mce.pptx

1
Purpose
2 Philosophy & Goals of
MCE
3 Dimensions of
MCE
4 The curriculum of
MCE
Content out line
5
• Challenges of minorities in
multicultural school setting

The Concept of Multicultural
Education
• Multi + Culture= Multicultural
What is Culture?
• Can you define culture?
• In small groups, brainstorm ideas and agree
upon a definition of culture.

• Culture: that complex whole which includes
Knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom and
any other capabilities and habits acquired by man
as a member of society.
• Culture refers to all that is learned by human in
a society and are transmitted to the next
generation.
• “the set of common beliefs and practices that a
person shares with a group” (Robins et al., 2006)
• The system of share beliefs, values, customs,
behaviors, technologies and products that a
society holds, follows, uses and produces to live
in its environment, and passes on from
generation to generation.

Culture….
• Culture is simply the fabric of ideals, beliefs, skills,
tools, aesthetic objects, methods of thinking,
customs, and institutions in to which each member
is born.
• The values and rules we live by, our ideals of good
and evil, our language, religion
• It consists of the things the people have learned to
do, to believe, to value, to enjoy.
• The way individuals make a living, the games they
play, the way they care for their children, their
family organizations, their modes of transportation
and communication-all of these and countless
other items numerous to mention, comprise the
culture of a people

The way our ancestors speak
through us
Culture is learned behavior, not instinctual or
inherited.
• Each child goes through a process of enculturation
when they grow up in a culture.
• Children learn by observing the behaviors of
people in their surroundings, including the
recognition of symbols specific to that culture.

According to contents there are two types of culture
in every society:
✔ Material culture
✔Non material culture
• Material culture: It includes all those man made
things and objects which human society has
created for its physical welfare. As for example
clothes, utensils, TV, radio, various machines
• Non material culture: It includes those ideals,
attitudes and values which modify the behaviour
of an individual. Language, literature, art, music,
religion, customs, traditions etc are some of the
example of non material culture.

Education and Culture
• What is the relationship between Culture and
Education?

Education and Culture
⮚Education
– Medium through which people are
acculturated
⮚Education system may be a cultural outcome
• Education: “Systematic socialization of
young generation( Emile Durkheim)

• Whose culture is being passed on by schools?

Education and Society
• What is the relationship between Society and
Education?

• Education is conceived as a systematic effort
to maintain a culture.
• Education is the process by which society,
through schools, colleges, universities and
other institutions, deliberately transmit its
cultural heritage, its accumulated knowledge,
values and skills from one generation to
another.

• Education is seen as a means of cultural
transmission from one generation to another
in any given society.
• Society is defined as the whole range of social
relationships of people living in a certain
geographic territory and having a sense of
belonging to the same group.
• Societies are systems of relationships
between people.
• Shared culture is important in holding a
society together.

• The relationships between the two concepts are
so strong that it is not possible to separate them
because what happens to one affects the other.
• Educational institutions are micro-societies,
which reflect the entire society.
• The education system in any given society
prepares the child for future life and instills in
him those skills that will enable him to live a
useful life and contribute to the development of
the society.

• Schools are established in many societies of the
world so as to instill(teach) in the pupils those
skill’s which will afford them the opportunity of
taking their rightful positions in the society;
• This means that the child cannot be educated in
a vacuum or in isolation. Therefore, for a child to
be educated there must be interaction between
him and his physical and social environment

• Durkbeim (1956) Education is a social
phenomenon through which a society assumes
its own continuity by socializing the young in
its own image.
• Education is used in the transmission of the
cultural values.
• One important implication of looking at
education as the transmitter of cultural values
is the fact that education can be influenced by
the culture of the society in which it takes
place.

Models of multicultural societies
• In multicultural societies there are different models of
racial integration.
• The USA is traditionally called a melting pot because
with time, generations of immigrants have melted
together: they have abandoned their cultures to become
totally assimilated into American society.
• But in the UK, where cultural diversity is considered a
positive thing, immigrants have always been encouraged
to maintain their traditions and their native language.
This model of racial integration can be described as a salad
bowl, with people of different cultures living in harmony,
like the lettuce, tomatoes and carrots in a salad

Assimilation(melting pot perspective)
• Over the centuries an accepted policy was that
people coming to a new country would, after an
initial adjustment period become assimilated or
integrated with the local population.
• In such cases, at some point, the knowledge of
their heritage was not passed on, which equals a
form of denial. Most of these people have lost
their histories, customs, and languages and have
accepted the common history of the dominant
culture.

