Multicultural Education : A Source Book, Second Edition (Source Books on Education, Volume 54)

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MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION: A SOURCE BOOK (SECOND EDITION)

THE SOURCEBOOKS ON EDUCATION SERIES Case Studies in Educational PsychologyFrank Adams Creating High Performance Classroom GroupsNina Brown Religion and Schooling in Contemporary America: Confronting Our Cultural PluralismJames C.Carper and Thomas Hunt Parents and Schools: A Source BookAngela Carrasquillo and Clement London Teaching English as a Second Language: A Resource GuideAngela Carrasquillo African-American ScenebookKathryn Marguerite Ervin and Ethel Pitts Walker Children of Addiction: Research, Health and Public Policy IssuesHiram E.Fitzgerald, Barry M.Lester, and Barry Zuckerman History of Early Childhood Education: A HistoryBlythe Hinitz and V.Celia Lascarides Practicing What We Preach: Preparing Middle Level EducatorsCharlene Johnson, Linda Morrow, Toni Sills-Briegel, and Samuel Totten Images of Mainstreaming: Educating Students with DisabilitiesClayton Keller and Robert McNergney Early Intervention: Cross-Cultural Experiences With a Mediational ApproachPnina Klein At-Risk Youth: Theory, Practice, and ReformRobert F.Kronick Project Head Start: Models and Strategies for the Twenty-First CenturyUra Jean Oyemade and Valora Washington Multicultural Education: A Source Book, 2nd ed.Patricia G.Ramsey and Leslie R.Williams (with Edwina B.Vold) Advanced Educational Foundations for Teachers: The History, Philosophy and Culture of SchoolingDonald K.Sharpes Educating Young Adolescents: Life in the MiddleMichael J.Wavering

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION A SOURCE BOOK (SECOND EDITION)

PATRICIA G.RAMSEY AND LESLIE R.WILLIAMS WITH EDWINA BATTLE VOLD

ROUTLEDGEFALMER NEW YORK & LONDON

Published in 2003 RoutledgeFalmer 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by RoutledgeFalmer 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www.routledgefalmer.com Copyright © 2003 by RoutledgeFalmer This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” RoutledgeFalmer is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ramsey, Patricia G. Multicultural education: a source book/Patricia G.Ramsey and Leslie R.Williams with Edwina B.Vold.–2nd ed. p. cm.—(Source books on education) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8153-1744-1 (Print Edition) 1. Multicultural education—United States. I. Williams, Leslie R., 1944–II. Vold, Edwina Battle. III. Title. IV. Source books on education (RoutledgeFalmer (Firm)) LC1099.3.R35 2002 370.117–dc21 2002068312 ISBN 0-203-42863-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-44128-1 (Adobe eReader Format)

In Memory of Richard Villedrouin

Contents

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 5:

Acknowledgments

vii

Preface

viii

The Evolution of Multicultural Education: A Sociopolitical Perspective

1

Annotated Bibliography

45

The Social, Political, and Economic Contexts of Children’s Development and Learning

61


120

Multicultural Curriculum and Teaching

147


175

Multicultural Teacher Education

207


245

Trends, Obstacles, and Future Possibilities of Multicultural Education

265

Index

287

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge with heartfelt thanks several individuals who have been instrumental in the final shaping of the second edition of this work. First, we extend our deep appreciation to Nadjwa E.L.Norton, who read the emerging manuscript with the clear eye of a teacher grounded in intensive multicultural classroom practice, as well as with her new perspectives of multicultural teacher educator and educational researcher. We thank her for her clarity and forthrightness. We gratefully acknowledge the panel of experts and the audience who critiqued portions of the manuscript for an interactive symposium entitled Navigating the Tides and Currents of Multicultural Education: A Conceptual Map for Analyzing the Divergent Perspectives and Trends of the Field presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New Orleans on April 3, 2002. The panelists responding to the authors (including Edwina Battle Vold) were Celia Genishi, A.Lin Goodwin, Michelle G.Knight, and Nadjwa E.L.Norton. The audience was composed of multiculturalists working in the national and international spheres. Our special thanks go to Joseph Miranda, Nicole Ellis, and our other editors at RoutledgeFalmer who with patience and grace saw us through to the end of this challenging project. L.R.W. & P.G.R.

Preface

This source book contains essays and annotations about many aspects of multicultural education. The authors define multicultural education as processoriented learning experiences that foster educational equity, awareness of and respect for the diversity of our society and world, and commitment to create a more just and equitable society for all people. Multicultural education, therefore, is relevant to all children and their families; all teaching, curricular, and administrative decisions; and every aspect of local and national educational policy. The concept of multicultural education has evolved over the past 35 years. From the desegregation and the ethnic studies movements of the 1960s and 1970s emerged a recognition that all children must learn to live in a diverse world. In the middle 1970s the term multicultural education began to appear in the literature, as educators articulated its definition and implications for teaching practice. The first edition of this book, published in 1989, focused on the development of multicultural education during and after 1976. In the years since its publication, the field of multicultural education has grown in both breadth and depth. Many movements that were once distinct from multicultural education, such as critical theory, environmental education, and gay and lesbian rights, have now come under the multicultural umbrella. The focus of the field has also shifted from appreciating and integrating cultural and racial diversity to profoundly criticizing long-standing economic, social, and political injustices that affect children’s learning and prospects and the quality of their schools. As the field of multicultural education has expanded, the numbers of materials related to it have grown exponentially. Most publishing houses now have several multicultural titles and some have whole series dedicated to these issues. Teachers and teacher educators are confronted by burgeoning arrays of multicultural educational materials, including journals, curricula, activity books, children’s literature, posters, and props. Most recently, a number of websites, list-serves, and online resources have added even more possibilities. The vitality and variety in the field of multicultural education are inspiring and exciting, but to us, as authors attempting to convey an overview of the field, they also posed a daunting challenge. As we surveyed publishing catalogues, journal articles, websites, and conference programs, we often felt as though we were trying to carry an ocean in a tea cup. We struggled with how to include enough material to give a broad and accurate view of the field and, at the same time, to

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keep the volume readable and affordable so that it would be accessible to a wide range of people. We finally settled on making this book an entry point, rather than an exhaustive review of all available materials. Rather than an ocean, we came to see it as a port, a point of departure, where the reader could get an overview of the field and some guidance for exploring the many different dimensions of the field. That resolved, we then had to make many decisions about what to include, which, of course, raised the questions of “Which port?” and “Who are the travelers?” The issues of multicultural education so pervade our society that there are an infinite number of potential entry points. Moreover, all people embark with particular life experiences and perspectives that influence their initial interests and long-term aspirations for exploring the vast seascape of multicultural education. The journeys themselves are all different and have no fixed course or destination. One could start with an analysis of the lyrics of popular music, a critique of local and national educational policies, or narratives of students and teachers, to name just a few of the possibilities. Inevitably, the choices that we made in this book reflect our own backgrounds and priorities, which we will describe briefly in the next paragraph. Three of us participated in writing this volume. Patricia Ramsey and Leslie Williams were the coauthors, equally dividing tasks and responsibilities throughout this project. Edwina Battle Vold had been a coauthor of the first edition, but due to her recent retirement wanted a less active role and, therefore, served as a consultant, rather than as a coauthor, on this second edition. All of us are members of the academy, and the world that we know best is that of academic writing—scholarly books, journals, and research reports. Yet because we are former early childhood teachers and currently (or, in the case of Vold, until recently) teacher educators, we were drawn to books that blended scholarly concerns with practical applications, rather than ones devoted to purely theoretical debates. As baby boomers who learned about computers relatively late in life, websites, list-serves, and chat rooms were less familiar, and we learned a lot in the process of writing this book but still feel most comfortable with the world of print. We each grew up in distinct familial, cultural, and economic contexts that have shaped our individual views. However, we all came of age in the 1950s and 1960s, and many of our beliefs were born in and shaped by the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements that continue to influence our worldviews today. Two of us (Ramsey and Williams) are Whites who grew up in the Northeast, and one of us (Vold) is a southerner of African descent, so our experiences of the Civil Rights Movement and racial privilege have differed considerably. All of us are middleclass heterosexual women with no identified disabilities, so in these aspects our perspectives are shaped by our privilege and relative comfort with the status quo. With this volume, we are attempting to introduce the reader to the vast field of multicultural education, but must acknowledge that, despite our efforts to be objective and inclusive, we inevitably view the field through our particular lenses and can provide only one of many possible entry points. Still, we hope that readers will be able to use this book to embark on a journey that will in turn

x

broaden their own horizons and deepen their critical awareness of the world around them. The limits of our backgrounds and perspectives were often reflected in our discussions and decisions about language. Like many authors of books and articles about multicultural education, we were often stymied by the lack of adequate terms to describe diversity and injustices that embody respect for different groups and resistance movements, yet also reflect the reality of past and present discrimination. There is no shared lexicon, and across texts the same term may mean different things or different terms are used to mean the same things. In our struggles to find terms that reflected an authentic multicultural perspective, we often had to make compromises. For example, we tried to avoid using the term minority to refer to racial and ethnic groups that traditionally have been excluded from equal participation in educational, social, economic, and political arenas in American society. It has a pejorative tone and, in terms of global demographics (and, increasingly, those of the United States), it is inaccurate. Groups that have been viewed as “minority” comprise a greater proportion of the world’s population than do the “majority” Whites. At the same time a number of authors that we reviewed use the term minority, and, because it is often not explicitly defined, we could not substitute another word without risk of changing the meaning of what they are saying. As a result, we used it occasionally when referring to works of authors who use it. Throughout this volume we have tried to use terms carefully and, when we have felt that they might be ambiguous, to define them as precisely as possible. However, we could not define every single term, and some may appear in the text that seemed clear to us, given our own perspectives and assumptions, but that may in fact carry multiple meanings that result in ambiguity or confusion. Moreover, the meaning of terms vary across groups and over time; what is meaningful at this point may not be so in a few years. Terms that were once preferred may later be seen as pejorative or condescending and vice versa. The struggle to find terms and meanings is part of the multicultural conversation that will continue far beyond the publication of this book. We hope that our discussions and definitions, inadequate and time-bound as they are, will contribute to the evolution of a language that reflects a more just world. This book includes theoretical, research, and practical information related to the multicultural education movement in general and its implementation of a multicultural perspective in early childhood and elementary school classrooms in particular. The first two chapters reflect the authors’ conviction that effective multicultural education must be grounded in an understanding of its relation to other social and political movements and in an ability to make curriculum developmentally appropriate or accessible. Chapter 1 is a description of the philosophical roots of multicultural education and the sociopolitical context of its evolution; it is useful to anyone interested in the history and current trends of the movement. The second chapter reviews research on the social, cultural, and economic contexts of children’s lives and the development of children’s awareness and understanding of racial, cultural, social class, gender, sexual

xi

orientation, and ability similarities, differences, and identities. This review is relevant for anyone working with or raising children, including families, teachers, and therapists. The next two chapters discuss applications of multicultural education in educating children and preparing teachers. Chapter 3 describes the range of curricula, programs, and teaching strategies designed for early childhood and elementary classrooms and offers several ways of categorizing and evaluating them that also can be used to analyze curricula for different age groups. The annotations for this chapter include only programs that follow most closely the definition of multicultural education that has guided the writing of this book. Chapter 4 analyzes the evolving policies and guidelines for multicultural teacher education and reviews studies that have measured the implementation and effectiveness of multicultural initiatives in teacher education. In the final chapter, the authors review the evolution of different aspects of the movement described in the earlier chapters, discuss current challenges to multicultural education, and predict possible future trends. Chapters 1, 4, and 5 are relevant to multicultural education in all institutions and with students at all ages. Chapters 2 and 3 are more specifically focused on the early childhood and elementary years. Although the primary focus of this book is the multicultural education movement in the United States, some materials from other countries—specifically, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom—were reviewed and are referenced in the essays. Annotations, however, are limited to materials that are written in English and are available to readers in this country. References were identified through a number of searches, including ERIC, PSYCHINFO, OVID, Library of Congress, publishers’ lists, conference proceedings, and many other sources. Although the essays cover all topics related to multicultural education described previously, the annotations are limited to ones that reflect the orientation defined in the introductory paragraph of this preface. To ensure accessibility, annotations are also limited to books and articles that are available in print. Unpublished dissertations, research reports, and government documents are not annotated. Chapters 1–4 consist of an essay reviewing the major issues, historical changes, and related research in its topical area and between 30 and 50 related annotated sources. The annotations are organized alphabetically in each chapter and include full publication information. Each annotation consists of a brief summary of the major points of the resource and, in many cases, a commentary on how it relates to the major issues of the field. In some instances, specific suggestions about how a resource might be used are also included. Chapter 5 consists of an essay alone. We have written this book with the hopes that it will be useful for both undergraduate and graduate students of education who are interested in learning more about the history, controversies, and current status of the field of multicultural education. Likewise, teachers and school administrators who want to learn more about the field and start making some practical changes in their schools will also find the book helpful. Families may be able to use this book to see more clearly the challenges that they are experiencing raising and educating children in a complicated and inequitable society and to gain some ideas for

xii

addressing these issues with their children and their teachers. Scholars in the fields of education and psychology who are not yet familiar with the field of multicultural education will find this book a useful guide to further literature reviews. Our goals in writing this book were, first, to draw together a wide range of topics and resources and to put them into a meaningful context. Second, we wanted to provide an overview of the history, current status, and future possibilities of multicultural education. Third, by providing extensive annotated bibliographies, we sought to encourage readers to pursue their interests further. Above all, we hope that everyone involved with children—educators, families, community members, and teacher education faculty and students—will engage in ever deeper conversations about the challenges and possibilities of raising and teaching children to savor diversity and challenge injustice.

1 The Evolution of Multicultural Education: A Sociopolitical Perspective

I dance in and out of circles, spaces and thoughts Glad to be invited into yours For often I find myself tapping and twirling My way, my words, into your worlds Unwelcoming to me But I know I shan’t wait to be invited For by some I never will And if I stop this movement This leaping, shuffling, sashaying in and out Of your conversations I will, my people will, you and I— We—all will die The slow death perpetuated by That disease, dis-ease, di-sease of oppression That multiculturalism seeks to fight.

NADJWA E.L.NORTON (2002)

Over the past 30 years, the field of multicultural education in the United States has become recognized as one of the avenues of school reform. Strongly supported by some constituents and opposed by others, multicultural education has different connotations, according to the lenses through which it is viewed, and its scope and content have continued to be issues of debate. It has grown from a relatively defined domain to a widely inclusive one. The field has engendered educational practices, elaborated theory, and, recently, informed a range of research efforts. Whether one agrees or disagrees with its premises, an important part of one’s professional life as a teacher or teacher educator today is knowledge of the forms and content of multicultural education. This text aims to provide a guide for teachers and teacher educators who are interested in either an introduction to this complex field or an opportunity to extend their knowledge. The roots and evolution of multicultural education reflect the sociopolitical context in which it has developed in the United States. In this chapter we review the social, political, and educational policies that have both encouraged and

2 MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

thwarted the multicultural movement and its antecedents. Current trends and controversies and future directions are also discussed. In addition, to place this evolution in a broader perspective, we conclude by describing briefly the multicultural movements in several other countries. DEFINING GROUPS AND TERMS Before discussing the history of multicultural education, we need to define commonly used, yet often confused, terms: race, ethnicity, and culture. The word race is popularly used to refer to biological and genetic traits that distinguish one among populations that have originated from different regions. In the past few hundred years, three broad racial groups have been commonly identified— Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. However, racial divisions and oppression often occur within these groups, such as the Nazi view that all non-Aryans, even if members of the Caucasoid race, were racially inferior. Throughout human history, “racial” distinctions, even in the absence of any pronounced physical differences, have been used by dominant groups to justify the subjugation, enslavement, or both, of other groups (e.g., the Romans considered the Britons less than human and fit only to be slaves). Smedley (1993) offers the following analysis that illustrates how in the United States the concept of race has been intimately tied to economic and social opportunism for the past 400 years. Before the English began to come to North America, they had developed a notion of the “savage other” when they were conquering the Irish during the 16th century. This belief crossed the Atlantic with the colonists and enabled them to justify their genocide of the Native Americans in the 17th and 18th centuries. Driven by the desire to gain control over the land and derive income from it as quickly as possible, the colonists needed slaves and so adapted their concepts of the “savage other” to justify the enslavement of Africans. The Framers of the Constitution and other early statesmen of the United States created elaborate and contradictory ideologies in order to permit slavery in a new society predicated on individual rights. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries many “scientific” reports and the popular press supported the notion that Africans were a race apart. These “reports” illustrated the extremes to which scholars would go to justify slavery and economic and educational discrimination. During the waves of immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, these racialized views were extended to support the exclusion, mistreatment, or both of certain (particularly Asian) groups. We now know that there is more intrarace than interrace genetic variability (Quintana, 1998) and that there are no valid biological bases for distinguishing racial groups. However, in the United States (and many other countries) racial distinctions continue to be socially constructed and widely believed. Recent “scientific” works such as The Bell Curve (Hernstein & Murray, 1994) often misrepresent findings or disconnect them from their social, political, and economic contexts in order to “prove” the genetic basis of racial superiority and inferiority. Despite the lack of any scientific evidence of biological differences, the

THE EVOLUTION OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION 3

content and significance of racial categories continue to be defined by social, economic, and political forces (Omi & Winant, 1986). Racial categories, in turn, influence the social status and life prospects of families and children, those who are racially privileged and those who are targets of discrimination. Ethnicity refers to “primarily sociological or anthropological characteristics, such as customs, religious practices, and language usage of a group of people with a shared ancestry or origin” (Quintana, 1998, p. 28). Ethnic groups remain identifiable within the larger cultural environment for a variety of reasons, such as their recent arrival, discrimination practiced by the larger society, by their own choice—or any combination of these. In addition to sharing common cultural roots, members of ethnic groups often have similar physical characteristics and occupy the same socioeconomic status. Ethnicity, like race, implies a degree of social isolation from the mainstream. People may choose to live in communities with families similar to themselves and discourage intermarriage or other forms of outside contacts (e.g., the Amish communities), they may be marginalized and excluded from the dominant group (e.g., African Americans), or both of these may occur. The status of ethnic groups shifts with changing social and political circumstances. For example, early in the 20th century, Irish immigrants were considered by the American “mainstream” to be a distinct and despised ethnic group. Now their descendants are fully assimilated (Quintana, 1998). In contrast, many (but definitely not all) Mexican Americans have continued to live in separate communities and neighborhoods for several generations and are often the target of prejudice and discrimination. Some groups (e.g., Chinese Americans, Native Americans) are described in both racial and ethnic terms; others such as African Americans are almost always referred to in terms of race (Phinney, 1996). Virtually every person has been socialized by a culture and in many cases by more than one. Cultures may be defined by many factors, such as national origin, gender, religion, occupation, geographic region, sexual orientation, generation, abilities or disabilities, and leisure activities. In the United States most people belong to several cultural groups. The extent to which a person identifies with a particular group is often a matter of individual preference and life history, and it frequently shifts across contexts and with developmental and historical changes (Gollnick & Chinn, 1998). Each culture has a particular way of perceiving, evaluating, and behaving (Goodenough, 1976). It “imposes order and meaning on our experiences. It allows us to predict how others will behave in certain situations” (Gollnick & Chinn, 1998, p. 4). All children, to varying degrees, absorb the values of their immediate culture(s). Even those who reject their culture are reacting to the mores they learned. With the exception of some groups (such as those defined by sexual orientation), cultural groups do not necessarily experience the prejudice and social distance from the dominant group that many racial and ethnic groups do (Phinney, 1996). In this volume we distinguish among race, ethnicity, and culture, as defined in the preceding paragraphs. However, many authors use these terms differently and in


some cases interchangeably. When reviewing resources and materials, readers need to ascertain how writers are defining and using these terms. THE HISTORICAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE ROOTS OF MULTICULTURALISM The historical and current trends in multicultural education reflect the disparate histories and status of racial, ethnic, and cultural groups in this country. People have entered the continent now called “North America” under a variety of circumstances. The most common theory (although alternative ones are currently emerging) is that the earliest human inhabitants migrated from Asia over an ice mass (where the Bering Strait now exists) that connected Asia and the North American continent during an ice age or another time when the sea receded. When people first migrated to the Americas is a topic of much debate (Banks, 1991). As groups came, however, they settled in different locations all over North America, and many continued to move into Central and South America. In the 16th and 17th centuries, a series of European invasions decimated and dominated the native populations. Driven by a quest for gold and a desire to bring Christianity to the “New World,” the Spanish and Portuguese conquered much of what we now call South and Central America, Mexico, Texas, and California. Beginning in the 17th century, waves of settlers from Northern and Western Europe came to the eastern seacoast of North America. Often escaping persecution and poverty, they came to settle and build better lives for themselves. However, their obsession for “conquering the wilderness” and their assumptions of racial superiority wreaked havoc on the lives of the native people. Despite strong resistance from many groups, the Europeans, armed with guns, took over the ancestral lands of virtually all of the “Indian” (a misnomer that reflected the geographical confusion of the earliest European explorers) Nations, destroying their communities and livelihoods. Thus, from the 16th century onward, the inhabitants of all the countries in the Americas have been divided between conquerors and conquered. Some groups came to live within the boundaries of the United States by force, rather than by choice. The Europeans brought enslaved people from Africa who entered the United States in bondage, endured more than 200 years of slavery, and are still the targets of racially driven discrimination. As the United States expanded, the Mexicans who lived north of the Rio Grande and in California became a conquered people. For some indigenous people, it was the second time that they were so subjugated. Immigrants from southeastern Europe who came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often encountered discrimination. However, they were able to fit into the rapidly expanding industrial base of the economy and to some extent fulfill the dreams of a better life that had led them to leave their home countries. Laborers from Asian countries, particularly China, were encouraged to immigrate in order to provide cheap labor. However, unlike their European counterparts,


Asian workers were not allowed to bring in their wives and families and were expected to return to their homelands when their labor was no longer needed. The history of each group is complex and fraught with hardships and losses (see Takaki, 1993), but some groups have been able to attain a higher level of acceptance and success in the dominant society than others. Through intermarriage and educational and occupational achievement, White ethnics, who may retain some symbolic ethnic identity, have become indistinguishable from the older northern European immigrants (Alba, 1990). The lines of assimilation and advantage follow a clear pattern; people who look most similar to the settlers from Northwestern Europe enjoy the benefits of a system of racial privilege, whereas those who look the most different are excluded and disadvantaged (Tatum, 1992). One compelling example is that during World War II, when the United States was at war with both Japan and Germany, large numbers of Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps, but very few German Americans were. According to Ogbu (1978), it is not only a person’s race, but also the circumstances in which people came to be in this country that account for the patterns of disadvantage. He makes the distinction between voluntary immigrants and involuntary minorities. Despite many hardships, voluntary immigrants willingly came to the United States for positive reasons and were free to create their own communities and to develop resources to survive in their new country. Most voluntary immigrants (especially those from Europe) were able to gain the skills and education needed to become productive participants in the economic system. The first generation often created communities of people from the same country (in some cases, even the same village) that provided support systems, a sense of continuity, and a buffer against the dislocation and discrimination that newcomers often experienced. Parents or other family members in these groups encouraged their children to pursue their education and to get good jobs; after one or two generations, many of these groups were assimilated into the dominant society. The involuntary minorities were conquered (Native Americans, Mexican Americans) or brought in as enslaved people (African Americans). They did not have the freedom to create their own communities (in fact, Native American communities were systematically destroyed, and African American families were often separated), to attend school, to find jobs, and to carve out a place in the dominant society. Despite many reform movements and legislative attempts to eliminate discrimination against these groups, they are still overly represented among the poorly educated, unemployed, and marginalized (García Coll et al., 1996; Gibbs, Huang, & Associates, 1989). Ogbu’s distinctions are very useful as an overview, but do not capture some of the subtle variations among the experiences of different groups. The critiques and limitations of his categories will be discussed in chapter 2.


EDUCATIONAL RESPONSES TO DIVERSITY IN THE UNITED STATES The contradictions, inequities, and conflicts that have characterized the social and political responses to racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity have emerged in educational responses as well. Like the politicians, educators have struggled with the contradiction between the espoused principles of equality and the realities of racial advantage and disadvantage. Reflecting the volatile sociopolitical context, they have also vacillated and disagreed about focusing on individuals versus focusing on particular groups, about encouraging assimilation into the mainstream versus maintaining group identities, and about protecting the status quo versus pressing for social change. For most of the history of the United States, the dominant educational ideology has stressed individual achievement and success and has ignored the cultural, economic, and social contexts of the students. At the same time, the quality of schools and availability of educational resources have varied widely across groups. Thus, despite the rhetoric of individual achievement and equal opportunities, schools have played vastly different roles in children’s and their families’ lives (e.g., the contrast between all-White and all-Black schools in the South before desegregation; between the boarding schools that attempted to strip Native American children of their culture and community and the elite boarding schools that prepared White European males to take their places as business and political leaders). Despite the ideals of equal educational opportunity that accompanied their establishment, public schools have generally reflected and maintained the status quo, by ensuring that students are trained to assume their place in the social and economic hierarchy (Bowles & Gintis, 1976). Schools in middle-class communities prepare students to enter college and prestigious professions; those in poor communities train students for menial work. At some periods and by some people, education has been seen as an instrument of social reform and even transformation (e.g., the hope that desegregating schools would lead to a racially equalized and integrated society). However, at state and local levels, conservative forces geared toward maintaining the status quo have usually (although not always) prevailed. The goals of educating children who are not part of the dominant group have reflected the conflicts between full assimilation and the maintenance of group identities, and between the principles of equality and the practices of discrimination. These tensions have been expressed at a number of different junctures in the educational history of the United States. According to Tyack (1995), over the past century, educational strategies have included discriminating against particular groups and relegating them to no or very poor schools; separating children into classes to fit their perceived or actual needs (such as vocational education); pressuring children and families to assimilate into the mainstream society; desegregating schools to secure full educational rights for all children; ignoring differences (i.e., pretending that all children are alike, regardless of their backgrounds, which is often called the “color-blind” approach); compensating for


real or presumed lacks (as in programs such as Head Start for poor children); celebrating differences by honoring contributions of diverse groups; and preserving cultural and linguistic differences (through programs such as bilingual education and use of Afrocentric curriculum). Assimilation of White Ethnics from the 18th through the Early 20th Centuries Immigrants have always faced the question of how much to assimilate into their new culture and how much to maintain their native cultures and languages. Likewise, host countries and communities vacillate between keeping immigrants outside of the mainstream and pushing them to fully assimilate. In the United States the attitudes toward immigrants have varied across groups and historical periods. During the 18th and 19th centuries, when most of the immigrants were coming from Northern and Western Europe (Britain, Holland, Germany, and Scandinavia), linguistic diversity was tolerated in churches, newspapers, and public and private schools (Baker & Jones, 1998). During this time, bilingual and native language education for White ethnics, particularly Germans, flourished in many states (Rothstein, 1998). As the numbers of immigrants from Southern, Eastern, and Central Europe increased in the late 19th century, however, their predecessors from Northern and Western Europe began to restrict immigration and to pressure all newcomers to assimilate into their definition of the United States. German schools had been tolerated during the 19th century, but during and after World War I, the German language was perceived to be a “distinct menace to Americanism” (Cox, 1919, cited in Rothstein, 1998), and native language programs were banned in many states. In some locales, however, native language instruction continued (e.g., in Louisiana, English did not replace French as the required school language until 1950). Starting in the late 1800s, concern about the “foreign” influence resulted in several declarations by the National Education Association, demanding compulsory “Americanization” of the “new” (from Southeastern Europe) immigrants, who were seen as morally and intellectually inferior to the “old” immigrants (from Northwestern Europe). Not coincidentally, the Pledge of Allegiance was written and circulated at this time (Tyack, 1995). The assimilationist ideology assumed a more positive image in the myth of the “melting pot,” in which all cultures would be amalgamated to create the new American. This term originated with Israel Zangwill’s play, performed on Broadway in 1909. One of the characters says: America is God’s crucible, the great Melting Pot where all races of Europe are melting and reforming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty hatreds and rivalries, but you won’t be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians—into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American…. The real American has not yet arrived. He is only


in the Crucible, I tell you—he will be the fusion of all races, the common superman. (Zangwill, 1907, p. 37) The underlying assumption was that all people, those from Northern and Western Europe and those from other racial and ethnic groups, would mix and result in a superior new American model. In reality, however, the new immigrants were expected to fit into the established Anglo American order. Moreover, as illustrated in the previous quotation, Latin Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans were not and could not be part of the mix. In the early 20th century, educational efforts to assimilate and “Americanize” immigrants varied from harsh programs that were designed to separate and even alienate children from their parental cultures and languages, to more humanitarian efforts to support children and families as they made a gradual transition into their new society. Although this latter approach was more respectful of differences, it was still geared to assimilation (Tyack, 1995). The pressure to assimilate became more intense when World War I “brought to a boil nativist anxiety about ‘foreign colonies’ and…unassimilated aliens within the nation” (Tyack, p. 15). Cultural diversity was seen as a national crisis, and many institutions, including schools, joined forces to eradicate adult immigrants’ loyalties to national origins and to ensure that their children were patriotic to the United States (Tyack, 1995). Soon after World War I—in 1921 and 1924—laws limiting immigration were passed. In the 1920s and 1930s, the growth of totalitarian regimes in Europe and their perceived threat to democracy gave rise to the next wave of pressure on Americans to emphasize and glorify their common history, values, and traditions and to renounce their ancestry in favor of values and behaviors of the dominant Anglo-Saxon group in the United States. In the face of some of the harsh Americanization policies in many schools, some writers in the 1920s espoused cultural pluralism and advocated honoring and preserving cultural traditions. Horace Kallen, a philosopher, argued that America’s pluralistic nature was its attraction and strength. He denounced the Anglo conformity and the melting pot ideologies. He was convinced that Americans could live in several cultural environments, moving in and out freely from group to group. Pluralism was fluid; it would not lead to the tribalization of society, but would provide unity through diversity (Kallen, 1924). However, like the melting pot ideology a couple of decades earlier, cultural pluralism at that time did not include African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, or Native Americans. Kallen’s cultural pluralism did not become a dominant social and educational ideology in the 1920s. However, in the 1930s, after immigration had been slowed and restricted by the laws of 1921 and 1924, educators did not feel as pressured to strip immigrant children of their cultures in order to “Americanize” them. Many then adopted a culturally pluralistic approach that incorporated tolerance and even celebration of cultural differences in the service of a more gradual and humane assimilation (Tyack, 1995). Within this movement, however, an ideological split developed between preserving strong ethnic identities versus teaching children to


Figure 1.1 Assimilation Patterns through the Early 20th Century

understand and appreciate other groups in order to reduce intergroup conflict. This disagreement has echoed in many diversity movements throughout the 20th century and underlies many of the current controversies about multicultural education. The Quest for Racial Educational Equality and the Intergroup Education Movement (1930s–1960s) African Americans were excluded from mainstream educational opportunities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, despite the complete lack of support or acknowledgment from the dominant culture, a number of African


American scholars have had a profound effect on the scholarship of African American studies and on multicultural education (Banks, 1996). Early African American writers such as W.E.B.DuBois (1896/1973, 1899/1973) and Carter Woodsen (1921, 1933, 1935) created a corpus of literature on the history of African Americans that uncovered and challenged many of the myths and misinformation that prevailed in the White version of the history of the United States. Later these writings formed the base of the African American ethnic studies movement and ultimately influenced the thinking of the early leaders of the multicultural education movement. As discussed in the previous section, educational leaders in the early 20th century focused on the question of how to assimilate White ethnic groups and largely ignored the educational plight of African Americans and other “caste-like minorities” who were assumed to be nonassimilable into the mainstream of society (Tyack, 1995). However, this exclusive view began to be challenged during the 1930s and 1940s. First, during the Depression in the 1930s, WPA activists became aware of the lack of schools for African Americans and other marginalized groups and formed centers and institutes that provided them with some training. Then, when World War II began, many African Americans could not serve in the armed forces because they had not completed the minimum educational requirements, so the Army began a remedial literacy program (Tyack, 1995). At the end of World War II, the postwar euphoria and quest for a national sense of loyalty and belonging were marred by racial discord. Discontent from centuries of discrimination was transformed into a determination to effect change by a new Black American sense of purpose brought about by the participation of “Negro” soldiers in the war. These Negro soldiers had fought to make the world free and safe for democracy and resisted being relegated to second-class status upon their return to the United States. The rising expectations of the Negro soldiers and their demands for equality gave rise to competition between Whites and other racial groups for housing and employment. The NAACP was formed and began to press for more rights, including educational desegregation. In the 1950s schools were called upon to provide equal education and to increase interracial understanding; for the first time the inclusion and education of African Americans were on the national agenda. Brown v.Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1954 most directly challenged discriminatory educational practices against Black Americans. It is considered the most pivotal event since the 15th Amendment (1870), which granted all Americans the right to vote. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in schools and places of employment that receive federal funds, was the first major attempt of the federal government to establish a national policy that acknowledged the coexistence and rights of all groups in society (Hiatt, 1981). The growing racial tensions and the commitment of progressive educators to create integrated schools gave rise to the Intergroup Education Movement, a national project directed by Hilda Taba (1955) for elementary and secondary


schools. Its instructional activities included units on various ethnic groups, exhortation against prejudice, intergroup get-togethers, and the elimination of books containing stereotyped images and text. The educational program was based on the assumption that factual knowledge about racial and ethnic groups would lead to mutual intergroup respect and acceptance (Banks, 1981).

