UNIT ONE: CONCEPT AND NATURE OF

MULTICULTURALISM

1.1 THE CONCEPT OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

i. Defining Culture
Broadly speaking, culture is the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors,
technologies and products (artifacts) that a society holds, follows, uses or produces to live in its
environment, and passes on from generation to generation.
Elements of Culture
Culture can be characterized by the following four elements:
Cultural traits – how the group communicates symbolically through its products, rituals, laws,
social structures, economic systems etc.
Cultural patterns – wider, interrelated patterns of behavior and interaction in which cultural
traits may take on different meanings. An example is the pattern of grieving, which may involve
such traits as certain behaviors, dress, foods eaten and not eaten, ways of communicating and use
of space, in ways specific to grief situations.
Transmission of knowledge – how the group teaches its young culturally approved and valued
ways of behaving, thinking and perceiving. This is a key factor in the continuation of culture, for
it gives cultural shape and form to human activity. The simplest example is the learning of
language. All human beings have an innate capacity and tendency to learn language, but the form
in which that capacity develops, the language, tone and rhythm of a person’s communication are
learned.
Societal structures and processes – how a group regulates, orders and limits group actions to
maintain group cohesion and function. Societies represent culture in action, the everyday
application of cultural traits, patterns and knowledge of a group through the group’s institutions,
systems and norms. These can include family structures, appropriate dress and behaviors
(manners), educational processes and institutions, processes of communication (media,
censorship), how a society manages the health, activities or discourses of its members, how
status is defined, gained or lost, legal and economic systems, enforcement, who can marry
whom, age groups and a host of other factors.
Group cohesion relies on the transmission and assimilation of knowledge of social structures and
processes, and of the norms and expectations that underlie them. The process by which the
individual is acculturated (learns the patterns of his/her culture) is also called socialization.
Socialization is largely carried out by the family, upon whom the child models much of its adult
behavior, but it also occurs as an effect of the individual’s wider social interactions in which the
individual which behaviors are is rewarded (with approval, acceptance, inclusion, status, access
to opportunities etc.) and which meet with social disapproval (punishment, ridicule, exclusion,
low status, marginalization, limited access etc.). Socialization ensures the individual’s
acceptance in the group and conformity to certain social expectations, which in turn ensures that
social systems and norms are maintained.
Multicultural education relates to education and instruction designed for the cultures of several
different races in an educational system. This approach to teaching and learning is based upon
consensus building, respect, and fostering cultural pluralism within racial societies. Multicultural
education acknowledges and incorporates positive racial idiosyncrasies into classroom
atmospheres.
Social cohesion is a fundamental ingredient for a culture of peace. It presupposes, for a start, the
understanding of other people’s point of view, the respect for the specificities of each culture,
and the capacity to discover values common to different cultures that might be perceived as
universal.
Multicultural education should contribute to this long walk towards social cohesion in pluralist
societies. But in order to be efficient, multicultural education must not be restricted to the
knowledge of the linguistic, ethnic and moral heritage of those minorities living within the
national territory. Multicultural education must have an international dimension and promote the
understanding and respect for other cultures and people, even if they seem remote and
outlandish, and their representation in the national territory is scarce. The ultimate purpose of
multicultural education must be, as in the case of international education, “to celebrate the
richness of humanity and simultaneously promote an appreciation of the need for social
cohesion” (CIDREE, 1994).
International education and multicultural education are complementary to each other.
International education concentrates on the knowledge of cultural differences worldwide, where
as multicultural education deals mostly with the multicultural interactions between people who
carry different cultural, linguistic or ethnic heritage, bearing in mind the need to ensure that these
interactions will be peaceful and mutually enriching.
School and classroom culture and ethos should develop in themselves a culture of cooperation,
understanding and mutual respect and an atmosphere of physical, emotional and intellectual
security, assuring all children that they will be accepted as they are and that they have rights.
Otherwise, children will learn that the principles and values of human rights are no more than
words, something abstract and vain that is not to be put in to practice. Furthermore, it is
important that all curricula and syllabi are imbued with international and multicultural
dimensions, in order to help children move towards understanding the idea that different people
do not regard social, artistic, technological and cultural questions in the same way, and that all
perspectives are equally valid. Thus, children will be prepared to accept pluralism and deal
properly with diversity
ii. Defining Multicultural Education.
Multicultural education means different things to different people. However, the differences are
not as great, confusing, or contradictory as some critics and analysts claim. Many of these
differences are more semantic than substantive, a reflection of the developmental level in the
field and the disciplinary orientation of advocates. One should expect people who have been
involved in a discipline or educational movement for a long time to understand and talk about it
differently from those who are new to it. Similarly, educators who look at schooling from the
vantage point of sociology, psychology, or economics will have differing views of the key
concerns of schooling. Yet, these disparate analysts may agree on which issues are the most
critical ones. Such differences over means coupled with widespread agreement on substance are
naturally found in discussions of multicultural education. But this diversity should not be a
problem, especially when we consider that multicultural education is all about plurality.
The field includes educational scholars, researchers, and practitioners from a wide variety of
personal, professional, philosophical, political, and pedagogical backgrounds. Therefore, we
should expect that they will use different points of reference in discussing ethnic diversity and
cultural pluralism. Yet, when allowances are made for these differences, a consensus on the
substantive components of multicultural education quickly emerges. Such agreement is evident
in areas such as the key content dimensions, value priorities, the justification for multicultural
education, and its expected outcomes. Only when these fundamentals are articulated do
variations emerge.
Some advocates talk about expected outcomes, while others consider the major determining
factor to be the group being studied; the arena of school action is the primary focus for one set of
advocates, and still others are most concerned with distinctions between theory and practice.
Some people are selective about where to begin and what to emphasize in cultural pluralism.
Others are more inclusive and want its impact to be felt in all dimensions and on every level.
Regardless of these variations, all conceptions of multicultural education share four
characteristics: (1) they are based upon a common set of assumptions, (2) they evolve out of
common concerns, (3) they contain common guidelines for action, (4) they share a desire to
make cultural pluralism and ethnic diversity integral parts of the educational process.
When planning for multicultural education in school programs, it is important to allow different
conceptions of multicultural education to be expressed in the school decision-making process
rather than to insist on one definition. Conceptions of multicultural education contain value
beliefs and reflect the varying levels of understanding among people involved in the school
decision-making process. Conceptions of multicultural education and the value beliefs within
them delineate the scope, focus, and boundaries of the field of multicultural education. These
conceptions are guidelines for action and need to be clearly understood early in the process of
making educational decisions. Accordingly, this synthesis includes various conceptions and
definitions of multicultural education and outlines the implications of these definitions for
practice
The definitions of multicultural education vary. Some definitions rely on the cultural
characteristics of diverse groups, while others emphasize social problems (particularly those
associated with oppression), political power, and the reallocation of economic resources. Some
restrict their focus to people of color, while others include all major groups that are different in
any way from mainstream Americans. Other definitions limit multicultural education to
characteristics of local schools, and still others provide directions for school reform in all settings
regardless of their characteristics. The goals of these diverse types of multicultural education
range from bringing more information about various groups to textbooks, to combating racism,
to restructuring the entire school enterprise and reforming society to make schools more
culturally fair, accepting, and balanced. For this reason, the field of multicultural education is
referred to interchangeably as multicultural education, education that is multicultural and
antiracist education.