Definitions of assimilation
J.Milton Yinger in Marger 1994: 116 defines it as
a process of boundary reduction that can
occur when members of two or more societies
or of smaller cultural groups meet.
• Similarly, Harold Abramson (1980:150) in
Marger 1994:116 defines it as the processes
that lead to greater homogeneity in society.

• Beginning the first contact, various individuals
within the two groups learn some of the
language, customs, sentiments, and attitudes of
those of other groups. As the groups continue to
live together, then occurs a progressive merger
of the smaller group into the larger ( Park
1964:205 in McLemore 1983: 20-21).
• This process has erased the external signs which
formerly distinguished the member over the
other. When the external signs have been erased,
the members of the smallest group has been said
to be assimilated (McLemore 1983:21).

• Assimilation or “melting-pot” perspective is a
perspective in which microcultures are expected to
give up their cultural identities in order to blend in or
become absorbed by the predominant mainstream
society or macroculture (Bennett, 2003).
• The idea behind this theory is that racial and ethnic
groups should move towards the culture and society of
the host, giving up their distinctive heritage along the
way.
• Figure 1 shows the “melting-pot” perspective of
development of a shared culture, such as the American
culture, from the various microcultures and cultural
groups.

• In the assimilation or “melting-pot” perspective
of development of a shared culture, the
members of the microcultures are accepted only
once they give up their original identity, values,
behavioral styles, language, and nonverbal
communication styles.
• Also, in the assimilation perspective, other
cultural distinctiveness and identification with
other ways of life are viewed as unacceptable,
inferior, and a threat to national unity. Everything
possible is done by the popular culture to
suppress the other cultures and contributions of
other groups (Bennett, 2003)

Although the initial purpose of assimilation or
“melting-pot” perspective was to bring unity
through development of a shared culture as
each microculture becomes absorbed into the
shared macroculture, it is becoming more
difficult to achieve widespread democracy
among the microcultures because the
resultant culture does not reflect the cultural
diversity within the nation

• Suppression of the micro-cultures and inequality
among people in society have resulted from the
assimilation or “melting-pot” perspective of
multiculturalism.
• There is, therefore, real need now more than
ever to expand multicultural education to go
beyond the “melting-pot” perspective which has
focused mainly on equity pedagogy as a means of
correcting the inequalities among people in
society while other aspects of human
development and values have been neglected.

• There is real need now more than ever to include
the global perspective in which cultural pluralism
recognized as an ideal and healthy state in any
productive society.
• With the rapidly increasing interconnections
among all nations in the world, particularly, as we
face global issues related to the ecosystem,
nuclear weapons, terrorism, human rights, and
scarce national resources, the scope of
multicultural education needs to be broadened
to include democratic values, cultural pluralism
within culturally diverse societies, national, and
global interdependence.

• The global perspective of multicultural
education allows individuals to develop
respect and appreciation for all existing
cultural groups.

Discussion questions on
multiculturalism
side 1: promotion of diversity
will strengthen the nation
side 2: promotion of diversity
will divide the nation and
lead to conflict

Pluralism (salad bowl perspective)
• Experiencing long history, assimilation was
developed into pluralism.
• Abramson (1950:150) in Marger (1994:129)
defines pluralism simply as conditions that
produce sustained ethnic differentiation and
continued heterogeneity.
• In short, pluralism is a set of social processes
and conditions that encourages group diversity
and the maintenance of group boundaries
(Marger, 1994:129).

• Today, following the more dynamical society,
multiculturalism comes as alternative to
explain the diversity to substitute the
pluralism.
• Multiculturalism is a dynamic concept that
can energize the individual into searching for
an authentic depiction of self and grouping
(Hughes and Takaki in James Trotman, 2002).

• The term of “Salad Bowl” or “mozaic” became
popular in the multiculturalism theory. The Salad
Bowl concept describes a nation as the bowl
consisting various ingredients that keep their
individual characteristics.
• The immigrants are not being blended together
in one “pot”, and losing their identity, but rather
they are transforming a society into multicultural
one and still keep their identities.

