Insider/Outsider Debate

Hello everyone,

I wanted to continue our discussion/debate on insider vs. outsider and who is qualified to write about different cultures.  I realize that publishers do lean towards publishing books by an outsiders perspective and I am not going to be able to change that.  However, as a future teacher, I will be able to filter the literature that I read and introduce to my students.  I will have to be educated and research each piece of literature I bring to the classroom so I know how to use the literature in the best way.  I think people will continue to argue over and over again about who is qualified to write about a culture but the bottom line is talked about in Cai (1998) saying that it is the teachers responsibility to use the literature in the most appropriate way; whether it was written in an insider or an outsiders perspective.

There is also the continuing debate over "authentic" and "culture."

There is more to culture than race yet, the only debate about an insider/outsider perspective on multicultural literature is on race.