Multicultural Education

The authors' present essays and annotations on a number of issues related to multicultural education. Inherent in the authors' definition of multicultural education is a commitment to create a more just and equitable society for all people.

Summarizes developments in multicultural education in forty-two countries from around the world.

This book tells us how various global regions are dealing with three major concerns within the field of multicultural education: *the conceptualization and realization of "difference" and "diversity"; *the inclusion and exclusion of social groups within a definition of multicultural education; and *the effects of power on relations between and among groups identified under the multicultural education umbrella. All of the chapter authors pay attention to these themes, but, at the same time, they bring their particular interests and perspectives to the book, addressing issues, such as linguistic, racial, ethnic, and religious diversity; class; educational inequalities; teacher education; conceptualizations of citizenship; and questions of identity construction. In addition, the authors offer both historical and social contexts for their analytical discussion of the ideals and practices of multicultural education in a particular region. This is not a book that tells us about multicultural education with an international "twist"; it provides readers with different ways to think, talk, and do research about issues of "diversity," "difference," and the effects of power as they relate to education.

Born during the turbulent years of the 1960s, multicultural education has attempted to help students acquire a more sophisticated understanding of the pluralistic populations of the United States. This reference book is a convenient guide to multicultural education initiatives in the 50 states. The volume contains alphabetical entries for each state. Because multicultural education is largely a response to the ethnic composition of a particular state, each entry begins with a brief history of the state, which gives special attention to the experiences of various racial and ethnic groups. The second part of each entry summarizes the educational system of the state, while the third analyzes the state's multicultural education efforts. Each entry closes with bibliographic information, and the volume concludes with a selected, general bibliography.

Korn and Bursztyn and their contributors examine the cultural transitions that children make as they move between home and school. Case studies present instances of how diversity engages us in renegotiating the personal and social. In illuminating the complicated nature of cultural transitions, they highlight how multiculturalism can play a transformative role in the lives of children and schools.

The heart of this study is a detailed narrative account of a teacher in an inner-city school. For two years, the author collaborated with an immigrant teacher from the Caribbean, studying her practice from three perspectives: place--the community and school landscape; temporality--the history of the school and current programs; and interaction--the teacher's relationship with the school, parents, and students. Current ways of examining multicultural issues focus on the analysis of broad factors affecting large groups of people. In the process, the individual is subsumed within catagories and the subtle nuances of experiences are lost. The narrative approach outlined in the book offers a new perspective on multiculturalism and research into multicultural education, one the author terms narrative multiculturalism.

The focus of this book is on the ways in which service learning and multicultural education can and should be integrated so that each may be strengthened and consequently have greater effect on educational and social conditions. It offers a significant attempt to forge a dialogue among practitioners of service learning and multicultural education. The overriding theme is that service learning without a focused attention to the complexity of racial and cultural differences can reinforce the dominant cultural ideology, but academic work that seeks to deconstruct these norms without providing a community-based touchstone isolates students and schools from the realities of the larger communities of which they are part. Although the chapter authors provide varied perspectives on the benefits and challenges of integrating multicultural education and service learning, they all are committed to a vision of education that synthesizes both action and reflection. None of the authors pretend to have all the answers to what this integration should look like, nor do they believe that today's social problems are easily ameliorated through education. Rather, they share theories, practices, failures, and triumphs in order to further the conversation about the importance of aligning what educators say about the world and how they act in and on it. These authors share the view that multicultural education is truly transformative for students only when it includes a community action component, and likewise, service learning is truly a catalyst for change only when it is done from a multicultural and socially just perspective. It is their hope that the ideas explored in this book will further the work of those who share a commitment to the integration of action and reflection.

An examination of the philosophical assumptions, theoretical currents, and conceptual foundations of multicultural education and multiculturalism. The author identifies profound weaknesses in both projects, and presents an alternative proposal for educational reform and social change that stresses the development of students' critical-thinking skills.

Growing numbers of working-class Puerto Ricans are migrating from larger mainland metropolitan areas into smaller, safer communities in search of a better quality of life for themselves and their families, What they may also encounter in moving to such communities is a discourse of exclusion that associates their differences and their lower socioeconomic class with a lack of effort and an unwillingness to assimilate into mainstream culture. In this ethnographic study of a community in conflict, educator and anthropologist Ellen Bigler examines such discourses as she explores one city's heated dispute that arose over bringing multiculturalism and bilingual education into their lives and their schools' curricula.

The impassioned debate that erupted between longtime white ethnic residents and more recently arrived Puerto Rican citizens in the de-industrialized city the author calls "Amhem" was initially sparked by one school board member's disparaging comments about Latinos. The conflict led to aninvestigation by the New York State Education Department and to attempts to implement multicultural reforms in the city's schools. American Conversations follows the ensuing conflict, looks at the history of racial formation in the United States, and considers the specific economic and labor histories of the groups comprising the community in opposition. Including interviews with students, teachers, parents, and community leaders, as well as her own observations of exchanges among them inside and outside the classroom, Bigler's book explores the social positions, diverging constructions of history, and polarized understandings of contemporary racial/ethnic dynamics in Arnhem. Through herretelling of one community's crisis, Bigter illuminates the nature of racial tics in the United States and how both sides in the polidebate over multicultural education struggle to find a common language.

American Conversations w

In the study of multicultural education, there are key names, places, concepts, and legal actions which provide a foundation for the field. This reference includes more than 400 entries from a broad range of topics related to multicultural education. While many of the entries are for terms and theories related to multicultural education, the volume also provides entries for notable persons from different cultures and relates them to the curriculum. In addition, the book includes entries for particular cultural groups, which examine their educational experiences and needs. Each entry not only helps to identify and place in an historical perspective a particular term, but also links that term to an important aspect of multicultural education. Entries provide bibliographic information, and the volume concludes with a selected, general bibliography.