• In a melting pot there is no cultural diversity and
sometimes differences are not respected;
• For immigrants to the United States, the "melting
pot" meant: Americanization / cultural
assimilation + intermarriage of ethnicities,
• In a salad bowl cultures do not mix at all.
• Various cultures are juxtaposed — like salad
ingredients — but do not merge into a single
homogeneous culture. Each culture keeps its own
distinct qualities.

Discussion Question
• What is the d/ce between the
“melting pot” and
multiculturalism?
• Can we “live together with
our differences” in relation to
maintaining our individual
culture while assimilating to
the mainstream culture?

• As you may know, Multicultural education is a
global issue.
• It is difficult or may be Impossible to find a
country where all its students are from the
same cultural background and ethnic group.
• For example our country Ethiopia composes
of more than 80 nations and nationalities.
• Thus, as a teacher you have to know that your
students have differences in many aspects
such as culture, ethnicity, economy, gender,
and others.

• Multicultural Society: is one in which a variety of
different cultural groups coexist harmoniously,
free to maintain their distinctive religious,
linguistic or social customs, equal as individuals
in their access to resources and services
appropriate to them and their needs, to civil and
political rights and sharing with the rest of
society particular concerns values

# characteristics of multicultural society
. existence of diversity
• valuing of cultural diversity
• a sharing and interaction with other groups
• equality of access to resources
• shared commitment to the nation

Principles of Ethnic and Cultural
Diversity
1. Ethnic and cultural diversity should be
recognized and respected at the individual,
group, and societal levels.
Ethnic and cultural diversity is a social reality
all too frequently ignored by educational
institutions, yet it deserves open recognition.

• A society that respects ethnic group
differences aims to protect its citizens from
discriminatory practices and prejudicial
attitudes. Such respect supports the survival
of these groups and augments their
opportunities to shape their lives in ways they
choose.

2. Ethnic and cultural diversity provides a basis for
societal enrichment, cohesiveness, and survival
• Respect for ethnic differences should promote,
not destroy, societal cohesion. Although
separatism is not the desire of most members of
ethnic groups, they strongly demand that their
histories and cultures become integral parts of
the school curriculum and the larger society.

3. Equality of opportunity must be afforded to
all members of ethnic and cultural groups.
• Ethnic and cultural groups must have access
to the full range of occupational, educational,
economic, and political opportunities.

4. Ethnic and cultural identification for
individuals should be optional in a democracy

• Multicultural education is an idea, an
educational reform movement, and a process
whose major goal is to change the structure of
educational institutions so that male and female
students, exceptional students, and students who
are members of diverse racial, ethnic, language,
and cultural groups will have an equal chance to
achieve academically in school.

• Multicultural education incorporates the idea
that all students—regardless of their gender,
social class, and ethnic, racial, or cultural
characteristics—should have an equal
opportunity to learn in school.
• Institutionalizing a philosophy of cultural
pluralism within the educational system that
is grounded in principles of equality, mutual
respect, acceptance and understanding and
moral commitment to social
justice(Baptiste,1979)

• Multicultural education is also a reform
movement that is trying to change the schools
and other educational institutions so that
students from all social-class, gender, racial,
language, and cultural groups will have an
equal opportunity to learn.
• Multicultural education involves changes in
the total school or educational environment;
it is not limited to curricular changes.

• Multicultural education is also a process
whose goals will never be fully realized.
• Educational equality, like liberty and justice,
is an ideal toward which human beings work
but never fully attain.
• Racism, sexism, and discrimination against
people with disabilities will exist to some
extent no matter how hard we work to
eliminate these problems

• Multicultural education is an approach to
teaching and learning based up on democratic
values that foster cultural pluralism.
• It is a commitment to achieving education
equality, developing curricula that build
understanding about ethnic groups, and
combating oppressive practices

• Multicultural education is grounded in the
ideals of social justice, and dedication to
facilitating educational experiences in which
all students reach their full potential as
learners and as socially aware and active
beings

✔Every student must have an equal opportunity
to achieve to her or his 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 her or himself.

✔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, educational materials and
textbooks, etc.

The Philosophy of Multicultural
Education
✔multicultural education promotes equity for
all regardless of culture, ethnicity, race,
language, age, gender, sexual orientation, or
exceptionality.

