Which Of The Following Best Defines Multicultural Education?
Multicultural education refers to any form of education or teaching that incorporates the histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds. At the classroom level, for example, teachers may modify or incorporate lessons to reflect the cultural diversity of the students in a particular class.
In many cases, “culture” is defined in the broadest possible sense, encompassing race, ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation, and “exceptionality”—a term applied to students with specialized needs or disabilities. Generally speaking, multicultural education is predicated on the principle of educational equity for all students, regardless of culture, and it strives to remove barriers to educational opportunities and success for students from different cultural backgrounds.
In practice, educators may modify or eliminate educational policies, programs, materials, lessons, and instructional practices that are either discriminatory toward or insufficiently inclusive of diverse cultural perspectives. Multicultural education also assumes that the ways in which students learn and think are deeply influenced by their cultural identity and heritage, and that to teach culturally diverse students effectively requires educational approaches that value and recognize their cultural backgrounds.
- In this way, multicultural education aims to improve the learning and success of all students, particularly students from cultural groups that have been historically underrepresented or that suffer from lower educational achievement and attainment.
- Instructionally, multicultural education may entail the use of texts, materials, references, and historical examples that are understandable to students from different cultural backgrounds or that reflect their particular cultural experience—such as teaching students about historical figures who were female, disabled, or gay (a less common practice in past decades).
Since schools in the United States have traditionally used texts, learning materials, and cultural examples that commonly—or even exclusively—reflect an American or Eurocentric point of view, other cultural perspectives are often absent. Consequently, some students—such as recently arrived immigrants or students of color, for example—may be placed at an educational disadvantage due to cultural or linguistic obstacles that have been overlooked or ignored.
Learning content: Texts and learning materials may include multiple cultural perspectives and references. For example, a lesson on colonialism in North America might address different cultural perspectives, such as those of the European settlers, indigenous Americans, and African slaves. Student cultures: Teachers and other educators may learn about the cultural backgrounds of students in a school, and then intentionally incorporate learning experiences and content relevant to their personal cultural perspectives and heritage. Students may also be encouraged to learn about the cultural backgrounds of other students in a class, and students from different cultures may be given opportunities to discuss and share their cultural experiences. Critical analysis: Educators may intentionally scrutinize learning materials to identify potentially prejudicial or biased material. Both educators and students might analyze their own cultural assumptions, and then discuss how learning materials, teaching practices, or schools policies reflect cultural bias, and how they could be changed to eliminate bias. Resource allocation: Multicultural education is generally predicated on the principle of equity—i.e., that the allocation and distribution of educational resources, programs, and learning experiences should be based on need and fairness, rather than strict equality. For example, students who are not proficient in the English language may learn in bilingual settings and read bilingual texts, and they may receive comparatively more instructional support than their English-speaking peers so that they do not fall behind academically or drop out of school due to language limitations.
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Which of the following best defines multiculturalism?
Which of the following is the best definition of multiculturalism? People of various cultures who live together in relative harmony, and mutual respect.
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What is multicultural education based on quizlet?
An approach to teaching and learning based on democratic values and a belief in a culturally pluralistic society. Gained insight into their own cultural assumptions, the ability to interact effectively with people from another culture and empathy for different world views.
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What is multicultural education approach?
The National Association for Multicultural Education Numerous definitions of multicultural education have been proposed or espoused by scholars, researchers and organizations over the past 30 years. To assist researchers, teachers, educators, and parents in understanding and implementing multicultural education, the National Association for Multicultural Education defines multicultural education below.
- Multicultural Education Multicultural education is a philosophical concept built on the ideals of freedom, justice, equality, equity, and human dignity as acknowledged in various documents, such as the U.S.
- Declaration of Independence, constitutions of South Africa and the United States, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations.
It affirms our need to prepare students for their responsibilities in an interdependent world. It recognizes the role schools can play in developing the attitudes and values necessary for a democratic society. It values cultural differences and affirms the pluralism that students, their communities, and teachers reflect.
It challenges all forms of discrimination in schools and society through the promotion of democratic principles of social justice. Multicultural education is a process that permeates all aspects of school practices, policies and organization as a means to ensure the highest levels of academic achievement for all students.
It helps students develop a positive self-concept by providing knowledge about the histories, cultures, and contributions of diverse groups. It prepares all students to work actively toward structural equality in organizations and institutions by providing the knowledge, dispositions, and skills for the redistribution of power and income among diverse groups.
Thus, school curriculum must directly address issues of racism, sexism, classism, linguicism, ablism, ageism, heterosexism, religious intolerance, and xenophobia. Multicultural education advocates the belief that students and their life histories and experiences should be placed at the center of the teaching and learning process and that pedagogy should occur in a context that is familiar to students and that addresses multiple ways of thinking.
