[1] It is a way of teaching that promotes the principles of inclusion, diversity, democracy, skill acquisition, inquiry, critical thought, multiple perspectives, and self-reflection.
Teachers then serve as change agents, promoting relevant democratic values and empowering students to act.
[5] Other goals include: Adaptation and modification to established curriculum serve as an example of an approach to preserving minority group culture.
[4] Brief sensitivity training, separate units on ethnic celebrations, and closer attention paid to instances of prejudice, are examples of minimal approaches, which are less likely to reap long term benefits for students.
Multicultural education should span beyond autonomy, by exposing students to global uniqueness, fostering deepened understanding, and providing access to varied practices, ideas, and ways of life; it is a process of societal transformation and reconstruction.
[10] James Banks, former president of the National Council for the Social Studies and the American Educational Research Association, describes the balancing forces, stating, "Citizenship education must be transformed in the 21st Century because of the deepening racial, ethnic, cultural, language and religious diversity in nation-states around the world.
Campbell and Baird wrote, "Planning curriculum for schools in a multicultural democracy involves making some value choices.
Rather than neutrality, schools should plan and teach cooperation, mutual respect, the dignity of individuals and related democratic values.
In addition to democratic values, deliberative strategies and teaching decision-making provide core procedures for multicultural education.
Educational theorists seek to restructure schools and curriculum to enact "social justice and real equality".
Though there are overlaps in these aims, Levinson notes that one goal, cited by of all three prominent groups within the field of education, is that of "righting the historical record".
It includes students from varying social classes, ethnic groups, sexual identities, and additional cultural characteristics.
The unanimous 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education ended the doctrine of separate but equal for schools.
[16] In 1968, the Bilingual Education Act was enacted, prompted by limited English-speaking minorities, especially Spanish-speaking citizens who insisted on maintaining their personal connectedness to their heritage and cultural ideals.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s worked to eliminate discrimination in public accommodations, housing, employment, and education.
[5] The movement pushed for minority teachers and administrators, community control and revision of textbooks to reflect the country's diversity.
[18] Education observe an increasingly multicultural nation that needs critical thinkers able to handle cross-cultural differences.
It required "all public schools receiving federal funding to administer a state-wide standardized test annually to all students.
[5] Multicultural education focuses on an "intercultural model that advances a climate of inclusion where individual and group differences are valued.
"[6] Critics such as Sleeter and McLaren want increased emphasis on a critique of racism in education[20] rather than allowing the superficial exposure of cultures to be the standard.
They find that many minority groups want to focus on establishing their own cultural identity before attempting to enter into a multicultural world.
While studies have shown that "the longer these students of color remain in school, the more their achievement lags behind that of White mainstream students",[5]: 3 it is still highly debated whether or not learning styles, are indeed culturally distinctive, and furthermore, whether implementing different teaching strategies with different racial or ethnic groups would help or further alienate minority groups.
"Teachers need to assume that students are capable of learning complex material and performing at a high level of skill.
[30] Critical literacy practices enable students to build an honest relationship with the world while recognizing multiple perspectives and ideologies.
Preparing those teachers include being able to effectively confront fears and openness of talking about sensitive subjects, such as diversity issues and transforming attitudes that students may also possess towards different cultures.
[35] A similar result happened in another study, in which the multicultural education course led to "increased awareness, understanding, and appreciation of other cultures."
Fullinwider claims that activities that celebrate a culture's food or music fail to address the values and ideas behind these customs.
[4]: 443 Fullinwider also discusses challenges that can arise when majority teachers interact with minority students: the distinction between "high culture" and "home culture" needs to be clear or else faculty and staff members could mistakenly withdraw their appropriate authority to evaluate and discipline students' conduct and work.
"[38] Another critique claims that "multicultural education theories and programs are rarely based on the actual study of minority cultures and languages."
That is, as Agirdag and colleagues claim,[40] teachers tend to incorporate more multicultural content in schools with a higher share of minority students.