✔Multicultural education enables the individual to
believe in one's own intrinsic worth and culture,
to transcend mono-culturalism and, ultimately,
to become multicultural.
Every child comes to school with an ethnic
identity whether these identifications are
conscious or unconscious.
This identification must be recognized and
respected by the teacher. It must be the basis for
the learning activities in the classroom. The point
here is to acknowledge differences rather than
ignore them.

The Goal of Multicultural Education
• To respect and appreciate cultural diversity.
• To promote the understanding of unique cultural
and ethnic heritages.
• 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

• According to James Banks, a leading
researcher in this area, the major goal of
multicultural education is, to “transform the
school so that male and female students,
exceptional students, as well as students
from diverse cultural, social-class, racial and
ethnic groups will experience an equal
opportunity to learn in school.”

• The pathway toward this goal incorporates
three strands of transformation:
⮚the transformation of self;
⮚the transformation of schools and schooling;
and
⮚the transformation of society.

1. The Transformation of Self:
An educator has a dual responsibility to engage in
a critical and continual process to examine how
his/her prejudices, biases, and assumptions
inform his/her teaching and thus affect the
educational experiences of his/her students.
Teacher has a responsibility to his/her students
to work towards eliminating his/her prejudices,
examining who is (and is not) being reached by
his teaching style, and relearning how his own
identity affects their learning experiences.

2. The Transformation of Schools and Schooling
Multicultural school transformation include the
following:
• Student-Centered Pedagogy - The experiences of
students must be brought to the fore in the classroom,
making learning more active, interactive, and
engaging.
– Pedagogy must provide all students with equal
opportunity to reach their potential as learners.
– Pedagogy must be flexible enough to allow for the
diversity of learning styles present in every classroom.
• Multicultural Curriculum -"Inclusive curriculum"
means including the voices of the students in the
classroom.

• Inclusive Educational Media and Materials-Educational materials
should be inclusive of diverse voices and perspectives.
• Students must be encouraged to think critically about materials and
media
• Supportive School and Classroom Climate
– Teachers must be better prepared to foster a positive classroom
climate for ALL students.
– Overall school cultures must be closely examined to determine how
they might be cycling and supporting oppressive societal conditions.
• Continual Evaluation and Assessment

3. The Transformation of Society
the goal of multicultural education is to
contribute progressively and proactively to
the transformation of society and to the
application and maintenance of social justice
and equity

The Dimensions of Multicultural
Education
• One of the problems that continues to plague the
multicultural education movement, both from
within and with-out, is the tendency of teachers,
administrators, policy makers, and the public to
oversimplify the concept.
• Multicultural education is a complex and
multidimensional concept, yet media commentators
and educators alike often focus on only one of its
many dimensions.
• Some teachers view it only as the inclusion of
content about ethnic groups into the curriculum;
others view it as an effort to reduce prejudice; still
others view it as the celebration of ethnic holidays
and events.

• Banks (1996) has identified five interrelated dim
education. These elements serve as benchmarks to
which educators are implementing multicultural edu
1) content integration,
2) the knowledge construction process,
3) prejudice reduction,
4) an equity pedagogy, and
5) an empowering school culture and social structure

Content integration: includes the use of examples and
content from a variety of cultures and groups in teaching
key concepts, principles, generalizations and theories in a
subject area.
• This form of content integration developed after a series
of events. In the 1800s African American students were
being discriminated against in schools that were originally
desegregated, consequently the African American
community decided to open African American only
schools (Banks, 2004).
• Teachers and administrators were African American;
however, school boards, curricula, and textbooks were
White controlled.
• Students were learning about European civilization
instead of the history and culture pertaining to their own
people.

• During World War II tensions had developed
between African American, Mexican American and
Whites, living in the North and West, who were
looking for work. These tensions resulted in racial
incidents and riots.
• Intergroup education was used to educate people
on content related to religious, national, and racial
groups in order to reduce prejudice and
discrimination, and create interracial understanding
among people from diverse groups.
• Educators within this movement “emphasized
democratic living and interracial cooperation within
mainstream American society” (Banks, 2004, p. 10).

• The main goal of this movement was to create
racial harmony. The ethnic studies movement of
the 1960s and 1970s, on the other hand, was
meant to promote empowerment and the
advancement of people of color (Banks, 2004).
• Students of color were demanding changes in
the curriculum so that their histories could be
added. This resulted in the formation of ethnic
studies programs and the publication of new
books.