In addition, teachers and students must critically analyze oppression and power relations in their communities, society and the world. To accomplish these goals, multicultural education demands a school staff that is culturally competent, and to the greatest extent possible racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse.
Staff must be multiculturally literate and capable of including and embracing families and communities to create an environment that is supportive of multiple perspectives, experiences, and democracy. Multicultural education requires comprehensive school reform as multicultural education must pervade all aspects of the school community and organization.
Recognizing that equality and equity are not the same thing, multicultural education attempts to offer all students an equitable educational opportunity, while at the same time, encouraging students to critique society in the interest of social justice.
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How would you define multiculturalism?
Abstract – Multiculturalism refers to (1) the state of a society or the world in which there exists numerous distinct ethnic and cultural groups seen to be politically relevant; and (2) a program or policy promoting such a society. Political philosophers aspire to deal with the challenges posed by multiculturalism fairly – but there is deep disagreement about what constitutes fair treatment.
- Multiculturalism might entail the granting of rights (individual or collective) on the grounds of the value cultures have for individuals, or even society as a whole.
- A multicultural state then might be one in which different forms of recognition are granted to cultural groups to secure the valuable goods cultural membership provides equally and avoid unfairly privileging dominant groups.
On the other hand, it can be argued that precisely because of deep social and cultural diversity, the state should remain neutral between groups and ensure that basic liberal rights are fairly and consistently applied across cultural differences. Granting recognition to groups risks undermining the security and welfare of individuals by ‘politicizing’ forms of cultural identification best kept out of public decision making about the distribution of goods and resources.
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What are the characteristics of multicultural education?
The Dimensions of Multicultural Education – I have identified five dimensions of multicultural education. They are: content integration, the knowledge construction process, prejudice reduction, an equity pedagogy, and an empowering school culture and social structure (Banks, 1995a).
Content integration deals with the extent to which teachers use examples and content from a variety of cultures and groups to illustrate key concepts, generalizations, and issues within their subject areas or disciplines. The knowledge construction process describes how teachers help students to understand, investigate, and determine how the biases, frames of reference, and perspectives within a discipline influence the ways in which knowledge is constructed within it (Banks, 1996).
Students also learn how to build knowledge themselves in this dimension. Prejudice reduction 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 many negative attitudes toward and misconceptions about different racial and ethnic groups (Phinney & Rotheram, 1987).
- 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 conditions exist in the teaching situation (Banks, 1995b).
- These conditions include positive images of the ethnic groups in the materials and the use of multiethnic materials in a consistent and sequential way.
An equity pedagogy exists when teachers modify their teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse racial, cultural, and social-class groups (Banks & Banks, 1995). Research indicates that the academic achievement of African American and Mexican American students is increased when cooperative teaching activities and strategies, rather than competitive ones, are used in instruction (Aronson & Gonzalez, 1988).
Cooperative learning activities also help all students, including middle-class White students, to develop more positive racial attitudes. However, to attain these positive outcomes, cooperative learning activities must have several important characteristics (Allport, 1954). The students from different racial and ethnic groups must feel that they have equal status in intergroup interactions, teachers and administrators must value and support cross-racial interactions, and students from different racial groups must work together in teams to pursue common goals.
An empowering school culture and social structure is created when the culture and organization of the school are transformed in ways that enable students from diverse racial, ethnic, and gender groups to experience equality and equal status. The implementation of this dimension requires that the total environment of the school be reformed, including the attitudes, beliefs, and action of teachers and administrators, the curriculum and course of study, assessment and testing procedures, and the styles and strategies used by teachers.
To implement multicultural education effectively, teachers and administrators must attend to each of the five dimensions of multicultural education described above. They should use content from diverse groups when teaching concepts and skills, help students to understand how knowledge in the various disciplines is constructed, help students to develop positive intergroup attitudes and behaviors, and modify their teaching strategies so that students from different racial, cultural, and social-class groups will experience equal educational opportunities.
The total environment and culture of the school must also be transformed so that students from diverse ethnic and cultural groups will experience equal status in the culture and life of the school. Although the five dimensions of multicultural education are highly interrelated, each requires deliberate attention and focus.
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What is multicultural education and why is it important?
What Is Multicultural Education? – Multicultural education values different student cultures and prepares students to thrive in a diverse world. At its core, multicultural education fosters equality, justice, and equity, and it establishes the reality of philosophical ideals in classroom environments.
Multicultural education is what schools implement to establish equitable educational opportunities for all their students. It is also an ongoing process of helping students succeed in their academic and personal lives. Teachers, administrators, and school leaders play an important role in ensuring the incorporation of multicultural education by selecting and managing policies, curricula, and teaching styles.
