Do I understand reactions to Lord Tebbit’s remarks on multiculturalism by the head of his old school - do they mean that we now value all cultures equally (Diary, TES, October 17)? And does that mean that teachers will help young people to respect culturally-rooted ideas of racial superiority or male dominance, and to understand sympathetically cultural practices such as female circumcision or the prompt despatch of outed homosexuals?
Or do we try to elide from all cultures in this country, by education and legislation, those attitudes and practices with which we, in our small, recent and very provincial culture, have come to regard as oppressive and inhumane?
RICHARD WILKINS General Secretary Association of Christian Teachers 94A London Road St Albans
