Richardson, G. (2006). Singular Nation, Plural Possibilities: Reimagining Curriculum as Third Space . In Yatta Kanu (Ed.), Curriculum as Cultural Practice (283-301). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

“The question arises of how to reconceptualize curriculum in terms that do not maintain colonial structures of privilege and dominance” (284). Indeed.

This chapter calls for a deconstruction of the current cultural biases that exist within curriculum, so that a new curriculum, “open to multiple discourses, and plural assumptions and strategies” (284) can be realized. This newly realized curriculum would be the Third Space, a place of cultural hybridity.  I support the goal of classrooms that encompass multiple discourses and plural assumptions, but I’m not sure that I understand this author accurately – all the other essays and studies in this book resonate as sensitive and accurate arguments, but to me this Third Space seems like a reincarnation of the ‘cultural melting pot’ idea. I agree that there is a need to deconstruct biased curriculum and replace it with culturally sensitive/inclusive material, I just am not certain that cultural hybridity should be the end goal. The author states that with cultural hybridity, “national identity is seen to be [a] continual and dynamic process of encounter, negotiation, and dislocation among and between cultural groups” (285); to me, negotiation and dislocation sound like assimilative terms.