1.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Multicultural education is an idea, an approach to school reform, and a movement for equity,
social justice, and democracy emphasize different components and cultural groups. However, a
significant degree of consensus exists within the field regarding goals. A major goal of
multicultural education is to restructure schools so that all students acquire the knowledge,
attitudes and culturally diverse nation and world. Multicultural education seeks to ensure
educational equity for members of diverse races, 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 of
the knowledge, skills, and cultural capital needed to function in the national civic culture and
community. Multicultural theory is necessary but not sufficient for functioning in a diverse
nation and world. They regard skills in democratic living and the above diverse groups as
essential goals of schooling.

Multicultural education is highly consistent with the ideals embodied in the U.S. constitution, the
Declaration of Independent, the rights and privileges granted to the nation’s founding elites-the
ideals of freedom, equality, justice, and democracy-to Multicultural education addresses deep
and persistent social divisions across various groups, and seeks to create an inclusive.
Multicultural educators view cultural difference as a national strength and resource rather than as
a problem to be overcome. Multicultural education emerged during the civil rights movement of
the 1960s and 1970s. It grew out of the demands of ethnic schools, colleges, and universities.
Although multicultural education is an outgrowth of the ethnic studies movement of the African-
American ethnic studies movement that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Initiated by scholars such as George Washington Williams, Carter G.Woodson,
W.E.B. Dubois, and Charles H. Wesley, the movement was to challenge the negative images and
stereotypes of African-Americans prevalent in mainstream scholarship history, and contributions
of African-Americans. These scholars had a personal, professional, and enduring commitment to
those creating positive self-images of African-Americans was essential to their collective identity
and liberation. They also be about African Americans could be effectively challenged by
objective historical research that was also capable of transforming.

