Chapter ten of Multicultural Education focuses on the various approaches to multicultural curriculum reform. When I first began reading this chapter I found myself unsure of what I was going to actually get out of the chapter and what it was about, but as I dug deeper and continued reading I found myself becoming more and more invested in the efforts to establish a multicultural curriculum and the four levels of integration of multicultural content.
This chapter examines the nature of mainstream-centric curriculum and the negative consequences that it bears for both mainstream students and students of color. Although mainstream curriculum seems to encompass everything we could want on the outside, it reinforces the false sense of superiority
…show more content…
By incorporating other cultural artifacts and celebrating other walks of life you are giving a special meaning and importance to those cultures in order to create a diverse and ethnic community where all cultures, religions, and races are accepted and celebrated equally. Level two, also known as the additive approach focuses on the specific content, various concepts, themes and other perspectives that are added to the curriculum in terms of books, units, or courses without having to drastically change the curriculum’s structure. The additive approach allows teachers to incorporate ethnic content and perspectives without having to restructure and re-plan the entire curriculum. While the additive approach has its advantages, it has similar disadvantages to the contributions approach. The greatest disadvantage that these two approaches share is the fact that the majority of the ethnic content that you add to the curriculum whether it is a book, video, picture, etc. a majority of the content will derive from mainstream perspectives in order to avoid the restructuring of the curriculum. Level three, also known as the transformation approach is different from the first two approaches in the sense that while the first two approaches focus on adding ethnic content without changing the
Robles de Melendez, W. (2010). Teaching Young Children in Multicultural Classrooms: Issues, Concepts, and Strategies (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Cater, the author of the book Keepin’ It Real: School Success Beyond Black And White, became interested as of why minority students were faced with white society challenges in school systems? In her book, Keepin’ It Real: School Success Beyond Black And White, she offers an insightful look at the educational attainment in low-income urban communities. Carter suggest that these students are embraced the dominant opportunity ideology, they acknowledge the dominant cultural to obtain status and goods. However, they use their own cultural to gain status in their own communities. She conducted a research to study the importance of cultural authenticity for minority, such as African American and Latino, students. She examines how cultural authenticity influences minority students’ relationship with the values they believe are privileged in schools. Cultural authenticity reflects on the beliefs and values of everyday society. Carter questioned, why do so many African American and Latino students perform worse than their Asians and White peers in class and on exams? And why might African Americans and Latino students are less engaged in
In this article, Byars-Winston and Fouad, seeks to assess the importance of cultural factors and their impact on multicultural value of career counseling from the perspective of a counselor. The authors further examine the Culturally Appropriate Career Counseling Model and offer an expansion of the model through incorporating metacognitive processes. Culture is believed to play a significant role in one’s career decision making but the extent to which it does remains unknown. It is therefore imperative that career counselors try to understand
The multicultural movement in education is deeply rooted, and the movement as we know it today dates back to the 1960s, when the civil rights movement was in full swing. Stemming from the Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) decision and out of the demand by ethnic groups to be included in public schools, colleges, and universities, the main thrust of the mo...
The world is made up of many different types of people, each one having his or her cultural background. Over the years, the United States has become increasingly populated with cultural diversity. This influx has prompted school administrators to recognize the need to incorporate multicultural programs into their school environment including classroom settings, school wide activities, and curriculum as it becomes more evident that the benefits of teaching cultural diversity within the school setting will positively influence our communities, and ultimately the entire nation’s future. The purpose of this paper is to share the pros and cons of multicultural education in the classroom. Additionally, I will express my views compared to those in the reading requirements for this assignment, as well as, new knowledge obtained through the research. Finally, I will share situations where I was challenged introducing a multicultural issue during a class.
Those efforts improve students' learning and experiences by cultivating key behaviors and knowledge and by providing a unique educational context. Published in the American Educational Research Journal, this paper gives insight into how racial diversity stretches beyond educational engagement and social composition. The significant difference made by diversity-related efforts, such as hybridized racial interactions and policies, is fully explored. The findings of the study presented can be generalized to the argument of institutional racism, as this piece presents rationale against it. The limitations of this paper are the insufficient detail regarding educational context needed to illustrate the steps institutions can take to apply diversity.
