Multicultural Education PPT

Amity Institute of Education

Multicultural Education• Multicultural Education describes a system of instruction

that attempts to foster cultural pluralism and acknowledges

the differences between races and cultures. It addresses the

educational needs of a society that contains more than one

set of traditions, that is a mixture of many cultures.

• Multicultural education is an educational philosophy that

focuses on celebrating cultural differences while also

recognizing the importance of challenging all forms of

discrimination based on race, gender, age, religion, ability

or sexual orientation.


Multicultural education advocates the belief that students and their life

histories and experiences should be placed at the center of the teaching

and learning process and that pedagogy should occur in a context that is

familiar to students and that addresses multiple ways of thinking. In

addition, teachers and students must critically analyze oppression and

power relations in their communities, society and the world.

To accomplish these goals, multicultural education demands a school

staff that is culturally competent, and to the greatest extent possible

racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse. Staff must be

multiculturally literate and capable of including and embracing families

and communities to create an environment that is supportive of multiple

perspectives, experiences, and democracy. Multicultural education

requires comprehensive school reform as multicultural education must

pervade all aspects of the school community and organization.


Characteristics of Multicultural

Education

• Multicultural education is antiracist education.

• Multicultural education is basic education.

• Multicultural education is important for all students.

• Multicultural education is pervasive.

• Multicultural education is education for social

justice.

• Multicultural education is critical pedagogy


Principles of Teaching and Learning

in a Multicultural Society• Principle 1: Professional development programs should help

teachers understand the complex characteristics of different

groups of children in the Indian society and the ways in which

race, ethnicity, language and social class interact to influence

students 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 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 attitudes

that increase academic achievement and foster

positive interracial relationships

• Principle 5: Schools should create or make salient

superordinate crosscutting group memberships in

order to improve intergroup relations.

• Principle 6: Students should learn about

stereotyping 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 (e.g., 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.


Benefits of Multicultural

Education1. Helps to eradicate prejudice and racism.

2. Brings different races together in harmony.

3. Builds interaction between diverse cultures.

4. Creates tolerance between two groups.

5. It eradicates cultural barriers.

6. Helps students develop positive self-image.

7. Allows multiple perspectives and ways of thinking.


The Dimensions of Multicultural

EducationJames A. Banks's Dimensions of Multicultural

Education is used widely by school districts to

conceptualize and develop courses, programs,

and projects in multicultural education. The five

dimensions are: (1) content integration; (2) the

knowledge construction process; (3) prejudice

reduction; (4) an equity pedagogy; and (5) an

empowering school culture and social structure.8


Content Integration•content integration focuses on what information should

be included in the curriculum, how it should be

integrated into the existing curriculum, and its location

within the curriculum

•Content integration deals with the extent to which

teachers use examples and content from a variety of

cultures and groups.

•There are frequent and ample opportunities for teachers

to use ethnic and cultural content to illustrate concepts,

themes, and principles in the social studies, the language

arts, and in music. 9


The knowledge construction process.•The knowledge construction process describes teaching activities

that help students to understand, investigate, and determine how the

implicit cultural assumptions, frames of references, perspectives,

and biases of researchers and textbook writers influence the ways in

which knowledge is constructed.

•Multicultural teaching involves not only infusing ethnic content

into the school curriculum, but changing the structure and

organization of school knowledge.

It also includes changing the ways 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.10


Prejudice reduction

•The prejudice reduction dimension of multicultural

education seeks to help students develop positive and

democratic racial attitudes.

•Focus on building strategies that can be used to help

students develop more positive racial and ethnic

attitudes.

•It also helps students to understand how ethnic

identity is influenced by the context of schooling and

the attitudes and beliefs of dominant social groups.11


An equity pedagogy•An equity pedagogy exists when teachers modify their teaching in

ways that will facilitate the academic achievement of students from

diverse racial, cultural, socioeconomic, and language groups.

•This includes using a variety of teaching styles and approaches that

are consistent with the range of learning styles.

•An equity pedagogy assumes that students from diverse cultures

and groups come to school with many strengths.

Teachers practice culturally responsive teaching when an equity

pedagogy is implemented.

•They use instructional materials and practices that incorporate

important aspects of the family and community culture of their

students 12


An empowering school culture•This dimension involves restructuring the culture and organization of

the school so that students from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic,

and language groups experience equality.

•Grouping and labeling practices, sports participation, gaps in

achievement among groups, different rates of enrollment in gifted and

special education programs among groups, and the interaction of the

staff and students across ethnic and racial lines are important variables

that are examined and reformed.

•An empowering school structure facilitates the practice of multicultural

education by providing teachers with opportunities for collective

planning and instruction, and by creating democratic structures that give

teachers, parents, and school staff shared responsibility for school

governance 13