Carter G. Woodson - one of the heading scholars of the early ethnic studies movement - helped
found the Association for the History in 1915. The association played a key role in the
production and dissemination of African-American historical school scholarly works and editing
the association’s publications, Woodson initiated Negro History Week (now Black History More
on the life and history of African Americans. In 1922 Woodson published a college textbook,
The Negro in Our History, which was used in many African-American school for classroom
materials, he wrote an elementary textbook, Negro Makers of History, followed by The Story of
the Negron Rewrote, edited, and published African-American children’s literature. In 1937 he
began publication of The Negro History Bu? Students featuring stories about exemplary teachers
and curriculum projects, historical narratives, and biographical sketch.

When the ethnic studies movement was revived in the 1960s, African-Americans and other
marginalized ethnic groups refused cultural identity and heritage. They insisted that their lives
and histories be included in the curriculum of schools, colleges, paradigms and concepts taught
in the schools and colleges, multicultural educators sought to transform the Eurocentric
perspectives into the curriculum. By the late 1980s multicultural theorists recognized that ethnic
studies were insufficient to bring about school reforms carpal students of color. They
consequently shifted their focus from the mere inclusion of ethnic content to deep structural
changes. Educators also expanded from a primary focus on ethnic groups of color to other group
categories, such as social class, Lang distinct, the key social categories of multicultural
education-race, class, gender, and culture-are interrelated. Multicultural variables interact in
identity formation, and about the consequences of multiple and contextual identities for teaching
and learning.

During the 1970s a number of professional organizations - such as the National council for social
Studies, the National Council Association of Colleges for Teacher Education-issued policy
statements and publications that encouraged the integration of education curriculum. In 1973 the
title of the forty-third yearbook of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) was
Strategies. NCSS published Curriculum Guidelines for Multiethnic Education in 1976, which
was revised and reissued in multicultural Education. A turning point in the development of
multicultural education occurred in 1977 when the National Education (NCATE) issued
standards for the accreditation of teacher education. The standards required all NCATE member
education programs in the United States to implement components, courses, and programs in
multicultural education. Over the past two decades more ethnic content has appeared in the
textbooks used in elementary and secondary schools and teachers are using anthologies in
literature programs that include selections written by women and authors of color. In addition,
multicultural education has gown substantially, and some of the nation’s leading colleges and
universities, including the University of Minnesota, have either revised their core curriculum to
include ethnic content or have established ethnic study.

