ABSTRACT
Gollnick and Chinn (1986) argue that the concept of “multicultural education” is not new but draws on educational elements in development since the 1920s. Among these concepts are the international and intercultural contexts of curricula, the foregrounding of various ethnic histories and cultures, and an emphasis on intergroup or human relations, especially the reduction or elimination of stereotypes and prejudices (Sleeter and Grant, 1993). Multicultural education emphasizes a range of strategies for increasing student achievement that includes teaching within the cultural contexts of diverse students and providing a dialogue between teachers and students that honors students’ experience and “voice” (Hill Collins, 1986). Multicultural educators actively inquire into communication differences between students and teachers, and attend to the mismatch between teaching and learning styles that occurs in a classroom that privileges those who are White, male, middle class, and heterosexual. Gollnick and Chinn (1986) also identify formal curricular issues that highlight cultural pluralism nationally and internationally, enhance critical thinking, and help students gain a better understanding of the causes of oppression and inequality and examine their own and others’ biases and stereotypes. “To educate in a pluralistic society for a pluralistic world” goes beyond dealing with diversity as a “problem” (Smith, 1990, p. 29) and moves toward creating a multicultural campus as its central educational purpose.