• Inserting isolated facts or special units about
cultural groups reinforces the idea that such
groups remain on the margin of society and
are unimportant aspects of the curriculum.
• Multicultural content must be included
consistently and involve all disciplines and
subject areas.

The knowledge construction process: relates to
the extent to which teachers help students to
understand, investigate, and determine how
the implicit cultural assumptions, frames of
reference, perspectives, and biases within a
discipline influence the ways in which
knowledge is constructed within it.
• Teachers help students to understand how
knowledge is created and how it is influenced
by factors of race, ethnicity, gender and social
class.

• Multicultural theorists argue that knowledge is
both objective and subjective, reflecting the
“social, cultural, and power positions of people
within society” (Banks, 2004, p. 14).
• Given the sometimes subjective nature of the
knowledge presented in literature, it is of grave
importance that students be taught to identify
the writer’s purposes and point of view, as well
as how to think for themselves and “formulate
their own interpretations of reality” (Banks,
2004, p. 14).

• In his important book The Mismeasure of
Man, Gould (1996) describes how scientific
racism developed and was influential in the
19th and 20th centuries.
• Scientific racism has had and continues to
have a significant influence on the
interpretations of mental ability tests in the
United States.

• According to Banks and Banks (2010) the
publication of The Bell Curve by Herrnstein &
Murray, (1994) and its widespread and
enthusiastic public reception, and the social
context out of which it emerged provide an
excellent case study for discussion and analysis
by students who are studying knowledge
construction.
• Herrnstein and Murray contend that low-income
groups and African Americans have fewer
intellectual abilities than do other groups and
that these differences are inherited.
• Students can examine the arguments made by
the authors, their major assumptions, and how
their conclusions relate to the social and political
context

• In General, multicultural teaching involves not
only infusing ethnic content into the school
curriculum, but also changing the structure
and organization of the school.
• It also includes changing the way in which
teachers and students view and interact with
knowledge, helping them to become
knowledge producers, not merely the
consumers of knowledge produced by others

Prejudice reduction: involves developing positive
attitudes toward different racial, cultural and
ethnic groups.
• Through the use of lessons and activities that
promote interaction between students from
diverse backgrounds and the inclusion of
positive images of ethnic groups within the
content, teachers help to eradicate negative
attitudes toward, and misconceptions about,
different racial and ethnic groups.
• Prejudice reduction describes lessons and
activities used by teachers to help students to
develop positive attitudes toward different racial,
ethnic, and cultural 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 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 teaching styles are
modified to facilitate the academic achievement of
students from diverse groups.
• 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
• It is imperative that ways of teaching include a variety
of approaches that are consistent with the learning
styles and cultural characteristics of students.
• Cooperative- rather than competitive- learning
activities and support for inter-racial interactions in
which students work toward a common goal are two
examples of teaching approaches that promote an
equity pedagogy.

An empowering school culture and social structure: is
created when the culture and organization of the
school is transformed to enable students from
different racial, ethnic and cultural groups to
experience 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.
• This involves a critical consideration of the school's
grouping and labeling practices, sports participation,
dis-proportionality in achievement, enrollment in
gifted and special education programs and the
interaction of staff with students across ethnic and
racial lines.

The Curriculum of Multicultural
Education
• Curriculum and class rooms are the areas over
which teachers have the most direct control.
• When we speak of multicultural curriculum,
we are referring to a formalized curriculum
which reflects experiences, cultures and
perspectives of a range of cultural, linguistic,
racial and ethnic groups.

• Most curricula have reflected the culture of
whatever groups have been the majority of
groups in the nation, the state or the local
district.
• In recent decades, however, the ordinary
distinctions between majority and minority
groups have become blurred as the multicultural
character of a nation with different ethnic
groups, for which the curriculum must somehow
account, has come to be viewed not only in terms
of ethnicity, religion, race and socio-economic
status, but also in terms of handicap, age, gender
and sexual orientation, etc.

Curriculum practices in multicultural schools have
important attributes which include the following:
• Curricula need to permeate cultural pluralism
with diverse perspectives
• The curriculum need to be rigorous and
challenging to all students to promote high
academic expectations for all
• The curriculum should portray culture not as
static identity but dynamic characteristics which
is shaped by social, political and economic
conditions.

