It is in the process of collective work, rather than collective
dialogue alone, that the critical aspects of solidarity are located -
in jointly naming and solving problems, in identifying common
elements of experience, of oppression, but in noting at the same
time individual differences which give perspective and meaning to
the commonalities. Working extensively with students from
excluded majority backgrounds in California and Aotearoa-New
Zealand, I have found their emerging sense of solidarity-incultural-identity more than adequately compensates to counteractthe symbolic power which I, as the teacher, bring to the class andotherwise struggle to discard.