It is predictable that for Lady Bountiful, and more generally, for white academics operating within the multicultural frame, a crisis point occurs when people of non-dominant cultures will not surrender their knowledge, their cultural practices, or their artifacts. Without this knowledge the role of Lady Bountiful cannot be enacted. It becomes imperative that the margin speak to the centre. As captured in the book When Cultures Clash: Case Studies in Multiculturalism (1984), there can be an almost aggressive insistence that this happen. After indicating the need to find community support for implementing multiculturalism, the author writes: "There are many other resources yet untapped. Not the least of these is the membership of minorities themselves (many of whom are recent immigrants), whose task is to adjust to the Canadian way of life while sharing aspects of their own identity. In the same sense that newcomers have an obligation to their new homeland they should be expected to share freely of their background as a means of enriching this land culturally" (Friesen, 1985: 16).

It is time in the anti-racist education of white students and teachers to turn the gaze inward.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu depicts the determination to keep her identity and culture from academics, who would have it otherwise. She writes at the end of her book (I Rigoberta Menchu): "Of course I'd need a lot of time to tell you all about my people, because it's not easy to understand just like that. And I think I've given some idea of that in my account. Nevertheless, I'm still keeping my Indian identity a secret. I'm still keeping secret what I think no-one should know. Not even anthropologists or intellectuals, no matter how many books they have, can find out all our secrets" (1991: 247).

Conclusion

It is time in the anti-racist education of white students and teachers to turn the gaze inward. Instead of probing to find out about the "other," we must think about how our personal and collective histories and identities are produced in educational texts in relation to that of minority and immigrant children. As we have shown, constructions of white women teachers, such as Lady Bountiful, organize ways of thinking about gender, race and ethnicity that serve to reproduce rather than challenge dominant relations of power. By analysing this construct we hope the possibility exists to rewrite "Lady Bountiful," among other images, in texts of our lives and those of all our students.

Sheila Cavanagh is currently completing a Doctoral degree in the Graduate Program in Sociology at York University. Her thesis concerns the role of white women teachers in multicultural education and English as a Second Language (ESL) program development. She is researching the history of women teachers as represented in the Federation of Women Teachers of Ontario magazine.

Helen Harper is completing her Ph.D. thesis in the Department of Curriculum at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. This fall she will be teaching in the Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario. Her work is focused on issues of identity, representation and pedagogy.

La généreuse bienfaitrice: l'enseignante blanche dans un système d'éducation multiculturel

par Helen Harper et Sheila Cavanagh

Cet article montre les hypothèses qui sous-tendent l'image donnée des enseignantes blanches dans un système d'éducation multiculturel. L'article dépeint plus précisément le portrait de l'enseignante blanche, appelée par Honor Ford Smith dans ses écrits "La généreuse bienfaitrice" -- la dame blanche missionnaire ou enseignante qui a vu le jour à l'époque de l'impérialisme britannique et dont la tâche était de "civiliser" les colonies. La façon dont est représentée l'enseignante blanche dans les textes scolaires reflète le rôle de cette bienfaitrice. On incite l'enseignante blanche à "canadianiser" ses élèves et à apprendre à "connaître" leur culture, tandis que la culture blanche dominante et axée sur l'Europe reste une donnée invisible.

Les relations entre l'enseignante blanche et ses élèves immigrants ou minoritaires doivent être à nouveau analysées de manière anti-racistes, de façon à modifier les rapports de pouvoir dominants au lieu de les reproduire.

References

Ashworth, M. Children of the Canadian Mosaic: A Brief History to 1950. Toronto: OISE Press, 1993.

Baruth, L. & Manning, L. Multicultural J Education of Children and Adolescents. Needham Heights Mass: Allyn and Bacon Press, 1992.

Brah, A. "Difference, diversity and differentiation," in James Donald and Ali Rattansi (eds.) "Race," Culture and Difference. London: Sage Publications, 1992, pp.126-148.


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