Multicultural Education: A Need for Philosophical Perspective. World Education Monograph Series, Number Three.

Overview & Synopsis

This paper examines multicultural education--its history, goals, for whom it is designed, and who is responsible for initiating programs. The literature is in general accord with the view that the educational system should be responsive to the fact that the United States is culturally diverse. This fact is taken as the ground for asserting that diversity should be both reflected in school curricula and valued by those who work in education, especially teachers and administrators. In most of the literature, multicultural education is presented as a humanistic as well as a relativistic concept. It is a means of celebrating diversity, striving for human rights and social justice, and legitimizing the alternative life choices and various styles of all people. In 1972 the Ethnic Heritage Studies Act was passed by Congress, emphasizing the heterogeneity of America's population. In the same year the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education adopted a statement on multicultural education which upheld the value of cultural pluralism as the ultimate goal of multicultural education. Multicultural education rests on the fact of cultural diversity and the ideology of cultural pluralism. It is necessary to have a policy of multicultural education. Programs must be designed for all members of society. Placing the burden for implementing multicultural education programs on institutions of higher learning will not achieve more than moderate success without broad-based civic and societal support. (RM)