What is Multicultural Education?

Multicultural education as a field of study and an emerging discipline whose major aim is to create equal education opportunities from diverse racial, ethnic, social class and cultural groups.

Primary goal:
To transform the school so that male and female students, exeptional students, and students from diverse cultural, social- class, racial and ethnic groups experience an equal opportunity to learn.

Other Goals

 To help all students to acquire knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to function effectively in pluralistic democratic society and to interact, negotiate and communicate with people from diverse group in order to create a civic and moral community that works for the common good.

 To help students acquire the knowledge and commitments needed to make reflective decisions and to take personal, social and civic action to promote democracy and democratic leaving.

 To help all students develop more positive attitudes towards different racial, ethnic, cultural and religious groups.

One way of achieving this goal is to transform the curriculum by integrating these groups.

4 Approaches for accomplishing the goals (James Banks)

1. Contributions approach

2. Additive approach

3. Transformation approach

4. Social action approach

Multicultural education is a progressive approach for transforming education that holistically critiques and addresses current shortcomings, failings and discriminatory practices in education.

Multicultural education acknowledges that schools are essential to laying the foundation for the transformation of society and the eliminatiobn of oppression and injustice.

Multicultural education as a shift in curriculum.

Ideals about transformation concerning multicultural education

 Every student must have an equal opportunity to achieve her or his full potentials.

Every student must be prepared to competently participate in an increasing intercultural society.

 Teachers must be prepared to effectively facilitate learning for every individual student, no matter how culturally similar or different from themselves.

 Schools must be active participants in ending oppression of all types, first by ending the oppression within their own walls, then by producing socially and critically active and aware students.

 Education must become more fully student-centered and inclusive of the voices and experiences of the students.

 Educators, activists and others must take a more active role in reexamining all educational practices and how they affect the learning of all students: testing methods, teaching approaches, evaluation and assessment, school pschology and counseling.