Essentializing Dilemma and multiculturalist pedagogy: An ethnographic study of Japanese children in a U.S. school

This article examines some Japanese children's experiences at a U.S. elementary school, as well as their teachers' pedagogical responses. Two discourses of difference - "individual difference" and "social/cultural difference" - were used in the school in somewhat dichotomous ways, and the combination worked against those children who had difficulty adjusting. A third pedagogic discourse of difference needs to be constructed to aid teachers facing essentializing dilemmas.