Educational theory does not oppose educational practice, as manyseem to think; instead it is a form of practice and the action oftheory exists at two levels. At a cultural level theory ischaracterized by linguistic forms of action and at a social level it is characterized by the day to day practices thatorganize and reward the work of producing educational philosophy.While the social practices that govern the production ofphilosophy certainly beg for ethnographic attention,any consideration anthropologists or philosophers giveit will eventually find (...) its way to the page and hence tothe cultural forms of linguistic action that are thesubject of this paper. Focusing on how educationalphilosophers see the things that they do, as opposedto what they see, I will suggest that the wayeducational philosophy is fashioned is an importantpart of what is fashioned. Ironically, as I will show,the ``way'' of educational philosophy can flow with oragainst the ``what'' of it – an author, that is, can saythat they are for or against this or that, but their stylized way of saying it can contradict the literalmeaning of their words. (shrink)

This paper starts by acknowledging that pragmatists agree with multiculturalists when they assert that individuals are grounded in local communities that give rise to different ways of seeing the world. Where pragmatists part company with many multiculturalists, however, is in our willingness to carry through with the logic entailed in this claim. When pragmatists assert that all ways of knowing are situated, we mean fully situated. In our view, multiculturalists can ask their auditors to celebrate or tolerate differences, but they (...) cannot claim to be multicultural (in the strongest sense of that word) because they necessarily read, write and think from a set of provincial assumptions not global ones. The conclusion a pragmatist draws from this is simple: Multicultural discourse (whether it be conservative, liberal or radical) will always be biased and limited because its knowledge claims are necessarily grounded in a historical and local context that guarantees a limited understanding of ofher cultures. (shrink)