• The curriculum should help students learn to
understand experiences and perspectives
other than their own.
• The curriculum should reflect the diversity of
the learning styles in every classroom.
• Designing the curriculum for multicultural
classroom should involve people of various
cultural and class back grounds.
• The curriculum includes the contributions and
perspectives of the different ethno cultural
groups that compose the society.

• Multicultural curriculum is student-centered,
anti-racist and grounded in the incorporation
of diverse cultures, particularly those that
have experienced oppression or exclusion
from mainstream society.

Activity
• If you had the challenge of transforming your
school’s curriculum so that it would become
more multicultural, what changes could you
make? Be as specific as possible in your
answer.

• Four approaches are commonly used in
developing multicultural curricula:
1.contributions, 2. additive, 3. transformation,
and 4. decision-making and social action
(Banks, 1994).

LEVELS OF INTEGRATION OF MULTICULTURAL
CONTENT
• Since the civil rights movement of the 1960s,
educators have been trying, in various ways, to
better integrate the school curriculum with
multicultural content and to move away from a
mainstream-centric and Eurocentric curriculum
(Banks, 2002).
• During the 1980s and 1990s a heated debate
occurred about how much the curriculum should
be Western and European-centric or reflect the
cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity in the United
States.

The contributions approach d isolated events, such as
Martin Luther King's Birthdayfocuses on cultural
heroes and heroines, holidays an.
• The contributions approach is characterized by the
insertion of ethnic heroes, heroines and discrete
cultural artifacts into the curriculum
• Discrete cultural elements such as the foods, dances,
music, and artifacts of ethnic groups are studied, but
little attention is given to their meanings and
importance within ethnic communities.
• An important characteristic of the contributions
approach is that the mainstream curriculum remains
unchanged in its basic structure, goals, and salient
characteristics

• Heroes, cultural components, holidays, and
other discrete elements related to ethnic
groups are added to the curriculum on special
days, occasions, and celebrations.

The additive approach: cultural content, concepts,
themes and perspectives are added to curriculum.
• Special units on ethnic or cultural groups
supplement the mainstream curriculum but remain
marginal.
• Neither the contributions approach nor the additive
approach alters the basic structure or canon of the
curriculum. Cultural learning is limited to material
objects such as foods, music or dress and does not
address underlying cultural beliefs or values.
• As a result, within each of these approaches the
cultural content reflects the norms, values and
assumptions of the dominant culture rather than
those of cultural communities.

• A transformative approach to reforming the
curriculum fundamentally changes its
structure to enable students to view concepts,
issues, events and themes from the
perspective of diverse ethnic and cultural
groups.
• Within this approach, content about minority
groups is brought from the margin to the
center of the canon and curriculum, which no
longer focuses on the mainstream or
dominant culture

• The basic goals, structure, and nature of the
curriculum are changed to enable students to
view concepts, events, issues, problems, and
themes from the perspectives of diverse
cultural, ethnic, and racial groups

The decision-making and social action approach
is an extension of the transformation
approach. It enables students to make
decisions on important social issues and take
actions to solve them.
• Projects and activities related to the concepts
and issues studied help students develop a
sense of personal and civic responsibility

• Major goals of instruction in this approach are
to educate students for social criticism and
social change and to teach them decision-
making skills.
• To empower students and help them acquire
political efficacy, the school must help them
become reflective social critics and skilled
participants in social change.

• In this approach students identify important
social problems and issues, gather pertinent
data, clarify their values on the issues, and
make decisions, and take reflective actions to
resolve the issue or problem.

Approaches to Multicultural Education
• Sleeter and Grant propose five approaches to
multicultural education
1. Teaching the culturally different
2. Human relations approach
3. Single-group studies
4. Multicultural education
5. Social reconstructionist

1. Teaching the Exceptional and the
Culturally Different
• Proponents of Teaching the Exceptional and
the Culturally Different are concerned with
helping students from different cultural
backgrounds, including those with disabilities,
adapt to the mainstream demands of public
schooling and society.
• The ultimate goal of this approach is to
“remediate deficiencies or build bridges
between the student and the school.