1.3 GOALS AND PURPOSES OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION.

The underlying goal of multicultural education is to affect social change. The pathway toward
this goal incorporates three strands of transformation:
1. The transformation of self;
2. The transformation of schools and schooling; and
3. The transformation of society.
1. THE TRANSFORMATION OF SELF
As an educator, I have a dual responsibility to engage in a critical and continual process to
examine how my socializations and biases inform my teaching and thus affect the educational
experiences of my students. I have a responsibility to myself to examine the lenses through
which I understand the people and happenings around me. Only when I have a sense for how my
own perceptions are developed in relation to my life experiences will I begin to understand the
world and effectively navigate my relationships with the people around me. I also have a
responsibility to my students to work toward eliminating my prejudices, examining who is (and
is not) being reached by my teaching, and relearning how my identity affects their learning
experiences. To be an effective multicultural educator I must be in a constant process of self-
examination and transformation.
2. THE TRANSFORMATION OF SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLING
Multicultural education calls for a critical examination of all aspects of schooling. Aspects of
multicultural school transformation include the following:
 A. Student-Centered Pedagogy
o The experiences of students must be brought to the fore in the classroom, making
learning active, interactive, relevant, and engaging.
o Traditional teaching approaches and pedagogical models must be deconstructed to
examine how they contribute to and support institutional systems of oppression.
o Known oppressive practices like tracking (even if informal) must be exposed and
critically examined.
o All aspects of teaching and learning in schools must be refocused on, and
rededicated to, the students themselves instead of standardized test scores and
school rankings.
o Emphasis should be placed on critical thinking, learning skills, and deep social
awareness as well as facts and figures.
o Pedagogy must provide all students with the opportunity to reach their potential as
learners.
B. Multicultural Curriculum
o All curricula must be analyzed for accuracy and completeness.
o All subjects must be presented from diverse perspectives -- this is related to
accuracy and completeness.
o "Inclusive curriculum" also means including the voices of the students in the
classroom.
o Concepts such as "the canon" and "classic literature" must be interrogated, again
with the idea of accuracy and completeness, to debunk perceptions such as that
the only "great literature" came from the U.S. and Great Britain.
C. Inclusive Educational Media and Materials
o Educational materials should be inclusive of diverse voices and perspectives.
o Students must be encouraged to think critically about materials and media: Whose
voices are they hearing? Whose voices are they not hearing? Why did that
company produce that film? What is the bias this author may bring to her or his
writing?
D. Supportive School and Classroom Climate
o Teachers must be better prepared to foster a positive classroom climate
for all students.
o Overall school cultures must be examined closely to determine how they might be
cycling and supporting oppressive societal conditions.
o Administrative hierarchies in schools must be examined to assess whether they
produce positive teaching environments for all teachers.
E. Continual Evaluation and Assessment
o Educators and education researchers must continue to examine the emphasis on
standardized test scores and develop more just alternatives for measuring student
"achievement," "ability," or "potential."
o Continuing evaluation must be in place to measure the success of new and
existing programs meant to provide more opportunities to groups traditionally and
presently underrepresented in colleges and universities.
3. THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY
Ultimately, the goal of multicultural education is to contribute to the transformation of society
and to the application and maintenance of social justice and equity. This stands to reason, as the
transformation of schools necessarily transforms a society that puts so much stock in educational
attainment, degrees, and test scores. In fact, it is particularly this competitive, market-centric
hegemony underlying the dominant mentality of the United States (and increasingly, with the
"help" of the United States, the world) that multicultural education aims to challenge, shake,
expose, and critique. This is precisely the reason that it is not enough to continue working within
an ailing, oppressive, and outdated system to make changes, when the problems in education are
themselves symptoms of a system that continues to be controlled by the economic elite. One
does not need to study education too closely to recognize that schools consistently provide
continuing privilege to the privileged and continuing struggle for the struggling with very little
hope of upward mobility. "Informal" tracking, standardized testing, discrepancies in the quality
of schools within and across regions, and other practices remain from the industrial-age model of
schools. Only the terminology has changed -- and the practices are not quite as overt.
Educators, educational theorists, researchers, activists, and everyone else must continue to
practice and apply multicultural teaching and learning principles both inside and out of the
classroom. We must not allow the knowledge that the vast majority of schools are well-
intentioned lead us to assume that our schools are immune to the oppression and inequity of
society. We must ask the unaskable questions. We must explore and deconstruct structures of
power and privilege that maintain the status quo.
In a sense, multicultural education uses the transformation of self and school as a metaphor and
point of departure for the transformation of society. Ultimately, social justice and equity in
schools can, and should, mean social justice and equity in society. Only then will the purpose of
multicultural education be fully achieved.
Some of purposes of multicultural education enable a person to develop the following
perspectives:

1. A good self-concept and self understanding

2. Sensitivity to and understanding of others, including cultural groups in the world
3. The ability to perceive and understand multiple, sometimes conflicting, cultural and
national interpretations of and perspectives on events, values and behavior
4. The ability to make decisions and take effective action based on multi-cultural analysis
and synthesis
5. Open minds when addressing issues, etc

