Your Cart
Weblog
Multicultural Education in the U.S.: Current Issue of Purpose, Direction and Substance
Multicultural Education is a relatively new term that describes and attempts to harness under a common rubric a long tradition of academic interests, research, instruction, advocacy and action (Gay 1994), all which have, to varying degrees, frameworks and foci (Banks, 2004), and the same point of commonality: equitable inclusion for historically disenfranchised groups in the democratic enterprise within the United States. Common major categories and their constituent elements that scholars, teachers, and advocates, among others, identify for purposes of research, instruction or support include race, ethnicity, gender, class and language—other factors, such as exceptionality (Banks, 2004) and spirituality (Kwok Pui-lan, 2004), may also form part of the multicultural education elements.
The multiple factors that MCE attempts to embrace, or more accurately perhaps, harness, may well be vast in scope and sensitive to integrate. As such, they may add raw complexity and puzzlement rather than refined simplicity and clarity to what range of definitional, methodological, and theoretical parameters delimits the term multicultural education (Ladson-Billings, 2004: 61-62). As Grant et al. (2004: 198) determined in their review of multicultural education research (1990-2001), sexuality and religion are considered part of the multicultural education family, but have not figured prominently in the actual research literature. Kwok Pui-lan, for example, has worked for years developing, applying and contributing research from the academic perspectives of the Asian Christian feminist and postcolonial theology movements, and the American Educational Research Association (AERA) has a special interest group (SIG) dedicated to “Queer Studies” (http://education.ua.edu/queersig/resources2.html).
However, although both of the above elements are theoretically included, there has been but a minor amount of multicultural education classroom research in these two areas over the past decade. Despite this challenging definitional ambiguity, multicultural education’s academic roots are solidly grounded in the perennial struggle—political and popular, peaceful and violent—for civil rights that sprang naturally from enslavement and exclusion, two conditions that were, and remain, antithetical to the rhetoric that serves to define, guide and morally justify the democratic essence of the United States of America and its inhabitants (Gay, 2004).
It appears, then, that the multifaceted goal of multicultural education in the United States is to (a) develop research-informed frameworks of understanding of the various groups that comprise the nation, both historically and currently; (b) influence the socialization processes and outcomes of historically underrepresented groups through enhanced and relevant access to, participation in and benefit from institutional experiences, including educational, economic and civic; and (c) serve as a long-term, broad and accessible gateway to formally educate the American public about itself, in order to move from internal conflict and fragmentation to national consensus and social cohesion—to participate equally and freely in the dynamic social architecture and construction of our democracy.
How well this complex area, that is, multicultural education, has served the above end deserves continued attention and analysis, and will be the focus of forthcoming comments.
Authors cited:
Banks, J. (2004).Multicultural education: Historical development, dimensions and practice. In Banks & Banks (Eds.) Handbook of research on multicultural education In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd Ed.) (pp. 3-29), San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Gay, G. (1994). A synthesis of scholarship on multicultural education. (Urban Monograph Series). Oakbrook, IL. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.
Gay, G. (2004). Curriculum theory and multicultural education. In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed.) (pp. 30-49), San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Grant, C., Elsbree, A. & Fondrie, S. (2004). A decade of research on the changing terrain of multicultural education research. In Banks & Banks (Eds.) Handbook of research on multicultural education In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed.) (pp. 184-207), San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Kwok, P. L. (2004). An Asian woman’s reflections on life in the profession. Retrieved January 8, 2007 from http://www.ats.edu/leadership_education/Papers2005KwokPui-lan.pdf.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2004). New directions in multicultural education: Complexities, boundaries, and critical race theory. In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed.) (pp. 30-49), San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
The multiple factors that MCE attempts to embrace, or more accurately perhaps, harness, may well be vast in scope and sensitive to integrate. As such, they may add raw complexity and puzzlement rather than refined simplicity and clarity to what range of definitional, methodological, and theoretical parameters delimits the term multicultural education (Ladson-Billings, 2004: 61-62). As Grant et al. (2004: 198) determined in their review of multicultural education research (1990-2001), sexuality and religion are considered part of the multicultural education family, but have not figured prominently in the actual research literature. Kwok Pui-lan, for example, has worked for years developing, applying and contributing research from the academic perspectives of the Asian Christian feminist and postcolonial theology movements, and the American Educational Research Association (AERA) has a special interest group (SIG) dedicated to “Queer Studies” (http://education.ua.edu/queersig/resources2.html).
However, although both of the above elements are theoretically included, there has been but a minor amount of multicultural education classroom research in these two areas over the past decade. Despite this challenging definitional ambiguity, multicultural education’s academic roots are solidly grounded in the perennial struggle—political and popular, peaceful and violent—for civil rights that sprang naturally from enslavement and exclusion, two conditions that were, and remain, antithetical to the rhetoric that serves to define, guide and morally justify the democratic essence of the United States of America and its inhabitants (Gay, 2004).
It appears, then, that the multifaceted goal of multicultural education in the United States is to (a) develop research-informed frameworks of understanding of the various groups that comprise the nation, both historically and currently; (b) influence the socialization processes and outcomes of historically underrepresented groups through enhanced and relevant access to, participation in and benefit from institutional experiences, including educational, economic and civic; and (c) serve as a long-term, broad and accessible gateway to formally educate the American public about itself, in order to move from internal conflict and fragmentation to national consensus and social cohesion—to participate equally and freely in the dynamic social architecture and construction of our democracy.
How well this complex area, that is, multicultural education, has served the above end deserves continued attention and analysis, and will be the focus of forthcoming comments.
Authors cited:
Banks, J. (2004).Multicultural education: Historical development, dimensions and practice. In Banks & Banks (Eds.) Handbook of research on multicultural education In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd Ed.) (pp. 3-29), San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Gay, G. (1994). A synthesis of scholarship on multicultural education. (Urban Monograph Series). Oakbrook, IL. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.
Gay, G. (2004). Curriculum theory and multicultural education. In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed.) (pp. 30-49), San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Grant, C., Elsbree, A. & Fondrie, S. (2004). A decade of research on the changing terrain of multicultural education research. In Banks & Banks (Eds.) Handbook of research on multicultural education In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed.) (pp. 184-207), San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Kwok, P. L. (2004). An Asian woman’s reflections on life in the profession. Retrieved January 8, 2007 from http://www.ats.edu/leadership_education/Papers2005KwokPui-lan.pdf.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2004). New directions in multicultural education: Complexities, boundaries, and critical race theory. In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed.) (pp. 30-49), San Francisco: Jossey Bass.