"With a look to the future of multicultural education, this book presents chapters that express a practical and humanistic approach to teaching and learning in an increasingly complex and conflicted global society, answering why we educate youth"--
Drawing on research from Canada, USA and Western Europe, this book extends the idea of multicultural education to put it within a global context. The core of the book focuses on human rights education as a central motivator in any commitment of multicultural education.
This groundbreaking book describes theory, research, and practice that can be used in civic education courses and programs to help students from marginalized and minoritized groups in nations around the world attain a sense of structural integration and political efficacy within their nation-states, develop civic participation skills, and reflective cultural, national, and global identities.
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.
The National Association for Multicultural Education in Washington, D.C., listed a number of issues that the school curriculum should address with reference to multicultural education, including racism, sexism, classism, linguicism, ablism, ageism, heterosexism, and religious intolerance. It is noteworthy that of all these issues, religion is about the only one that throughout history people are willing to die for, although whether what is at issue is really religion or other things such as territory is another matter. It is also interesting that all the others have isms in their names but religious issues are characterized by intolerance. Perhaps we should try to understand this intolerance and look at what steps might help to alleviate it. However, while intolerance might seem a simple thing, understanding what is behind it and how it plays such a crucial role in religion requires what we refer to in the Introduction chapter as a multifaceted approach at multiple levels. It is not enough just to try to dispel stereotypes of followers of other religions, or to point out commonalities in world religions. We should, for example, try to understand and appreciate how adherents of other religions try to answer questions regarding their adaptation to the contemporary environment. It is through understanding how different religions coexist side by side at various levels that we truly come to learn about religion in multicultural education.
The 21st century has brought about changes in every aspect of life through ubiquitous technology and Internet-based social media. The distances between cultures and continents have narrowed, the world has become flat, and multicultural work-teams composed of members from different countries have become a daily reality in global businesses. However, in many ways these global changes in work practices have only just begun to have an impact on education. To better prepare students for the information age, researchers and policy makers largely agree about the skills needed for shared knowledge construction. Indeed, the education systems in several different countries have begun to integrate these skills into teaching and learning and are placing a strong emphasis on their implementation (Melamed et al, 2010; Resta et al, 2011). In 2015 the OECD PISA exam for the first time, included assessment of collaborative problem-solving in its country-by-country comparison. Collaborative learning is not a trivial challenge nor is it intuitive for all teachers and learners. One must acquire and practice the essential skills in order to successfully work in a team. Consequently it is essential to train teachers in collaborative teamwork, as they must serve as role models for students. In addition, new tools and practices become available at a rate that outpaces the abilities of many higher education institutions to adopt and implement. This book surveys the current state of the field and provides theoretical guidance and practical examples to help meet the gaps in research, development and practice.
By addressing intercultural and multicultural education in a global context, this volume brings together the dynamic discussions and lively debate of intercultural and multicultural education taking place across the world. Not content with discussion of theory or practice at the expense of the other, this collection of essays embodies dialogical praxis by weaving together a variety of epistemologies, ideologies, historical circumstances, pedagogies, policy approaches, curricula, and personal narratives. Contributors take readers to the countries, schools, and nongovernmental agencies where intercultural education and multicultural education, either collectively or singularly, are active (often central) concepts or practices in the daily educational undertaking and discourse of society. Readers are also informed about how intercultural education and/or multicultural education within a country came to be and will learn about the debates over intercultural education and/or multicultural education at both the government and local level.
This conceptually rich and empirically grounded book draws upon expertise from a panel of emerging and established international scholars to explore the institutionalization and effect of multicultural education on a global scale. Previous studies of multicultural education have largely ignored the significance of understanding the combination of multiple sociopolitical influences on multicultural education in both policy and practice. Filling this void, this book sheds light on the two main reasons for taking a “glocal” perspective on multicultural education. First, children should be provided with meaningful learning opportunities to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to live in a culturally and ethno-linguistically diverse society, where the distinction between the local and the global is becoming blurred. Second, understanding both the “global grammar” and the “local semantics” of multicultural education helps researchers and policy-makers grasp the whole picture of multicultural education as an evolving social construct and phenomenon. This new book provokes a new round of discussion and research to expand and enrich our inquiry into cultural diversity and educational inclusion.
Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity, a hands-on, reader-friendly multicultural education textbook, actively engages education students in critical reflection and self-examination as they prepare to teach in increasingly diverse classrooms. In this engaging text, Carl A. Grant and Christine E. Sleeter, two of the most eminent scholars of multicultural teacher education, help pre-service teachers develop the tools they will need to learn about their students and their students’ communities and contexts, about themselves, and about the social relations in which schools are embedded. Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity challenges readers to take a truly active and ongoing role in promoting equity within education and helps to guide them in becoming highly qualified and fantastic teachers. Features and updates to this much-anticipated second edition include: Reflection boxes that encourage students to actively engage with the text and concepts, along with downloadable templates available on Routledge.com "Putting It into Practice" activities that offer concrete suggestions for really "doing" multicultural work in the classroom Fictional vignettes that illustrate the real issues teacher education students face and the ways their own cultural attitudes can impact their response New coverage of issues pertaining to student achievement, federal and state policy, and socioeconomic connections between the current economy and educational funding A more comprehensive discussion about the different social movements that have affected education in the past and present