On Race and Culture: Beyond Afrocentrism,Eurocentrism to Cultural Democracy

Abstract

The author contends that the struggle for cultural democracy in American education will be critical in determining the quality and the future of education and of America itself. Cultural democracy recognizes the human right of each ethnic / cultural group in a culturally diverse society to have equal access to life chances and sources of social power. Power means to have a “voice,” that is, to have the capacity to define oneself as an active participant in the world rather than a passive victim. Thus, the “voice” as expressed in the theoretical underpinnings or major premises of Afrocentrism, Eurocentrism, and cultural democracy is examined with emphasis on their current contributions and future possibilities for shaping higher education and charting the directions in intergroup relations in American society in the twenty-first century.