Third, in response to criticisms that challenge traditional contrastive rhetoric, an alternative conceptual framework known as critical contrastive rhetoric has been established that maintains a critical understanding of the politics of cultural difference. Critical contrastive rhetoric explores issues such as critical thinking[13] in teaching situations that challenge essentialism. It takes into consideration poststructuralist, postcolonial, and postmodern critiques of language and culture, in order to reconceptualize cultural difference in rhetoric.