The Concept of Multicultural Education - Essay Example

Multicultural Education 2008 Multicultural Education The concept of multicultural education has recently become one of the most debated topics in the field of education. The historical origin of this approach can be traced back to the civil rights movements when African Americans and other historically oppressed minorities challenged discriminatory educational practices in the 1960s (Davidman and Davidman, 1997). Since those days multicultural education has developed into a broad framework encompassing variety of models that all share the core principles of multicultural approach. Multicultural education is a broad philosophical concept that relies on the principles of equality, freedom, justice, and human dignity. It emphasizes the need to prepare students for their responsibilities in an international interdependent world, recognizes the role educational institutions can play in building up the attitudes, norms and values necessary for a genuinely democratic society, and challenges all forms of discriminatory attitudes in education (Banks & Banks, 1995). The common definition reflects these basic functions of multicultural education: "Multicultural education is a field of study and an emerging discipline whose major aim is to create equal educational opportunities for students from diverse racial, ethnic, social-class, and cultural groups. One of its important goals is to help all students to acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to function effectively in a pluralistic democratic society and to interact, negotiate, and communicate with peoples from diverse groups in order to create a civic and moral community that works for the common good" (Banks and Banks, 1995, p.xi). Multicultural education encompasses several major dimensions. James A. Banks, one of the most influential and renowned multiculturalist, outlines five of them: integration, knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and an empowering school culture (Banks, 2003). These dimensions additionally emphasize the multifaceted and broad nature of multicultural education. Yet, it will be misleading to forget that the concept remains a relatively new one that continues to transform, and one of the key questions is whether multicultural education remains relevant and up to date or the emerging challenges produced by contemporary society are gradually turning it obsolete In fact, multicultural education represents a response to the dynamically changing demographic situation observed in the United States. According to the most recent projections, by 2020 approximately 46 percent of the whole public school student population will be children of color and more than 20 percent will be from poor families (Banks, 1997). Evidently, addressing the diverse learning needs of such population is a pressing task faced by the US educational system. However, the monocultural approach that has traditionally been the cornerstone of American education mostly focuses on the values, instructions and content of middle class Eurocentric student population. Such focus substantially complicates the process of learning the academic knowledge for students of different cultural and social background: the incompatibility between the culture of ethnic and social minority students and the educational approach based on the values of majority seriously affects achievement and contributes to academic failure of students (Nielson, 1991). Therefore, an increasingly multicultural student population in the US stresses the need to address the systemic, curricular, and pedagogical barriers that negatively affect academic performance and achievement of minority students. Furthermore, the concept of multicultural education also recognizes that "an increasingly multicultural nation and a shrinking and contentious planet at the edge of the twenty-first century demands a people who are critical thinkers and able to deal with the complexities of multicultural differences" (Hanley, 2002). Many believe that multicultural educational policies help students develop new human capabilities and new identities in order to properly respond to the increasing need to recognize cultural diversity. Multicultural education promotes the ideals of cultural and educational equity, social justice thus enabling students to reach their fully potential in learning the curriculum. Finally, it offers to revisit the traditional views on teaching/learning, student achievement, role of teacher, role of language and cultural background and many others (Kalantzis, Varnava-Skoura, & Cope, 2002). Obviously, the idea of multicultural education looks extremely attractive as an effective tool to reinforce the democratic multicultural society and at the same time respect the inclination of different ethnic groups to preserve their cultural traditions. However, practical application of this idea produced a series of publications questioning credibility of multicultural education. Firstly, despite being praised as the most tolerant multicultural societies, the monocultural or ethnocentric tradition in schools represents a very serious challenge to effectiveness multicultural education. For example, in Australia authorities started to legally enforce multicultural approach in education back in the 1980s, but even these days Australian schools are criticized for not providing indigenous population the same opportunities as majority of other ethnic groups (Hudson, 2003, p. 387). Secondly, there are serious doubts that multicultural education addresses all of its goals equally. Instead, a number of experts believe that multicultural practices do not take into consideration the key goal of multicultural education, namely the transformation of educational system to adequately incorporate the needs of culturally diverse students in shaping the ways they are educated. The approach educators normally take attempting to address the needs of minority students is overly simplified: the mere inclusion of an occasional cultural element in the curriculum does not suffice for creating multicultural framework. Multicultural education requires more than inclusion of certain holidays, heroes or food in the curriculum; it complex research to properly reflect the multiple perspectives and views involved in any experience associated with certain cultural group. There is simply no other way to correctly understand and reflect the rich meaning behind each culture (Hanley, 2002). There are numerous instructional strategies that help educators adequately address the challenges presented by the multicultural framework. These include artifacts, pictures, and maps that have relation to the students' cultural backgrounds: they help create the basis for many different goals and aspects of learning. The way of presenting assignments is also important. Students should perceive the classroom as a safe place where they can easily reveal their experiences and thoughts without feeling any pressure. Assignments must be broad enough so that every student could fulfill them without any discomfort about the topic or thoughts the assignment brings up for them (Dunn, & Adkins, 2003). Although the multicultural environment involves a number of differences, still the amount of similarities between students is more substantial which can also be employed by educators to create genuinely multicultural learning environment. Thus, work in pairs or small groups is likely to help students with different cultural backgrounds correctly relate to each other and to the society in general (Dunn, & Adkins, 2003). The example of multicultural education once again shows us the difference between theory and practice. On the one hand, multiculturalism definitely has the potential to become a serious tool in reducing discrimination and inequalities in the realm of education. On the other hand, multicultural education practices often fail to address the difficult task of unifying the society without neglecting the cultural and ethnic traditions of minorities. Moreover, the constantly changing society creates new challenges that can hardly be addressed within the existing framework of multicultural education. However, failure to achieve certain goals does not mean that the concept of multicultural education is futile per se. On the contrary, it should create additional motivation for scholars and teachers to look for innovations and new opportunities to meet the challenges of these days and correct the previous mistakes. Multicultural education must be changed seriously to effectively respond to the needs of this epoch. References Banks, J. A. (1997). Teaching strategies for ethnic studies. (6th edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon Banks, J.A. (2003) "Multicultural Education: Historical Development, Dimensions, and Practice". In: Banks, J.A., and C.M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education, 2nd Edition, Jossey-Bass Publishing: pp. 2-28 Banks, James A., and Banks, Cherry McGee. (1995) Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education. Macmillan. New York Davidman, L., and Davidman, P. (1997). Teaching with a multicultural perspective: A practical guide. New York: Longman. Dunn, B., & Adkins, M. A. (2003). "The Multicultural Classroom: Teaching Refugee and Immigrant Children", New Horizons for Learning [available online at http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/multicultural/adkins_dunn.htm] Hanley, M. S. (2002). "The Scope of Multicultural Education", New Horizons for Learning [available online at http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/multicultural/hanley.htm] Hudson, A.H. (2003) "Multicultural Education and the Postcolonial Turn", Policy Features in Education, Vol.1, Num. 2: pp.381-401 Nieto, S. (1997). School reform and student Achievement: A multicultural perspective. In J. A. Banks &C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (3rd ed., pp. 385-407). Boston: Allyn and Bacon Kalantzis, M., G. Varnava-Skoura and B. Cope (Eds) (2002). Learning for the Future: New Worlds, New Literacies, New Learning, New People. Common Ground Publishing Read More