The practice relies on educators who value the histories and experiences of diverse groups of students. Schools and teachers can approach multicultural education in a variety of ways, supporting students as they develop positive perspectives of their own cultures as well as the cultures of their peers.
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Which of the following is the main concern of multicultural education?
Multicultural Education – History, The Dimensions of Multicultural Education, Evidence of the Effectiveness of Multicultural Education Multicultural education is an idea, an approach to school reform, and a movement for equity, social justice, and democracy.
Specialists within multicultural education emphasize different components and cultural groups. However, a significant degree of consensus exists within the field regarding its major principles, concepts, and goals. A major goal of multicultural education is to restructure schools so that all students acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to function in an ethnically and racially diverse nation and world.
Multicultural education seeks to ensure educational equity for members of diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic groups, and to facilitate their participation as critical and reflective citizens in an inclusive national civic culture. Multicultural education tries to provide students with educational experiences that enable them to maintain commitments to their community cultures as well as acquire the knowledge, skills, and cultural capital needed to function in the national civic culture and community.
Multicultural theorists view academic knowledge and skills as necessary but not sufficient for functioning in a diverse nation and world. They regard skills in democratic living and the ability to function effectively within and across diverse groups as essential goals of schooling. Multicultural education is highly consistent with the ideals embodied in the U.S.
Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. It seeks to extend the rights and privileges granted to the nation’s founding elites–the ideals of freedom, equality, justice, and democracy–to all social, cultural and language groups.
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What does multicultural education look like in a classroom?
What Is Multicultural Education? – Multicultural education helps all students see themselves in the curriculum and the classroom. It is a field of study that embraces techniques to advance and advocate educational equity for all students of every age, Howell explained.
It focuses on, but is not limited to, ethnic, racial, language, and gender issues that potentially marginalize groups or subgroups of people. “It helps all students acquire the knowledge, skills, attributes, and attitudes needed to function in a democratic society while feeling valued and heard,” Howell said.
Critical multicultural education also involves challenging forms of oppression, said Dr. Ann Lopez, president of the National Association for Multicultural Education. “You cannot have multicultural education that speaks about celebrating diversity but doesn’t address, for example, anti-Black racism or doesn’t address issues of homophobia,” Lopez said.
“It’s so important that critical multicultural education disrupt power, forms of oppression, and really work with educators to begin to think about, how do they engage in this world? What does that look like and what is the impact?” Although imparting multicultural education is often seen as a responsibility that resides with certain teachers, the task of approaching education through a multicultural lens belongs to every educator.
“Even if you do not have diverse students in front of you and you’re teaching where all of the students are homogenic, that knowledge is also for them,” Lopez said.
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What are the three goals of multicultural education?
The National Association for Multicultural Education The National Association for Multicultural Education is a 501.c-3 non-profit organization that advances and advocates for social justice and educational equity through multicultural education. There are six points of consensus regarding multicultural education that are central to NAME’s philosophy, and serve as NAME’s goals:
To respect and appreciate cultural diversity. To promote the understanding of unique cultural and ethnic heritage. To promote the development of culturally responsible and responsive curricula. To facilitate acquisition of the attitudes, skills, and knowledge to function in various cultures. To eliminate racism and discrimination in society. To achieve social, political, economic, and educational equity.
The following specific objectives highlight several of NAME’s future directions:
Provide opportunities for learning in order to advance multicultural education, equity and social justice. To proactively reframe public debate and impact current and emerging policies in ways that advance social, political, economic and educational equity through advocacy, position papers, policy statements, press releases and other strategies. Provide the preeminent digital clearinghouse of resources about educational equity and social justice.
NAME’s anti-discrimination statement: The National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) is committed to an anti-discrimination policy in all of its programs and services. NAME is consciously and proactively inclusive of all areas of diversity including, but not limited to race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sovereign tribal Nations status, ancestry, gender identity and expression, sex, sexual orientation, religion, age, social class, socioeconomic status, marital status, language, disability, or immigration status.
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What is the cause of multicultural education?
4. Mindset of critical thinking on current social issues surrounding cultural diversity – The biggest takeaway from education for students should not only be restricted to textbook knowledge, but also how they can incorporate it to their own experiences and their current reality.
Multicultural education allows students to hone their critical thinking skills on topics surrounding cultural and social issues, including “institutional racism, classism, sexism, ableism, ageism and homophobia” ( Gollnick& Chinn, 2006), For instance, multicultural curriculum may include the history of African Americans, and what they had been through from slavery, to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, to the present with the Black Lives Matter movement and the disproportionate incarceration of young black men.
Students can understand the historical continuum of social issues as they are still happening today. Think about the on-going protest on Black Lives Matter, triggered by the death of George Floyd, They may think about the significance of this and why the problem still exists after more than a century since the abolition of slavery was brought into legislation in 1865.
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