• Using educational approaches that are
culturally compatible with learners’
backgrounds,
• Teaching the Exceptional and the Culturally
Different is intended to “teach traditional
school knowledge more effectively by building
on knowledge and skills students bring with
them”
• Teacher’s chief responsibility is to prepare all
students to fit into and achieve within the
existing school and society

• The goals of this approach are to equip
students with the cognitive skills, concepts,
information, language, and values
traditionally required by society and
eventually to enable them to hold a job and
function within society’s institutions and
culture.
• Goal: Facilitate success of diverse students in
mainstream society
• Pedagogy: Teach skills for achievement and
success; adapt teaching to learning styles of
students

Teaching the culturally different…
• Assimilate the culturally different into the
mainstream
• “Transitional Bridges” into existing school
structures
• These approaches attempt to counter a
perceived cultural deficiency
• Develop competence in the dominant culture

• A major goal involves changing persons to fit
mainstream America rather than changing
mainstream America to accommodate the
needs and preferences of diverse groups

2. Human relations approach
• The main goal of this approach to multiculturalism is
to promote positive relations among groups in
schools by eradicating stereotypes and encouraging
tolerance and unity.
• the Human Relations approach is directed toward
helping students communicate with, accept, and get
along with people who are different from
themselves; reducing or eliminating stereotypes that
students have about people; and helping students
feel good about themselves and about groups of
which they are members without putting others
down in the process.
• This approach is aimed mainly at the affective level:
at attitudes and feelings people have about self and
others.

• Social harmony
• Heterogeneous grouping, cooperative learning, and
role playing are considered important elements of
this philosophy of education
• major purpose of the school is to help students learn
to live together harmoniously
• Its goal is to promote a feeling of unity, tolerance,
and acceptance among people
• The human relations approach emphasized the
importance of feeling good about oneself and
diverse others and learning to relate to, respect, and
communicate with those from different backgrounds
(Sleeter & Grant, 2003).

• Assumes multicultural education is a means
by which students of different backgrounds
learn to communicate more effectively with
one another while learning to feel good about
themselves
• Development of good human relations
between groups
• The human relations approach engenders
positive feelings among diverse students,
promotes group identity and pride for
students of colour, reduce stereotypes, and
works to eliminate prejudices and biases

• Goal: Promote tolerance; facilitate positive
feelings and relationships among members of
diverse groups.
• Pedagogy: Implement activities to reduce
stereotyping and prejudice; teach about
similarities and differences among individuals;
emphasize cooperative learning; create
opportunities for interaction with diverse
groups

• Teaching strategies include content integration
about diverse groups, prejudice reduction
activities, positive reinforcement of multicultural
stimuli, vicarious interracial contact, and
cooperative learning experiences.
• Information about contributions of people from
diverse groups Is presented so all students,
Especially those who are members of
marginalized groups, feel positively about
themselves and their reference groups.
• Finally, student are also given opportunities to
work with diverse others through cooperative
learning exercises, role-playing, social skills,
training, and participation in community projects.

3. Single-Group Studies Approach
• Single-Group Studies is based on a philosophy of
identity politics.
• This model promotes an in-depth exploration of the
lived experiences of an individual group, for
example, women, gays, blacks, or the working class.
• This model serves the purpose of “empowering
group members, developing in them a sense of
pride and group consciousness, and helping
members of the dominant groups appreciate the
experiences of others and recognize how their
groups have oppressed others

• Providing in-depth educational experiences
about specific oppressed groups is a priority
for single-group-studies perspectives.
• Single group studies approach attempts to
change the attitude and provide a basis for
social action by exposing information about a
particular group and about the effects of
discrimination on that group.

Goals of single group study:
(a) content integration, which involves providing
information about diverse groups or illustrating ideas
and concepts by using examples relevant to members
of diverse groups, and
(b) efforts to gain economic, social, and political power
for group members.
These strategies address the knowledge construction
process, such as why the perspectives of a group have
been excluded, why inequality exists, and how
traditional education perpetuates inequality.

• This approach offers an in-depth study of
oppressed groups for the purpose of
empowering group members, developing in
them a sense of pride and group consciousness,
and helping members of dominant groups
understand where others are coming from.
• Helps the dominant group appreciate the
experiences of others and recognize how their
group have oppressed others.