Figure 1.2 Quest for Racial Equality (1930s–1960s)

Although its program was used widely in urban schools for more than a decade, the Intergroup Education Movement failed to become broadly institutionalized. Banks (1988, p. 9) posited six reasons why: First, mainstream American educators never internalized the ideology on which intergroup education was based. Second, they never understood how the Intergroup Education Movement contributed to the major goals of American schools. Third,


most American educators saw intergroup education as a reform project for schools that had open racial conflict and not for their “smoothly functioning” and nonproblematic (and monoracial) schools. Fourth, racial tension in the cities took more subtle forms in the 1950s, leading most American educators to believe that there was no longer any need to reduce racial conflict and problems. Fifth, intergroup education remained on the periphery of mainstream education and faced discontinuance when the special funds that financed it ended. Sixth, the leaders of the Intergroup Education Movement never developed a wellarticulated and coherent philosophical position that revealed how it was consistent with the major goals of American schools and with American values. In a more recent analysis, Banks (1996) also points out that the Intergroup Education Movement was started by White professionals who were responding to a national crisis of escalating racial tensions. Because the leaders had no long-term ties to African American and other oppressed communities, the movement faded when the sense of crisis faded and the leaders moved on to other educational endeavors. Ethnic/Single-Group Studies and the Education of the “Culturally Different” Movements (1960s–1970s) In the early 1960s, African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups began to assert their demands more forcefully for equality and their identities. The Civil Rights Movement, with its sit-ins, demonstrations, and marches, highlighted the racial tensions between Blacks and Whites and the disparities between economically advantaged and disadvantaged citizens. Many groups refused to succumb to the myriad of local, federal, and state agencies that defined socialization as acquiescence and deculturalization (Bernier & Davis, 1973). With increased awareness of inequities in employment, housing, and education, oppressed groups demanded an end to overt discrimination and segregation. The African American slogans of “Black Pride” and “Black Is Beautiful” were soon adapted by Native Americans and Hispanic Americans. Inspired by the works of Betty Friedan (1983) and Simone De Beauvoir (1952), women (primarily White and middle to upper middle class) also became aware of their limited educational and employment opportunities and organized the Women’s Liberation Movement to push for change. The Immigration Act of 1965 removed many of the previous restrictions and, in particular, opened the way for the immigration of large numbers of families from Asian and Latin American countries. This change has had a profound effect on the racial and ethnic composition of the United States and has fueled much of the interest in multicultural education. The ethnic revitalization movement that arose from the influx of new immigrants and the demands of marginalized groups already here resulted in the passage of the Ethnic Heritage Studies Act in 1965. This act authorized schools to provide all children with the opportunity to study racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States. Schools, colleges, and universities received monies to develop and implement supplementary educational materials. Curricula were adapted to reflect the cultural heritage and contributions of many previously


ignored groups (Banks, 1988, 1991). However, the material about racial and ethnic groups was often simply appended to the existing curricula, rather than changing its underlying perspectives and assumptions. Moreover, much of the information was superficial, emphasizing the four F’s—Facts, Foods, Famous People, and Festivals (Boyer, 1985; Cole, 1986)—and avoided any direct challenges to the status quo. In colleges and universities, administrators and faculty created courses and programs (and rarely, departments) in African American studies, Asian American studies, Latino/Hispanic Studies, Native American studies, and Women’s Studies. These efforts were designed to redress the acknowledged educational inequities and to respond to the demands of groups who were challenging higher education to eliminate racism and sexism. These programs provided opportunities for scholars from different groups to study their own histories and culture and to challenge the stereotypes and historical inaccuracies widely accepted in the mainstream society. The earlier writings by African American scholars such as Bethune in McCluskey & Smith (1999), DuBois (1896/1973, 1899/1973), Hurston (1978, 1979), and Woodsen (1921, 1922) were rediscovered and more widely read (Banks, 1996). These programs were the sites of exciting scholarship and social action and often served as havens for faculty and students of color who were marginalized at predominately White institutions. However, they were usually funded by soft money and therefore were vulnerable. Moreover, these reforms did not change the overall structure and curriculum of the academy and had little impact on the education of the White students and the institutions as a whole. During the same period that ethnic/single-group studies (Sleeter & Grant, 1999) were appearing, educational programs espousing an opposite approach arose from the inauguration of the War on Poverty and Head Start. Most of these programs were developed on the premise that poor and minority children and young adults were coming from “culturally deprived” homes and communities and needed special programs to compensate for the deficits in their backgrounds (e.g., Gray & Klaus, 1966; Greenberg, 1969). Federally funded community action projects (CAPs) gave communities the power to define and support these programs. However, the available resources were too limited to begin to reach—let alone, change—the roots of the problems they sought to eradicate. These community efforts to develop programs to address the needs of specific groups of children gave rise to programs described by Sleeter & Grant (1999) as teaching the exceptional and culturally different, which involves adapting existing curricula to make them more accessible to a particular group of children, but not changing their fundamental orientation. In the early 1970s, theorists and practitioners began to question the deficit orientation that underlay these efforts (Baratz & Baratz, 1970; Valentine, 1971). Subsequent critics have pointed out that programs aimed toward teaching the “culturally different” were based on faulty premises that ignored the dynamics of power and oppression related to cultural differences (Giroux & McLaren, 1994; Fennimore, 2000).


Figure 1.3 Ethnic and Women’s Studies Challenge the European American Perspective (1960s–1970s)

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, as schools and businesses were being desegregated, the ethnic/single-group studies approach began to lose some of its appeal. It had been a strong educational movement, but it had its limitations, which were threefold (Foerster, 1982). First, it was perceived to be divisive because members of particular ethnic groups or other single groups often studied their own cultural histories and contributions to the exclusion of those of other groups. Second, it focused on the experiences of particular groups, but did not deal with political and economic realities of racism and other forms of discrimination. Third, it failed to directly challenge European American ethnocentrism and superiority.


Despite its limitations, the ethnic/single-group studies movement did have a significant impact on education, in that it served as a primary stage for developing awareness and appreciation for contributions of African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups, as well as of women, gays, and lesbians who had been excluded from the traditional monocultural educational programs and earlier versions of culturally pluralistic education. Ethnic/single-group studies represented the first real attempt to provide students with a more realistic and relevant curriculum of American society (Boyer, 1985; Foerster, 1982). Unlike programs specifically oriented toward ethnic/single-group studies, however, programs oriented toward teaching the culturally different and exceptional populations (and the deficit views that often accompany them) have generally been longer-lived, and some continue in school settings to the present day. Multicultural Education Movement (1970s–1980s) During the middle of the 1970s, many groups, especially African Americans, were finding that the promised full participation in mainstream American society still eluded them. Desegregation efforts were getting bogged down in lengthy court battles, and children were spending hours riding school buses instead of getting high quality education. Leaders of these groups demanded change and more control of all institutions, including the schools that affected their lives and those of their children. They also denounced assimilation into White schools and institutions as both unattainable and undesirable. In the face of this disillusionment, a number of authors revived the term cultural pluralism. Unlike the 1920s version that focused only on White ethnics, the new cultural pluralism explicitly focused on African Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. In 1971 the National Coalition for Cultural Pluralism asserted that all cultural, racial, and ethnic groups in American society have the right to mutually coexist and have the freedom to maintain their own identities and lifestyles, while providing for their future existence within the confines of the dominant culture (Stent, Hazard, & Rivlin, 1973). Over this period several authors wrote extensively about pluralism as a social and philosophical ideology (Banks, 1988; Baptiste, 1979; Itzkoff, 1970; Stent, Hazard, & Rivlin, 1973). One writer (Hunter, 1973) described American society as a molecule—it has properties and characteristics unique to its substance, and it exists only as long as its atoms are working together to maintain its existence. Each of the atomic units preserves its own unique characteristics, but the larger molecular structure does not survive without its contributing atoms. Ramirez and Castaneda (1974) extended the concept of cultural pluralism and developed their philosophy of cultural democracy, which assumes that persons have legal, as well as moral, rights to remain identified with their own ethnic group, values, language, home, and community, while they learn skills to function in the social and economic mainstream. During the middle and late 1970s and early 1980s, a number of prominent African American scholars, many of whom had been influenced by the African


American scholarship developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Banks, 1996), took the lead in defining and promoting multicultural education. Among them were James Banks, Carl Grant, Geneva Gay, Gwendolyn Baker, and James Boyer. They were soon joined by authors from a range of ethnic groups, including Prentice Baptiste, Christine Bennett, Philip Chinn, Carlos Cortes, Y vonne De Gaetano, Louise Derman-Sparks, Ricardo Garcia, Donna Gollnick, Hilda Hernandez, Frances Kendall, Nathan Little Soldier, Sonia Nieto, Valerie Ooka Pang, Patricia Ramsey, Running-Grass, Christine Sleeter, Edwina Vold, Dinah Volk, Leslie Williams, and Stacy York. The implementation of this new concept of pluralism took the form of multicultural education. It was neither an “add on” curriculum nor compensatory

Figure 1.4 Multicultural Education (1970s–mid-1980s)


in design. Its purpose was to sensitize all individuals toward ethnic and racial differences and to increase individual awareness of cultural traditions and experiences. Another goal was to help all individuals understand that their own race and culture, including language and socialization experiences, had value and could and should exist on an equal basis with mainstream American values and experiences. Cultural pluralism or cultural democracy was the unifying element in multicultural education and was evident in the philosophical statements of schools, colleges, and universities, although implementation tended to lag far behind such statements. Grant’s (1978) description of the process of implementing a multicultural education program reflects the following goals of cultural pluralism or cultural democracy: 1. Staffing patterns and compositions throughout the organizational hierarchy reflect the pluralistic nature of American society. 2. Curricula are appropriate, flexible, unbiased, and incorporate the contributions of all cultural groups. 3. The different languages of cultural groups are seen as assets, not deficiencies. 4. Instructional materials are free of bias, omissions, and stereotypes; are inclusive, rather than supplementary; and show individuals from different cultural groups portraying different occupational and social roles (p. 47). The basic document from which the definitions of multicultural education in the United States evolved in the 1970s and 1980s was the “No One Model American” statement adopted in 1972 by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). It states that multicultural education: values cultural pluralism. It rejects the view that schools should seek to melt away cultural differences or the view that schools should tolerate cultural pluralism. Instead, multicultural education affirms that schools should be oriented toward the cultural enrichment of all children and youth through programs rooted to the preservation and extensions of cultural alternatives…. Multicultural education recognizes cultural diversity as a fact of life in American society, and it affirms that this cultural diversity is a valuable resource that should be preserved and extended…. Multicultural education reaches beyond awareness and understanding of cultural differences. More important than the acceptance and support of these differences is the recognition of cultural differences and an effective education program that makes cultural equality real and meaningful. (AACTE, 1973, p. 264) Multicultural education was included in the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards as early as 1977. This document defined multicultural education as “a process of preparing individuals for the social, political and economic realities that they will experience in culturally diverse and complex human encounters. Through this process, the


individual develops competencies for perceiving, believing, evaluating, and behaving in different cultural settings and becomes more responsive to the conditions of all humans, the cultural integrity of the individual and the diversity of the society” (p. 14). This definition of multicultural education has been used for more than two decades by all colleges and universities offering teacher education programs that are evaluated and accredited by NCATE. How the definitions and criteria related to multicultural NCATE standards have evolved since 1977 is discussed in chapter 4 of this book. Many variations of the previous definition and associated terms have surfaced since the AACTE statement “No One Model American.” In the 1970s and 1980s the following terms were commonly used: multicultural education, ethnic studies, multicultural studies, multiracial education, and education that is multicultural. Their definitions overlapped in some cases, but diverged in others. Multicultural education was and is the most frequently used term in the United States (e.g., AACTE, 1973; Baker, 1979; Banks, 1988, 1991, 1999; Banks & Banks, 1995; Gollnick & Chinn, 1998; Gold, Grant & Rivlin, 1977; NCATE, 1977/2000; and Ramsey, 1987/1998). The authors who have used this term support Baptiste and Baptiste’s definition (1980) of multicultural education as the transference of the recognition of a pluralistic society into a system of education. At its most sophisticated level, it exists as a product, a process, and a philosophical orientation guiding all who are involved in the educational enterprise. Multicultural studies has been used in the literature on multicultural education. Although James Boyer (1985) uses the term multicultural studies, he gives equal attention, as does Baptiste, to content and process as essential elements that must be drawn from the historical and sociological heritage of various ethnic groups. This approach addresses the similarities, as well as the differences, within the framework of equal respect for these traits. Its purpose is to fill the void created by the long exclusion of cultural, racial, and ethnic minority groups. Multiethnic education is probably the second most widely used term in the literature, next to multicultural education. Two of the most widely read advocates of multiethnic studies are James Banks and Geneva Gay. Banks (1999) describes multiethnic studies as an educational process concerned with modifying the total educational environment to reflect the ethnic diversity of American society and to ensure equal educational opportunity for all. Multiracial education has been used by educators who find the term multicultural education limiting and prefer to emphasize the institutionalized racism that characterizes our society (Katz, 1982; Sarap, 1986). They point out that by focusing on cultures, multicultural education avoids the confrontations, anger, and guilt inherent in issues of racism and injustice. Multiracial education highlights discrimination, power differences, and access to resources that profoundly affect the lives of children and families who are marginalized. Education that is multicultural is a creation of Carl Grant (1978), an early advocate of the multicultural perspective. Grant rejected the term multicultural education because he felt that multicultural as an adjective limited its meaning and suggested that it was an educational specialty, as opposed to the totality of one’s education.


Education that is multicultural supports cultural diversity and individual differences, and it permeates the total curriculum and school environment. In a later publication Sleeter and Grant (1987) expanded the term and concept of education that is multicultural to include social reconstructionism. The change in the phrase underscored the emphasis on social action to challenge existing structural inequities. This approach places more emphasis on helping students gain a better understanding of oppression and inequality and ways in which social problems can be eliminated (Suzuki, 1984). The Anti-Bias Curriculum, written by Louise Derman-Sparks and associates and published in 1989, was one of the earliest examples of how the social reconstructionist approach can be applied in the classroom. This book was—and still is—very widely used in early childhood classrooms and is reflected in the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Accreditation standards.

Figure 1.5 Multicultural Education Mid-1980s–2000s. Social Reconstructionism and Critical Pedagogy Resisting Social and Economic Oppressions


Sleeter and Grant articulated the differences in approaches and the political messages that the approaches embody in 1987 and more fully developed them in their book Turning on Learning (Grant & Sleeter) in 1989. Their typology of multicultural education included the categories of teaching the culturally different, human relations (intergroup studies), single-group studies (ethnic studies), multicultural education, and education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist. The typology was further updated in 1994 and 1999 (Sleeter & Grant, 1994/1999). These terms and approaches are discussed in more detail in chapter 3. As the field of multicultural education was developing, an equally powerful and significant evolution was also taking place in bilingual education. Although this volume does not focus on that area, readers need to be aware of the distinctions and similarities between multicultural and bilingual education, as well as the ways in which the two movements have intersected and diverged. Bilingual Education Bilingual education has had a separate, but at some points a similar, history to the antecedents of multicultural education. Like multicultural education, it has also drawn controversy (Brisk, 1998). Baker and Jones (1998) and Ovando (1999) describe the following four periods in the history of bilingual education, as summarized in this section. In the Permissive Period (1700s–1800s) when most of the immigrants were from Northern and Western Europe, linguistic diversity was tolerated or simply ignored. Native language schools, churches, newspapers, and social institutions were established in a number of states. There were public schools that taught in German in the Atlantic states, Midwest, and Oregon; in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish in the Midwest; Dutch in Michigan; Czech in Texas; Spanish in the South-west. The autonomy of local school boards, the remoteness of many rural school districts, and the need to compete against private ethnic schools all played a role in the acceptance, or at least tolerance, of bilingual and native language public schooling during this early period. The Restrictive Period (1880s–1950s) began when the composition of immigrants shifted from Northern and Western Europeans to Southern, Eastern, and Central Europeans. Increasing fear of foreign languages and influences led to the Nationality Act (1906), which made speaking English a requirement for U.S. citizenship. By 1923, 34 states had passed English-only instruction laws, which usually meant that non-English speakers were placed in classrooms where only English was used and were expected to “sink-or-swim.” Family members were often told not to speak their native languages at home, as this would interfere with the children’s acquisition of English (Rodriguez, 1981). This approach has been called the “submersion approach.” During the first half of the 20th century, the pressure to “Americanize” immigrants was spurred on by the two World Wars, which exacerbated distrust of foreign influences and roused a patriotic conformity, as described earlier in this chapter.


The Opportunistic Period (1950s–1980s) began when the inadequacies in U.S. foreign language instruction became evident during and after World War II. Ironically, during this time, resources were poured into foreign language instruction, whereas children who already spoke other languages were forced to give them up and learn English. During the 1960s, however, this attitude began to change with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and with the 1965 Immigration Act, which allowed large numbers of Asians and Latin Americans to enter the United States. Interest in bilingual education was particularly strong among exiled Cubans who had fled Castro’s regime but fully intended to return to Cuba and, therefore, wanted their children to learn Spanish as well as English. In 1968 the Bilingual Education Act was passed; for the first time in American educational history the federal government affirmed the value of students’ home cultures and languages and enabled them to start learning other subjects in their native languages before becoming proficient in English. In 1972, Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provided grants for bilingual education programs, along with Title IX of the Ethnic Heritage Studies Act, which explicitly advocated the study of minority cultures by all students. The policies on bilingual education received much of their impetus from the research of Ramirez and Castaneda (1974) that demonstrated how language and cognitive styles influence children’s learning. In 1974 the Lau v.Nichols court decision affirmed that children who spoke Chinese had the right to use their native language as an educational tool to gain equal access to education and economic success. This decision was expanded in 1980 to include all children whose native language was other than English. The 1975 Lau Remedies specified that bilingual education should be implemented in all districts with at least 20 limited English proficient (LEP) students of the same language background and that programs should both teach English and support the continued development of the children’s native language. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, many bilingual programs were developed. They varied greatly in terms of how much non-English instruction was included, whether or not students were encouraged to maintain their first language, and whether or not monolingual English speakers were included (i.e., two-way bilingual programs). Despite the federal support of bilingual education during this time, it was controversial and had many detractors (see Crawford, 1999). With the election of President Reagan and the Republican Congress in 1980 and the general shift toward more conservative values, bilingual education entered the Dismissive Period (1980s–Present). Riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, political activists in Washington and in many states and communities advocated for a return to the submersion or sink-or-swim methods of teaching English and rapid assimilation of immigrants into the mainstream language culture (see Crawford, 1999, for a detailed description). The debate of how long children should remain in bilingual classes became more vociferous and in 1998 culminated in the passage of Proposition 227 in California, which stipulated that English (not native languages) should be the primary language of instruction, regardless of students’ English proficiency levels. The Clinton administration


prevented the complete decimation of bilingual education, but propositions similar to 227 are currently being considered or proposed in a number of states. Despite compelling research demonstrating that students do benefit from bilingual education, particularly late-exit programs designed to maintain the first language, as well as teach English (e.g., Brisk, 1998; Crawford, 1999; Cummins 1996; Thomas & Collier, 1996), the public attacks continue. They are often based on biased or misinformed assumptions about the purpose of bilingual education and the processes of second language acquisition. Ignoring the many factors that contribute to school failure, such as frequent moves and poverty, critics of bilingual education have blamed it for the high rate of school failure of LEP students, even though most of them have not been enrolled in bilingual programs. Although multicultural education and bilingual education share some common roots and viewpoints, they developed separately and rarely were seen as complementary until recently. Multicultural education grew out of the Civil Rights Movement and the failures of desegregation. Bilingual education, on the other hand, rose out of the needs of increasing numbers of immigrants after 1965. In some communities the new arrivals and people who had been marginalized for generations had to compete for jobs and housing, creating tensions between groups allied with bilingual education and those favoring multicultural education. Moreover, the goals of the two movements were incompatible in some respects. Multicultural education was oriented to bringing together people from different groups, whereas bilingual education often meant keeping specific language groups separated from the mainstream and from other racial and ethnic minorities. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, however, authors began to make the connection between the two (e.g., Nieto, 1992; Ramsey, 1987; Williams, De Gaetano, Harrington, & Sutherland, 1985), and bilingual programs began to be seen as related to and, in some cases, integral to multicultural education. Multicultural Education in the 1990s and 2000s During the 1990s the demographics of the United States shifted, and, for the first time, a third of the students enrolled in schools in the United States came from groups defined as “ethnic and racial minorities” (NCES, 1993). As the school populations have become more diverse, teachers and administrators have found that their former ways of operating do not work any more. Thus, many practitioners who may not have been interested in multicultural education in the 1970s and 1980s started coming to multicultural workshops and courses and searching for resources to help them adapt their teaching to the changing populations and issues in their communities (Sleeter, 1996). Although many practitioners confronting these challenges initially are more interested in the teaching the culturally different approach, their experiences often push them to adopt a more critical stance (e.g., Alvarado, Derman-Sparks, and Ramsey, 1999). The needs and interests of many practitioners have fueled the surge of multicultural books and materials, which will be discussed in chapter 3.


From the late 1980s through the turn of the century, multicultural education has undergone several changes. In Multicultural Research: A Reflective Engagement with Race, Class, Gender and Sexual Orientation (Grant, 1999), a number of prominent scholars in the field write about their own research and the evolution of their thinking about multicultural education. The stories are fascinating and provide an excellent “window” on the diversity of ideas and experiences that led people to multicultural education and have influenced its recent development. As illustrated by Grant’s book, there are too many new ideas, critiques, and directions to include all of them in this chapter. However, the following trends appear to be most profoundly influencing the shape of multicultural education at the beginning of the 21st century. The scope of multicultural education has broadened since the 1970s. First, as multicultural theorists analyzed the power dynamics and interactions of race and class, they soon began either implicitly or explicitly to include a focus on social class and economic discrimination. Second, with the rise of the feminist movement, writers began to see that gender too was a source of power differentiation that cut across race, culture, and class and it, too, became part of the conversation. Third, as described earlier in this chapter, issues related to bilingual education were incorporated starting in the late 1980s. Fourth, multiculturalists started to address the educational and occupational marginalization of people with special needs and explore how it intersected with other oppressions. With changing legislation, culminating with the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act in 1990, more children with disabilities were “included” in regular classrooms. As teachers struggled with the challenges of creating truly inclusive classrooms, these concerns were woven into a number of multicultural curricula during the 1990s. Most recently, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual activists and their allies have drawn attention to the homophobia that pervades our society and is often expressed in violence. This circumstance has underscored and supported the introduction of sexual orientation as a theme in multicultural education. As discussed in more detail in chapters 2 and 3, the addition of sexual orientation to the topics addressed by multicultural education has been a source of considerable contention both within and outside of the field. Some writers (e.g., Gay, 1983) earlier expressed concern about expanding the scope of multicultural education, because it might diffuse the original purpose of multicultural education and distract students and teachers from the intransigent racism that still permeates our society. Indeed, as one critic asked, “If we could not get it right when we were focusing only on race and culture, how are we going to get it right when we are focusing on all these other factors?” (Vold, 2002). However, others have argued persuasively (e.g., McCarthy, 1995; Sleeter & McLaren, 1995a) that race and ethnicity need to be considered in the context of social class, gender, and disabilities, because all of these dimensions interact in individuals’ lives, and oppressions are linked. Cornel West makes a compelling case for “forging bonds of trust between various communities of resistance” (Editors of Harvard Educational Review, 1996, p. 362) and, in particular, for


including gay and lesbian activists. As West and other authors have pointed out, true social justice requires the elimination of all biases and inequities; as long as one group is the target of discrimination, then others are vulnerable. Change will not occur unless all groups join forces to demand equity for everyone. The convergence and interplay among these factors are discussed in more detail in chapter 2. Other writers (e.g., Ramsey, 1998; Running-Grass, 1994) have further expanded the definition of multiculturalism by making the connection between the exploitation of people and the destruction of the natural environment, especially the link between environmental degradation and poverty (e.g., the concentration of highly polluting factories and destructive agricultural practices in poor communities and countries). For example, 36.7% of African American children in the United States show evidence of low-level lead exposure, while only 6.1% of European American children do (Jackson, 1999). The discrepancies in political power between affluent White towns and poor communities of color are glaringly evident in the fact that three out of the five largest hazardous waste facilities in the United States are located in African American and Latino American communities (Fruchter, 1999). Moreover, in areas inhabited by Whites, the Environmental Protection Agency levies fines for hazardous waste that are 500% higher than the penalties charged for the same violations in communities of color (Fruchter, 1999). These discrepancies mean that toxic substances that directly affect children’s development (e.g., lead) are more common in impoverished communities, posing yet another risk factor for poor children. Related to the connections between multicultural education and environmental degradation are growing concerns about how competitive consumption (e.g., the media-inspired competition to have the latest clothes, fanciest cars, etc.) affects interpersonal and intergroup relationships (e.g., Giroux, 1999; Ramsey, 1998; West, 1993). Children grow up craving more and more commercial products, and they are learning to evaluate themselves and others by their ownership of various products, a preoccupation that contradicts efforts to promote interpersonal intergroup acceptance and respect. To effectively engage students in critical thinking and in developing respectful interpersonal and intergroup connections, teachers need to help students critique and resist the lure of consumerism. It is important to note that at least one movement has gone in the reverse direction from the expansion of the multicultural perspective. Afrocentrism, inspired by the writings of Molefi Asante (1987), pulls multiculturalism toward the focus on single groups and their issues. The Afrocentric Movement grew out of the disillusionment that many African Americans felt as the earlier promises of the Civil Rights Movement and multicultural education failed to materialize (Sleeter & McLaren, 1995a). The continued high rates of failure of African American students in Eurocentric schools gave rise to a desire to create Afrocentric education—programs based on African traditions, epistemologies, and discourse. Several Afrocentric schools were started to serve African American


