Introduction
In the era of globalization, the concept of multicultural education (ME) is not new. If we start to understand the concept of ME by viewing the history of pages, it is obvious that throughout history, Americans were the first to hear that African-Americans were not very intelligent and were responsible for most of the country’s crime. Jews had all the money, Latinos were illegal immigrants and ‘taking over’ the western states, Italian-Americans were gangsters, Scottish-Americans were cheap and Native-Americans were on welfare and received an automatic allotment from the United States government. Such negative stereotypes where on one hand caused enormous damage to America’s micro cultures, on the other hand it created various opportunities for students belonging to different cultures, races, ethnic and social class groups. These opportunities help to set the primary goal of ME – to help young students learn the folly of such stereotypical assertions.
Goals of Multicultural Education
Given these social conditions, the goal of multicultural education programs has been twofold: to provide more accurate descriptions of America’s micro cultural populations and to guarantee a better education for all American school children, regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or language background (Mitchell & Salsbury, 2000, p. 3). The significance of ME can be seen in colleges and universities, where administrators and faculty create courses and programs based on diversifying cultures in African American studies, Asian American studies, Latino/Hispanic Studies, Native American studies, and Women’s Studies. These efforts are designed to redress the acknowledged educational inequities and to respond to the demands of groups who are challenging higher education to eliminate racism and sexism (Ramsey et al, 2002, p. 13). These programs provide opportunities for scholars from different groups to study their own histories and culture and to challenge the stereotypes and historical inaccuracies widely accepted in the mainstream society. The reason for such broad acceptance is that ME has not been limited to education, rather it has transformed into a process because of the goals set up by its teachers and administrators (Thomas, 1994).
How to achieve the goals of multicultural education?
Throughout the history of multicultural education, educational commentators have offered several ways of goal achievement that describes or categorizes multicultural curriculum and teaching approaches and resources (Pattnaik, 2003). Such categories can aid teachers, administrators, and other curriculum specialists in discerning which materials reflect or extend their vision for their centres, schools, or classrooms.
The best way to achieve the goals of multicultural perspectives has been through curriculum and teaching practices in child care and educational settings for young children and even this has not always been a straightforward one, nor has it proceeded to the same degree of implementation in every instance. For many practitioners and administrators, the move has involved a slow deconstruction of past practices, first through accretion of new or different perspectives, and possibly followed by a reconstruction of programs through reconsideration and realignment of basic purposes and practices.
Among various multicultural curriculum reform movements, James Banks identifies four levels of practice for us, which are distinguished by the degree of integration of multicultural content and processes and the ultimate aims of the approach (Ramsey et al, 2002, p. 146):
- Level 1:The Contributions Approach that focuses on heroes, holidays, and discrete cultural elements presents an example of this approach by celebrating Martin Luther King Day as an event without integration of the history and meanings behind that day into the activities done with the children across subjects throughout the year. Another example would be the promotion of multicultural food fairs, commonly held in schools, without the children’s study of the significance of these foods in the past and present lives of the groups who originated them (Ramsey et al, 2002, p. 148)
- Level 2:The Additive Approach that adds various content, concepts, and perspectives to the curriculum without changing the curriculum’s structure might be seen in the addition of books by authors of colour to an existing list of required readings in a literature program, without examination of their import for the total construction of the program.
- Level 3:The Transformational Approach simply restructures the curriculum to provide students to feel the perspective of diverse ethnic and cultural groups. Here teachers and school administrators examine the whole curriculum and expand or reshape the content to represent multiple points of view, with awareness of the issues of power and oppression that influence what content is considered most valuable and of greatest use to children living within a particular society. An example of this approach in an upper elementary classroom would be moving from a cursory look at “slavery” in the antebellum southern United States where it has sometimes been implied in curriculum that being a slave was an accepted part of a social order to beginning to understand the dynamics of “enslavement”. Such a change draws upon what is now known of the actual history of the event, the roles played by both oppressors and oppressed, and the ethical dimensions pursued by both African American and European American resisters.
- Level 4:The Social Action Approach encourage the students to decide on their own regarding complex matters on important social issues and take action to help solve problems relating them.
One of the core ideas of multicultural education is that to infuse traditional oriented aims at strengthening the cultural identity of minorities. But how can this goal be reached if there is almost consensus about narrow and one-sided culturalistic approaches being contra productive? The goal cannot be achieved by encouraging students perceived as members of a minority to exhibit their origins and particularities that their identity will be strengthened and their rights respected. Therefore the only means of achieving goal is to bring about a kind of education in which the specific life background and knowledge of minority students is kept in mind and inspires the setting and contents of teaching at all times by surrounding them with an atmosphere of respect and consideration. A concrete solution to adopt multicultural education practices of such respect and consideration will be that the teaching is free of cultural, social, religious, linguistic, or any other prejudice, as well as ethnocentrism, not to mention racism (Grant & Lei, 2001, p. 15).
To be more precise, I believe that even more concretely, the languages of migrants and other minorities must have a definite place in the curriculum, along with the cultural contents they express. After all the principle of respect and consideration of the cultures and languages of minorities can be broadened and extended to become a general pedagogical principle.
References
Grant A. Carl & Lei L. Joy, (2001) Global Constructions of Multicultural Education: Theories and Realities: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.
Mitchell M. Bruce & Salsbury E. Robert, (2000) Multicultural Education in the U.S.: A Guide to Policies and Programs in the 50 States: Greenwood Press: Westport, CT.
Pattnaik Jyotsna, (2003) “Multicultural Literacy Starts at Home: Supporting Parental Involvement in Multicultural Education” In: Childhood Education. Volume: 80. Issue: 1.
Ramsey G. Patricia, Williams R. Leslie & Vold Edwina Battle, (2002) Multicultural Education: A Sourcebook: RoutledgeFalmer: New York.
Thomas G. Debbie, (1994) “Implementing Multicultural Education in Teacher Education Programs” In: Childhood Education. Volume: 70. Issue: 3.