1.4 ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Multicultural education is based on some commonly asserted principles. The frequency and
consistency with which these principles are declared across time and advocates are other strong
indications of the consensus that exists about some essential, baseline features of multicultural
education and a convincing counterargument to claims that the field lacks conceptual clarity.
A principle is a basic or essential quality that determines the intrinsic nature of something.
Multicultural education includes several characteristics or traits that, as a composite, distinguish
its inherent nature and quality from other educational innovations. Parikh (1986) sets the overall
tone of multicultural education in his judgment that multicultural education is good education for
all children. To endorse multicultural education is not to imply that the entire education system
should be destroyed or that the cultural dominance existing in schooling should merely be
replaced with the dominance of other ethnic cultures; neither is it to deny the need for a common
national culture. Rather, it simply says that the education system needs to be improved by
becoming less culturally monolithic, rigid, biased, hegemonic, and ethnocentric. The prevailing
norm in educational decision-making and operating procedures should be cultural pluralism and
heterogeneity, instead of cultural hegemony or homogeneity. Asante (1991/92) captures this
intent and orientation in his explanation that the goal is to achieve cultural pluralism without
hierarchy.
The general principles of multicultural education are supported by several more specific ones.
Multiculturalists describe the most salient "personality traits" of multicultural education as
follows:
 A personally empowering, socially transformative, and pedagogically humanistic process
 Correcting and rehabilitating some of the mistakes that schools have made in educating
culturally different students
 A search for scholarly honesty and truth by giving due recognition to the contributions of
diverse groups and cultures to the collective accomplishments of humankind and their
country
 Fundamentally an affective and humanistic enterprise that aims to achieve greater
understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures and peoples
 Both content and process, structure and substance, action and reflection, knowledge and
values, philosophy and methodology, an educational means and an end
 For all students in all grades, subjects, and school settings
 A means of achieving parity in educational opportunities for diverse students
 A process of systematic and systemic change that is developmental, progressive, and
ongoing
 A confluence of diverse cultural heritages, experiences, perspectives, and contributions
 Has inherent merit for its own sake, as well as instrumental value for facilitating other
educational goals
 A bridge for making meaningful connections between the abstractions of schooling and
the actual life experiences of ethnically and culturally different students
 A vehicle for and conduit of relevance, equity, excellence, and personal meaningfulness
in education for culturally diverse students
 An acceptance and celebration of diversity as a normal fact of human life, Ethiopian
society, and schooling
 A personification of the democratic ideal of equality as practiced in school programs that
accept all peoples' contributions, cultures, issues, and experiences as worth educational
content
 Teachers should use multiple culturally sensitive techniques o assess complex cognitive
and social skills.
Similarly, Banks (1996) has identified 12 essential principles for teaching and learning in a
multicultural society.
Principle 1: Professional development programmes should help teachers understand the complex
characteristics of ethnic groups and the way in which race, ethnicity, language, and social class
interact to influence student behavior.
Principle 2: Schools should ensure that all students have equitable opportunities to learn and to
meet high standards.
Principle 3: The curriculum should help students understand that knowledge is socially
constructed and reflects researchers personal experiences as well as the social, political, and
economic contexts in which they live and work.
Principle 4: Schools should provide all students with opportunities to participate in extra- and co
curricular activities that develop knowledge, skills and attitude that increase academic
achievements and foster positive interracial relationships.
Principle 5: Schools should create or make salient super ordinate crosscutting group members in
order to improve intergroup relations
Principle 6: Students should learn about stereotype and other related biases that have negative
effects on racial and ethnic relations.
Principle 7: Students should learn about the values shared by virtually all cultural groups (eg.
justice, equality, freedom, peace, compassion, and charity).
Principle 8: Teachers should help students acquire the social skills needed to interact effectively
with students from other racial, ethnic, cultural, and language groups.
Principle 9: Schools should provide opportunities for students from different racial, ethnic,
cultural, and language groups to interact socially under conditions designed to reduce fear and
anxiety.
Principle 10:A school’s organizational strategies should ensure the decision making is widely
shared and that members of the school community learn collaborative skills and dispositions in
order to create a caring environment for students.
Principle 11: Leaders should develop strategies that ensure all public schools, regardless of their
locations, are funded equitably.
Principle 12: Teachers should use multiple culturally sensitive techniques to assess complex
cognitive and social skills.

Summary
At unit one four major elements are discussed. These are Historical Background, Definitions,
purposes and principles of multi-cultural Education. The historical development of Multi-
culturalism dates back to the 1960s and 1970s in the western world, particularly in America. It
was founded with the aim of respecting the rights of the immigrants. It is witnessed from various
literatures that multi-culturalism as a concept had faced so many challenges in and out of the
educational institutions. Nevertheless, due to strong commitment of the governments, it has been
realized in practice. It had been included indifferent governmental policies.
Regarding to the definition or multi-culturalism, there is no single agreed up definition. Different
scholars have come up with various alternative definitions. Multi-culturalism can be defined, for
example, as the practice of acknowledging and respecting the various cultures, religions, races,
ethnicities, attitudes and opinions within an environment.
As a whole, the purpose of multicultural education to is to recognize and value the diverse
cultures in a country equally. Finally, it has been discussed about 12 principles which focus on
teacher learning, student learning, inter group relations, school governance, organization and
equity, and Assessment.