter, Poonia, Ward, & Nadirshaw, 1990). We do little more than look at the cultural "nuances" in order to make people fit into the dominant culture. Simple understanding and tolerance does little to address the underlying and institutionalized forces such as racism, sexism, handicapism, and classism that exist and continue to keep discriminatory attitudes and beliefs in place.

Essentially through understanding cultural "nuances" we learn what it is we want to change to make people fit in, to fix those differences that are viewed as being outside of the norm, and cultural behaviors and beliefs that are interpreted as dysfunctions to be overcome (Cross, Bazron, Dennis, & Isaacs, 1989). This approach essentially focuses on aspects of deviance (Nieto, 1992) rather than acceptance and does little to challenge issues of power and control. Such attitudes remain consistent with the melting pot and assimilationist theories that have predominated in this country for years.

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