Is There a "Hierarchy of Oppression" in U.S. Multicultural Teacher Education Coursework?

Thirty years ago Audre Lorde famously argued that there is no, or ought not to be, a "hierarchy of oppression"; that the notion that one identity or oppression trumps another is, itself, oppression. Around the same time, many multicultural education theorists and practitioners, initially focused largely on race, began to incorporate other equity concerns. Despite today's widely, although not universally, shared notion that it is concerned with all forms of equity, research has shown that a hierarchy of oppression remains visible in multicultural education theory and practice. In this study the authors analyzed course schedules from a sample (N = 41) of multicultural teacher education (MTE) course syllabi and data from a survey (N = 122) of people who teach MTE courses to ascertain whether a systemic hierarchy of oppression exists in MTE coursework. The authors found that such a hierarchy does, indeed, exist. Implications are discussed from an intersectionality theory perspective.