Goal: Establish social, economic, and political
power for members of the identified group;
encourage social change that benefits
members of the identified group.
• Pedagogy: Employ critical pedagogy; integrate
content about the identified group; question
knowledge assumptions; teach social change
skills; teach about racial and ethnic identity
development; use teaching strategies
preferred by members of the identified group

4. Inclusive multicultural education
• Multicultural Education encompasses
educational policies and practices that attempt
to affirm cultural pluralism across differences in
gender, ability, class, race, sexuality, and so
forth.
• Educators who embrace such an approach stress
the importance of cultural diversity, alternative
life styles, native cultures, universal human
rights, social justice, equal opportunity (in terms
of actual outcomes from social institutions), and
equal distribution of power among groups

• methods that promote human rights, social
justice, equal opportunity, cultural diversity,
and the equitable distribution of power for
oppressed groups.
• Curriculum content is reorganized to
incorporate knowledge of diverse racial and
ethnic groups, genders, and social classes.
• Information about diverse groups is
integrated throughout the curriculum to
ensure that all subject matter is consistently
taught from a multicultural perspective

• Teaching diverse traditions and perspectives,
questioning stereotypes, learning the
appropriate cultural codes in order to function
within a variety of settings, recognizing the
contributions of all groups to society
(especially those that have been traditionally
excluded)
• The ultimate goal of Multicultural Education is
to transform the entire academic
environment and not just the curriculum or
the attitudes of individuals

• Places multicultural education in the larger
context of overall curriculum and school
reform
• Focuses on the strength and value of diversity
in a pluralistic nation
• Promotes strength and values of different
cultural groups
• Promotes human rights and social justice
• Promotes respect for diversity
• Promotes equity among social groups

5. Social reconstructionist
• Multicultural social justice education deals
more directly than the other approaches with
oppression and social structural inequality
based on race, social class, gender, and
disability.
• Its purpose is to prepare future citizens to
take action to make society better serve the
interests of all groups of people, especially
those who are of color, poor, female, or have
disabilities.

• Social reconstructionist educators not only
endorse the multicultural education emphasis
on changing the structure of education but
also seek to teach students about social
justice and empower them as agents of
change in society.

• Goals include:
(a) helping students become aware of issues and
problems associated with injustice and
inequality;
(b) building students' commitment to expending
the time and energy necessary to make a
difference in the world; and
(c) enhancing students' skills for enacting change
through the use of communication and listening,
information gathering, conflict resolution, and
social action skills

• The approach is rooted in social
Reconstructionism, which seeks to reconstruct
society toward greater equity in race, class,
gender, and disability.
• This approach goes beyond multicultural
education by helping students critically analyze
the larger social forces involved in discrimination
and oppression.

• Seeks to prepare students not only to think in
multiple ways, but to be willing and able to help
bring about social justice in the society
• Promotes understanding of social structures of
power
• Encourages social action for changing
inequalities
• Students learn about their roles as social change
agents so that they may participate in the
generation of more equitable society.

Reasons for MCE
• The tremendous diversity of cultural, ethnic,
religious and socioeconomic groups in school
• The migration of people into all over the
world
• the enlightened and more humane
perspective that diversity enriches, rather
than weakens, a nation.
• the intense national climate of educational
standards,
• increased diversity within the school age
population,

Reasons for MCE contd
• the ever increasing expectations for schools to
address special needs and community
concerns.
• Students with a wide range of histories,
perspectives, experiences, expectations, and
approaches to learning.

Diversity and Educational challenges of
minorities in multicultural school setting
Major forms of Diversity
✔Learning style
✔Ethnicity
✔Race
✔Gender
✔Social class
✔Religion
✔Disability

Educational challenges of minorities
❖Stereotypes and Prejudices
• Rejection of outsiders
• Fear of strangers
• Children considered others not like them to be “wrong or bad”
• “girls shouldn’t do that”
✔ Prejudice is learned from family peers and social environment.
What action educators should take ?
❖Ethnocentrism
• Making false assumption about others’ ways based on our own
limited experience
• Thinking one’s own group’s ways are superior to others or
judging other groups as inferior to ones own.

❖Discrimination in schools
• Discrimination occurs when some one is treated unfairly or
badly in certain respects.
• Discrimination is often the result of failing to treat each
person as an individual regardless of their sex, age , race etc
❖Harassment
• Unwanted conduct that has the effect of creating an
intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive
environment for the complainant.
❖Victimization
• Takes place where one person treats another less favorably
because he/she has asserted their legal right in line with the
Act or help someone else to do so.

mce.pptx

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (13)

Ähnlich wie mce.pptx

Ähnlich wie mce.pptx (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

mce.pptx