children—in some cases, only boys (e.g., Murrell, 1992). This movement is controversial because it raises concerns about separatism, exclusion, and resegregated school systems. However, some reports (Murrell, 1992) show that students have a high rate of success in these programs and argue that for some children, Afrocentrism is the best way to instill positive identities and desire to achieve. Some writers (e.g., Nieto, 1999; West, 1993) who are sympathetic to the motivation and rationale for Afrocentric education raise the question of whether Afrocentrism is not simply replacing the Eurocentric dogma with another one. Others point out that it does not represent the lived experience of African American youth (Perry, 1993). For example, hooks (1995) critiques the patriarchal values reflected in some Afrocentric writings and curricula. She also questions the utopian images of an African paradise of Black kings and queens that “erase the experiences of servants and slaves in the interest of presenting contemporary black folks with superheroic models of black subjectivity…[and] deflect attention away from the need to transform the existing society” (hooks, 1995, pp. 243–244). Multicultural education also has been profoundly changed by the explicit incorporation of critical pedagogy, teaching that is aimed at students recognizing injustices, taking a stand, and actively challenging inequities. Inspired by the Latin American liberation movements and in particular by the work of Paulo Freire (1970), critical pedagogy gained some acceptance among progressive educators in the United States during the 1980s (Sleeter & McLaren, 1995a). From the beginning, multicultural education had a critical stance and a liberatory potential (Apple, 1977; Gay, 1983). However, many of the multicultural programs and guides published in the 1970s and 1980s focused on celebrating superficial cultural differences (e.g., foods, costumes, and dances) and fostering intergroup connections, while glossing over or completely ignoring the inequities of power and economics that defined people’s lives. One critic described these common multicultural practices as a “tourist curriculum” (Derman-Sparks et al., 1989). Sleeter and Grant (1987) asserted that ignoring the inequities undercut the main goal of multiculturalism, which is to create a more equitable society. Two edited volumes that were published in the early 1990s, Empowerment Through Multicultural Education (Sleeter, 1991) and Multicultural Education, Crit ical Pedagogy and the Politics of Difference (Sleeter & McLaren, 1995b), contain many essays that demonstrate the link between multicultural education and critical pedagogy and how they mutually enhance each other. Many of those authors and others maintain that multicultural teaching is a political act and that to teach authentically from this perspective, teachers need to participate in larger social justice movements. In 1992 Sonia Nieto first published Affirming Diversity (later editions, 1996 and 2000a), which placed critical pedagogy at the center of multicultural teaching and provided many examples of how critical multicultural education can be implemented in schools. Writing from a critical multicultural perspective, authors (e.g., Giroux, 2000; McLaren, 2000) have continued to articulate the differences among conservative, liberal, and insurgent or critical multiculturalism. They assert that in order to have a profound effect on the lives of all people, multiculturalism must be seen as a political and liberatory


movement that is centered on the complexities and conflicts inherent in all people’s experiences and identities, but as especially salient in those of people who have been oppressed. Moreover, its ultimate aim must be to liberate people from the bonds of oppression in its many subtle and overt forms by challenging the forces and structures that maintain these inequities. The emphasis on critical pedagogy has been accompanied by a renewed focus on activism, reflecting the early roots of multicultural education in the Civil Rights Movement. In her book Multicultural Education as Social Activism, Christine Sleeter (1996) points out the limitations of seeing multicultural education only as therapy for the psychological diseases of racism, sexism, stereotypes, and low self-esteem. She also argues that multicultural education is not simply teaching techniques or an academic discourse. She proposes that multicultural educators need to learn to share their power and join social movements that are organized by local community leaders. In particular, Sleeter advocates that teachers work as allies with children’s families and other members of their communities in order to pressure schools to serve the children better, to advocate for their communities in the broader political realm, and to teach their students to think and act politically and to advocate for themselves and other marginalized people. In a symposium at the American Educational Research Association (April 2000), Christine Sleeter asserted that what ultimately defines critical multiculturalism is “how power is represented, how systems and structures of domination are discussed (or not), [and] how collective identities are negotiated” (p. 1). This derivation is based on the premises of a critical theory of history, economics, and politics (Giroux & McLaren, 1994; Sleeter & McLaren, 1995b) that places inequities in distribution of the world’s resources at the heart of human impulses toward exclusion and inclusion. Thus, the central issue in this system of thought concerns the uses and abuses of power through social constructions such as social class, racial divisions, and gender politics. Speaking on the same panel at AERA 2000, Sonia Nieto (2000b) extended the discussion to consider critical pedagogy as systematic and conscious questioning of the structures that govern society and suggested six important contributions of critical pedagogy to the education of children and youth: (1) It affirms students’ cultures, without trivializing them (focusing on deeper dynamics of cultures, rather than on surface characteristics); (2) it challenges hegemonic knowledge (such as metanarratives created by dominant groups to explain or describe the experience of oppressed peoples); (3) it complicates pedagogy (so there no longer can be seen only one right way to teach); (4) it challenges the simplistic focus of some forms of multicultural education on self-esteem (as the operative factor in breaking bonds of oppression); (5) it encourages “dangerous discourses” that name and challenge inequities; and (6) it recognizes that multicultural education alone cannot overcome the powerful influences that are causing society to be increasingly stratified and individuals to be increasingly alienated. Critical pedagogy moves against a tendency to essentialize different groups of people, to assume that all members of a group are the same in characteristics or experience.


A third trend in multicultural education appearing in the late 1990s is a push to examine the identities and assumptions of White people. Because multicultural education began in response to educational inequities experienced by African Americans and other marginalized groups, educators initially focused on making classrooms more responsive to the needs and interests of children of color and those who were new to this country. After conducting many workshops, teaching education courses, and running inservice institutes, many writers began to see that one of the major obstacles to implementing multicultural education was overt and covert White resistance (e.g., Sleeter, 1992). Well-meaning White teachers were unable to see and critique their own assumptions and privilege. Their tacit and unconscious acceptance of the status quo prevented them from truly understanding and embracing multicultural perspectives and goals. Spearheaded by Peggy McIntosh (1995), White authors (e.g., Howard, 1999; Sleeter, 1994) have examined how White people exercise their unearned privileges and how they develop and maintain assumptions that the White way is universally superior. Janet Helms (1990) has developed a theory about the racial identity development of Whites that is discussed in more detail in chapter 2. A fourth trend has been the development of a body of literature that reviews and synthesizes the many different theoretical frameworks, research initiatives, and practices that comprise multicultural education. In 1995 James and Cherry Banks published the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education. This comprehensive volume includes chapters by many of the prominent scholars in multicultural education and offers excellent resources on a number of topics related to the history and changing context of multicultural education, the educational experiences of different racial and ethnic groups, multicultural approaches in schools and in higher education, and international perspectives on multicultural education. The publication of this volume was pivotal because, for first time, many of the issues, nuances, and different interpretations of multicultural education and the relationships among them appeared in the same work and could be reviewed in conjunction with each other. From the appearance of that work through the beginning of the 21st century, research in the field has continued in three directions, (1) empirical investigations of program presence, implementation, and effects, including exploration of issues of student and teacher access and achievement; (2) empirical and interpretive investigations of the beliefs and conceptions of teachers and teacher educators regarding multicultural educational aims and practices; and (3) development of theory in the areas of identity, critical pedagogy, and several variations of postmodern thought, including feminist and reconstructionist interpretations. Specific examples of this work are discussed in chapter 3 and 4. CONTROVERSIES AND CRITICISMS The multicultural education movement has been the target of criticism from both the left and the right since its inception in the early 1970s (e.g., Bullivant, 1986; Glazier, 1983; Ivie, 1979; Sarap, 1986). Attempts to gain full acceptance have


been hampered by confusion and debate over the meaning of multicultural education, its philosophical basis, and its viability as a process for bringing about equity in society. According to Banks (1986), this confusion and debate should be expected. He states: [Because] multicultural education…deals with highly controversial and politicized issues such as racism and inequality [it] is likely to be harshly criticized during its formative stages because it deals with serious problems in society and appears to many individuals and groups to challenge established institutions, norms and values. It is also likely to evoke strong emotions, feelings and highly polarized opinions. As it searches for its raison d’être, there [are] bound to be suspicions and criticisms. (P. 222) Analyses of the criticisms and controversies that prevailed in the 1990s can be found in reviews by Nieto (1995) and Sleeter (1995). The following section is a brief reprise of their main points. Multicultural education has been criticized from both the right and the left, leading one of the authors of this book to coin the term frontlash and backlash. First, we will consider criticisms that have been articulated by the conservatives on the right end of the political spectrum and then those by the progressives on the left end. Conservatives have been vitriolic in their criticisms of multicultural education. Unlike the writings of the multicultural theorists that have been directed toward an academic audience, those of conservative critics (e.g., Bloom, 1987; D’Souza, 1991; Hirsch, 1987; Schlesinger, 1992), who represent the views of groups who have power and prestige, have often been directed toward the popular press, including trade books, and have had exposure in widely disseminated magazines such as Time and Newsweek. Therefore, they have had a big impact on how the general public defines multicultural education, even though most of the conservative critics have responded to only selected aspects—often the most extreme or questionable practices—of multicultural education (Nieto, 1995; Sleeter, 1995). Their criticisms fall into three broad categories: the divisive nature of multicultural education, its glorification of nonmainstream cultures, and its focus on groups instead of on individuals (Nieto, 1995). These are discussed in more detail further on. Many critics (e.g., Ravitch, 1990a, 1990b; Schlesinger, 1992) have warned that focusing on the cultures, values, and histories of particular ethnic and racial groups, instead of on the European intellectual roots that they see as the core of American intellectual life, will create a spirit of divisiveness leading to separate and segregated groups that will be pitted against one another and will destroy any sense of shared national unity. In making this argument, they focus on Afrocentrism and other separatist movements within multicultural education. Some conservatives (e.g., Ravitch, 1990b) advocate a pluralistic multicultural curriculum that includes the experiences and histories of many groups in this country, but leaves unchallenged the inequities and oppression that exist. Other critics express concern that valuing all cultures will lead to an excessive cultural


relativism where there are no universal principles (Bloom, 1987) and that civil society will deteriorate into moral anarchy. Ethnic Cheerleading has been a term used by critics who feel that multicultural education sentimentalizes and glorifies cultures outside of the mainstream European American and European canon. Writers (e.g., Bloom, 1987; Hirsch, 1987) dismiss much of the scholarship of women’s studies and ethnic studies as shoddy and biased and claim that rigorous scholarship is being destroyed by the onslaught of politically motivated writings. Conservative writers often describe multicultural educators as “extremists” and “thought police” and use other sinister terms (see Sleeter, 1995) to undermine the credibility of multicultural education and to stir up public outrage. Olneck (2000) attributes these criticisms to a conservative effort to retain control of the cultural capital, the hierarchy of cultural values, in schools and the country. He analyzes several conservative educational reform movements and shows how they are geared toward codifying cultural capital and keeping it in the hands of the dominant class. The criticism that multicultural education focuses too much on groups and ignores individual differences rests on the conservative belief that all individuals in the United States have an equal chance to succeed in schools and in their jobs and that their level of success depends solely on individual effort and talents. Conservatives dismiss multiculturalists’ arguments that racism, sexism, and economic disadvantage impede access and progress. They point to individual success stories as proof that anyone who wants to and who works hard can “make it.” Conservatives posit that the underachievement of “minority” students can be ameliorated by rigorous courses and assessments that will ensure that they have the skills to achieve in the real world. Minority students are not well served, conservatives claim, by a multicultural curriculum that focuses on students’ racial identity and pride and their distant cultural roots at the expense of basic skills. Members of fundamentalist religions have articulated slightly different criticisms of multicultural education, but also have echoed the arguments of the political conservatives. The Christian religious right has taken particular issue with the multicultural position that affirms world religions, because it poses a threat to the conservative Christian tradition that they see as fundamental to the integrity of the United States. They also deplore the inclusion of nontraditional lifestyles and the explicit acceptance of homosexuality as undermining the moral fiber of the country. Many Hasidic Jews and fundamentalist Muslims in America view multiculturalism as a challenge to their desire to live their lives in separate but equal communities. Some writers on the religious right also see multiculturalism as an elite perspective of college and university liberals who are unfamiliar and even callous toward the well-being of working-class and poor people, many of whom belong to a variety of fundamentalist churches. It should be made clear at this point, however, that strong, fundamental allegiance to one’s religion does not necessarily imply rejection of multicultural principles and practices. Some of the strongest voices in the multicultural movement are persons with deep commitment to fundamental religious beliefs and who regard their multicultural work as an enactment of their religious ethic.


Sleeter (1995) points out that many of the conservative attacks on multicultural education are based on highly publicized events and writings and are taken out of context. By and large, most conservative critics do not make any reference to established multicultural theorists and researchers such as James Banks, Geneva Gay, Carl Grant, and Sonia Nieto, but instead refer to the extreme positions (e.g., the anti-Semitism and separatism advocated by some Afrocentric scholars and activists) that are not representative of the multicultural movement. In their assurances that equal opportunity and success will come to those who work hard, conservatives fail to acknowledge the growing inequality that frames many people’s lives in the United States, as jobs go overseas and wealth becomes more and more consolidated in the hands of a few. Sleeter also points out that conservatives assume that their point of view is politically neutral, in contrast to that of “politically motivated” multiculturalism. They are unable or unwilling to see that all educational philosophies and curricula embody political values. Sleeter advocates that multiculturalists learn how to do a better job of “selling” multicultural education to the public and to be sure that they keep their focus on the big and important issues, without getting sidetracked into defending the extreme positions that the conservatives portray as mainstream multicultural education. Nieto (1995) notes that many teachers, even those who are sympathetic to the goals of multicultural education, echo the conservative criticism that multicultural programs fail to address issues of educational rigor, accountability, and equity. She urges that multicultural educators address these criticisms by focusing on raising the achievement level of all students and ensuring that all students learn the skills necessary to succeed in the larger society. Olneck (2000) echoes these sentiments: “Multiculturalists have to publicly identify their enterprise with standards and academic excellence…. They must also insist on inclusion in the state mechanisms formulating and implementing those efforts [to improve the quality of education]” (p. 337). Critics from the left have taken multicultural education to task for being too soft and avoiding the hard issues, such as exploitation, oppression, and structural inequalities in the system (Giroux, 1992; Mattai, 1992; McCarthy, 1990a, 1990b; McLaren, 1997; Olneck, 1990). As mentioned before, many of the practical applications of multicultural education have focused on superficial cultural differences and have avoided issues such as power and economic inequities. With their traditional emphasis on social class analysis, writers on the left have viewed the focus on race and culture as diversions from the real issues of economic power and control. They argue that many programs practice cultural pluralism, yet leave hierarchical and discriminatory structures and practices unchallenged and avoid divisive subjects such as racism and social class differences. Another criticism is that the potential of multicultural education to transform schools and teaching has not been tapped. Critics (e.g., Nieto, 1995) point out that the status quo and “White studies” have remained intact, with a few added multicultural activities such as multicultural potluck dinners or a few weeks spent studying “other” cultures. In a similar vein, skeptics (e.g., Popkewitz, 1988) fault


multicultural education for seeking psychological solutions (e.g., adapting curriculum to different learning styles, reducing individual prejudice) to complex and entrenched social, political, and economic problems. They feel that these efforts only deflect attention from the root of the real problem of deep structural inequalities. Still others (e.g., JanMohamed & Loyd, 1987) argue that multicultural education is assimilationist because it still expects people of color to conform to a common culture, even though that culture embraces multiculturalism. They point out that many of the proposed activities in these programs trivialize and decontextualize cultural traditions and values and perpetuate, rather than challenge, stereotypes. The emphasis in multicultural education on encouraging multiple perspectives has concerned some authors (e.g., Nieto, 1995), who fear that all points of view, even those hostile to the main intent of multicultural education (such as those that assert that the Holocaust is a myth), might be given equal and noncritical weight. Uncritical acceptance of all points of view may rob the movement of its moral center and critical analysis. The use of terms such as race and culture has been criticized by some writers (e.g., Heath, 1995), because these “essentialize” specific groups, reduce individuals’ multifaceted lives and personalities to a single attribute, and assume all members of a particular group are the same. Moreover, organizing children in terms of race and culture potentially leads to stereotyping and ignores the current reality that many people have mixed racial and cultural heritages and live in and identify with diverse communities (Heath, 1995). Thus, they have multiple identities that need to be recognized (see chapter 2 for more on this). Sleeter (1995) points out that like the conservative critics, many of the progressive critics rest their case on inaccurate and selective reading of multicultural theorists and researchers. In many cases, critics ignore large bodies of research by people central to the field and base their arguments on materials that are not representative. For example, Diane Ravitch’s version of multicultural education (1990a, 1990b), which is criticized as assimilationist and conservative by multiculturalists, is used by the left to support its argument that multicultural education is just another assimilationist program. Some critics have based their arguments on those of the British antiracist critiques of the British multicultural education movement, inaccurately assuming that the movements in the two countries are identical. Sleeter also notes that many of the critics on the left are White males who discount the writings of scholars of color who have developed the field of multicultural education. She makes the point that White male scholars, because of their racial privilege, are more able to advance arguments about structural inequalities in the society than are scholars of color, who often occupy more marginal and tenuous academic positions. Moreover, multiculturalists are committed to working with teachers and administrators who have a wide range of political beliefs—even in a single school. To engage this population, multiculturalists need to use more measured and conciliatory language than the


radical left might use in colleges and universities. However, all that being said, Sleeter suggests that multicultural education strengthen its analysis of racism, social class and capitalism, and the patriarchal system. Both Nieto and Sleeter advocate that in addressing these criticisms, critical pedagogy must be made central to the multicultural endeavor and that structural inequalities form the base of the content of what is taught. Another controversy in the field centers around what constitutes convincing and sound research on multicultural education, a discussion paralleling disputes about research in education in general. Advocates of quantitative research methods have favored surveys to produce statistics in such areas as the number of higher educational institutions in a state or region that have incorporated multicultural elements or perspectives into their teacher education programs (e.g., Vold & Pattniak, 1998) or experimental or quasi-experimental designs that are intended to assess the effects of particular multicultural interventions through administration of pre- and postmeasures (e.g., Aboud, 1993). Such work has drawn on paradigms of knowledge that underlie the social sciences of sociology and experimental psychology, with their assumption of linear cause-and-effect relationships among variables. Although these methods can provide an overview of patterns of implementation and effects, they cannot capture the complexity of interactions in real-life situations such as classrooms (Graue & Walsh, 1998). A number of multicultural educational researchers have utilized qualitative research methods originating in anthropology, clinical psychology, and other fields of study. Using participant interviews and extensive observations in naturalistic settings, they create narrative portraits or case studies that illustrate transactional relationships among a variety of complex factors in the implementation of programs or outcomes for children, teachers, or both (e.g., Alvarado et al., 1999; Delgado-Gaitan, 1990; Levine, 1993; and Marsh, 1992). These studies provide compelling stories of struggles by individuals and by groups. However, as critics of qualitative work point out, they cannot be generalized to other situations or replicated (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1996). As research agendas have evolved, many educational researchers, including multiculturalists, are being increasingly attracted to seeing these two apparently contradictory research methodologies as endpoints on a continuum, with effective inquiry proceeding at a wide variety of points on that span. They argue that the fullest picture of the phenomena under investigation comes from the use of multiple means (Graue & Walsh, 1998; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). It appears likely that future research in multicultural education will reflect these multiple modalities. The controversies around multicultural education in the United States reflect our nation’s particular history of invasion and immigration. Other countries have distinctive patterns in the origination and use of multicultural education in relation to their own histories and changing populations. Review of the evolution and trends in those countries is instructive in understanding multiculturalism as more than a North American phenomenon. As will be seen in the next section, it is increasingly a global concern.


MULTICULTURALISM IN OTHER COUNTRIES Examination of trends in multicultural education in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Russia, and Japan, reveals the efforts of educators in those countries to respond to various forms of diversity in schools and to develop cultural pluralism as a social ideology. Although societal changes toward cultural pluralism and concurrent educational changes toward multicultural education have come from different histories and are occurring in time frames different from those in the United States, the sequences through which educational practices and policies are passing do seem to have some parallels worth noting. The move toward multicultural education in other countries generally appears to have begun with recognition of changing demographics in the populations of countries where immigration has been a prominent feature (such as Australia and the United Kingdom); where there is a recent history of catastrophic conflict, long-standing religious divisions, a history of xenophobia, or some combination of these (as in Japan, the United Kingdom and Ireland, Russia, and Germany); or where old divisions of language and culture are tied to the balance of power and control of resources (as in Canada) (Allan & Hill, 1995; Dmitriyev, 1999; Figueroa, 1995; Friessen, 1993; Hoff, 1995; Moodley, 1995; Shoji, 1991). Tensions arising from these circumstances have often led to compensatory educational programs, an emphasis on intergroup education or human relations training, a move to a period of ethnic awareness, or any combination of these. In the United Kingdom, for example, the demise of the British Empire after World War II brought to Britain’s shores large numbers of formerly colonized people of color who were fleeing the destabilized settings of their countries of origin, seeking better economic or educational opportunities for their families, or both. Figueroa (1995) describes this change in the United Kingdom’s population and cites numerous studies documenting a rise in overt racism1 from the 1950s through the early 1990s. Assimilationist and acculturationist educational trends of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s (teaching the culturally different approaches that were aimed at improving academic performance) began giving way in the late 1970s to the need for all people to recognize and acknowledge the diversity of cultures in Britain (Schools Council, 1981). “Cultures,” however, were still primarily described in racial terms, and the interventions designed were of the intergroup relations variety, aimed at defusing racial tensions and reducing the incidence of race riots, which were becoming increasingly common (Figueroa, 1995). In contrast, in Japan massive immigration and its resulting tensions have not been dominant motifs. The events of the Second World War, and especially the incalculable devastation of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, led some groups of Japanese educators to develop peace education programs founded on principles of intergroup relations and conflict resolution (Shoji, 1991). Recognizing that such dispositions must be instilled in children at a very young age, some works such as Shoji’s are directed toward parents. However, advocates also argue that peace education should be continued throughout the children’s formal schooling. The key goals are acceptance of personal and group


responsibility for aggressive actions against others, facing squarely and truthfully the horrors of war, and teaching “more about the world,” about humanity and essential similarities, as well as the differences, of people in other countries (Shoji, 1991, p. 60). Although ethnic differences among Japanese do exist (particularly in reference to a large Korean-Japanese population), they have not been systematically addressed in the small body of multicultural educational literature presently found in Japan. There is, however, increasing attention being paid to the characteristics of “returnee children,” who have lived abroad and then returned to Japan with some changes in their cultural repertoires (Mori, 1999). In Canada, still another pattern led to educational programs that emphasized intergroup relations and ethnic identity study. The primary motivating factors were the historic conflict between English- and French-speaking citizens, the recognition of the rights of the “First Nations” (indigenous peoples), and the continuous stream of immigration that has shaped the country since the mid-1800s (Moodley, 1995). In Canada, addressing the complexities of multiculturalism and bilingualism (some would say, multilingualism) has been tied to the evolution of Canadian identity and Canada’s political systems and crises, such as the threatened secession of the province of Quebec (Friessen, 1993; Moodley, 1995). Reduction of tension through intergroup relations programs (including bilingual language opportunities in some Canadian provinces) and cultural maintenance through ethnic studies were the first lines of defense against possible disintegration of the Canadian union (Friessen, 1993; Moodley, 1995; Samuda, 1986). In several of the countries surveyed, this period of emphasis on compensatory education, intergroup relations, ethnic studies, or any combination of these was followed by more inclusive educational movements, identified by such terms as interculturalism or intercultural education, as in Canada and Germany (Friessen, 1993; Hoff, 1995; Moodley, 1995; Samuda, 1986); multicultural education, as in Australia and the United Kingdom (Allan & Hill, 1995; Foster & Stockley, 1984; Figueroa, 1995; Modgil, Verma, Mallick, & Modgil, 1986); or multiculturalism in Canada, Australia, and Russia (Allan & Hill, 1995; Dmitriyev, 1999; Hoff, 1995; Lee, 1983; Moodley, 1995; Samuda, 1986). These efforts, like the parallel movements in the United States, emphasized the celebration and acknowledgment of human similarities and differences in culture as the “normal human experience” (Goodenough, 1976, p. 4). The work was aimed at all children in the educational system, not only at those who were “culturally different,” on the premise that active recognition of one’s own culture and that of others leads to more humane interactions between individuals and groups and a movement from tolerance to acceptance and mutual respect. Thus the work was intended to move beyond the goals of the earlier programs into the realm of transformation of the self. In Australia, for instance, where there had been a strong resistance by White Australians to the changing demographics of the country, programs had aimed at the assimilation of immigrants to Western European (and, specifically, British origination) standards. In 1972, however, these standards gave way rapidly to a multicultural education approach (Allan & Hill, 1995). The approach included


ethnic studies and intergroup relations (or promotion of “interethnic harmony”), as well as “community languages” and bilingual programs. However, it also emphasized the infusion of broad multicultural perspectives throughout the curriculum to promote enhanced self-concepts and “an awareness of the contribution which people of many different cultural backgrounds have made and are making to Australia” (New South Wales Department of Education, 1983, p. 4). It was expected that through these processes, the old vision of a “White Australia” would be eclipsed. Germany has had an even more entrenched history to transform, as it has worked to reinvent itself from the profound racism and anti-Semitism graphically expressed during the Second World War and the daunting challenges of reunifying the East and West Germanys into a single nation (Hoff, 1995). Seeing itself as a monocultural society has made facing its centuries-old xenophobia difficult. Despite these resistances, a multicultural educational movement arose from the mid-1970s through the 1980s. It was motivated by a perceived need for reestablishment or reinforcement of cultural identity for “guest workers”2 and the few immigrants who actually make it through the exceedingly narrow door of German naturalization, as well as for the ethnic Germans who prior to World War II lived in various parts of Eastern Europe. Although the first decade of the movement was clearly compensatory and assimilationist, with a strong German language emphasis that aimed at social adjustment of the “culturally different,” more recent work has focused on recognizing and honoring the cultural pluralism that actually exists in Germany today, in spite of the insistence of many Germans on Germany’s being a nonimmigration, monocultural nation. Thus, the initial impetus for multicultural educational reform in a spectrum of countries, as occurred in the United States, seems to have been the political needs, first, to reduce hostility toward people designated as minorities, migrants, or immigrants, and, second, to enable them to succeed within the existing school systems. In some countries, such as Australia and Germany, schools initially responded with programs designed to silence racial and ethnic voices that raised an unwelcome vision of a culturally diverse society. At the same time, they attempted to increase the academic success rate of children from various racial and ethnic groups that differed from the country’s “mainstream” (Allan & Hill, 1995; Hoff, 1995). In some cases, such as in Canada and Germany (Hoff, 1995; Moodley, 1995), the issue of language and the use of bilingual or second language approaches stimulated the emergence of multiculturalism (Hoff, 1995; Moodley, 1995; Samuda, 1986). This latter circumstance calls attention to the political dimensions of the historically separate but parallel development of bilingual and multicultural education in the United States. During the 1980s and 1990s, however, discouragement with a lack of clear progress toward improving educational and employment prospects for children on the margins of the mainstream society led some educators in the countries that were surveyed toward a more radical, social reconstructionist position. In the United Kingdom, for instance, moderate multiculturalism was challenged as early as the 1970s by an antiracist educational movement that was clearly


reconstructionist in intent (Figueroa, 1995). This movement was reproduced in Australia a decade later (Allan & Hill, 1995). In Germany, strong conservative resistance to the characterization of Germany as culturally diverse sparked a pull toward a radical multicultural (reconstructionist) educational approach (Hoff, 1995). In the 1990s and early 2000s, an even stronger impetus for educational intervention was located in the escalation of conflicts surrounding long-standing religious divisions and the powerful belief systems associated with them (as in Northern Ireland, the Balkan countries, the Middle East, and the Philippines). Although this was not a new phenomenon (religion having been at the heart of many cultural confrontations across the centuries), its renewal and ferocity refocused many multiculturalists on the connections between such conflicts, histories of economic and political exploitation, and the distribution of resources. Such realizations have strengthened the interest of some multicultural theorists in academic circles across the world in social reconstructionist approaches to the field (AERA Symposium Audience Participation, 2002). As is seen in succeeding chapters of this source book, however, that interest may be widening rather than narrowing gaps between theory and practice. As in the United States, in other countries both the right and the left have critiqued multicultural movements. Progressive shifts have given rise to conservative reactions. For example, in Australia support for multicultural education was formally withdrawn in 1986 (Allan & Hill, 1995). In some places the ultraconservative resistance has been violent. In Germany, racially motivated attacks escalated sharply in the mid-1990s (Hoff, 1995). At the same time, the persistence of racism and social injustices (in such areas as access to educational opportunities and culturally valid educational assessment) and inequitable distribution of economic resources (as political changes favor affluent segments of society over those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale) have moved the agenda in some countries (such as the United Kingdom and Germany) toward more progressive definitions of multiculturalism. These more progressive visions of appropriate educational programs are aggressively oppositional or “anti” in approach (as in “antiracist” or “antisexist”). However, as in the United States, a renewed conservatism in education is presently reducing activity in the multicultural arena. Due to economic downturns in a number of countries, governments are withdrawing their financial support of multicultural programs and renewing the goals of assimilation as a strategy for training needed workers to shore up faltering economies. It remains to be seen which of these two forces— progressivism or conservatism—will become the dominant motif in future multicultural efforts. SUMMARY Multicultural education began in the early 1970s in the United States, but its roots extend back to the earliest invasion of European settlers. As our society has changed demographically and politically, educational theorists and practitioners


have struggled to meet multiple and often contradictory needs and pressures. During the past hundred years, many educational reform movements have come and gone, and each one has left a legacy. Multicultural education, with its broad goals of respect and equity for all people, has been able to absorb the best of earlier movements and to change to accommodate new facets and forces of political and social change. The current forms of multicultural education in the United States began with a goal of appreciating racial and cultural differences and recognizing similarities. Over the past 3 decades, it has broadened its scope to respond to an increased awareness of the connections among many layers and strands of discrimination and exclusion in this country. It has also shifted from focusing on helping individuals and groups to “get along” to a more hard-hitting critical analysis of the structural inequalities that inevitably create disparities and foment animosity among groups. In a sense, the movement has gone from a naive faith that education alone and improved intergroup relationships could resolve broader and deeper social and economic inequities, to an understanding that more definitive action is needed to reshape and eliminate entrenched patterns of exclusion and oppression. As the movement has matured, theorists and practitioners have come to realize that the social, political, and economic contexts that gave rise to the multicultural movement must themselves be changed, and that multicultural educators must become activists in those efforts. Multicultural education in several other countries has followed a similar course to that experienced in the United States, although differences in histories and cultural composition have created variations in progress that may yield useful insights to thoughtful observers. One of those insights is recognition of what may possibly be a worldwide trend toward renewed educational conservatism at the beginning of the 21st century. Multiculturalists will need to take such tendencies into account in their continuing work, to develop new strategies to meet that circumstance. The following chapters describe in more detail how social, political, and economic contexts influence children’s lives and their understanding of diversity (chapter 2); the myriad curricula and programs that have been developed to meet the goals of multicultural education in its many forms (chapter 3); and the ways in which teacher educators are trying to prepare the next generations of teachers to teach from a multicultural perspective and to deal effectively with the complicated and conflicted demands of teaching children in this context (chapter 4). The final chapter describes some of the current political and social issues and trends that will challenge or enhance the continued development and implementation of multicultural education. Finally, we share a vision of the future of multicultural education and what it could accomplish at this moment in time.


