Multicultural Education - Research Paper Example

This definition is a way of adding prospective and diverse material to make it more inclusive in traditionally underrepresented groups. Other people talk about classroom teaching styles or climatic issues that serve certain people while presenting obstacles for them. Still, others insist on education change as part of the larger societal transformation, in which humans closely explore and criticize the oppressive foundations of the society and how education serves in maintaining the status quo foundations, such as capitalism, white supremacy, exploitation and global socioeconomic situations.

Despite the existence of multiple conceptualization of multicultural education, shared ideals provided a basis for its understanding. Some shared ideals focus on individual teachers or students while some are much more macro in scope and are about transformation. Multicultural education is a progressive approach that transforms education that holistically critiques and addresses current failings, short comings, and practices in education that are discriminatory (Nieto 67). It is brought up in ideals of, social justice, education equality and dedication to facilitating educational experiences, in which all students participate to their fullest potential as learners and as socially aware and active beings, nationally, locally and globally.

Multicultural education agrees to the fact that that schooling is essential in laying the foundation for the transformation of society and elimination of injustice and oppression. Every child goes to school with an ethnic identity (Arel and Ruble 77). The ethnic identity might be conscious or unconscious. The identification must be recognized and respected by the teacher since it forms the basis for learning activities in the classroom. The point is to acknowledge differences rather than ignoring them.

It is equally critical that the students recognize and show appreciation to their own ethnicity and also learn to appreciate those of the other students in the class. The recognition of individual ethnic identities forms the beginning point of learning (Draper 211). It is the connector of both student to student and teacher to student. Ethnicity appreciation is the basic building block in the learning process, which requires knowing where the student id relative to him/herself and content to be put under consideration.

Ethnic identification forms are continual points of focus throughout the process of education and it is also the basis for developing the next level of identification. The next level understanding is the national identification. The national identity of a people requires their understanding and commitment to the democratic ideals such as human equality, justice and dignity. In the national identity of an individual, the focus is put on becoming effective members of the demographic society. The strong national identification of an individual is essential to his/ her development of global identification.

Multicultural education has had five dimensions, which include; the knowledge construction process, content integration, prejudice reduction, empowering school culture and social structure and equality pedagogy. The dimensions are widely used by schools in conceptualizing and developing programs, course and projects in multicultural education. The dimensions are interrelated. Content integration explains the acts in which accidents examples and content from a variety of groups and cultures to demonstrate key