Manning, L.M. & Barruth, L.G. (2009). Multicultural education of children and adolescents (5th edition). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Multicultural education is a process of comprehensive school reform and basic education for all students. It challenges and rejects racism and other forms of discrimination in schools and society and accepts and affirms pluralism (ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, economic, and gender, among others) that students, their communities, and teachers reflect (Nieto, 2000).
The cultural diversity in society, which is reflected in schools, is forcing schools not to solely rely on content-centered curriculum, but to also incorporate student-centered lesson plans based on critique and inquiry. This requires multicultural education to a dominant part of the school system, not just an extra course or unit. Further, it demands that learning itself no longer be seen as obtaining knowledge but rather, education be seen as creating knowledge. Multicultural education should be seen as affirming the diversity of students and communities, promoting the multicultural ideas of the United States, and building the knowledge and behaviors needed for students to be a positive and contributing member of society and the global community as a whole.
Students in the United States experience varying degrees of Multicultural Education. To my benefit, I was brought up in a learning environment that was culturally accepting and engaging. I was enrolled in the Franklin Pierce School District for my entire public education career and at Pierce College during my last two years of high school. Since the beginning of my academic career, I’ve been exposed to a learning environment filled with a rich amount of diversity among students which in turn produced well-roundedness in myself. In my experience as a FPSD student, I’ve shared experiences with fellow peers of different races, cultures, and socioeconomic standings. Pierce College boasts an even more specific type of diversity within the student
The world is currently undergoing a cultural change, and we live in an increasingly diverse society. This change is not only affect the people in the community but also affect the way education is viewed. Teaching diversity in the classroom and focusing multicultural activities in the programs can help improve positive social behavior in children. There is no question that the education must be prepared to embrace the diversity and to teach an increasingly diverse population of young children.
While both interviewees stated they did not feel their institutions were ignoring different races and groups and lesson plans were designed around promotion multiculturalism, schools that primarily white often fail to be as cultural diverse as schools with a healthy racial composition. Lesson plans are often ambivalent towards understanding the struggles and hardships of certain racial groups, such as the Native Americans during the time of European exploration. In addition, students at mostly white institutions often associated success with how hard an individual works rather than any hardships or racist or sexist acts thrown upon that person. Ironically, the little multiculturalism that is introduced in prominently white schools has been ill received by parents and teachers. Both parties, especially parents, argue that the children growing up today are “color-blind” and that no explicit efforts to inject multiculturalism should occur in the classroom outside of settings considered appropriate, such as history courses (Lewis, 2003:
According to Bennett (2015), “Multicultural Education is a complex approach to teaching and learning that includes the movement toward equity in schools and classrooms, the transformation of the curriculum, the process of becoming multicultural competent, and the commitment to address societal injustice” (p. 2). Teaching and learning in a multicultural system is designed around collaborative decision making, respect for all parties, and nurturing a cultural diverse society. Multicultural education recognizes and integrates cultural characteristics into the learning environment.
There are many factors that play a role in the learning process for every human being. Race, religion, language, socioeconomics, gender, family structure, and disabilities can all affect the ways in which we learn. Educators must take special measures in the delivery of classroom instruction to celebrate the learning and cultural differences of each of their students. As communities and schools continue to grow in diversity, teachers are searching for effective educational programs to accommodate the various learning styles of each student while promoting acceptance of cultural differences throughout the classroom. It no longer suffices to plan educational experiences only for middle-or upper class white learners and then expect students of other social classes and cultures to change perspectives on motivation and competition, learning styles, and attitudes and values that their homes and families have instilled in them (Manning & Baruth, 2009).
In conducting her research, the author understood that she needed to describe key issues of culturally diverse students, recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected. In reading Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: Issues in Education (2010), s...