Notes 1 . Although race is not the only form of diversity manifesting itself in Britain, it has been the salient dimension affecting policies aimed toward social justice over the past 50 years in that country (Figueroa, 1995). 2 . “Guest workers” are migrants from other countries, who are supposed to reside only temporarily in Germany while doing particular work.

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CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alba, R.D. (1990). Ethnic identity: The transformation of White America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Using data from interviews of more than 500 people, the author shows how the national origins of White Americans have diminished in functional importance. With the prevalence of intermarriage among many White ethnic groups, ethnic identity is primarily expressed through symbols such as preparing and eating certain foods and attending occasional festivals or parades, which do not affect people’s daily lives. One exception to this trend is Jewish Americans, who have maintained closer cultural and religious connections to their ethnic community. Despite their assimilation in practical terms, many European Americans do have an interest in studying their family history and identifying themselves in terms of their immigrant forebears and their European roots. Aptheker, H. (1993). Anti-racism in U.S. history: The first two hundred years. Westport, CT: Praeger.

In this volume, the author illustrates through many quotations from historical documents (e.g., speeches, sermons, and written political arguments) that arguments against enslavement and other forms of abuse of African people were


debated at the national and local levels from the earliest arrival of the Europeans in North America, well before the Civil War. Although these voices rarely prevailed, especially in the South, they do show how people, both Black and White, resisted the efforts of wealthy landowners to legitimize and maintain the institution of enslavement. Asante, M.K. (1987). The Afrocentric idea. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

In this provocative book, which inspired many Afrocentric educational programs, Asante critiques the Eurocentric myth of the universality of Western thought and culture and points out how even critics of Eurocentric culture and students of African cultures are still bound by their Eurocentric paradigms and perspectives. Throughout the book, Asante contrasts Afrocentric and Eurocentric rhetorics. He describes the former as circular: seeking to interpret and understand; the latter is linear, with the inherent goals of predicting and controlling. According to Asante, the Eurocentric rhetoric is based on goals of individualism and territoriality and assumptions that some people have more knowledge than others. These functions require that a distance be maintained between the speaker and the audience (such as teachers and pupils, actors and audience). In contrast, the purpose of Afrocentric speech is to create a collective experience of harmony and, at its best, ecstasy that unites all participants emotionally and spiritually. Asante gives a detailed account of how the African American community has drawn on African traditions to develop the rhetoric of resistance. Banks, J.A. (1991). Teaching strategies for ethnic studies (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

This has been a popular textbook in courses for preservice and inservice teachers for the past several years. The first chapter is most relevant to this set of annotations because it includes definitive descriptions of multicultural education, ethnic studies, multiethnic education, and global education, and the goals and objectives of each. The chapter also provides statistics on the immigrant/minority patterns and trends in the United States, which illustrate the urgent need to respond to an increasingly diverse school population. (See the annotation in chapter 3 for information about other chapters of this book.) Banks, J.A. (Ed.) (1996). Multicultural education: Transformative knowledge and action. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This edited volume contains many fascinating chapters that document struggles for human freedom and dignity since the late 19th century, which created the roots of and continue to guide the current multicultural education movement. The book has five parts, each with several chapters. The first part focuses on the historical and theoretical roots of multicultural education. The second one includes case studies of early scholars from different ethnic groups who contributed to these earlier phases of the movement. The work of women of color and how they faced and challenged the triple oppressions of race, gender, and class are the primary focus of the third part (although there is also a chapter on the civil rights activities of Eleanor Roosevelt). The chapters in the fourth part


analyze the Intergroup Education Movement and early research on racial attitudes. The chapters in the fifth part connect the past and present and portray the transformations that schools must undergo in order to fulfill the promise of the multicultural education movement. Banks, J.A. (1999). An introduction to multicultural education (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

In a concise and accessible text, Banks synthesizes and summarizes the goals, definitions, and conceptual bases of multicultural education that he has drawn upon in his prolific body of work in the field over several decades. Although the text is oriented toward grappling with the processes and problems of curricular transformations in school settings, the first two chapters and portions of others lay out a conceptual landscape of multicultural education as it appeared to the author in the 1990s. They also provide demographic and other data that illuminate the recent sociocultural context of the movement. Banks, J.A. (2001). Cultural diversity and education: Foundations, curriculum, and teaching. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

This work is of particular interest as it represents the current thinking of a scholar-educator with over thirty years intensive experience in the field of multicultural education. The book evolved from the third edition of Banks’ widely read Multiethnic education: Theory and practice (last published in 1994) and is a rich study of the expansion and consolidation of one person’s thinking about a movement that is undergoing rapid change. Banks, over the years, has developed a number of models to explicate the evolution and trends within multicultural educational theory and practice. In this volume, he brings those revised and expanded descriptive systems together in a highly informative account of the historical and philosophical foundations of the field. The second half of the book is devoted to the transformation of theory into various forms of practice (see the annotation of this work in chapter 3). Banks, J.A., & Banks, C.A.M. (Eds.) (1995). Handbook of research on multicultural education. New York: Macmillan.

This comprehensive volume includes chapters by many of the prominent scholars in multicultural education and offers excellent resources on a number of topics related to the history and changing context of multicultural education, the educational experiences of different racial and ethnic groups, multicultural approaches in schools and in higher education, and international perspectives on multicultural education. The publication of this volume was pivotal because for the first time many contexts, issues, dilemmas, and different interpretations of multicultural education were all in the same place and could be reviewed in conjunction with each other. Several individual chapters from this volume are annotated in this sourcebook. Banks, J.A., & Banks, C.A.M. (Eds.) (2001). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (4th ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.


This edited work presents an overview of the issues characterizing multicultural education at the beginning of the 21st century. Drawing on the expertise of prominent scholars in the field, the editors have included chapters on social class, religion, gender, language, and ability/disability, as well as their more usual focus on race and ethnicity. One stream of thought in the larger field of multicultural education is that the fullest meaning of the multicultural movement must be enacted in the context of school reform. Subscribing to that view, the editors conclude the work with chapters on the relationships between student learning and school reform, and on the power of parent/community/school collaborations in changing prospects for children and youth. The implications of these concerns for curriculum and teaching are noted in an annotation of this work in chapter 3. Baptiste, H.P., Jr. (1979). Multicultural education: A synopsis. Washington, DC: University Press of America.

Baptiste’s now historic text provides a broad view of the forms that multicultural education took prior to 1979. The history of multicultural education in the United States provided by the author gives additional detail not often found in descriptions from that period of the historical development of multicultural education. The synopsis has selected annotations of multicultural education resources that are of interest in the present day because they reveal the assumptions, concepts, and priorities that were prominent in the movement during the 1970s. The book also includes a glossary of terms that shows how the definitions of particular terms have evolved. Boyer, J.B. (1985). Multicultural education: Product or process? Kansas City, KS: Kansas Urban Education Center.

This book provides the reader with a description of the multicultural education approach as it was being discussed in the 1980s. The author offers definitions of multicultural education that were prevalent in the mid-1980s and shows how the field had developed up to that point. Within the developmental phases he identifies, he describes various legislative efforts that attempted to resolve difficulties resulting from racial and ethnic inequities in the educational systems in the United States. The author provides a multicultural education model that engages both product and process and extends beyond the compensatory approach that typified earlier multicultural educational curricula. Brisk, M. (1998). Bilingual education: From compensatory to quality schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

The first chapter in this volume provides a brief history of the debates over bilingual education in the United States and an overview of the different models of bilingual education practiced here and in other countries. In subsequent chapters the author describes in detail how the school performance and language use of individuals are influenced by family, school, and social situations, which, in turn, are imbedded in and profoundly affected by the larger social and economic contexts. Most of the book is devoted to guidelines and discussions related to creating schools, curricula, and instruction that focus on the needs and assets of


bilingual students, but are potentially effective for all students. Brisk emphasizes that bilingual education cannot and should not be seen as an isolated movement but is an integral part of any efforts to improve the quality of education for all children. Bullivant, B. (1986). Towards radical multiculturalism. In S.Modgil, G.Verma, K.Mallick, & C.Modgil (Eds.), Multicultural education: The interminable debate (pp. 33–47). London: Falmer.

This chapter illustrates some of the debates between the multicultural education and antiracist movements in England during the 1980s. Throughout the chapter, Bullivant argues that multiculturalism and pluralism are inadequate conceptual bases for improving the education of ethnic and racial minorities in England. He critiques these terms as utopian concepts that ignore the power differentials and conflicts related to race, class, and gender. He argues that a multicultural curriculum does nothing to equalize educational opportunities and life chances of racial and ethnic minority children. He proposes instead a more politicized and power-sensitive ideology that he calls “radical multiculturalism.” The work is interesting in the present day for its anticipation of a rising tide of social reconstructionist positions in the field and the antiracist movement in England, in particular. Crawford, J. (1999). Bilingual education: History, politics, theory and practice (4th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Bilingual Educational Services.

This volume examines the history, politics, theories, and practice of bilingual education. Now in its fourth edition, this book has been a standard resource for students of bilingual education for over a decade. The chapters on history and politics show how bilingual education has been a part of American education for hundreds of years, yet has always been contested. In this edition, Crawford shows in detail how the conservative takeover of Congress and the White House in the 1980s influenced the legislation and funding for bilingual education. Duarte, E.M., & Smith, S. (Eds.) (2000). Foundational perspectives in multicultural education. New York: Longman.

According to the editors, the purpose of this volume is to ask the question “Multicultural education—what for?” rather than “How?” and to compare and contrast the many answers to that question. In the chapters, authors write from several different perspectives, each with a distinct image of the purpose and philosophy of multicultural education. The first section includes writings that emphasize an ethnic studies perspective. In the second section, authors write about multiculturalism with a focus on antiracism. The third section consists of three essays that advocate critical multiculturalism, in which critical theory and pedagogy play a central role. The final section focuses on liberal democratic multiculturalism, which is a critique of the postmodernist critical multiculturalism. Each section of the book has an introduction, in which the editors delineate the main arguments of the chapters and show how they overlap and differ from each other. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the


arguments for and against the many different perspectives in the current multicultural conversation. Fennimore, B.S. (2000). Talk matters: Refocusing the language of public schooling. New York: Teachers College Press.

In this volume, Fennimore illuminates and critiques the language of deficit and damage that has permeated discussions about children and families, especially those who are poor and otherwise marginalized. She points out that this orientation has undermined the goal of educational equity by creating low expectations for children’s achievement on the part of both teachers and students. The author proposes that teachers and administrators transform their language, policies, and daily practice to a focus on students’ potential and promise. The book includes many examples that illustrate how deficit-oriented language can be transformed into an ethic of respect and true democracy. Foerster, L. (1982). Moving from ethnic studies to multicultural education. Urban Review, 14, 121–126.

This article highlights some of the factors that brought about the diminution of the ethnic studies movement in the 1970s. They included the lack of commitment of teachers, who had little time and guidance to prepare thoroughly for implementation and had little input into the development of goals and materials; the fact that ethnic studies were added on to, rather than infused into, the existing curriculum; and disagreement about what should be included in the curriculum, who the curriculum should be for, and when the curriculum should be implemented. The author concludes that multicultural education can succeed and endure if it has a broad constituency and adds a meaningful dimension to the education of all students. Foster, L., & Stockley, D. (1984). Multiculturalism: The changing Australian paradigm. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

This book offers a historical interpretation of multiculturalism in Australia prior to the mid-1980s. The first part provides a theoretical framework by which the reader can analyze the development of the status of multiculturalism during that earlier time. The second and third chapters chronicle Australian events that take us from the early 20th century into the 1980s and through various government leaderships. The final chapters provide the reader with an assessment of the effectiveness of the concept of multiculturalism in Australia and the assumptions underlying the multicultural policy to that moment in time. Through the use of case studies, the authors show how the hidden structures, such as the logic of Australian capitalism in conjunction with social class and location of power, have impeded the effective implementation of multicultural policies. Their conclusion is especially interesting in light of the withdrawal of public support for multicultural education in Australia in the late 1990s. Gay, G. (1983). Multiethnic education: Historical developments and future prospects. Phi Delta Kappan, 64, 560–563.


In this early article on the historical development and future prospects of multiethnic education, Gay weaves a descriptive picture of the beginnings of multiethnic education and the sociopolitical atmosphere that prevailed from the late 1960s into the 1980s. She also expounds on the criticisms levied against multiethnic education from inside and outside the educational community. She concedes that multiethnic educational goals have expanded, and that multicultural education has grown into conceptual maturity. However, she warns proponents of the danger of broadening the scope of multicultural education to include experiences of women, the handicapped, the aged, and the poor. At that point in time, the author considered that with certain cautionary procedures, there would be a future for multiethnic education, though it might be uncertain and less politically motivated than in its beginning years. Giroux, H.A. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education. New York, NY: Routledge.

In this book of essays, Giroux argues that education is inevitably political and that we need to critically examine all aspects of schooling to uncover the privileges, exclusions, and hegemonic assumptions that prevail. He points out that many multicultural efforts are superficial and support the privileging of European roots and the marginalization of “others.” To truly transform schools, according to Giroux, we have to move these voices from the center to the margins and the voices of the disenfranchised from the margins to the center. Giroux argues for critical pedagogy as a space where postmodern feminism, antiracism, and other anti-oppression movements can join in debate and solidarity to engage in truly democratic education dedicated to social justice. Giroux, H.A. (2000). Insurgent multiculturalism and the promise of pedagogy. In E.M. Duarte & S.Smith (Eds.), Foundational perspectives in multicultural education (pp. 195–212). New York, NY: Longman.

In this chapter Giroux points out that struggles of subordinated groups to redefine the culture and to challenge the narrow political power base in the United States reflect the true patriotic and democratic ideals of this country. He then delineates his view of critical multiculturalism, which he calls “insurgent multiculturalism.” First, cultural differences are not simply tolerated, but serve to expand the discourse and practice of democratic life. Second, representations of all groups in the media must be critically interrogated, including the “invisible” dominance of Whites. Third, identities need to be viewed as complex expressions of the continua of similarities and differences that reflect the multiple border crossings of people’s lives. Fourth, insurgent multiculturalism must forge links between the educational enterprise and struggles to correct imbalances of political, social, and economic power (e.g., institutional racism) that affect everyday lives. Glazer, N. (1983). Ethnicity and education: Some hard questions. Phi Delta Kappan, 64, 386–389.


In this critical analysis of the pluralist orientation, the author discusses the pitfalls of how America responds to ethnicity. There is a bit of reminiscing about the way it used to be when immigrants arrived and were quickly assimilated by the schooling received. He points out the dangers inherent in seeking policies to support perceived language barriers of speakers of Black English or Spanishspeaking immigrants who are divided in their support of bilingual, bicultural programs. As a critic of multicultural education, Glazer asserts that valuing cultural pluralism may be one of the causal factors in the general decline of selfconfidence in the virtues of American society and its world domination and respect. Gollnick, D.M., & Chinn, P.C. (1998). Multicultural education in a pluralistic society (5th ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill.

This classic book, now in its fifth edition, has been a useful resource since its first edition was published in 1983. The heart of the book is the authors’ descriptions of seven microcultures, including ethnicity and race, social class, religion, gender, language, abilities, and age. They point out that these dimensions interact in individuals’ development and in the dynamics of the larger social environment. Each chapter focuses on a specific microculture and describes how it affects people’s lives (e.g., the role of social class in determining children’s educational opportunities), demonstrates how it interacts with other dimensions of difference (e.g., the interaction of religion and gender roles), and illustrates the educational implications for working with children who have had specific experiences and are developing attitudes related to that dimension. Each chapter includes examples and questions to stimulate readers’ reflections about their own lives and attitudes and challenges them to think of how they might approach specific classroom dilemmas. Gordon, M. (1964). Assimilation in American life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

In this book, written several decades ago, Gordon identifies and defines three social ideologies that became the basis for much of the discussion leading up to the inception of the multicultural movement. They included the ideologies of Anglo conformity, the “melting pot,” and cultural pluralism. Anglo conformity is a philosophic belief that demands that immigrants completely renounce their ancestry in favor of the behavior and values of the dominant Anglo-Saxon group. The “melting pot” concept implies a biological and sociological merger of cultural groups into a unique American model. Cultural pluralism argues for the maintenance of unique identities of cultural groups involved in limited integration and interaction in political and economic life in the United States. Grant, C.A. (1978). Education that is multicultural—Isn’t that what we mean? Journal of Teacher Education, 29(1), 45–49.

In this article, Grant introduced the term education that is multicultural, which became the basis for much discussion about the nature of multicultural education during the 1980s. He argues that the term education that is multicultural implies that the whole educational enterprise is based on multicultural principles, whereas the


term multicultural education suggests that it is only an offshoot, a specialty, or a small part of the overall educational system. He argues that the former term implies a more profound and pervasive reform and is a more acceptable concept for education in a racially and culturally pluralistic society. In later works, Grant combined this term with the term social reconstructionism, making it even more explicitly oriented toward social and economic critique and change. Grant, C.A. (Ed.) (1999). Multicultural research: A reflective engagement with race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. London, UK: Falmer.

In this volume a number of prominent scholars in the field of multicultural education write about their own research and the evolution of their thinking about multicultural education. The stories are fascinating accounts of the sociopolitical and personal factors that influenced the course of the writers’ lives and that led to their commitment to multicultural issues. The stories also reflect the different phases of the multicultural movement described in chapter 1. Many authors are people of color; others have experienced discrimination because of their gender, sexual orientation, or social class. All had moments of despair and disorientation that opened up questions and moved them to take on issues of inequity as their lives’ work. Collectively, these stories provide an excellent window on the diversity of ideas and experiences that characterize the contemporary trends in multicultural education. Hawley, W.D., & Jackson, A.W. (Eds.) (1995). Toward a common destiny: Improving race and ethnic relations in America. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

This edited volume includes a comprehensive review from a number of perspectives of race and ethnic relations in the United States. The first part provides a historical and international context for studying and improving these relations. The second section contains several chapters on how people develop their ethnic and racial identities and attitudes. The third section is devoted to reports about educational strategies that have been effective in improving race and ethnic relations. The final part summarizes what has been learned in previous programs and proposes new research questions. Several of the chapters provide excellent reviews of the research in particular fields and many challenge commonly held assumptions and paradigms. Katz, J.H. (1980). Multicultural education: Games educators play. Integrated Education. 18, 101–104.

The author describes the realities of racism in American society and points out that multicultural education could eradicate these racist attitudes and beliefs, but has not yet done so. The author delineates various reasons why multicultural education has remained more rhetoric than practice. These reasons are outlined as games that educators play, such as the definition game, the tokenism game, the escape game, and the divide-and-conquer game. She offers suggestions for preventing administrators and other policy makers from sabotaging multicultural efforts and moving instead toward more substantive progress. Although this article


was written more than 2 decades ago, it still resonates with current critiques of superficial responses to issues related to diversity. May, S. (Ed). (1999). Critical multiculturalism: Rethinking multicultural and anti-racist education. London, UK: Falmer.

In this thoughtful and complex edited work, scholars from six countries (Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States) examine the effects of recent curricular theory on ways that multicultural and anti-racist education are currently considered in their homelands. Most particularly, the effects of critical pedagogy and postmodern teaching strategies on ways of thinking about culture are considered, and issues of identity are viewed through the lenses of hybridity theory and increasing globalization. As the authors represent varying political traditions themselves and work in differing sociohistorical contexts in the countries where they are located, the work provides important and intriguing comparisons in the ways that culture and its dynamics are understood in several different areas of the world. This text is not an “easy read,” as it depends on the readers’ familiarity with present-day curriculum theory. It does, however, represent well one end of the spectrum of social reconstruction thinking in the field. McLaren, P. (2000). White terror and oppositional agency: Towards a critical multiculturalism. In E.M.Duarte & S.Smith (Eds.), Foundational perspectives in multicultural education (pp. 213–241). New York, NY: Longman.

In this chapter McLaren identifies four forms of multiculturalism that are currently practiced. He critiques conservative or corporate multiculturalism for its assimilationist approach and tendency to blame oppressed groups for not living up to the invisible norm of Whiteness. He dismisses liberal multiculturalists for masking their oppressive universalistic humanism with analyses of unequal opportunities. Left-liberal multiculturalists, according to McLaren, essentialize cultural groups and separate them from historical and social contexts. McLaren advocates a critical and resistance multiculturalism, in which diversity is affirmed within a transformative political agenda for social and economic justice. Nieto, S. (1995). From brown heroes and holidays to assimilationist agendas: Reconsidering the critiques of multicultural education. In C.E.Sleeter & P.L.McLaren (Eds.), Multicultural education, critical pedagogy, and the politics of difference (pp. 191–220). Albany: State University of New York Press.

In this chapter, Nieto reviews the criticisms of multicultural education from both the right and left ends of the political spectrum. She comments on these criticisms, raises other questions about common multicultural assumptions and practices, and urges readers to constantly evaluate common educational practices and to guard against seeking simplistic solutions to complex problems. In response to the criticism from both the right and the left, Nieto advocates a critical multicultural education that focuses on two central goals that have sometimes been neglected in the discussions about multicultural education: “raising the achievement of all students and providing them with an equal and equitable


education and giving students the opportunity to become critical and productive members of a democratic society” (p. 200). She concludes that we need to move beyond romantic and vague notions of equality to proving that all students can become active learners and citizens. Nieto, S. (2000). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Longman.

Nieto’s text presents the complex interrelationships among various dimensions of difference (race, culture, language) through case studies in which young people reflect on their encounters with schooling where such dimensions became salient. Nieto relates these reflections to structural and organizational issues that can facilitate or impede the educational success of diverse students. The final part of the book addresses broadening and deepening the definition of multicultural education in guidelines for school reform. The author provides examples of practice that meet the criteria of resistance of oppression and reconstruction of affirmative approaches in teaching and learning. Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1986). Racial formation in the United States from the 1960s to 1980s. New York, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

The authors argue that race is central to American politics, culture, and history and that the state both shapes and is shaped by lines of racial advantage and disadvantage. Before presenting their own paradigm, Omi and Winant analyze and critique earlier theories of race, including ones that focused on ethnicity, social class, and nationhood. Their theory of racial formation rests on the notion that race is not a fixed attribute, but a complex of social meanings that are transformed by political struggle and defined by the state. They analyze the profound changes in racial meanings and politics that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, in which the dominance of Whites was recognized and challenged. However, they point out that the failure of those movements to create truly radical democratic political structures provided a space for the emergence of rightwing populist movements in the 1980s that have reinvigorated the racist policies and practices that are inherent in the American way of life. Ovando, C.J., & McLaren, P. (Eds.) (2000). The politics of multiculturalism and bilingual education: Students and teachers caught in the crossfire. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

This edited volume contains essays by a range of multicultural and bilingual educational theorists and researchers who question the assumptions underlying the common practices of the field. The political dimensions of teaching and learning are identified through such concerns as metaphors used in writing about diversity, the intersections between social class and construction of race, and the place of religion in conceptions of multiculturalism. Several of the essays discuss both implicit and explicit linkages between bilingualism and multiculturalism. The contributing authors also undertake analyses of the complex social contexts affecting educational decision making that supports or opposes those movements, by identifying and responding to the fields’ most current critiques.


Perry, I. (1993). “I am still thirsty”: A theorization on the authority and cultural location of Afrocentrism. In T.Perry & J.W.Fraser (Eds.), Freedom’s plow: Teaching in the multicultural classroom (pp. 261–270). New York, NY: Routledge.

The author critiques Asante’s advocacy of Afrocentric theories and education as negating the full experience of African Americans by stressing the purity and superiority of a single culture (African) over others. Using extensive quotes from rap artists, Perry illustrates the varied roots of African American imagery, music, and art and disputes Asante’s reliance on a singular African culture. She also argues that the active learning and creation of new forms of self-expression that many young African American artists are engaged in are more meaningful and liberatory than is an ideology re-created from a lost history. Ramirez, M., & Castaneda, A. (1974). Cultural democracy, bicognitive development and education. New York, NY: Academic Press.

In this classic volume on bicultural development, the authors advocate that schools follow a philosophy they call “cultural democracy,” in order to provide a system where students from diverse populations can function in two cultures. They review the research on bicultural identity and bicognitive development to support their arguments. In the chapter on the “Ideology of Assimilation,” the authors describe the myth behind the evolving sociopolitical ideologies of the “melting pot” and Anglo conformity and reveal the resulting conflicts these ideologies produce in Mexican American students. Rothstein, R. (1998). Bilingual education: The controversy. Phi Delta Kappan, 79(9), 672– 678.

The author traces the controversies about bilingual education during the 19th and 20th centuries. He points out that bilingual education has always been part of the educational landscape in the United States and has always been contested. Some immigrant groups have insisted on having their children taught in their home languages and other groups have pressed for full assimilation. Many of the arguments on both sides are echoed in the current controversies. Similar to today’s debates, historical events and the political climate, rather than educational principles, have determined the fate of bilingual education. For example, the antiGerman sentiment fomented by World War I led to the abolishment of most bilingual German programs, just as anti-immigrant fervor is fueling the current movement to eliminate bilingual education. Serow, R.C. (1983). Schooling for social diversity: An analysis of policy and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This book is an examination of educational trends in American society that have contributed to changes in attitudes and behaviors about diverse groups. The historical review of American society’s treatment of racial and ethnic differences illuminates the role that schools have played in inculcating these social beliefs through political socialization and racial relations. In Serow’s chapter on multicultural education, the sections on outcomes for students, schools, and society underscore multicultural education as a process. They also reiterate the


importance of the commitment of teachers and administrators in ensuring the success of multicultural education. The final chapter points out how the conservative social and political movements of the 1980s, which had just begun at the time, and the resulting shift of budget priorities away from social programs could have a devastating effect on multicultural education. Sims, W., & de Martinez, B.B. (Eds.) (1981). Perspectives in multicultural education. New York, NY: University Press of America.

This book was a product of the Ethnic Studies Heritage Act and was designed to increase teachers’ awareness of levels of cultures and lifestyles of individuals from different cultural groups. It is an edited volume that contains four sections: Foundations of Multicultural Education, Approaches to Multicultural Education, Teaching Strategies, and Lesson Plans. The second chapter in section 1, the Law and Minorities in the United States from 1620 to 1980, provides a description of significant legislative policies and court decisions that affected the implementation of educational programs with a multicultural perspective. The legislation is inclusive of acts that relate to Black Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Native Americans. Chapter 3 describes controversial issues regarding schooling and its psychological effects upon minorities. Sleeter, C.E. (Ed.) (1991). Empowerment through multicultural education. Albany: State University of New York Press.

This edited volume was one of the earliest to explicitly put issues of power in the center of the multicultural movement. The authors in the book contrast empowering oppressed people with the benevolent, yet often debilitating, efforts to help them. The first section has four chapters that illustrate how schools disable many students, especially those from less privileged groups. The chapters in the second section illustrate strategies for empowerment that are based on the experiences, strengths, and goals of individuals and groups who are oppressed. The final section contains two chapters that discuss how the principles of empowerment operate or can potentially operate in teacher education programs. Sleeter, C. (1995). An analysis of the critiques of multicultural education. In J.A.Banks & C.A.M.Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 81–94). New York, NY: Macmillan.

In this review Sleeter summarizes and analyzes the critiques of multicultural education from both the right and the left ends of the political spectrum. She includes many quotes from different authors that capture the vitriolic, as well as the reasoned, tones of the debates. In her analysis she points out the political and social perspectives of the authors and the political ends of some of the criticisms. She notes that we need to take the criticisms seriously, even when we disagree, because they do point out weaknesses in the movement and a failure to communicate its intent and practice to a wider audience. She makes suggestions for responding to these criticisms and shows how they may offer ways to strengthen the conceptual base and public support for multicultural education.


Sleeter, C. (1996). Multicultural education as social activism. Albany: State University of New York Press.

According to Sleeter, this collection of essays connects “political and pedagogical issues with personal experiences and reflections” (p. 15), in order to align multicultural education with its original mission of challenging oppression and creating a more democratic, equal, and just society. The author points out that multicultural education has its roots in political struggle, yet has often been diverted into more superficial curricula and practices that unintentionally protect and support the status quo. Sleeter emphasizes how race, gender, and social class play out for everyone, but particularly for White women. Although writing from a feminist perspective, Sleeter is wary about the power that White middle-class women have in defining gender issues, often failing to examine their racial privilege. In the penultimate chapter, the author presents her vision of multicultural educators who work as allies with children’s families and other members of their communities to pressure schools to better serve their children, to advocate for their communities in the broader political realm, and to teach their students to think and act politically on behalf of themselves and other marginalized people. Sleeter, C.E., & McLaren, P.L. (Eds.) (1995). Multicultural education, critical pedagogy and the politics of difference. Albany: State University of New York Press.

This volume contains a number of essays that explore the dynamics of diversity and challenge the generally accepted parameters and assumptions of multicultural education. The authors critique the dominant ideologies in schools that serve a limited (privileged) group of children. The authors also challenge the common practices of multiculturalism that often ignore its multiple contexts, contradictions, and far-reaching implications. The first part of this volume contains chapters on the need to understand the concept of difference in its historical, racial, and gendered context. The chapters in the second part describe pedagogies and theories that illustrate the complex intersections of the dynamics of class, race, and gender. The final section is devoted to putting these pedagogies into action and to stimulating social transformation through critical selfawareness. Smedley, A. (1993). Race in North America: Origin and evolution of a world view. Boulder, CO: Westview.

