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Whiteness Studies
Benefits of applying whiteness studies to multicultural literature:
- Uses a critical mulitculturalism approach to multicultural literature
- Examines the history and power structure of "whiteness" and how it influences other cultures
- Challenges "white privilege" and the cultural fiction that perpetuates "whiteness"
- Removes the ideological fiction that "white is better"
- Allows white students and students of color to understand their positionality in the classroom and the global
community
Complications of applying whiteness studies to multicultural
literature:
- Places the focus on white authors, white culture, and
white literature in a multicultural canon
- Furthur marginalizes minority student's voices and cultures
- Could be used to place white culture back in a position of power
- Students may become silenced and afraid to challenge white history
- Replaces minority texts in the multicultural literature canon with whitecentric texts
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