66 CHAPTER V: CULTURAL CHANGES

1. Contributions approach- The ethic heroes and

holidays are included in the curriculum.

2. Additive approach- A unit or course is incorporate (for

example, a unit on women in history), but no substantial
change is made to the curriculum as a whole.

Level 4: Social Action

Students make decisions about their
world and become directly involved
in social actions.

Level 3: Transformation
Curriculum is change, so that students
see the world from the different
perspective of various groups.

Level 2: Additive
Special units and topics about various
groups and added to, but do not
fundamentally alter the curriculum.

Level 1: Contributions
Heroes, holidays, and food become a
special focus on a particular day,
recognizing the contributions of
various groups.

Figure 8: Approach to Multicultural Education

3. Transformation approach- The entire Eurocentric

nature of the curriculum is changed. Students are taught
 CHAPTER V: CULTURAL CHANGES 67

to view events and issues from diverse ethnic and

cultural perspectives.

4. Social action approach- It goes beyond the

transformation approach. Students not only learn to
view issues from multiple perspectives but also become
directly involved in solving related problems. Rather
than political passivity, the typical by-product of many
curricular programs, this approach promotes decision-
making and social action in order to achieve multicultural
goals and a more vibrant democracy (Sadker and Sadker,
2003).

Multicultural education is a progressive approach for

transforming education that holistically critiques and addresses
current shortcomings, failings, and discriminatory practices in
education. It is grounded in the ideals of social justice, education
equity, and a dedication to facilitating educational experiences
in which all students reach their full potential as learners and as
socially aware and active beings, locally, nationally, and globally.
Multicultural education acknowledge that schools are essential
to laying the foundation for the transformation of society and the
elimination of oppression and injustice.

Multicultural education not only draws content, concepts,

paradigms, and theories from specialized interdisciplinary fields
such as ethnic studies and women studies (and from history Multicultural
and the social and behavioral sciences), it also interrogates, education is a
challenges, and reinterprets content, concepts, and paradigms progressive approach
from the established disciplines. Multicultural education applies for transforming
education that
content from these fields and discipline to pedagogy and
holistically critiques
curriculum development in educational settings. Consequently, we
and addresses
may define multicultural education as a field of study designed
current shortcomings,
to increase educational equity for all students that incorporates,
failing and
for this purpose, content, concepts, principles, theories, and
discriminatory
paradigms from history, the social and behavioral sciences, and
practices in
particularly from ethnic studies and women studies.
education.

Since its earliest conceptualizations in the 1960s,

multicultural education has been transformed, refocused,
reconceptualized, and in a constant state of evolution both in
theory and in practice. Some discuss multicultural education
as a shift in curriculum, perhaps as simple as adding new
and diverse materials and perspectives to be more inclusive
of traditionally underrepresented groups. Others talk about
classroom climate issues or teaching styles that serve certain
groups while presenting barriers for others. Still, others focus on
68 CHAPTER V: CULTURAL CHANGES

institutional and systemic issues such as tracking, standardized

testing, or funding discrepancies. Some go further still, insisting
on education change as a part of a larger societal transformation
in which we more closely explore and criticize the oppressive
foundations of society and how education serves to maintain the
status quo foundations such as capitalism, global socio-economic
situations, and exploitation.

Despite a multitude of differing conceptualizations of

multicultural education, several shared ideals provide a basis
for its understanding. While some focus on individual students
or teachers, and others are much more “macro” in scope, these
ideals are all, at their roots, about transformation:

 Every student must have an equal opportunity to achieve

his/her full potential.
 Every student must be prepared to competently participate
in an increasingly 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 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
psychology, and counseling (http:// www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html).

Multicultural education is a concern affecting every phase

and aspect of teaching enabling teachers to scrutinize their
options and choices to clarify what social information they are
conveying overtly and covertly to their students. It is also a
means of challenging and expanding the goals and values that
underlie a curriculum, its materials, and its activities.

In a multicultural curricular curriculum, pupils learn

about themselves and others as they study various cultures.
They analyze the beliefs, attitudes, values, and behavior that
 CHAPTER V: CULTURAL CHANGES 69

are characteristic of particular cultures. As they do, members

of those cultures should have an increase in self-esteem and
simultaneously develop an appreciation and understanding
of other cultures. In this way, instruction in the classroom
dedicated to multicultural understanding can help raise the
academic expectations of minority students and combat any
stereotypes. Teachers, therefore, must be sensitive to the needs
of multicultural students (Rogoff, 1990).
Five dimension of
Dimensions of Multicultural Education multicultural
education:
There are five dimensions of multicultural education  Content
according to Banks (1997). They are: integration
 Knowledge
1. Content integration. It deals with the extent to which construction
teachers use examples and content from a variety process
of cultures and groups to illustrate key concepts,  Prejudice
generalizations, and issues within their subject area or reduction
disciplines.  Equity
2. Knowledge construction process. It describes how pedagogy
teachers help students to understand, investigate, and  Empowering
determine how the biases, frames of reference, and school culture
perspectives within a discipline influence the ways in and social
which knowledge is constructed within it. Students structure
also learn how to build knowledge themselves in this
dimension.
3. Prejudice reduction. It describes lessons and activities
used by teachers to help students to develop positive
attitudes toward different racial, ethnic, and cultural
groups. Research indicates that children come to school
with may negative attitudes toward and misconceptions
about different racial and ethnic groups. Research also
indicates that lessons, units, and teaching materials that
include content about different racial and ethnic groups
can help students to develop more positive intergroup
attitudes if certain condition exist in the teaching
situation. These conditions include positive images of
the ethnic group in the materials and the use of the
multiethnic materials in a consistent and sequential way.
4. Equity pedagogy. It exists when teachers modify
their teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic
achievement of students from diverse racial, culture, and
social class groups. Research indicates that the academic
achievement of students is increased when cooperative
teaching activities and strategies, rather than competitive
one, are used in instruction. Cooperative learning
activities also help all students, including middle-class
students, to develop more positive racial attitudes.