This book traces the development of the concept of “race” in North America and shows how intimately it has been tied to economic and social opportunism for the past 400 years. Smedley shows how the English came to North America, with a notion of the “savage other” that had justified their efforts to conquer the Irish. This belief became the justification for the genocide of the Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, and the exclusion of many immigrant groups. Smedley describes in detail how the Framers of the Constitution created elaborate and contradictory ideologies in order to justify slavery in a new society predicated on individual rights. Many quotes from “scientific” reports and popular press articles written before, during, and after the Civil War, which vehemently asserted that


Africans were a race apart, show the extremes to which scholars went in order to justify slavery, exclusion, and discrimination. Smedley ends the book in a cautiously optimistic tone by pointing out that serious scientists no longer support the idea of inherent racial differences. This fascinating book illustrates the extent to which race is a cultural and social construct and how it has been used in contradictory, opportunistic, and vicious ways throughout the history of the United States. Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

In this fascinating book Takaki compares and analyzes the experiences of many different groups from a multicultural perspective. Responding to conservative concerns that cultural pluralism will be a disuniting force for the country, he shows how groups had varied experiences, but within shared contexts, and argues that knowing each other’s histories is a uniting force. The stories, which include many examples and quotes from firsthand accounts, illustrate how all Americans have unique histories and many come from different shores, yet all are “entitled to dignity” (p. 15). Divided into four approximate historical periods, the book traces the histories of discrimination, oppression, and resistance of the American Indians; enslaved people from Africa; conquered Mexicans; and finally Irish, Jewish, and Asian immigrants. Tyack, D. (1995). Schooling and social diversity: Historical reflections. In W.D. Hawley & A.W.Jackson (Eds.), Toward a common destiny: Improving race and ethnic relations in America (pp. 3–38). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the different educational strategies developed in the 20th century to address the needs of diverse students. Tyack illustrates how a number of educational reforms reflected the prevailing racist and exclusionary social beliefs. He also shows how world events (e.g., World War I) and shifting political tides often dictated social and educational policy. By including a number of movements and cross-movements, the author illustrates the complexity of public opinion and the related educational reforms. This chapter is discussed in considerable detail in chapter 1 of this book.

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2 The Social, Political, and Economic Contexts of Children’s Development and Learning

Portions of this chapter have been adapted by permission of the publisher from Ramsey, P.G., Teaching and Learning in a Diverse World: Multicultural Education for Young Children. (2nd Edition) (New York: Teachers College Press, © 1998 by Teachers College, Columbia University. All rights reserved.) To engage children in multicultural learning, teachers and families need to understand how social and economic forces influence children’s development and, in turn, how children learn about the world. This review is organized around two questions: First, how does membership in particular racial, cultural, socioeconomic, gender, sexual orientation, and ability groups affect the quality of children’s lives, their interactions with peers and teachers, and their future prospects? Second, how do children develop their understanding, attitudes, identities, and behaviors related to these dimensions? Before beginning this review, however, we need to note the biases and limits of the research and theories that will be included. Most of the studies about the effects of different social and economic circumstances on development and about children’s developing attitudes have been done by researchers trained in traditional child development theories and methodologies. These theories and methods are derived from the work of early psychologists who, by and large, were European or North American men (e.g., Erikson, Freud, Piaget, Hall, and Skinner) and who wrote from positions of racial, economic, and gender privilege. Moreover, the developmental theories based on their work reflect the Euro pean American ideal of individualism and independence. Therefore, the primary developmental goals have been the progress of individual children toward becoming self-sufficient and self-fulfilled adults and less on the formation of close relationships with their families and communities, which are valued in more collaborative cultures. Developmental theorists and researchers have also tended to ignore the context of children’s lives and have assumed that developmental goals, stages, and phases are universal—the same for all children in all situations. The developmental “norms” that have emerged from these traditional theories have advantaged European and European American middle-class families because they are based on research done on children from these populations. As a result, children from other backgrounds are often judged “deficient” because their developmental profiles do not match the norms established by this relatively small and privileged segment of the world’s population.


One might argue that with all these flaws and limitations, all research derived from these theories and methods should be dismissed. However, this body of research has also provided much valuable information about how children change as they mature. Although we cannot generalize these patterns to all children, we can use them to challenge adult-oriented assumptions about how children interpret information and to develop skills at observing and listening to children. Over the past two decades, researchers have begun to challenge the universalistic assumptions underlying child development theories and the interpretation of research outcomes. The 1980s and 1990s saw the publication of several books and research reviews that interpreted minority children’s development and behaviors within their own contexts and represented a shift away from earlier work that measured them with the norms, paradigms, and methods based on studies of White children. Some of these books include: Beginnings: The Social and Affective Development of Black Children (Spencer, Brookins, & Allen, 1985); the Child Development Special Issue on Minority Children (1990); Children of Color (Gibbs, Huang, & Associates, 1989); and Family Ethnicity (McAdoo, 1993). Also, many researchers are beginning to use qualitative methods such as case studies and ethnographies, which capture much more fully the contexts and individual nuances of children’s development. Moreover, as developmentalists become more critical of the homogeneous images of children, they are shifting away from using comparisons of children growing up under different conditions to arrive at deficit-oriented conclusions. Currently, the thrust of much comparative research is to provide information that can be used to advocate for greater social and economic equity for children and their families. In short, rather than “throw the baby out with the bath water,” we argue that developmental theories and research can contribute to our understanding of children’s lives and thinking. However, we must read them critically, apply them cautiously, and use them as a base to develop theories and research methods that push beyond their limits. Several authors who are reviewed in this chapter make these same arguments and illustrate them with their own work. SOCIETAL DIVISIONS AND CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT Everyone in the United States lives in multiple worlds, such as work, home, community, school, social club, and church. A person may have a number of identities and behavioral repertoires that reflect her or his race, gender, class, country of origin, religion, sexual orientation, occupation, recreational pursuits, and ability/disability status. All people shift among contexts and adapt their behaviors accordingly. For instance, children learn to behave one way with neighborhood friends and another way in their classrooms. They come to expect store clerks to treat them differently than their families do. However, some children experience more discontinuities between school and home than do others. These gaps are exacerbated when children are the targets of negative stereotypes and assumptions. Moreover, resources among groups vary enormously;

THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMIC CONTEXTS CHILDREN’S D EVELOPMENT

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although some families are able to provide their children with an abundance of opportunities and services, others raise their children in extreme financial and material deprivation. As mentioned earlier, mainstream child development theory has traditionally ignored the contexts of social class, culture, ethnicity, and race (García Coll et al., 1996). Yet to work with children from diverse backgrounds and to understand the full range of their developmental potential, we need to understand what aspects of development are universal, which ones are individual, and which ones are environmental. Bowman and Stott (1994) point out that, except in conditions of extreme sensory and social deprivation, all children, regardless of background and child-rearing goals, establish mutually satisfying social relationships and ways of organizing and integrating their perceptions and categorizing new information. They also learn how to speak and perhaps to write a particular language and how to think, imagine, and create. Individual physical differences such as sensitivity to pain, distractibility, timing of onset of puberty, and body build play a formative role in children’s development. However, Bowman and Stott point out that all developmental phases and individual traits become meaningful only in the context of the child’s social life. Children learn how to express their emerging needs and skills in ways that fit the resources, values, and expectations of their group, which in turn are influenced by the larger social and economic context. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 1986) framework for analyzing children’s developmental context is a useful tool for analyzing how the environment defines children’s experiences and prospects. He identified the following four concentric circles: 1. The microsystems of the family, school, and neighborhood; 2. The mesosystems, which include the relationships between elements in the microsystem such as those between the family and school, neighborhood and school, and home and neighborhood; 3. The exosystems, which are institutions that have power to affect the child’s life, but the child does not participate in them; they include family workplaces, school and planning boards, welfare and unemployment policies, and funding; 4. The macrosystems, which include cultural values, the ideology of the social group, and social attitudes such as discrimination against particular groups, and the emphasis on individualism and competition. García Coll et al. (1996) elaborate on this framework and present an integrative model for studying the developmental outcomes and competencies of children who do not fit the middle-class European American child developmental “norms.” The authors point out that researchers and educators need to analyze children’s development within the larger context of social stratification, which includes racism, prejudice, discrimination, oppression, and segregation, and the more local expressions of social stratification, such as quality of schools, access to health care, and resources available in neighborhoods. Although García Coll et al.


do not dispute the deleterious effects of social, political, and economic disadvantages, they argue against pathologizing groups of people and point out that communities, families, and individuals develop adaptive cultures, competencies, and strategies to overcome and resist the effects of discrimination. García Coll et al. advocate that people working with or studying children expand their definitions of developmental competencies to include abilities such as functioning in more than one culture and coping with racism, discrimination, and segregation. In a similar vein, Swadener and Lubeck (1995) cogently argue against the “at risk” analysis of poor families and families of color. The chapters in their edited volume offer vivid and compelling examples of how families struggle and succeed in the face of daunting odds. The following sections will review research that shows how the contexts of race, ethnicity, culture, social class, gender, sexual orientation, and abilities and disabilities influence the lives of children and their families and affect their developmental course. For the purpose of imposing some organization on this chapter, these dimensions are discussed in separate sections. However, as will be reiterated throughout the chapter, they interact and cannot be viewed as isolated phenomena. Moreover, the definitions of the categories change over time and vary across context and individuals and thus need to be continually reviewed and critiqued. The Influences of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture In chapter 1 we talked about Ogbu’s (1978) distinction between involuntary minorities, those who came to be part of the United States by enslavement or conquest (e.g., Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Rican Americans) and voluntary immigrants, groups who came willingly (although often because of poverty, persecution in their homelands, or both) to the United States to make better lives for themselves. The history and current circumstances of groups reflect these different statuses, which in turn affect families and children. Involuntary minorities, which Ogbu (1978) calls “caste-like minorities,” continue to suffer discrimination in all areas of their lives and have a more restricted range of options in education, employment, housing, and avenues to success in the mainstream society (García Coll et al., 1996; Gibbs et al., 1989). Discrimination in employment is especially destructive because it consigns large groups of people to lives of poverty and the attendant risks that will be discussed in the section on the economic context of development. The constant debilitating confrontation with racism and prejudice, such as being ignored or followed by retail clerks, has been described as MEES (mundane extreme environmental stress) (Peters, 1985). Needless to say, these conditions and stresses profoundly affect all aspects of family life and children’s developing view of the world. The disproportionate representation of involuntary minorities in the ranks of the unemployed, homeless, and incarcerated is a chilling testimony to the intransigence of racism. West (1993) hones in on the psychological costs of


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discrimination with his devastating picture of the “nihilism of black Americans”: “the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and…lovelessness…a numbing detachment from others and a selfdestructive disposition toward the world” (p. 14). However, in the face of these pressures and adversities, many communities, families, and individuals create structures and cultures that have enabled them to resist, survive, and even to flourish under these oppressive circumstances (García Coll et al., 1996). Attitudes toward education may vary across involuntary minority or voluntary immigrant groups (Gibson & Ogbu, 1991). Many voluntary immigrants come to this country to take advantage of the educational system and see school as the means to success in their new society. The involuntary minorities, on the other hand, often view schools as another tool of subjugation. Some children feel that they must deny their family and community loyalties, language, and conversational styles in order to succeed in school (Fordham, 1988). Moreover, based on the experiences of their families and neighbors, they may conclude that they will not get good jobs, regardless of their efforts in school. Faced with these conflicts and disincentives, many students (especially adolescents) withdraw from the education that is available to them. As an example, Matute-Bianchi (1991) found that Mexican students whose families immigrated to the United States to improve their educational and job prospects did better in school and were more favorably regarded by the teachers than were the Mexican American students whose families had lived (as involuntary minorities) in the United States for several generations. Tharp (1989) and Ladson-Billings (1994) challenge Ogbu’s bipolar distinctions and point out that many members of involuntary minority groups excel and that not all voluntary immigrants have successful school experiences. Tharp (1989) points out that cultural discontinuity between home and school affects almost all groups who have recently entered the country, as well as long-term involuntary minorities. If these discontinuities are exacerbated by stereotyping, discrimination, and economic hardships, then the gap between home and school is even harder to cross. Thus, a child whose mother has come from France to be a visiting professor at a prestigious university is less likely to have the same debilitating experience as a child who is viewed as a “wetback” or other unwanted intruder by the community. The 1994 vote in California to disenfranchise and exclude illegal and legal immigrants is a vivid illustration of the strength of these exclusionary forces. The racism experienced by many voluntary immigrants from Asia also challenges Ogbu’s theory. Chan and Hune (1995) describe the history of Asian immigrations and point out how racial discrimination has meant that Asian Americans, many of whom have lived in the United States for many generations, are still seen as outsiders and excluded from the mainstream. They note that being designated as the “model minority” has isolated Asian American groups and made them the target of resentment and violence. Moreover, this “status” has allowed the dominant society to congratulate itself on being open and receptive to “good” immigrants, to blame less successful groups for their own failures, and to ignore many problems and injustices that affect Asian Americans. For example, statistics


suggest that, overall, Asian Americans have higher incomes than Whites. However, when broken down into specific ethnic groups, they reveal that high percentages of some groups (e.g., Cambodians and Hmong) live below the poverty line. Moreover, when controlled for level of education, income statistics show that Asian Americans who complete college earn lower wages and hold fewer managerial and supervisory positions than do European Americans with similar educational backgrounds. The term Asian American reflects the process of racial formation in which the powerful groups determine the content and status of racial groups. The dominant European American society lumped Asian Americans into a single group, ignoring the wide differences in their histories and cultures. Illustrating how groups can take advantage of adversity, diverse groups such as Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos used this term that was forced on them, came together in the 1960s and created a panethnic identity of Asian American, and developed organizations around this identity in order to gain some political and economic clout (Chan and Hune, 1995). In addition to racial and ethnic divisions that reflect inequality and discrimination, cultural values influence all aspects of children’s development and their progress in school. To work effectively with children from diverse backgrounds, teachers need to be aware of the parameters and implications of cultural differences and to understand how their own cultural backgrounds have influenced their views of children, education, and goals for the society as a whole. Cultures exist on two levels: the explicit culture, which includes the cultural expressions and symbols, such as buildings, clothes, food, tools, holiday celebrations, rituals, crafts, artifacts, and dance and music; and the implicit culture, which are the values, meanings, and philosophies that underlie the overt symbols (Garcia, 1990). For example, shopping malls and home shopping networks in the United States are explicit expressions of our culture’s implicit passion for newness and competitive consumption. In earlier times, the construction of elaborate temples to the rain gods in Mexico and many other arid regions (explicit) reflected the people’s concerns and beliefs (implicit) related to the arrival of the annual rainy season. Central to many cultural values and beliefs is the relationship between people and the natural world. For example, the European American perspective is that “natural resources” are there to be exploited, used, and enjoyed by people. This attitude contrasts sharply with the Native American view that we are all part of the same ecosystem—plants, animals, water, land forms, and humans—and that no one species has the right to dominate or destroy the lives and habitats of others (Allen, 1992). These differences obviously have a profound effect on how people interpret and present information and establish their educational priorities. Spatial, temporal, and quantitative relationships also develop in cultural and economic contexts. In the United States and most other industrialized marketbased economies, time, space, and value are precisely defined and are measured by standard units such as hours, feet, and dollars. In traditional societies, they are likely to be measured in a more relative, cyclical, and continuous fashion and


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within the context of the natural cycle of the day or year and immediate human needs (Allen, 1992). Again, many implications for educational goals and practices flow from these differences. How families want their children to grow up is defined by cultural values that influence every detail of sleeping, feeding, playing, and schooling routines. In an anthology of cross-cultural research, Greenfield (1994) describes how cultures and child-rearing strategies vary along the continuum between independence and interdependence. Members of more individualistic cultures (at the independence end of the continuum) share resources with their immediate nuclear family, but not with the larger community; are less willing to subordinate their personal goals to those of a collective; feel personally responsible for their successes and failures; and experience some degree of separation and distance from their communities. In collectivist cultures (at the interdependence end of the continuum), members emphasize the implications of their own behavior for others; share resources with their community; emphasize harmony; are controlled by shame; and feel that they are an integral part of their community life (Hui & Triandis, 1986). Reflecting these differences, many cross-cultural studies illustrate how families across different backgrounds vary in their child-rearing goals and strategies (e.g., Gonzalez-Ramos, Zayas, & Cohen, 1998) and discipline practices (e.g., KobayashiWinata & Power, 1989) and how different cultural values and childrearing and teaching priorities affect children’s play patterns (e.g., Farver, Kim, & Lee, 1995; Farver & Shin, 1997; Roopnarine, Lasker, Sacks, & Stores, 1998; Whiting & Edwards, 1988; Whiting & Whiting, 1975) and emotional development (Farver, Wells-Nystrom, Frosch, Wimbarti, & Hoppe-Graff, 1997). At the same time, we need to be cautious about assuming that cultural differences are associated with particular styles of child rearing. In a comparison of middle-class Anglo-American and Puerto Rican mothers and infants, Harwood, Schoelmerich, Schulze, & Gonzalez (1999) found that mothers generally behaved in ways that were consistent with their cultural goals and attitudes, which, in turn, reflected differences along the individualistic and collectivist continuum. However, within groups, individual family members’ behaviors also varied, underscoring the effects of situational and intragroup differences. Teachers working with children from different ethnic groups need to learn about the cultural roots of the children in their classrooms and understand how the course of development varies among different cultures (De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998). However, in this process they must keep in mind that cultures are not static, that they are always evolving as people respond to new conditions and influences. The relationships between ethnic groups and the dominant culture also change and vary over time and place. Thus, although we need to learn about different cultural beliefs and practices, we also need to critically examine the available information and decide if and how it applies to the particular children and families we are working with. In the United States most developmental and educational theories and recommendations reflect an individualistic culture and support the notion that children should grow up to become self-sufficient and to be able to build their


own lives, often hundreds or thousands of miles away from their families. Teachers’ praise and criticism often reflect these goals. Unlike expectations in more collectivist cultures (Valdés, 1996), children in the dominant culture in the United States are expected to pursue their own interests and rarely play a major role in their family’s welfare (Whiting & Edwards, 1988). Obviously, this strong cultural pull toward independence can create a dissonance for children and families who have different values. When the values, learning goals, and social expectations differ between home and school, children, family members, and teachers often miscommunicate and fail to develop good working relationships. Tharp (1989) describes four dimensions of cultural differences that may account for children’s discomfort and underachievement in classrooms: the social organization (e.g., emphasis on peer cooperation vs. individual accomplishments); the conventions and courtesies of speech (e.g., the length of time one waits for a response, rhythms of speech, and responses); patterns of cognitive functioning, in particular the difference between verbal/analytic and visual/holistic thinking; and motivation, (e.g., responses to praise and affection). Delgado-Gaitan and Trueba (1991) vividly portray how cultural discontinuity can disrupt children’s learning in their ethnographic study of Mexican American children’s daily life in a U.S. school. Children’s behaviors at school are often misinterpreted by teachers and peers who do not understand a child’s culture. For example, children who are taught to quietly respect adults may be seen as withdrawn or unmotivated when compared with their outspoken, attention-seeking European American peers. Cultural differences can create misunderstandings between teachers and family members who may have different expectations and aspirations for children (e.g., Gonzalez-Ramos et al., 1998). Teachers’ expectations about attendance and the completion of homework and projects, which reflect the goals of individual academic achievement, can create conflicts for children from cultures where helping family members is a high priority. Cultural discontinuity also psychologically affects children, and schools have the potential to either support or undermine students’ attempts to function in two worlds (Phelan & Davidson, 1993). In addition to having to negotiate different cultural expectations, children of recent immigrants also experience the dislocation and confusion that accompanies leaving the familiar and coping with a whole new set of rules, languages, and school structure. In her book The Inner World of the Immigrant Child, Igoa (1995) eloquently describes the initial confusion, exhaustion, and fear that immigrant children feel and the different stages that they go through to become more comfortable with their new surroundings. Often their families cannot provide the needed support because they themselves are also overwhelmed by dislocation, working long hours to make enough money to survive, or both. Immigrants who have already attended school in their home country have to adjust to the curricula and teaching practices in the U.S. schools as well (Macias, 1990). When working with children who have recently arrived in this country, teachers can help children maintain a sense of continuity between their former country and their new homes with pictures, stories, and familiar objects (Igoa, 1995). A full


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discussion of bilingual education is beyond the scope of this book, but teachers can apply bilingual practices (see Soto, 1991, for a review) in their work with immigrant children. Teachers’ misreading of cultural styles and practices is not limited to children of recent immigrants. Townsend (1999) found that White teachers often misinterpreted African American children’s social conventions and goals, such as stage-setting before beginning a game, verbal volleying, and preference for cooperative work. Teachers often misunderstand these routines and actions, assuming that children are avoiding work or acting aggressively, and thereby create tense and in some cases hostile environments that isolate and alienate their African American students. In contrast, cultural relevance and continuity can promote children’s school participation and achievement. The success of children who participated in the Kamehameha Early Education Project (KEEP), in which the teachers adapted their teaching methods to be more compatible with the culture of the Native Hawaiians, illustrates the benefits of maintaining cultural continuity, while supporting children learning new skills to function in the larger community (Tharp, 1989). Teachers also need to be aware of how cultural discontinuity affects families, to understand the interpersonal and intrapersonal tensions that arise when children begin to be drawn toward their new culture and peers. They can help children learn to negotiate between two cultures but may need to change their practices in order to be more accommodating and empowering to a wider range of children and families (Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991; Phelan & Davidson, 1993). To play this role, they also need to see and work with the strengths and positive aspects of their families and their ethnic communities (Valdés, 1996). Much of the literature about ethnic differences presents a “pathologized” view of families as disorganized and overwhelmed by the adjustments to a new society. In fact, however, many families have extended kinship and fictive kinship networks that provide social and financial support. Many groups have social and religious organizations that give the community an identity and provide families with a sense of security and continuity. These organizations are potential resources for families, and teachers should be aware of them and support families’ participation in them. Finally, race, culture, and ethnicity must be seen as “dimensions along which individuals and samples vary, rather than as categories in which individuals can be classified” (Phinney, 1996, p. 919). As Phinney points out, individuals within any group may differ considerably in terms of how much they identify with, believe in, and express the cultural values of their group and how they negotiate between their group and the dominant society. The Socioeconomic Context and the Effects of Poverty The socioeconomic context of children’s lives is germane to multicultural education in many ways. First, it profoundly defines children’s lives. To teach


responsively, teachers need to recognize how social class—the access that families have to goods and services—affects the daily lives and long-term welfare of families and their children. Second, economic inequality is inextricably bound with race and ethnicity. Although many poor children are European Americans, children from the groups that have been described previously as “caste-like minorities” have a much higher likelihood of being poor. Eighty percent of all children living in census tracts with higher than the national average of unemployment, high school dropouts, single-parents, welfare recipients, and poverty are African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos (McLoyd, 1998). Moreover, poor Whites are likely to live in rural or suburban areas, not in the highly concentrated areas of poverty (the inner cities) where most poor people of color live. Because of housing discrimination, even middle-class African Americans often live in areas with high rates of poverty, which makes them more vulnerable to crime and to “losing” their children to the alienation and bitterness that prevail in many poor communities (Cross, 1995). Third, we cannot talk seriously about racial and cultural diversity without recognizing the attendant economic and power disparities. To become activists for social justice, teachers and children need to recognize and challenge the inequitable distribution of resources within the United States and between the United States and the rest of the world. A number of authors have documented the dramatic increase in children living in poverty during the past 30 years (e.g., Edelman, 1986; Huston, 1991; McLoyd, 1998; Thompson & Hupp, 1992). The statistics show that during the 1980s the number of children growing up in very poor (deprived) households and in very affluent (luxurious) households increased, whereas the number of children growing up in “frugal” (i.e., working class) or “comfortable” (i.e., middle class) households declined. In other words, more children are now living at the extremes of deprivation and affluence. Currently, 20% of the children under the age of 18 live in poverty (Children’s Defense Fund, 1996). Most analysts attribute this trend to the economic changes in this country that have reduced the numbers of well-paid, semiskilled, and low-skilled jobs; welfare “reform” that eliminated or drastically cut back programs that supported poor families; tax “reforms” that favor the wealthy and penalize poor and working-class families; and the changes in family configurations that have resulted in higher numbers of female-headed households, which usually have lower incomes than two-parent households. This last “cause” is also an effect, as the lack of well-paid jobs in poor communities has reduced the number of “marriageable men” (men who are gainfully employed and can provide for their families) (Wilson, 1987), so that more women are raising children conceived outside of marriage. The absence of job and marriage prospects may also make early pregnancy and child rearing seem like the most appealing and meaningful life course to adolescent girls. The increase in poverty during the 1970s and 1980s gave rise to a new wave of research about poverty and how it affects children. According to Huston, McLoyd, and García Coll (1994), this new research is distinct from earlier research in the following ways: it (a) reflects a more differentiated view of poverty;


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(b) has shifted from simply describing effects of poverty to analyzing why they occur; (c) includes multiple levels of analysis, such as the communities and schools, as well as children and families; and (d) has expanded from the earlier focus on the effects of poverty on cognitive development to include socioemotional functioning. The 1994 Child Development issue on children and poverty contains many of these newer studies. Several longitudinal studies in this volume distinguish transitory poverty (a short-term decline in living standards due to divorce or job loss) from persistent poverty (an ongoing state of poverty with no prospects of change). Although both present hardships to families, the latter is most damaging, because children in those families may grow up in more depressed neighborhoods and with fewer role models who offer hope that there is a place for them in the mainstream (Huston, 1991; McLoyd, 1998). Not surprisingly, given the relationship between race and employment patterns, families of color are more likely than White families to be chronically poor. McLoyd and Ceballo (1998) have analyzed and critiqued the ways in which poverty and socioeconomic status (SES) are measured. They point out that simply looking at family income does not take into account factors such as availability and cost of services (often much more expensive in poor neighborhoods); job prestige and security; access to housing and mortgages; and inherited wealth, which is much more common among European American families and can help families weather temporary job loss and unexpected expenses. The current poverty index is also outdated and does not reflect regional variations (McLoyd & Ceballo, 1998). The competitive consumerism that currently prevails in the United States aggravates economic disparities. Even if people have sufficient food and shelter, they often “feel poor,” which affects their psychological functioning (McLoyd & Ceballo, 1998) and can lead to shame and, in some cases, violence (Vorrasi & Gabarino, 2000). Consumerism, class, race, and gender intersect in some particularly damaging ways. A disproportionally high percentage of White males are in the upper-income groups and a disproportionally high percentage of African, Asian, and Latino Americans and White women are in the low-income groups. However, the one place in which all people in our society are welcome to participate is in purchasing goods—assuming that they have the money. For people excluded from other avenues of success and satisfaction, “with a limited capacity to ward off self-contempt and self-hatred” (West, 1993, p. 17), purchasing power is their only power and may become an exaggerated source of self-esteem and sense of well being. Merchandisers, fully aware of these dynamics, often mount intensive advertising campaigns in poor communities (Nightingale, 1993). Consumerism not only places families under great economic pressure, but as West (1993) points out, the market morality, in which the only goals are the short-term pleasures that are delivered by the media and conspicuous consumption, also undermines the morality and social responsibility of communities. The seductive images of consumerism “contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others and thereby edge out nonmarket values—love, care, service to others—handed down by previous generations” (West, 1993, p. 17).


“It is the intrusion of white ‘consumer capitalism’ into black life that has been responsible for the erosion of community and political solidarity” (Haymes, 1995, p. 31). Being poor does not inevitably by itself impair development (Brooks, 2000; Thompson, 1992; Vorrasi & Gabarino, 2000). However, the common consequences of growing up in poverty—malnutrition, inadequate health care (including prenatal), exposure to toxins and diseases, unsafe living conditions, frequent moves, parents or other family members who may either be addicted to drugs or be overwhelmed by trying to survive against terrible odds, and poor educational facilities—do pose enormous risks for children. The ways in which poverty contributes to poor health and developmental delays are myriad and have been documented in numerous studies (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Thompson & Hupp, 1992). The interviews and stories in Cook and Fine (1995), Kozol (1995), and Polakow (1993, 2000) put a personal face on these grim statistics by vividly and poignantly illustrating the hardships of poverty and the heroic struggles of families trying to secure a decent life and future for their children in the face of daunting odds. Another outcome of poverty is homelessness. Without a permanent home, families have difficulty providing support for their children’s education and all other aspects of their development (Stronge, 1992). Many children without homes face bureaucratic and logistic barriers to attending school (e.g., lack of a permanent address and reliable transportation). Once they get to school, peers and teachers often stigmatize them, and their families often cannot provide a quiet space for them to complete homework assignments. Because they move frequently, these children also have frequent disruptions in their schooling. Violence is “as American as apple pie,” and all communities have their share of it, but it is especially pervasive in poor communities (McLoyd & Ceballo, 1998) and it has a devastating effect on children and their families, especially African American males, who are the most common victims of violence. In their book on the effects of violence on children, Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, and Pardo (1992) found that compared to their peers in low-violence areas, preschoolers in high-violence communities were often clingy and fearful; school-age children tended to be more aggressive; and adolescents were more precocious—engaging in sexual promiscuity and using drugs at an early age. Across all ages, children in these communities had higher than usual levels of learned helplessness, grief and loss reactions, school problems, delayed moral development, feelings of hopelessness and futurelessness, and identification with aggressive people, objects, or both. However, children whose families were able to provide a secure base that buffered them from the effects of violence were less likely to develop these symptoms. The hardships of poverty create conditions that can undermine families’ efforts to raise their children and prepare them for school. For example, welfare laws enacted in the 1990s that force women with young children to work have resulted in many poor infants, toddlers, and preschoolers spending their early childhood years in substandard and even dangerous child-care centers and daycare


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homes (Polakow, 2000). Given the well-established link between quality of early childhood care and school success, these arrangements may undermine children’s educational prospects (Polakow, 2000) and erase any benefits of having a“working” parent. Poverty also puts enormous stress on families. McLoyd and Wilson (1992) analyze how poverty influences family processes and puts children at risk for depression, low self-confidence, peer conflict, and conduct disorders. Several articles in the 1994 Child Development Special Issue on Poverty and Children demonstrate how conditions of poverty affect families, which then react to their children in less positive ways. For example, economic stress can cause parental depression and marital and family conflict, which can spill over into conflicts with children (Conger, Ge, Elder, Lorenz, & Simons, 1994; Eisenberg, 1996). García Coll et al. (1996) point out that in response to social stratification, oppressed families and communities often develop adaptive cultures—goals, values, attitudes, and behaviors—that “set members apart from the mainstream” (p. 1904) and in turn create gaps between home and school cultures. This mismatch sometimes interacts with school personnel’s negative perceptions of poor children. Teachers often classify children by their socioeconomic backgrounds and base their expectations of the children accordingly (Bigelow, 1995; Gollnick & Chinn, 1998). In one famous study, Rist (1970) observed a kindergarten teacher divide the children into ability groups by the eighth day of school; the groups corresponded with their social class backgrounds. These same groups continued to exist through the next two years, illustrating how formative this early assessment was in children’s subsequent learning. The poor quality itself of the schools can further undermine the education of poor children. In an analysis of teacher attitudes and practices in low- and highincome schools, Harvey (1980) found that teachers of low-income children were concerned about their students, but not optimistic about their futures. They discouraged active behavior, used directive teaching techniques, and stressed basic skills. The teachers in the middle-class schools encouraged active and independent learning; emphasized science and art, as well as basic skills; and were more positive and optimistic about their students. Polakow (1993) points out that “programs organized for children of poverty are designed to provide the minimum amount of the least expensive instruction allowed under federal and state guidelines” (p. 149). Teachers, working within these constraints, find it difficult to see children who are living in extremely difficult circumstances as children “at promise,” not “at risk,” and they often resent them (Polakow, 1993). Using a broad range of sociological and economic data, Bowles and Gintis (1976) describe how social class distinctions are maintained in public schools, despite their mission to equalize opportunities. Lubeck’s (1985) comparison between Head Start and middle-class preschool programs demonstrates how soon this differentiation begins. The devastating inequalities between the public schools in affluent communities and those in poor communities (Kozol, 1991) ensure that children from different income groups do not obtain equal educations.


All these factors contribute to compromised education for children in poor communities. In a large longitudinal study, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates (1994) found that 60% of the children in the lowest income group were identified as having severe conduct disorders, three times the percentage of children in the other income groups. Whether these statistics reflect the actual behavior of the children, the misperceptions of the school personnel, the inadequacy of the schools, or some combination of all of them, the fact is that the majority of children in the lowest income group in this study had difficulty in school. The high rate of school failure among children who are poor is especially ironic and frustrating because Stipek and Ryan (1997) found that across all racial groups, economically disadvantaged preschool and kindergarten children entered school equally optimistic of school success and as motivated to do well in school as their middle-class peers were. However, they were already behind the middleclass children in academic skills and so, despite their willingness and expectation to do well, they came in with an academic disadvantage, which, along with the other pressures described in this section, eventually eroded their optimism and motivation. Even more frustrating are the heroic efforts that families make to prepare their children for school (Chaney, 1994) and to keep them in school (Cook & Fine, 1995; Polakow, 1993). However, they often cannot prevail against the economic and social forces that pressure their children to turn away from school. The fact that many members of their families work in dead-end and menial jobs is not lost on the children and may undermine their confidence that school can help them have a better life. Children whose parents feel positively about their jobs tend to feel better about their competence in school (Morehouse & Sanders, 1992). Despite the grim statistics and obstacles, many children raised in poor communities succeed in school and in life. Unfortunately, these “resilient” children and their positive outcomes have not been the focus of as much research, so we know less about how children resist and overcome economic disadvantage (Gramezy, 1992). McLoyd (1998) urges that this line of research be vigorously pursued to learn what environmental supports are most critical and to apply that information to design more effective interventions. Werner (1989) identified three types of protective factors: dispositional attributes of the child, such as activity level and sociability; emotional support from family members; and external support systems, such as school, church, and community groups. Gramezy (1992) found that schools that were characterized by high expectations, strong management, good disciplinary control, expectations that students take responsibility, clear reward systems, and available out-of-school activities were associated with lower levels of delinquency, even when the level of poverty of the neighborhood and the intellectual capabilities of students were the same. The protective factors identified in a number of studies give some direction for how practitioners can effectively work with families and schools to provide the optimal environments for children growing up in poverty. We also need to identify and build on the developmental competencies of “disadvantaged” children, such as their abilities to function in different value systems and to deal with


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racism and social stratification (García Coll et al., 1996). Furthermore, neighborhoods have to be judged not only by what resources they lack, but also for ways that they support families and children, such as in providing a sense of ethnic belonging or a buffer against prejudice in the larger community (García Coll et al., 1996). The Gender Divide Unlike racial, cultural, and class differences, which often result in physical separation such as distinct neighborhoods and different schools, most males and females in the United States spend much of their lives interacting with each other. Cross-sex relationships of children and adolescents are often characterized by avoidance, hostility, or both, but in the context of expectations of future positive ties. At the same time, the common roles of males and females and their accompanying power differentials create divisions and inequities. The question of why these roles emerge in almost all societies is a complex one and beyond the scope of this book. The fact remains that in the United States, despite a great deal of legal and attitudinal change, women are still disproportionally relegated to more subordinate and low-paying positions in the family and in almost all organizations, including schools, businesses, and nonprofits. At an early age (in preschool) most children in the United States learn stereotypic beliefs and attitudes about sex roles that affect a wide range of behaviors, psychological constructs, and aspirations, including peer interactions, memory skills, self-identity, self-esteem, and social, educational, and vocational goals (Bigler, 1997). One reason that gender roles are so intransigent is because of the prevalent use of gender in our society to divide and differentiate people (Bem, 1981, 1983). These distinctions are learned from an early age. From the time children are born, their toys, clothes, books, and television programs are gender-typed. Despite many legal and educational efforts to mitigate gender inequities, girls and boys are still not treated equally in schools (see Sadker & Sadker, 1995, for many compelling examples). Girls are often overlooked by teachers and not encouraged to excel, particularly in math and science and in physically challenging activities. They do, however, learn to be nurturing and emotionally expressive and often are more skilled at maintaining personal relationships than boys are. Boys, on the other hand, are encouraged to be aggressive, to excel, to take physical risks, and to mask their emotions. They are both the best students and the worst troublemakers (Sadker & Sadker, 1995); boys potentially grow up to take leadership positions and to earn more money than their female counterparts, but at the same time, they are at more risk than girls to fail in school or to engage in violent and dangerous activities. Several recent books (e.g., Garbarino, 1999; Kindlon & Thompson, 1999; Kivel, 1999; Pollack, 1998) attest to the emotional toll on boys caught between the traditional values of masculinity and the feminist emphasis on sensitivity and openness. Thus, while girls have been more materially shortchanged in schools and workplaces, both sexes suffer the effects of rigid sexrole expectations.


Gender-related assumptions and inequities also intersect with race, culture, and class. Stereotypes of males and females intersect across race (e.g., Asian “China dolls” vs. African American “Aunt Jemimas”). The flexibility and rigidity of sex roles are influenced by cultural norms. In traditional communities, male and female work roles tend to be more rigidly defined than in industrialized economies (Whiting & Edwards, 1988). Some people may feel conflicted between their culture and their ideas about gender. Anzaldua (1987) reflected on this “borderland” in her efforts to form an identity that encompassed both her Mexican heritage, with its emphasis on traditional sex roles, and the feminist ideals that she had learned in the United States. Socioeconomic status also affects female and male roles. For example, middle-class college-educated women managers may enjoy more equal relationships with male colleagues (at least, officially) than working-class chambermaids or women factory workers who are supervised by men. The interplay among gender, race, culture, and class may vary across situations. A wealthy White woman, by virtue of her race and class, may be treated with deference by shopkeepers and service people, but may have little power within her family. Likewise, an African American male factory worker may be subjugated at his job and excluded from many educational and career opportunities, yet may command considerable respect in his immediate community. The dynamics among these distinctions are complex and begin to affect relationships at a young age, as illustrated in two ethnographic studies of primary school children, one in England (Connolly, 1998, Racism, Gender Identities and Young Children) and the other in the United States (Gallas, 1998, Sometimes I Can Be Anything). Sexual Orientation Most people in this country are not judged by their sexual practices, but lesbians and gay men are often exclusively judged by their choice of sexual partners and by others’ assumptions about their sexual practices, even if these factors are irrelevant to the issue at hand. A woman can go through life working and living alongside others, but as soon as people find out that she is a lesbian, her sexual practices become public knowledge and, to many, her defining feature. This distinction is exacerbated by the fact that many people are rabidly homophobic— way out of proportion to the extent to which someone else’s sexual practices might possibly affect their own lives. This vehemence is reflected in the pervasiveness of homophobic insults and in the violence directed toward lesbians and gay men, which obviously affect the quality of their lives. In the United States homosexuality is less hidden than it was 2 or 3 decades ago. Now there are a number of networks and publications for and by gay people in many different occupations (Casper, Cuffaro, Schultz, Silin, & Wickens, 1996). Still, in most schools sexual orientation is rarely mentioned and often actively avoided. In one study, teachers who were recognized for their multicultural and antibias teaching and skills in discussing sensitive issues around race, class, and


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gender with children admitted that they often avoided the topic of homosexuality (Alvarado, Derman-Sparks, & Ramsey, 1999). Like gender, sexual orientation intersects with race, culture, and class. In particular, the quality of life for lesbian women and gay men is heavily influenced by the attitudes of their culture toward homosexuality. In more homophobic cultures, they must go to greater lengths to conceal their sexual orientation or make the choice to leave their home community. Social class also plays a role. Lesbian women and gay men with secure professional jobs are less vulnerable than those who are marginally employed. However, even in the most open-minded settings, they are still at risk for being the targets of discrimination and violence and often have to be more restrained and cautious in their personal conversations and relationships than their heterosexual peers do. The pervasive homophobia in our society is absorbed by many children and can undermine their development in a number of ways. Given the age of children that this book is primarily concerned with (preschool through sixth grade), most students are probably not yet acting on their sexual orientation. However, many children may have questions about their sexuality and some may be beginning to identify themselves as gay. If homophobia is the norm in their school, then they may avoid seeking out relevant information or discussing their concerns with school personnel and peers. Homophobic insults (often not fully understood by the children who are making them) are common in the elementary grades and even some preschools. Homophobia is often imbedded in children’s definitions of themselves as members of their particular gender and, in some cases, ethnic groups. As mentioned in the section on gender differences, children often exclude and criticize their peers who do not conform to sex-role norms. One way that these norms are enforced is by labeling these children as gay or lesbian in derogatory terms. Thus, homophobia and rigid sex-roles often mutually reinforce each other. Homophobic attitudes also hurt children by marginalizing those who have gay or lesbian family members. If their parents and their families’ lifestyles are disparaged or ignored, these children face conflicts in loyalties similar to those of children who cross racial, cultural, and class boundaries between home and school. Ironically, well-intentioned efforts to close the gap between home and school (e.g., celebrations of Mother’s and Father’s Days) may create some difficulties for children of gay and lesbian parents (as well for as children being raised by single parents and grandparents). Abilities and Disabilities How we define abilities and disabilities and respond to them is, to a large extent, culturally and economically determined. For example, in a society where livelihood and social prestige depend on cooperating with other group members, a person lacking social skills may be seen as more “disabled” than someone who cannot read. In our society, where rationality and empiricism are valued, people who “hear voices” are labeled emotionally disturbed; in a more spiritual and


mystical society, people with these conditions or with epilepsy might be highly regarded as seers blessed by divine wisdom (Fadiman, 1997). Although many disabilities have some physical basis, the cultural disjuncture between schools and children can contribute to academic and social difficulties that result in diagnoses of disability (Brown, 1998; Franklin, 1992; Odom et al., 1996), leading to the overrepresentation of children from marginalized groups in special education programs (Hilliard, 1992). Moreover, to get optimal placements and services for their children with disabilities, families must be able to advocate, to negotiate bureaucracies, and to transport children to remedial programs and specialists. Clearly, families who have more financial and educational resources are in a better position to get the best services for their children. Until the 1970s, children with clearly identified disabilities (e.g., cerebral palsy, mental retardation) were usually placed in special classrooms and isolated from their “typical” peers. Those children with milder disabilities, such as specific learning disabilities or attention deficit disorder, usually remained undiagnosed and struggled to keep up in regular classrooms. After the 1970s, and particularly since the passage of PL 94–142, and PL 99–457, the principle of offering children services in the “least restricted environment” has guided efforts to ensure that “all children, no matter how diverse their needs, should expect to be served in the regular education setting that they would attend at any specific age” (Sheridan, Foley, & Radlinski, 1995, p. 42). Originally referred to as “mainstreaming” and more recently as “integration” or “inclusion,” these efforts have often resulted in children spending all or part of their time in regular classrooms. Often an aide is assigned to work with an individual or a group to provide support so that these children can keep up with the academic demands of the classroom. In some cases, especially for more severe disabilities, children attend special classrooms to get help in academic areas and spend the rest of their time (often during less academic activities, such as art, gym, and music) in their regular classroom. With the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act in 1990, people with disabilities are entering all institutions and organizations of our society. Thus, another changing demographic in our society is the increased visibility of people of all ages with disabilities. However, people with disabilities are still often stereotyped, marginalized, and treated unjustly, so attitudes toward abilities and disabilities are germane to multicultural education (Gleason, 1991). The movement to include children with disabilities in regular classrooms has been lauded by many, but also has been controversial. The financial and time demands on schools and teachers have spawned some resistance. Teachers often feel overwhelmed trying to attend to a variety of “special needs,” as well as the needs of the whole class, especially if they lack training in working with children with disabilities and do not have adequate support in their schools (GemmellCrosby & Hanzik, 1994). Without training (which should include opportunities for teachers to identify and challenge their assumptions about children with disabilities), teachers often feel pity and have lower expectations for children with disabilities and unwittingly undermine children’s self-esteem and willingness to try


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hard in school (Clark, 1997). Even teachers who are knowledgeable about and embrace the principle of inclusion find that their implementation is constrained by time, lack of resources, space, staff, and materials (Odom, McConnell, & Chandler, 1993). Some parents, even though they support the concept of inclusion, also have concerns (Diamond, Hestenes, & O’Connor, 1994). Those with “typical” children may worry that their children will be shortchanged because teachers are spending so much time with children with special needs. Parents of children with disabilities sometimes express the fear that their children and they themselves will be socially excluded or that their children will not get the services that they need in a regular classroom. The results of many studies show that children with disabilities are often socially isolated in their regular classrooms (Diamond, Le Furgy, & Blass, 1993; Gerber, 1977; Goodman, Gottlieb, & Harrison, 1972; Iano, Ayers, Heller, McGettigan, & Walker, 1974; Nabors, 1995; Pearl et al., 1998; Sheridan, Foley, & Radlinski, 1995; Taylor, Asher, & Williams, 1987). In fact, there is some evidence that children with disabilities become more isolated over course of the school year (Diamond et al., 1993; Guralnick & Groom, 1987), demonstrating that merely having contact with each other does not break down the barriers between those with and without disabilities. Even in preschool, typically developing children tend to seek out their classmates without disabilities more than those with disabilities (Nabors, 1997). Interestingly, children with disabilities often do not “see” their rejection, indicating to teachers and interviewers a perception of a higher level of social acceptance than is evident from their peers’ assessment (Helper, 1994). Sometimes efforts to support children with disabilities may interfere with their social integration. Many children with severe disabilities have paraprofessional aides who work with them one-on-one in the classroom. Although teachers and parents value this support, the presence of an aide may convey a negative message about the competence of the child and may interfere with child-child interactions. The social impact of a disability can be affected by gender, race, culture, and social class. Girls with learning disabilities have the lowest status in classrooms (Helper, 1994; Juvonen & Bear, 1992). Juvonen and Bear speculate that because girls are usually expected to be more competent both academically and socially, girls with learning disabilities may be viewed as especially deviant and are therefore excluded. Boys may also be more inclusive because they tend to play in larger groups that have more fluid boundaries than girls’ smaller, more intimate groups do (Nabors, 1997). In some classrooms, the isolation of children with disabilities may be exacerbated if they are racially or culturally a minority in that particular setting. In particular, if they and their parents speak a language other than English, they may have difficulty communicating with teachers and other children, and their parents and teachers may not be able to form a close partnership because of a lack of a shared language (Hanson, Gutierrez, Morgan, Brennan, & Zercher, 1997). As mentioned before, parents with few financial resources may not be able to provide the services and equipment that their children need, which may slow down their progress and keep them isolated.


Social isolation, however, is not inevitable and may be over-reported. Even children who may be quite isolated from the social mainstream often have one friend who serves as a social buffer and provides companionship (Juvonen & Bear, 1992). Social acceptance also may vary by both the situation and the nature of disability. For example, children are more likely to ignore or reject peers with orthopedic limitations when they are planning or doing physical activities (Harper, Wacker, & Cobb, 1986). On the other hand, children who cannot hear can still engage in physical activities and have alternative means of communication that their classmates often enjoy learning (Swadener & Johnson, 1989). In one study, children who had mild disabilities interacted with their peers without disabilities as frequently as the children in the latter group interacted with each other (Guralnick, 1980). In another study, third- and fourth-graders with learning disabilities showed a considerable increase in numbers of reciprocal friends from fall to spring (Vaughn, Elbaum, & Schumm, 1996). In contrast, children may feel more impatient with classmates who emotionally or cognitively cannot contribute to the flow of ideas and fantasies. Young children frequently explain that they dislike their classmates with disabilities because they are disruptive, aggressive, or both (Nabors & Keyes, 1995; Roberts & Zubrick, 1992), which suggests that children with behavioral and emotional disabilities may be particularly likely to be rejected. In some cases, children with disabilities who appear to be accepted by their peers on sociometric measures are overrepresented in antisocial peer groups and are underrepresented in prosocial groups. In these cases, contacts with peers without disabilities may undermine rather than support the development of social skills (Pearl et al., 1998). When children of different abilities do play together, their interactions are often strained and unequal. For example, when developmentally delayed children play with typically developing peers, they engage in fewer cooperative activities than occurs between peers without disabilities (Siperstein, Brownley, & Scott, 1989). Even when children have similar interaction patterns and, at the outset, appear to be developing equal relationships, children with disabilities often get left behind when the play becomes more complex and requires more advanced social and cognitive skills (Guralnick, Connor, Hammond, Gottman, & Kinnish, 1996). Some children without disabilities express a willingness to accept peers with disabilities as long as they are in a subordinate position, but reject them as equals or leaders (Miller, 1984). As they get older, children without disabilities also tend to assume a caretaking role with their peers with disabilities, rather than develop and maintain reciprocal friendships (Salisbury & Palombar, 1998). Most of the current educational programming for children with disabilities rests on the assumption that they should be assimilated as much as possible into the world of typical children and adults. These goals reflect a cultural bias that all children should become adults who can live self-sufficiently, be gainfully employed, and be integrated as much as possible into the mainstream society. They do not necessarily fit the priorities of families who assume that their children with disabilities will continue to be cared for by the extended family (Harry,


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1998). Moreover, placing social assimilation into the world of typical peers at the center of educational efforts may limit social opportunities, in particular the formation of long-term and reciprocal relationships between peers with disabilities (Harry, Park, & Day, 1998). Children’s development and their future prospects are profoundly affected by their environments, which inevitably reflect many social, political, and economic disparities in our country that often exacerbate each other. Anyone who works with children needs to be alert to how the racial, cultural, economic, gender, sexual orientation, and ability divisions in our society potentially affect the lives of children. At the same time we need to view these general patterns cautiously and critically, in order to avoid erroneous assumptions about individuals and particular communities. As teachers work to create multicultural classroom communities, they must deal not only with the environmental forces that affect children’s lives, but also with the attitudes that children themselves develop as they experience these pressures. We will turn our attention to these processes in the next section. CHILDREN’S RESPONSES TO DIFFERENCES As our society becomes more ethnically diverse and more economically polarized, teachers face the challenge of how to present and explore issues of diversity and inequality in meaningful, authentic, and hopeful ways with young children. To support these efforts, this review summarizes some of the past and current research on children’s understanding of race, culture, social class, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities. The first part of this review will focus on the extensive research that has been done on children’s responses to racial differences. The research on children’s understanding of cultural differences will be discussed in the second part of this review. The next two sections will look at ethnic perspective taking and racial and ethnic identity development. The fifth section will review the research on children’s understanding of economics and social class. In the final three sections, research on children’s awareness and behaviors related to gender, sexual orientation, and abilities/disabilities will be reviewed. Although racial, cultural, economic, gender, sexual orientation, and ability/disability differences are treated separately in this review, as they were in the first section of the chapter, people’s perceptions of racial differences are often associated with both cultural and class differences (Rex, 1986). Likewise, children’s responses to gender and ability differences are affected by social and economic status, cultural attitudes toward males and females, and various kinds of disabilities. Thus, children’s responses to these dynamics in real life are more complex and varied than those that emerge when they are studied separately. Adding to this complicated picture, children’s reactions also occur along different dimensions, including cognition, affect, and behavior. As will be seen, these responses interact in many different and often contradictory ways.


Reviewing the research on attitudinal development reveals again the tension between general patterns and individual and situational differences. We have tried to synthesize the research to show coherent developmental patterns, but they should be considered a backdrop for examining individuals’ development, rather than universal expectations that apply to all children. Children’s Responses to Race As described in chapter 1, the concept of “race” is murky and contradictory, yet because it is such a prominent category in our society many researchers have attempted to study how children view race. Children’s racial awareness and related cognitive and affective processes have been studied in a number of different populations and with a wide variety of methods. Because there are so many studies, and the findings and methods are often complex and contradictory, the annotations following this essay primarily include reviews of research and chapters that discuss the most salient and consistent findings, rather than individual research reports. During the 1940s and 1950s, a number of studies of children’s racial awareness and attitudes appeared to demonstrate that segregation and discrimination had a negative effect on African American children’s identity and self-concept development (e.g., Clark & Clark, 1947; Goodman, 1952). These studies were incorporated into arguments for integrating public schools in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Educa tion (Topeka, Kansas) Supreme Court decision. The research in this period also paralleled the post-World War II Intergroup Education Movement by focusing on the development of intergroup attitudes and possible sources of prejudice. Goodman’s book Race Awareness in Young Children, published in 1952, has an extensive review of the research during this period. Duckitt (1992) describes the history of the study of prejudice from the 1920s through the 1980s and shows how the evolving theories and research paradigms reflected the historical shifts described in chapter 1. In the years following the 1954 Supreme Court decision, a number of researchers studied the social dynamics of desegregated schools and the conditions that either fostered or undermined positive intergroup relationships (e.g., Patchen, 1982; St. John, 1975; Schofield, 1981, 1989; Singleton & Asher, 1977; Slavin, 1980). As discussed in chapter 1, the growing recognition that desegregation did not necessarily lead to successful integration (during the 1970s) contributed to the shift toward multicultural education and gave rise to increased research on the complexities of racial awareness and attitudes. The studies of this period are characterized by a variety of approaches and multiple methods, as exemplified by Porter’s (1971) study and Williams and Morland’s (1976) series of studies. Several reviews organize and summarize this research (Brand, Ruiz, & Padilla, 1974; Katz, 1976, 1982). Despite numerous studies, our knowledge about children’s reactions to racial differences is still incomplete and fragmented. Most research in the United States has compared European American and African American children’s responses to


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same- and cross-race dolls, pictures, and classmates. Only recently have researchers begun to include a broader range of subjects and to measure relations among members of other groups and to examine the processes that underlie children’s cross- and same-race responses. Children’s responses to racial differences involve a complicated set of cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions (García Coll & Garcia, 1995; Katz, 1976, 1982; Sigelman & Singleton, 1986). Although development is continuous in all of these dimensions, each process may be influenced by different learning experiences, so that there is not complete congruence among cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses. Rosenfield and Stephan (1981) suggest that racial classifications depend on cognitive development; affective responses reflect socialization influences, which include parents, siblings, peers, and the media; and behavioral preferences are determined by situational factors, such as the frequency and circumstances of contact between groups. For instance, children may develop cross-racial friendships by having contact with individual peers, yet learn negative attitudes about that group as a whole from the media and adults. In this case, the behaviors and attitudes appear to be in conflict. Several theories and studies suggest that as children get older, their attitudes become more rigid and their responses become more consistent across cognition, affect, and behavior (Katz, 1976; Milner, 1983; Ramsey, 1991a). Cognitive Dimensions Infants have been observed to notice differences between individual people (Thurman & Lewis, 1979) and consistently react to racial differences by 6 months (Katz & Kofkin, 1997). By ages 3 to 4, most children have a rudimentary concept of race (Katz, 1976) and can easily identify, match, and label people by racial group (e.g., Clark & Clark, 1947; Goodman, 1952; Porter, 1971). During their elementary school years, children elaborate their concepts of race as they begin to associate social information with the physical attributes that they see (Katz, 1976). As this shift occurs, they rely less on color cues and begin to grasp the social connotations of racial distinctions (Alejandro-Wright, 1985). The onset and accuracy of racial awareness appear to be related to amount of contact with people from different racial groups (Katz, 1976; Ramsey, 1991b; Ramsey & Myers, 1990). Children growing up in multiracial environments generally learn racial labels and distinctions sooner than those in monoracial settings. Children are capable of distinguishing different skin colors and perhaps other facial features, but race is not necessarily that prominent in their views of the social world. In one study, both Black and White preschool and early elementary school children classified people by sex most often, then by race, and then by age (McGraw, Durm, & Durnam, 1989). The salience of race in children’s perceptions of themselves and others may vary according to children’s social milieu, their majority or minority status, and the extent and kinds of contacts they have with other racial groups (Ramsey, 1983; Ramsey, 1991b; Ramsey & Myers, 1990; Rotheram & Phinney, 1987).


Children’s understanding of racial differences changes as they get older, as illustrated in their questions about race (Derman-Sparks, Higa, & Sparks, 1980). Preschoolers tend to ask very concrete questions about skin color differences, such as why they occur and whether they are permanent. Six- and seven-year-olds often speculate about more complicated situations, such as how to define the race of biracial children. They also ask more explicit questions about the inequities associated with racial differences, such as the negative and unequal treatment of some groups in the media. Children’s explanations of racial differences also reflect their changing knowledge of physical phenomena (A.Clark, Dembo, & Hocevar, 1980; Ramsey, 1986b). At first, children attribute the differences to the actions of the supernatural or a powerful other (“God made her that way”). Then, children explain differences with arbitrary causality (“I went to sleep and woke up Black”). At the third phase, children give inaccurate physical explanations (“He was born in Africa”). Finally, children are able to see that “some people are born that way” and that racial characteristics are inherited from their biological families. A number of studies have suggested that children probably do not understand that race is an irrevocable characteristic until after they have acquired gender permanence (usually between ages 4 and 6), the realization that the physical characteristics of gender are not going to change, despite haircuts and dress changes (Katz, 1976, 1982; Ramsey, 1987; see Ocampo, Bernal, & Knight, 1993, for a review). Gradations in skin color may make racial distinctions more confusing (as indeed they are) than the more clearly defined genital distinction between boys and girls. Young children often confuse skin color differences with color transformations that they either observe or experience, such as sun tanning, painting, and dyeing, in which colors usually change from lighter to darker. However, after conducting a set of studies in which preschoolers accurately predicted the race of older children and adults based on their parentage and their characteristics as babies and young children, Hirschfield (1995) concluded that preschoolers do understand that race is an inherited and unchangeable characteristic. Moreover, according to Hirschfield, they have a relatively sophisticated view of race that does not rest simply on physical characteristics, but also includes the elaborated views of race found in the popular culture. These findings clearly diverge from earlier ones and raise some provocative questions about the nature of children’s racial cognitions that will continue to be explored in future studies. In the 1990s some researchers (e.g., Bigler & Liben, 1993; Hirschfield, 1994, 1995; Ramsey & Myers, 1990, Ramsey, 1991a) turned their attention to the processes underlying children’s racial cognitions. The two Ramsey studies demonstrated that the salience of race varies across situations (e.g., whether a child is sorting pictures of other children or identifying who he or she is) and that these patterns vary across communities with different racial compositions. Bigler and Liben have focused on individual differences and found that children with more rigid classification systems in general had stronger stereotyped images of African Americans and Whites and remembered stereotyped descriptions and stories


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accurately, but forgot or distorted counterstereotyped ones. This finding has some potential for reducing stereotyping. In a later study children who learned to make multiple and flexible categorizations of both social and nonsocial items improved their recall for counterstereotyped information (Bigler, Jones, & Lobliner, 1997). Affective Dimensions Evaluative concepts are incorporated into a child’s rudimentary awareness of race, but how they change over time is the source of some debate. Based on earlier studies, researchers concluded that attitudes become more consolidated and elaborated with age (Goodman, 1952; Katz, 1976; Milner, 1983; Porter, 1971). In their review, Brand et al. (1974) concluded that affective reactions, either positive or negative, are formed at an early age and become stronger, but do not change much as children mature. However, more recent reviews and studies (Aboud, 1987; 1988; Doyle & Aboud, 1993) suggest that racial prejudice decreases with age, as children develop their abilities to see other perspectives and to differentiate among individuals in different groups. In a similar vein, García Coll and Garcia (1995) argue that increased ability to empathize with others mitigates prejudice. Still other researchers (e.g., Black-Gutman & Hickson, 1996; Hirschfield, 1994) conclude that racial prejudice increases with age. Identifying variables that contribute to the formation of ethnic-related attitudes has also been difficult and has revealed disparate trends. Some researchers have focused on personality traits (e.g., Allport, 1954) and others on situational factors, such as heterogeneity and degree of upward mobility (Rotheram & Phinney, 1987) and attitudes in the local community. Interestingly, Aboud and Doyle (1996) did not find strong relationships between children’s racial attitudes and those of their parents and friends. They speculate that children participate in few conversations about race and therefore have little knowledge about how their parents and friends feel about race and simply assume that others feel the same way that they do. However, parents may indirectly influence children by their own social patterns (e.g., choosing to live in a racially diverse or isolated neighborhood, forming or avoiding interracial friendships), which express their unconscious racial views. Children also absorb attitudes from printed and electronic media that often reflect prevailing stereotypes (Cortes, 2000; Milner, 1983). Attending monoracial schools is related to higher levels of cross-race distrust (Rotenberg & Cerda, 1994) and aversion (Holmes, 1997), whereas attending multiracial schools may help children develop more cross-race trust and acceptance (Rotenberg & Cerda, 1994). Affective responses to racial differences have been typically measured with forced-choice tasks, in which children are asked to select the doll, puppet, drawing, or photograph that matches certain positive or negative descriptions. (e.g., “Show me the smart/stupid boy”) (e.g., Clark & Clark, 1947; Rohrer, 1977). One of the most commonly used methods is the Preschool Racial Attitudes Measure (PRAM II) that was developed by Williams, Best, Boswell, Matson, and Graves in 1975. It consists of 24 color drawings depicting pairs of African


American and White men, women, boys, and girls. Children are presented with 24 short vignettes, 12 depicting positive characteristics and 12 depicting negative ones. For each story the subject is shown one of the pictures and has to indicate whether the story is about the African American or White person in the picture. Children’s affective reactions have also been measured with tests in which children express their preferences for objects colored black and white (e.g., Williams & Morland, 1976) or select potential “friends” from a multiracial group of photographs, dolls, or puppets (e.g., Porter, 1971; Ramsey, 1991 a). These methods have provided a lot of valuable information and are relatively easy to administer. However, they have been criticized (Aboud & Skerry, 1984; Sigelman & Singleton, 1986; Troyna & Hatcher, 1992) for possibly exaggerating the level of racial bias and relying on adult-generated distinctions that may or may not be relevant to children’s own social categories and preferences. The pervasiveness of pro-White bias in our society influences children’s intraracial attitudes, as well as intergroup ones. In one study (Averhart & Bigler, 1997) African American children showed a positive bias toward photographs of African Americans with lighter skin tones over those with darker skin tones when choosing potential teachers, neighbors, and playmates. They also remembered stories that depicted darker-skin African Americans in a negative light and lighterskin ones in a positive light better than they recalled stories that illustrated the reverse (counterstereotyped) images. The examiner rated each subject’s skin color and then asked the subject how he or she would rate his or her own skin color. Several subjects rated their own skin color as lighter than the tones selected by the examiner and almost no one rated his or her own skin darker than the examiner did. In other words, the children showed a positive bias toward lighter skin in their self-perceptions, as well as in their preferences for and stereotypes of others. Children’s actual friendship choices in multiracial classrooms have also been analyzed for patterns of racially related preferences on sociometric assessments. When asked who their favorite classmates are, children most often choose samegender peers, and there is little evidence of same-race preference during the preschool years (Jarrett & Quey, 1983) and early elementary grades (Singleton & Asher, 1977). However, a trend toward increasing racial cleavage does show up during the elementary and high school years (Asher, Singleton, & Taylor, 1982; Schofield, 1989). Across all ages, White children tend to have stronger same-race preferences than their African American classmates do (Fox & Jordan, 1973; Newman, Liss, & Sherman, 1983; Ramsey & Myers, 1990; Rosenfield & Stephen, 1981; Stabler, Zeig, & Johnson, 1982). Conversely, Black children’s patterns reflect more crossrace acceptance (Graham & Cohen, 1997; Hallinan & Teixeira, 1987; Ramsey & Myers, 1990). White children’s own-race preferences are reinforced by social attitudes, making Whites more at-risk for developing own-race bias in their friendships. Racial proportions in classrooms also are related to cross-race acceptance (Kistner, Metzler, Gatlin, & Risi, 1993). In one elementary school where the numbers of Black and White children were fairly equal, children of both racial


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groups expressed overall positive views of their cross-race classmates (although they tended to reject their cross-sex ones). In the other schools with unequal proportions, the children (especially the girls) who were minorities in classrooms (regardless of their minority/majority status in the society as a whole) were more likely to be rejected. Behavioral Dimensions There have been relatively few studies of children’s actual cross-racial behavior, and the findings about younger children are mixed. Porter (1971), Singleton and Asher (1977), and Urberg and Kaplan (1989) observed few signs of cross-race avoidance or antagonism in children’s play partners. However, in other studies (Finkelstein & Haskins, 1983; Fishbein & Imai, 1993; Ramsey & Myers, 1990), preschool and kindergarten children, especially White children, played more with their own-race peers. During the elementary years, racial cleavage often increases as children absorb more of the prevailing social attitudes, and the awareness of “us” versus “them” becomes more established (Katz, 1976). For example, one study of friendship clusters showed that in third- and fourth grade classrooms where the ratio of African Americans to European Americans was 1:2, African American boys consistently ended up in a multiracial cluster of boys who were frequently in trouble, and the African American girls were either peripheral members of a cluster or were virtually socially invisible in the classroom (Farmer & Farmer, 1996). This trend continues, and accounts of interracial contacts in middle schools and high schools show how vehemently and explicitly many (not all) youth avoid and discourage others’ cross-race contacts (Patchen, 1982; Schofield, 1989; Ulichny, 1994). However, this trend toward racial cleavage is not inevitable. Howes and Wu (1990) found that in a very diverse setting, the third-graders had more crossethnic contacts than the kindergartners did. With sustained cross-group contact, some children become friends with individuals in another group, although they may still have negative attitudes toward the group as a whole (Schofield, 1989). A series of studies on racially integrated cooperative learning teams suggest that children who participate in these groups have significantly more cross-ethnic friendships (Slavin, 1995), as long as the cooperative activities are structured to ensure that all members contribute in positive ways and that their roles do not simply re-create the patterns of domination that occur in the larger society (HertzLazarowitz & Miller, 1992). Children’s attitudes and behaviors toward racially different peers are complex and sometimes contradictory, as illustrated in two ethnographic studies done in Great Britain. In a study of 8 to 10-year-old children in predominately White schools in Britain, Troyna and Hatcher (1992) found that two contradictory forces drove cross-racial relationships in peer groups: on one hand a striving for racial equality and a commitment to antiracism: and on the other racist ideologies and blatant name-calling. White children clearly knew that racial names were


hurtful and often used them in the flow of name-calling and competition for dominance that prevailed in their schoolyards. At the same time, some of these same children had close cross-race friendships and verbally argued for racial equality. Wright (1992) describes in detail the racial harassment that occurred in four primary schools (children from 3 to 8 years old). In her analysis, she concluded that the White children were bent on distinguishing themselves from other groups and creating a status hierarchy, in which the Asian children (mostly Pakistanis) were at the bottom. The classroom observations illustrated how teachers often reinforced the marginalization of children of color with their stereotyped assumptions and differential treatment of them. In several discouraging episodes, teachers’ attempts to include more multicultural material backfired and led to more, rather than less, ridicule of the children of color. In summary, despite contradictions and gaps in the research on children’s racial awareness and attitudes, a few themes have emerged over many studies. Children are not color blind; at an early age they notice race and absorb and begin to express racially defined images and assumptions that are present in their social environment. Initially, children may be wary about people who look different from themselves, and this fear is often fueled by racial isolation and exposure to negative stereotypes. Young children’s behaviors toward classmates do not necessarily reflect these feelings, and children’s developing abilities to take others’ perspectives may mitigate them. However, as children approach adolescence, they begin to form more own-ethnic ties and identities and often use stereotypes and exclusion of other groups to consolidate their in-group loyalties. Across all ages, White children are most at-risk for developing cross-race biases and aversions. As mentioned before, these patterns are not universal, but can provide a backdrop for identifying individual responses and how they reflect the interaction between children and their environment. More research, similar to the two ethnographic studies described earlier, is needed to understand how these processes actually unfold. Children’s Responses to Cultural Differences Very few researchers have examined children’s understanding of culture. One reason for the lack of research in this area is the difficulty in designing appropriate measures because culture is not as concretely visible as race. Furthermore, most young children do not grasp the relationships among nations, national origin, and cultural traditions and behaviors. Piaget and Weil (1951) found that children under 6 could not conceptualize the hierarchical relationships among town, state, and country. Lambert and Klineberg (1967) noted that 6-year-olds had only a vague notion of what a nation was. At the same time, when confronted with practical manifestations of cultural diversity—in particular, language differences— children respond appropriately. For example, bilingual preschoolers switch between languages, depending on the language being used by their current playmates and the particular fantasy roles they are enacting (Orellana, 1994). In multilingual settings, children often gravitate toward same-language peers as


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friends (Doyle, 1982). Preschoolers notice language differences and often associate unfamiliar languages with racially different people and unfamiliar clothing and dwellings (Hirschfield & Gelman, 1997). However, they usually do not have a coherent understanding of the sources and connections among these differences. Some children assume that language is an inherent and unchangeable property like race (Hirschfield & Gelman, 1997), yet assert that a person’s culture changes when that individual puts on and takes off culturally specific clothing (Aboud, 1987). Although young children have not developed a concept of culture, their social expectations and behaviors are influenced by it from the time they are born (Longstreet, 1978), as illustrated in cross-cultural differences in children’s communicative strategies (Corsaro, 1994; Farver & Shin, 1997), emotional development, and play behaviors described earlier. In elementary school, children who are exposed to different cultural groups begin to form expectations about the behaviors of other ethnic groups (Quintana, 1998; Rotheram & Phinney, 1987). When they are 8 or 9, they begin to understand that familiar explicit cultural expressions (e.g., foods, dress, holidays) may be unique to their own family and community and are not necessarily universal (Carter & Patterson, 1982). A Developmental Model of Ethnic Perspective Taking Quintana (1998) has developed a model of the levels in ethnic perspective-taking ability that synthesizes a number of cognitive and affective trends found in the research on children’s responses to race and culture. His model describes children at four levels and is based on Selman’s (1980) theory of social perspective taking. At Level 0 (ages 3–6), children make affective distinctions between races, based on the prevailing pro-White, anti-Black bias in society. These evaluations do not appear to be related to parents’ explicit attitudes (as described earlier) and seem to be immune to parents’ direct ethnic socialization when it contradicts the prevailing social attitudes. During this period, children become aware of racial differences and develop a naive biological understanding about racial attributes (Hirschfield, 1995), but tend to describe them in idiosyncratic ways, suggesting that they do not have reliable racial categories. They are beginning to integrate their perceptual and affective understandings and are likely to exaggerate intergroup differences and to minimize intragroup ones. Because of their level of cognitive development, young children often exaggerate the intergroup differences and minimize the intragroup ones (Aboud, 1988; Katz, 1976; Tajfel, 1981) and have a hard time seeing that people can be simultaneously the same and different. As a result, young children often make prejudiced statements that echo prevailing stereotypes, but do not necessarily reflect their feelings for children whom they actually know from other groups. At Level 1 (ages 6–10 years), children develop a literal understanding of ethnicity. They shift from relying on visible racial cues and begin to understand the more cultural aspects of ethnicity such as language, food, and ancestry. At this age, they have a fairly concrete view of ethnicity (e.g., “I am Mexican American


because I eat American food and Mexican food” [Quintana, p. 35]). Racial and ethnic bias declines during this period, as children become more aware of others’ perspectives and can see cross-group similarities and within-group differences as found by Doyle and Aboud (1993). Children at Level 2 (ages 10–14) are becoming aware of the subtle and social aspects associated with race and ethnicity, such as segregation, discrimination, and differences in wealth. They also realize that ethnicity has social consequences and report that ethnicity plays a role in determining friendships, especially at the acquaintanceship phase. As children more fully understand the social consequences of ethnic differences, they feel more mistrustful of peers and adults from other ethnic groups. Finally, adolescents at Level 3 develop an active ethnic-group consciousness that shapes their group loyalty and motivates them to learn more about their own ethnic group(s) and to express their ethnic identity. At this point, children are aware of prejudices against their own group and often emphasize intergroup differences and express stereotypes about other groups. Quintana points out that to be effective, interventions with children must respond to the children’s current developmental capacities and social priorities. Racial and Ethnic Identity As they are growing up, children synthesize the divergent pressures and contradictory messages about their group(s) and their relationships with the dominant social forces and develop a racial and ethnic identity that optimally embodies a fully developed sense of belonging to a particular group (Spencer & MarkstromAdams, 1990). For White children, the process of developing positive feelings about their group is often effortless and unconscious because being White is usually portrayed as “the norm” in the United States. However, fewer acquire a critical awareness of the dominant roles of Whites. In contrast, children of color have a more painful and complicated developmental path to positive ethnic and racial identities. They often have to synthesize negative stereotypes with their positive feelings about their particular group(s) and overcome the pull to identify with the dominant group. At the same time, they, unlike their White counterparts, more readily develop a sophisticated and critical understanding of the inequities and power dynamics of the social order. The research in this area is extensive and falls into three main categories. First, developmental psychologists, often using a Piagetian frame of reference, have studied how children (ages 2–10) become aware of race and ethnicity and begin to identify themselves as members of their particular group. Second, other researchers, expanding on Erikson’s theory of identity formation (1963), have articulated stages of ethnic identity formation that occur during adolescence. Finally, social psychologists and sociologists have studied ethnic identity in adult populations and how it is affected by contact with other groups (see Phinney, 1990, for a review). Taken together, these models provide the following overview


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of the development of racial and ethnic identities. However, it is important to keep in mind that researchers of racial identity have focused on many different groups with different histories and often have used different methods, which makes it difficult to draw firm comparisons and conclusions (Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990). According to Aboud (1987), who has based her work on Piagetian theory, children’s ethnic identity follows a sequence that is parallel to the development of gender identity. Children first develop an awareness of race and ethnicity, then begin to identify themselves as belonging to a particular group, and finally achieve racial and ethnic constancy. In a review of the research on the development of gender, racial, and ethnic identities, Ocampo, Bernal, and Knight (1993) concluded that children develop ethnic awareness (ages 5–10) and selfidentification (ages 7–10) well after they have gone through these stages with gender (ages 2–3; 4–5) and race (ages 4–5; 3–7). Both ethnic and racial constancy (ages 8–11) are achieved quite a bit later than gender constancy (ages 5–10). Hirschfield’s (1995) more recent findings (described earlier in this chapter) that preschoolers recognize that race is immutable have raised some questions about the late development of racial constancy. However, his studies have focused on children’s abstract understanding of race as it applies to others and not on children’s understanding of their own identity. Thus, the implications of his findings for racial identity development are not clear at this point. Phinney and her colleagues (Phinney, 1989, 1993; Phinney & Alpuria, 1990), who have based their research on Erikson’s theory of identity formation (1963), found that adolescents go through three stages: unexamined ethnic identity, ethnic identity search, and achieved ethnic identity. Although the timing varies considerably and is influenced by many factors, Phinney (1993) concludes that high school is often a time when adolescents shift from Stage 1 to Stage 2. Many college students and other young adults are in the process of gaining a more solid ethnic identity (Stage 3). A number of studies and theories on adult racial identity development have come from a sociological and social-psychological perspective. The most well known of these theories is that of William Cross (1985, 1987, 1991), who identified five stages in achieving Nigrescence, the point at which African Americans have a clear and positive identity and a commitment to work to improve conditions for all Blacks. Although this theory is based on research on Black adults, similar stages have been identified in studies of other marginalized groups. The first stage is called preencounter, in which people accept the dominant group’s negative views of their own group and the dominance and “rightness” of the Whites. They may feel that they have been accepted by Whites and that they have been able in their own lives to transcend racism—to be the exceptions. Alternatively, they may deny that they are members of a marginalized group. Often at this stage people internalize the negative stereotypes and the blamingthevictim ideology of the dominant group, which can lead to a sense of hopelessness and victimization. At the next stage, called encounter, individuals may encounter


racist events or peers and teachers who have more critical views of society, which force them to see the racism that they have formerly denied and cast a harsh light of reality on former illusions of being accepted by Whites. With this disillusionment—often accompanied by anger and bitterness—people then enter the immersion/emersion stage, in which they immerse themselves in their own group, often rejecting all symbols of White dominance and avoiding contact with Whites. On college campuses students advocating ethnically separate dorms, meeting places, and dining halls reflect this stage of racial identity development. During this time, people often immerse themselves in the literature, music, art, politics, and history of their group, which contributes to the formation of a positive racial identity. As pro-Black, pro-Asian, or pro-Latino attitudes shift from being anti-White to being more expansive and less defensive, people enter the stage of internalization, in which they develop a healthy and stable racial and ethnic identity. At this point, they are able to maintain their close connections with their own racial community and develop equal and reciprocal relationships with Whites and other groups. These relationships have a different basis than those at the preencounter stage. No longer are people denying their race in order to be accepted by Whites, but they are engaging in a mutually determined relationship. The final stage, according to Cross’s paradigm, is internalizationcommitment. Now the strength of a person’s racial identity is translated into a commitment to challenge the status quo and to work to address the inequities of our society. The process is more complex than this linear stage theory suggests. Often, people who have achieved a positive racial identity find that some years later, they still have vestiges of their preencounter selves and may again go through an immersion/emersion stage as they lay these assumptions to rest. Some people may also get into the immersion stage and never get past the anger and disillusionment. Even people with very strong positive identities still have to perform a high-wire balancing act. They need to recognize the realities of racism and protect their identities from the daily insults and assaults of discrimination, yet they need to avoid the pull toward bitter isolation and oppositional identities in which all beliefs and actions are driven by being “anti-White” (Cross, 1995). Cross concludes that a positive racial identity has three functions: to provide a defense against racism, to form positive affiliations with the Black community, and to bridge ethnic differences in order to function in multiracial and multicultural environments and to take advantage of opportunities and resources in the larger society. Although it is hard to make systematic comparisons, due to methodological and sample differences, there is some evidence that the developmental course of racial and ethnic identity formation may vary across groups and across historical periods. As mentioned previously, in studies done several decades ago, African American children stated that they were White (Clark & Clark, 1947; Goodman, 1952), and these responses were interpreted as indications that Black children wished that they were White and therefore had low self-esteem. Cross (1985, 1987, 1991) argues that these studies measured reference group orientation, not personal self-


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esteem or identity, and suggests that the “misidentification” may be an attempt to resolve the contradiction between feeling personally valued, yet disparaged by the larger social world because of their group membership. Studies that have been done after the 1960s suggest that the positive images of Blacks, now more evident in schools and in the media, may be reducing this dissonance. More recent studies show that African American children usually express a Black reference group orientation (e.g., Cross, 1985; Farrell & Olson, 1982). Aboud and Doyle (1993) found that White Canadian preschoolers were more accurate than their Black peers in their racial self-identification, but in elementary school the Black Canadian children had stronger racial identities than their White classmates. Phinney and Tarver (1988) also found that among middle-class eighth-graders, African American girls were more likely to be committed to developing an ethnic identity and were more aware of prejudice than their White classmates were. Despite these positive trends, individuals in Ogbu’s caste-like minorities still experience many barriers to developing positive racial and ethnic identities (Garcia & Hurtado, 1995; Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990). They often have to contend with value conflicts between their own group and the dominant society, prevailing negative stereotypes of their group, and lack of guidance on how to deal with discrimination. They have to develop the cognitive and social flexibility to shift between two (or more) cultures and also to stand outside of them. Sometimes children resolve these conflicts by adopting the values of the dominant European American culture and denying their ethnic heritage, which results in identity confusion. Fordham (1988) has described in detail how some African American students, confronted by the challenge of maintaining their ties with their community and succeeding in school, go to great lengths to deny their race in order to achieve academically, hide their academic success from their peers, or do both. Researchers of racial and ethnic identity have traditionally focused on children, adolescents, and adults who are members of identified “minority” groups. However, more recently, educators and psychologists have recognized that European Americans are developing (often unconsciously) White racial identities that have far-reaching implications for their views of people of color and their commitments to a more just society (McIntosh, 1995; Sleeter, 1994; Tatum, 1992). Because White children and adults potentially can go through their whole lives without experiencing racial discrimination, many do not directly confront the fact that they are members of a racial group, let alone recognize that in the context of worldwide demographics, they are a racial minority. Often White people consider themselves the norm (e.g., “I’m just a normal/regular American”) and therefore assume that other ways of life and worldviews are deviant or exotic. Many educators (e.g., Sleeter, 1994; Tatum, 1992) advocate that Whites, especially White teachers, reflect on their own racial identity and the extent to which they are racially advantaged, benefiting from living in a racist society in which Whites enjoy many unearned privileges (Tatum, 1992). At this time no studies have been done that focus explicitly on White identity development in children. However, Janet Helms (1990) has described stages of


White identity development in adults. At Stage 1, which is called the contact stage, people do not understand racism as a system of advantage, but rather as individual and obvious acts, such as cross burnings, and are naive about their own role in maintaining this unequal system of privilege. Often they have very limited contact with people outside of their own group and believe the prevailing stereotypes. Many Whites never go beyond this stage. At some point, a White person may have an experience such as developing a close working relationship with a person of color or taking a course or reading a book that exposes that individual to new information that challenges the old comfortable assumptions and sets off the second stage of disintegration. People at this stage often feel uncomfortable and guilty and begin to become aware of the racism that prevails in the media and other institutions. They may begin to confront the racist attitudes of their friends and families. Often, the pervasiveness of racism (especially when people begin to identify its subtle manifestations) and the resistance of fellow Whites tempt people to reintegrate and return to their familiar assumptions, sometimes with a vengeance (“Yeah, I went through that bleeding heart liberal stage of thinking that the system was to blame, but now I know better. Some people just won’t help themselves and want to live off of my taxes!”). Given the prevalence of these messages in the media and in the White culture, it is easy for Whites to retreat from the harsher truths of racism. Unlike people of color, they have the option of ignoring it (McIntosh, 1995). One particularly strong pull toward this retreat is White bonding (Sleeter, 1994), typically conversations in which Whites often make snide remarks about people of color—sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly or “coded”—as a way of creating a sense of solidarity. Some individuals, however, may have other experiences that force them to continue their journey toward a more complete understanding of racism and may enter the pseudo-independent stage. They may begin to more deeply question assumptions about White superiority, but may still act in ways that perpetuate the system. Some White people at this stage try to deny their racism by attempting to affiliate with Blacks or other marginalized groups, who may understandably be suspicious of those persons’ motives and inconsistencies and avoid contact. At this point, learning about other Whites who have struggled with their own racism and have participated in antiracist movements can help Whites see that they can feel good about being White in the context of challenging the social and economic inequities of our society (Tatum, 1992; 1994; see also Aptheker, 1993; Stalvey, 1989; Virginia Durr’s biography in Colby and Damon, 1992). People engaged in this process are at the immersion/emersion stage of racial identity development. The final stage articulated by Helms is that of autonomy, when people have a clear and positive sense of themselves as White and actively participate in antiracist movements as a way of expressing their White identity. For many people, racial and ethnic identities are more complex than simply identifying with one group (Root, 1992). Increasingly, children have parents from two different ethnic or racial groups or both; some families have immigrated; others, through adoption or blended families, have a birth identity that does not


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match the community and family in which they are growing up. Also, many people feel caught between the traditions of their cultures, which provide a sense of community and continuity, and the demands and appeals of more contemporary ways of life and ideologies. In some communities biracial children and adults face the additional challenges of having to confront negative attitudes toward interracial marriages and, in many cases, mutual antagonism between their two identity groups. Maria Root’s book Racially Mixed People in America (1992) contains many examples of how people have experienced and negotiated these tensions and pressures. In one chapter, Kich (1992) outlines three stages of the identity development of biracial youth and adults that are somewhat parallel to the two theories just described. Unlike Cross’s and Helms’ theories, these stages are tied to developmental changes in children. However, adults may also pass through similar phases. The first stage involves becoming aware of differentness and dissonance and confronting questions about self-definition. In some cases, individuals find that their biracial backgrounds are devalued by both groups. The next stage, struggle for acceptance, often occurs during adolescence and is characterized by conflicts in loyalties—between families and friends, between communities, between different groups of friends, or any combination of these. During this time, people may feel that they need to choose one part of their identity and to reject the other one, but then feel diminished by “passing” as something they are not. Difficult as this stage is, it is also a time when people can learn how to understand multiple points of view and how to successfully negotiate between groups. Often they do a lot of self-exploration and learn about the lives of other interracial people in the United States and other parts of the world, similar to people in Cross’s immersion stage. Self-acceptance and assertion of an interracial identity is the third and final stage and often emerges in late adolescence and early adulthood. At this point, people have developed a stable self-acceptance of themselves as biracial, bicultural, or both; no longer feel threatened by questions about their background; and fully embrace and express their multiracial selves. As an example, Anzaldua (1987) uses her autobiography and stories of her family to illustrate the complexities and dilemmas of growing up on the geographic and psychological border between Texas and Mexico. All of these theories of racial identity development describe several parallel trends. People confront their illusions; deal with the anger, disillusionment, and disequilibrium that result; and then use information about their own group and the larger society to develop more secure and realistic identities and a commitment to change the conditions that made this development so hard in the first place. At some points in the process, people may need to work in their own racial/ethnic groups. This separation often gives rise to fears of permanent segregation, but it provides a safe space for people to explore and confront their ideas and feelings. The trajectory of racial identity development, which sounds linear and well defined in the models and theories described in this section, is in fact more like a spiral. Some people may recycle through the same stage(s) several times; not everyone passes through all of these stages in the prescribed order. Changing


contexts and new events and movements may make people revert back to earlier stages or more deeply examine their assumptions. For more detailed accounts of how people move through these phases, see Derman-Sparks and Phillips (1997) and Tatum (1992). Attaining a fully developed and positive ethnic and racial identity involves great personal struggle. However, these models offer hope—hope that everyone can at least try to transcend and challenge his or her racist attitudes and environments. Although we can never eliminate the effects of racism from our hearts and minds and lives, we can struggle to overcome their most deleterious effects. Children’s Understanding of Economics and Social Class Understanding social class differences involves learning about a number of different concepts, such as the role of money, the status of occupations, the availability of jobs, and inherited wealth. Most researchers have found that preschool and elementary children have only rudimentary knowledge of these processes (Harrah & Friedman, 1990), so most studies of children’s understanding of economics and social class have focused on children over the age of 8 (Furnham & Stacey, 1991). Dittmar and Van Duuren (1993) have developed a social constructionist framework that provides an explanation of children’s acquisition of knowledge about economics. Their model combines a cognitive developmental perspective with a functionalist approach, which posits that children simply absorb prevailing economic beliefs. They theorize that, as children develop their cognitive capacities, they are actively constructing their knowledge and attitudes about the economic world through observations of and interactions with their social environments, including the media, peers, schools, stores, and families’ work experience. Based on a cross-age and cross-social class study of children’s economic beliefs, Dittmar and Van Duuren conclude that “cognitive and linguistic abilities clearly affect the complexity of information and processes that children can comprehend and communicate, but the content of their economic beliefs and values is shaped by the dominant, socially shared meaning systems in their environment and culture” (p. 60). In the United States and other countries that have market-based economies, money is one concrete aspect of the economic system that children see, hear about, and begin to handle at a fairly early age. Between the ages of 3 and 5, children’s understanding of money goes through a series of stages (Berti & Bombi, 1981) that reflects both their developing cognitive capacities and their experiences. Initially, they only have a vague awareness that money is related with buying and often conclude that the change their families receive back from shopkeepers is their source of income. Then they learn that people must pay when they buy things, but they assume that all money is of equal value. In the third stage, children are aware that specific coins and bills have different names and numbers attached to them, but do not understand the value in relation to buying power. Finally,


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children learn that sometimes the available money is insufficient to purchase what they want. Following this early period, children’s understanding of money begins to reflect concrete operational thinking (Edwards, 1986; Furth, 1980). Elementary school children begin to apply their early understanding of mathematical relationships between goods and money and often assume that there has to be a rigid one-to-one correspondence between the number of coins and the number of articles. With more experience in selecting and purchasing items, children learn that bills and coins have particular values and that goods have specific prices, and they may begin to plan their purchases and save their money for specific items. Understanding how the economic system works is even more challenging than learning about the values of specific bills and coins. Many preschool children have little awareness of the mechanics of the economic system (Berti, Bombi, & Lis, 1982). Even at ages 6 and 7, children’s view of economics consists of visible monetary transactions (Furth, 1980; Jahoda, 1979). Harrah and Friedman (1990) asked children about money, salaries, prices, and taxes and found that 8-year-olds had only a fragmentary and rudimentary understanding of the economic system; 11-year-olds had more knowledge; but only the 14-year-olds had a grasp of the overall system of the economy and how all the pieces fit together. More detailed information about how children develop their understanding of the economy and the world of work can be found in Furnham and Stacey’s 1991 volume Young People’s Understanding of Society, especially in the chapters “Economics and Trade” and “Work and Employment.” It is important, however, to keep in mind that most of the studies have been done in industrialized and capitalistic countries. The course of children’s development related to understanding economics may vary across countries and according to the economic roles of their families. For example, children who are actively engaged in their families’ livelihood (e.g., helping with farming or selling) may develop a more sophisticated view of the economy much earlier than other children. Measuring children’s understanding of social class is complicated, especially for younger (preschool and early elementary school) children. Some indices of social class, such as education and occupational prestige, may not be visible and meaningful to them, but more concrete clues, such as differences in clothing, homes, and particularly possessions, are potentially salient to them. Studies conducted in the United States have revealed that many children are concerned about possessions and possession-related rules (Dawe, 1934; Ramsey, 1987). Furby (1979) asserts that children’s possessiveness initially arises out of a universal need to control their immediate worlds, but the developmental course of these desires and behaviors depends on the child’s interactions with the social systems in the environment. In some settings a child may be reprimanded for defending an object (e.g., “We share everything with each other”); in another one, that behavior may be supported (e.g., “She had it first”), so that children learn culturally specific ways of relating to possessions (Navon & Ramsey, 1989). Children being raised in consumer-oriented societies, who have many experiences with stores and the media that expose them to considerable


information about the availability and desirability of goods, may be particularly likely to develop heightened concerns about possessions. Leahy (1983), who conducted a major research project (720 subjects, ages 6 through adolescence, in the United States) on children’s views of social class, suggests that after the preschool period, children’s understanding of social class goes through three stages. Early elementary school children are likely to both describe and explain poverty and wealth in observable concrete terms, such as number of possessions and type of residence. When they are around 10 years of age, children begin to refer to people’s psychological traits, such as motivation (e.g., willingness to work), in their explanations for the unequal distribution of resources. Finally, adolescents are capable of seeing the role of the social and economic structure in the unequal distribution of wealth, although very few of them in the study offered these explanations. As children get older, they also make the connection between having a job and getting money and learn more about the status and financial benefits associated with specific occupations (Furnham & Stacey, 1991). Although children are not able to grasp the causes of wealth and poverty until adolescence, economic status is often internalized into children’s career aspirations at an early age (De Lone, 1979). As children learn about the sources of economic disparity, they appear to absorb the prevailing attitudes about the value of wealth. Even preschoolers assume that rich people are happier and more likable than poor people (Naimark, 1983; Ramsey 1991b). In one study, only a few young children tried to answer questions about whether or not it was fair that some people had more money than others, but those who did said that it was not fair (Ramsey, 1991b). Another group of young children suggested that the rich should share with poor people (Furby, 1979). Leahy (1983) and Furby (1979) found that elementary school children also advocate equality, but older children and adolescents are more likely to justify inequalities by claiming that poor people get what they deserve (Leahy, 1990). Taken together, these findings illustrate how children in our society are developing their understanding of the economic system in the context of one of the intransigent contradictions of our society: the ideal of democratic equality versus the emphasis on economic competitiveness and individualism that inevitably results in some people being disadvantaged. According to Furnham and Stacey (1991), many mechanisms are in place to ensure that children absorb the notion that unequal distribution of wealth is justifiable and even desirable. These include the need for economic resources in order to survive, which means that one is not likely to voluntarily give them up; the influence of money and property on the government and all other institutions; the conservative influence of the mass media; people’s fear of major change and loss of the familiar way of life; the lack of any vision of how things could be different; expectations of upward mobility; and the justification for inequalities that are attributed to individual or group pathologies. Furnham and Stacey point out that many people express discontent with economic inequalities, but very few actually support egalitarian reforms.


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The hyperconsumerism that has become a national preoccupation during the past few decades in the United States has made it even more difficult to raise children’s consciousness about the unequal distribution of wealth, especially for those children who are economically advantaged. We have little formal research about the effects of growing up in a consumerist society “that constantly tells its citizens that they should not be content with their current condition” (Burnett & Sisson, 1995). However, children are exposed to thousands of advertisements and hundreds of product-driven television shows and movies and inevitably are learning to judge products by newness (Driscoll, Mayer, & Belk, 1985) and whether or not a product is “in.” Psychologists have expressed concern that children are learning to relate to physical objects, especially toys, in terms of getting and having instead of using and enjoying them (Kline, 1993). Children are also learning to identify and judge themselves and others as consumers and owners, not as creators (Kline, 1993). Unlike earlier times, their power lies not with contributing to the welfare of the family or creating games and fantasies, but with getting the resources (usually, by pressuring their parents) to purchase new toys and clothes. This preoccupation with purchasing new toys, clothes, and media-related materials undermines efforts to help children critique economic inequities and develop ways to distribute resources more equitably. In terms of the relations between rich and poor, Leahy (1981), Naimark and Shaver (1982), and Ramsey (1991b) found that younger subjects assumed that rich and poor people were more dissimilar than similar. Because young children often have difficulty coordinating simultaneous similarities and differences, they are more likely to see the two groups as dichotomous, particularly after they have sorted them into distinct classes (Leahy, 1981). Naimark and Shaver (1982) found that despite their assumptions of dissimilarity, the youngest subjects assumed that the rich and poor could be friends, which suggests that they had not yet learned about the impact of economic differences on social relationships. Because a person’s status in the economic structure affects his or her access to resources and perspective on the system, subjects from different SES groups may vary in their responses to questions about social class. No cross-SES differences were noted in a study with preschoolers (Ramsey, 1991b), but they have been seen in older children’s criteria (Naimark, 1983) and explanations (Leahy, 1981) for social class distinctions. In a study of Scottish children, Emler and Dickinson (1985) found that middle-class subjects justified inequality of resources more than the working-class children did, which reflected their social classes’ interests. Dittmar and Van Duuren (1993) found that social class differences in children’s explanations of economic inequality diminished as children approached adulthood. Working-class adolescents appeared to absorb the dominant middleclass views that prevailed in the schools and aligned their beliefs accordingly. Virtually no studies have been done on the effects of social class on children’s intergroup contacts. A few older studies have identified social class differences in children’s social behaviors (e.g., Gottman, Gonso, & Rasmussen, 1975; Spivak & Shure, 1974) that might affect intergroup interactions, but whether or not SES is a point of division between children has not been directly observed. One pilot


study (Kang & Ramsey, 1993) of peer interactions in a racially and economically diverse third grade showed that children separated more by SES than by race. An analysis of children’s conversations revealed that children’s topics of conversation often reflected different levels of affluence (e.g., dancing lessons, skiing, events in a certain neighborhood) that may inhibit cross-SES contacts. In summary, based on the studies reviewed in this section, young children have a limited understanding of the economic system and social class differences, but even in preschool they are developing some categories and, more important, feelings about rich and poor people that may lay the groundwork for later attitudes. Living in a society where consumerism is so highly valued may make children in our society more vulnerable to evaluating themselves and others in terms of their wealth and possessions. One clear developmental trend is that children initially state that unequal distribution is unfair, but soon they come to accept it and to blame poor people for their poverty. This pattern has implications for multicultural education. We must find concrete and meaningful ways to help children recognize and resist the assumptions that support economic inequalities. Given the complexities of these issues and the difficulty of eliciting children’s ideas about them, we need many more studies that examine the processes by which children absorb economic assumptions and how those differ across contexts. Children’s Responses to Gender Differences A number of researchers (e.g., Bem, 1981, 1983; Martin & Halverson, 1981) have proposed that children develop gender schema, theories about the characteristics of males and females that influence how children interpret information. Gender schema often embody stereotypes and are self-perpetuating. Mapley and Kizer (1983) found that when children were presented with information that violated their expectations of gender roles, they were less likely to remember it than they were information that was congruent with their stereotypes (e.g., several children insisted on calling a male nurse “Dr. Brown”). However, children may vary in the degree to which their stereotypes influence their interpretations. As found in studies of children’s racial stereotypes, children who learn to use more flexible and multiple classifications express fewer gender stereotypes and can remember counterstereotypic gender information better than their peers who are more rigid and unidimensional classifiers (Bigler & Liben, 1992). Bigler (1997) has criticized earlier measures of sex typing and has been developing more refined procedures. She points out that many previous studies have failed to distinguish among the target of sex typing (self vs. others; adults vs. children), the form of sex typing (attitudes vs. knowledge), and the domain of sex typing (e.g., occupations vs. play activities) and to appropriately adapt measures for subjects of different ages. Bigler has developed a new measure—Children’s Occupation, Activity, and Trait (COAT)—that has separate scales for the different domains of sex typing. Furthermore, it has two forms: one to assess sextyped beliefs about others, referred to as Attitude Measure (COAT-AM); and one to assess sex-typed beliefs about oneself, a Personal Measure (COAT-PM). As this


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more refined and comprehensive measure is used in research studies, we will learn more precisely how children’s sex-typed cognitions and attitudes develop and interact. Similar to the pattern of racial stereotypes found by some researchers (e.g., Doyle & Aboud, 1993; García Coll & Garcia, 1995), children’s sex-typed stereotypes increase during the preschool years, peak in early elementary school, and then decline during the middle-elementary school years (Signorella, Bigler, & Liben, 1993). Bigler (1997) speculates that this decrease in stereotyping may be linked to cognitive development, in particular to the ability to make multiple classifications and to comprehend gender constancy. As with Doyle and Aboud’s (1993) findings about the development of racial attitudes, the decline in stereotyping may also reflect an increased ability to see others’ perspectives and to distinguish individual differences in the other group. In their interactions with peers, most children clearly prefer their same-sex peers. Studies of their hypothetical and actual playmate choices demonstrate this pattern over and over. Bigler (1995) reported that some elementary school boys whom she interviewed refused to name one girl whom they disliked because they hated all of the girls in their classrooms. Cross-gender avoidance begins before preschool and becomes more entrenched during the early childhood years (Ramsey, 1995). Gender segregation continues to increase during the elementary years and is reaffirmed by children’s engagement in “border work” between the two groups (Thorne, 1986). These interactions include contests (e.g., boys’ and girls’ spelling-bee teams), cross-sex chasing games that sometimes include a threat of kissing or pollution rituals (e.g., giving cooties to each other), and invasions in which one group (usually the boys) disrupts the play of the other. Maccoby (1986) suggests several reasons for this widespread and intractable pattern of gender cleavage. With early socialization, children learn to enjoy sextyped activities and are attracted to peers who share their preferences. As all teachers and families know, preschool girls tend to congregate in the art and housekeeping areas, and boys engage in more physically active play with blocks and trucks. In elementary school playgrounds, boys usually play vigorous physical contact games, whereas girls tend to have conversations and to play games that require more precise physical skills and social coordination, such as jump rope. Children may also be drawn to same-sex peers because they are more confident of what to expect in terms of play, conversational styles, and activity preferences. For example, boys and girls approach conflicts differently, as vividly illustrated in Sheldon’s (1990) observations of how disputes over a plastic pickle differed across a group of boys and a group of girls. As children spend more time in gendersegregated play, each group forms its own culture with clearly defined characteristics. Finally, based on a study in which same-sex toddler pairs interacted more readily than cross-sex pairs did, even when all gender cues were minimized, Maccoby (1986) proposes that there may be basic inherent same-sex compatibilities that do not depend on socialization. Regardless of its precise origin, gender cleavage quickly becomes selfperpetuating. Children engage in sex-typed play that brings them into more


contact with same-sex peers. They also quickly learn that peer acceptance depends on conforming to sex-typed roles. The rigid gender-typed roles that children learn also create difficulties for children who do not fit the norms. Children who prefer cross-gender roles and activities (e.g., girls who like science and sports and, especially, boys who enjoy dolls and cooking) are often rejected and ridiculed by both children and adults, especially as they enter elementary school (e.g., Damon, 1977; Sadker & Sadker, 1995). As they get older, children find it increasingly difficult to maintain cross-sex friendships because they get teased and accused of “liking” someone of the opposite sex or being a member of that group (Thorne, 1986). Because children readily divide themselves by gender, teachers often unintentionally support and reinforce this segregation by using gender as a way of organizing their classes into sides for contests, lines for going to lunch, and so forth (Thorne, 1986). In a comparative study, Bigler (1995) found that in elementary classrooms explicitly organized by gender (e.g., boys’ and girls’ teams and lines), children developed more gender-stereotyped views of occupations and more rigid assumptions about the homogeneity of males and females than did their peers in classrooms where gender differences were not emphasized. Interestingly, when a similar experiment was done using T-shirt colors (in some classrooms children were organized by colors and in others they were not), the same effect occurred. It may be that when a difference along any dimension—be it gender, race, or color of T-shirt—becomes functional, it begins to influence children’s grouping patterns and social decision making, with children developing a consistent bias favoring their own group over the other group (Bigler, Jones, & Lobliner, 1997). Many teachers and researchers have tried to break down the gender divide and to encourage boys and girls to be friends. In a number of studies, children initially responded to the rewards, praise, or new activities and played with more cross-sex peers, but after the intervention was over, they reverted back to their same-sex classmates (e.g., Maccoby, 1986; Serbin, Tonick, and Sternglanz, 1977; Swadener & Johnson, 1989). In some settings, however, boys and girls manage to interact in a reciprocal and productive fashion. Thorne (1986) noted that the boys and girls she observed worked together productively in situations in which mixed-sex groups were formed by the teachers and were engaged in absorbing tasks. Often neighborhood groups, extracurricular activities, and sports teams provide settings in which boys and girls can collaborate. Although children are unlikely to do a lot of spontaneous cross-sex socializing, they can learn to work together and to respect each other if provided with appropriate incentives and support. Children’s Understanding of Sexual Orientation To prepare for writing this section, we did several computer searches for studies about children’s understanding of sexual orientation and attitudes toward homosexuality and came up with almost nothing. Because so many people are vehemently opposed to any mention of homosexuality in schools, it is virtually


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impossible to explicitly interview children on this topic. Thus, we have very little information to help us to anticipate children’s questions and to counteract their homophobic attitudes. Despite this silence, families of preschoolers often express concern about their children’s future sexual orientation when they see them dressing in other-sex clothing, especially boys who dress in female attire (Casper et al., 1996). Moreover, young children often have questions about adult relationships and who can be members of a family. When children assign play roles, they often argue over who is the mommy or the daddy and frequently discuss whether or not there can be two (or more) mommies or daddies. Preschoolers still have a fairly flexible idea of family membership, but often quickly learn from families, teachers, older peers, and the media that families can only have one mommy and one daddy (which, of course, eliminates lots of families besides gay and lesbian couples). When teachers create a space for children to talk about different kinds of families, children as young as kindergartners often demonstrate a fairly sophisticated understanding of gay and lesbian relationships and other kinds of family constellations that differ from the stereotypic heterosexual nuclear family (Casper et al., 1996). This point is well illustrated in Chasnoff and Cohen’s (1996) educational videotape entitled It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School. The video records conversations between teachers and students from six elementary and middle schools across the country, in which concepts and attitudes about homosexuality are explored as part of schoolwide curricula on social justice. Although it is clear that many children come to class with stereotypes about homosexuality and gay/lesbian life, it is also impressive to see how children working with a reflective teacher can identify the issues of justice involved and recognize the human lives at risk from intolerance. Unfortunately, opportunities for children to talk about sexual orientation and related issues are rare because most teachers avoid or are actively discouraged from any discussions on the topic. In New York City, the multicultural curriculum called Children of the Rainbow was rejected, largely because it included a small segment on respecting families with gay and lesbian parents. Likewise, some of the most vitriolic attacks against the Anti-Bias Curriculum (Derman-Sparks, et al., 1989) focused on a few sentences in the curriculum that spoke to ways in which teachers could help children avoid developing anti-gay biases. Abilities and Disabilities Many teachers are frustrated that the children with disabilities who are placed in their classrooms do not become part of the social mainstream. These concerns are valid; as mentioned before, many studies show that children with disabilities are often isolated and rejected in their mainstream classroom. One contributing factor is the negative views that children without disabilities hold toward their peers with disabilities. Thus, we need to understand more fully how children develop their ideas and attitudes related to disabilities and abilities. A number of recent studies have greatly increased our knowledge about children’s awareness and


attitudes related to disabilities (see Diamond & Innes, 2001, for a review) and are reviewed in this section. Children’s level of awareness and understanding varies across type of disability (Conant & Budoff, 1983; Diamond, 1993; Diamond & Hestenes, 1996) and their experiences with people with disabilities. Children learn about orthopedic and sensory disabilities during their early childhood years (DeGrella & Green, 1984; Diamond & Hestenes, 1996). They often notice orthopedic disabilities earliest, because of the visibility of the equipment that is associated with them, such as crutches or wheelchairs; whereas they are least aware of mental retardation or psychological disturbances. Preschoolers also can be confused about the implications of sensory or language disabilities (Diamond & Hestenes, 1996). This variability in children’s understanding about different disabilities is not surprising because children often interpret disabilities on the basis of their own experience (Diamond & Innes, 2001). For example, they can compare blindness with not being able to see in a dark room or orthopedic impairments with having trouble walking across sand (Conant & Budoff, 1983), but they may not be conscious of how they use language or how their senses are related to each other. Moreover, most young children rarely think about how their cognition and emotions function and therefore have little context for understanding emotional or cognitive disabilities (Nabors & Keyes, 1995). Children often have misconceptions about the causes of disabilities. They often explain disabilities by the equipment that children use (Diamond & Innes, 2001) (e.g., “He can’t walk because he has a wheelchair”). Alternatively, they assume that disabilities are related to immaturity (e.g., “He hasn’t learned to walk yet”) or some kind of illness, injury, or other trauma (e.g., “She broke her leg and can’t use it.” “He had a really bad earache and now can’t hear.”) (Diamond, 1993; Diamond & Hestenes, 1996; Sigelman, 1991). Children’s attitudes toward people with disabilities shift during their preschool and elementary school years. Preschoolers often state that they could be friends with peers with disabilities (Diamond & Hestenes, 1996). However, from ages 3 to 6 children become more biased against persons with disabilities (De Grella & Green, 1984). From second to fourth grade this trend continues (Goodman, 1989), as children become more aware of specific peers and form more stable and exclusive friendships. Children entering elementary school are often concerned about how their skills compare with others’. As they begin to notice that certain classmates cannot do some of the physical or academic activities that form the context of peer interactions, they may seek them out less often. As interactions between children with and without disabilities decline, they have less common ground on which to build friendships, so that the children with disabilities become increasingly isolated. Children with emotional and cognitive disabilities may be the most at risk for social exclusion. Some emotional disabilities cause children to act unpredictably, which may cause their peers to distrust and avoid them. For example, children with impulse control problems often are seen as “bad” by their peers, who interpret the actions as misbehavior. Children also cannot understand the parameters of cognitive and language


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disabilities and tend to make more generalized negative assumptions about peers with mental retardation than about peers with a physical disability (Diamond, 1994). Children are more accepting toward their peers who have disabilities that are no fault of their own (e.g., specific physical disabilities) than they are toward peers perceived as having more responsibility for their disability (e.g., obesity, poor impulse control) (Diamond & Innes, 2001). As they get older, children are more likely to reject peers who are labeled and are treated in ways that make them stand out (Milich, McAnnich, & Harris, 1992). Thus, teachers and specialists need to avoid using labels and to administer medications and services in unobtrusive ways. From the fourth to sixth grade, children become more positive toward people with disabilities (Condon, York, Heal, & Fortschneider, 1986; Miller, 1984). Possibly during this period, when children develop more awareness of others’ perspectives and experiences, they rethink their stereotypes about disabilities and can distinguish individuals from group stereotypes, as found in children’s later racial attitude development. During this later period, girls tend to be more accepting of peers with disabilities than boys are, which may reflect the fact that girls are more comfortable in nurturing roles, whereas boys tend to judge each other on physical prowess (Hazzard, 1983). These same gender differences also emerged in a study of children’s reflections on their experiences of being “special friends” with peers with disabilities, in which the girls had more positive recollections of helping and caring for their friends than the boys did (Kishi & Meyer, 1994). This pattern suggests that acceptance of people with disabilities often may rest not on respect for people with disabilities, but on a patronizing view of them as “different, helpless, and distressed individuals who deserve pity” (Hazzard, 1983, p. 137). In their longitudinal case studies, Grenot-Scheyer, Staub, Peck, and Schwartz (1998) found that during the elementary school years, some relationships between peers with and without disabilities shifted from reciprocal friendships to lopsided caretaking relationships. Often, friends of children with disabilities were pushed into this role by teachers and peers who relied on them to communicate with and accompany the child with disabilities. Despite these drawbacks, the movement to integrate children with disabilities into regular classrooms clearly has advantages. Many studies show that children with disabilities thrive both socially and academically in inclusive settings (see Diamond & Innes, 2001). Moreover, typical children also benefit; they become more sensitive to other people and more accepting of differences (Diamond, Hestenes, Carpenter, & Innes, 1997; Favazza & Odom, 1997). In some cases they also develop more confidence and a greater sense of efficacy by being able to assist peers with disabilities. The downside of these benefits, however, is the tendency for children without disabilities to treat their peers with disabilities as more helpless than they are and to “do things for [them] rather than with [them]” (Salisbury & Palombar, 1998). Teachers need to help children understand the nature and parameters of specific disabilities and help children distinguish respectful and appropriate support from intrusive or demeaning services. Furthermore, teachers need to find ways to draw everyone’s attention to the


strengths of children with disabilities (e.g., a blind child might teach her peers how to identify objects by their sense of touch). Finally, in our enthusiasm for inclusion we need to be sure that we are not forcing a one-way assimilation, as has been done to many ethnic groups. Programs for children with disabilities should not be focused solely on their becoming assimilated into their nondisabled peers’ world. They should also include opportunities for children to form relationships with peers with disabilities and to enjoy being members of those groups as well. SUMMARY Children are profoundly influenced by their social and physical environments. Teachers must be aware of the social, cultural, and economic contexts of children’s lives in order to develop appropriate teaching practices and curricula for specific children, as well as to forge productive partnerships with families. Children also learn about racial, cultural, gender, socioeconomic, and ability differences from a myriad of interactions, experiences, and sources throughout their childhood. They do not fully understand the causes and implications of these variations until they reach adolescence or adulthood. However, throughout their childhood, they absorb prevailing views and draw conclusions that affect their perceptions and feelings about themselves and other individuals and groups. The developmental trends described in this review are not universal, but they can provide a starting point for teachers to explore how their particular children’s cognition, attitudes, and behavior are developing and how specific contexts and experiences shape them. These insights can, in turn, help educators design and implement curricula and strategies to address these issues in a meaningful way with their children. REFERENCES Aboud, F. (1987). The development of ethnic self-identification and attitudes. In J.S.Phinney & M.J.Rotherman (Eds.), Children’s ethnic socialization (pp. 32–55). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Aboud, F. (1988). Children and prejudice. New York, NY: Basil Blackwell. Aboud, F.E., & Doyle, A. (1993). The early development of ethnic identity and attitudes. In M.E.Bernal & G.P.Knight (Eds.), Ethnic identity: Formation and transmission among Hispanics and other minorities (pp. 47–60). Albany: State University of New York Press. Aboud, F.E., & Doyle, A. (1996). Parental and peer influences on children’s racial attitudes. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 20(3/4), 371–383. Aboud, F.E., & Skerry, S.A. (1984). The development of ethnic attitudes: A critical review. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 15, 3–34. Alejandro-Wright, M.N. (1985). The child’s conception of racial classification: A sociocognitive development model. In M.B.Spencer, G.K.Brookins, & W.R.Allen (Eds.), Beginnings: The social and affective development of Black children (pp. 185–200). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.


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CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Aboud, F.E. (1988). Children and prejudice. New York, NY: Basil Blackwell.

This volume includes a comprehensive review of several decades of research on the nature of prejudice in children, how it develops, and factors that influence the course of that development. The author critiques many studies for using measures that are not reliable or valid and using cross-sectional, rather than longitudinal, designs, making it difficult to separate age and cohort effects. She points out that


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the field in general lacks coherent theoretical constructs. In the last chapter the author describes her social-cognitive developmental theory of prejudice, based on a Piagetian framework, and illustrates how it can explain many of the confusing findings in previous research. According to this theory, children’s prejudice may increase up until they are about 7 years old. Then, in conjunction with new and emerging cognitive abilities, they are able to see others’ perspectives and to distinguish individuals from groups, and they become less prejudiced. How this development unfolds depends on the social values that children learn. The book concludes with implications of this theory for work with children in classrooms to reduce prejudice. Anzaldua, G. (1987). Borderlands/La frontera: The new Mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute.

Throughout this book, the author criss-crosses many borders—geographic, temporal, national, ethnic, spiritual, linguistic, and literary—and illustrates the complexity of growing up in the borderlands between Texas and Mexico. The author weaves together her autobiography and the history of the Aztec migrations from North America to Mexico and now back to North America, and the spiritual commingling of Aztec and Christian faiths. The themes of oppression and exploitation are compellingly and devastatingly expressed in poems and stories of contemporary farm workers and legendary figures. The author also brings a contemporary feminist critique to the patriarchal traditions of her home culture. She eloquently articulates the need to tolerate ambiguity and contradictions and expresses confidence that out of these struggles will come a new consciousness. The writing itself illustrates this inclusiveness and flexibility by continuously shifting between Spanish and English and between prose and poetry. Although the book focuses on the experience of a Mexican American woman, the complexities and contradictions that it explores are relevant to anyone who is “caught in the spaces between the different worlds she inhabits” (p. 20). Bernal, M.E., & Knight, G.P. (Eds.) (1993). Ethnic identity: Formation and transmission among Hispanics and other minorities. Albany: State University of New York Press.

This edited volume addresses a number of issues related to the ethnic identities of minorities, especially of Mexican Americans. In the first section, several authors describe different stages and processes of identity development. The second section focuses on how ethnic identity is transmitted across generations and how different family experiences and orientations affect this process. In the third section, the authors offer two integrative approaches to the formation and transmission of ethnic identity. The final chapter is dedicated to looking at the societal implications of ethnic identities. Bigler, R.S. (1997). Conceptual and methodological issues in the measurement of children’s sex typing. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 53–69.

The article critiques the conceptual assumptions and methodological confusion that has typified a great deal of the research on children’s sex-typing. In particular, theorists and empiricists have failed to distinguish among the target (e.g., self vs.


other), the form (e.g., knowledge vs. attitudes), and the domain of sex-typing (e.g., occupations vs. activities). The author introduces a new measure, COAT-AM (Children’s Occupation, Activity, and Trait Attitude Measure), which was designed to provide a firmer conceptual base for research and more precise measures of children’s sex-typing. Bigler, R.S., Jones, L. C, & Lobliner, D.B. (1997). Social categorization and the formation of intergroup attitudes in children. Child Development, 68(3), 530–543.

This study provides compelling evidence that when social categories are functional and are used by adults to make distinctions among children (e.g., used to organize children into groups), they can affect intergroup attitudes. In this case, the social categories were T-shirt colors that had no intrinsic meaning to the children. However, the children in rooms where the teachers grouped and distinguished them according to T-shirt color showed more samegroup preferences and cross-group avoidance than children in classrooms where the Tshirt colors were not mentioned by the teachers (although all the children in the study were required to wear either blue or yellow T-shirts). The fact that this arbitrary and temporary division affected social preferences demonstrates the strong influence that adult attitudes and school divisions (e.g., tracking) potentially have on children’s intergroup attitudes and friendship patterns. Bigler, R.S., & Liben, L.S. (1993). A cognitive-developmental approach to racial stereotyping and reconstructive memory in Euro-American children. Child Development, 64, 1507–1518.

This study focused on the cognitive dimension of stereotyping. Euro-American children heard several stories, some that supported common racial stereotypes and others that were counterstereotyped, and then were asked to recall the details of the stories. Their responses differed by how much of each type of story (stereotyped or counterstereotyped) they recalled. They also did a task in which they classified nonsocial objects in as many different categories as they could. The results showed that that among this group of children, those who had better multiple classification skills (i.e., ability to classify the same object in many categories) were more likely to recall counterstereotyped information about different racial groups than their peers were. In a second part of the study, the children were trained in multiple classification skills using nonsocial objects, and the children’s ability to retain counterstereotypic information improved. This study suggests that teaching multiple classification skills may be one way to make children more resistant to stereotypic assumptions and information. Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life. New York, NY: Basic Books.

In this classic text, the authors demonstrate that the U.S. educational system is a means of supporting the current economic system, rather than a source of social change. They support their thesis by showing how educational reform historically has been driven by the economic needs of businesses (e.g., the need to train factory workers as the Industrial Revolution began), rather than by the ideal of


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providing each child with equal educational and occupational opportunities. They point out that schools have never reduced inequality, but have simply reproduced it. Their analysis lends support to the social reconstructionist perspective by showing that true educational reform cannot occur outside of the context of profound social and economic changes. Bowman, B.T., & Stott, F.M. (1994). Understanding development in a cultural context. In B.L.Mallory & R.S.New (Eds.), Diversity and developmentally appropriate practices: Challenges for early childhood education (pp. 119–133). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

The authors address the question of what aspects of development are universal and which ones are defined by cultural context. They assert that all children, regardless of background, develop mutually satisfying social relationships, ways of integrating their perceptions and categorizing new information, and the abilities to speak and perhaps to write a particular language and to think, imagine, and create. Individual physical differences, such as sensitivity to pain, distractibility, timing of onset of puberty, and body build, also play a formative role in children’s development. However, the authors point out that all developmental phases and individual traits become meaningful only in the context of the child’s social life and cultural context. Carrasquillo, A.L. (1991). Hispanic children and youth in the United States. New York, NY: Garland.

This resource book is a compilation of statistics and summaries of studies about many aspects of the lives of Hispanic children and their families, including family structures, housing, education, health, juvenile delinquency, and youth employment. One limitation is that throughout most of the book Hispanics are described as a single group, although the author does include a chapter delineating the histories and demographics of different Hispanic groups. This global treatment of all Hispanics and a tendency to make sweeping causal statements undermines the usefulness of the book in some places. The author uses compelling statistics to show the relation between the devastation of poverty and urban living and the dismal educational and employment prospects for many Hispanic children. This book helps to bring these problems into sharper focus, but tends to portray Hispanic families as victims. Except for a list of advocacy groups at the end, the author overlooks the many social, political, and economic movements that have resisted the structures that have given rise to these conditions. Chan, K.S., & Hune, S. (1995). Racialization and panethnicity: From Asians in America to Asian Americans. In W.D.Hawley & A.W.Jackson (Eds.), Toward a common destiny: Improving race and ethnic relations in America (pp. 205–233). San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass.

The authors of this chapter describe the history of different Asian groups and the emergence of the panethnic construct of “Asian American.” They point out that the coalition of many Asian groups has given the Asian American community more political and economic clout than it might have had if the groups had


remained separate. However, tensions between individual groups and panethnicity remain and, as the numbers within each group grow, this collaboration may be challenged. The authors argue that racial relations in the United States are no longer bipolar Black/White, but are multiracial, and that the social order is being contested among racial minorities, as well as between racial minorities and the White majority. Child Development. (1990). Special Issue on Minority Children, 61(5).

This issue of Child Development, edited by McLoyd and Spencer, contains 4 review articles on developmental outcomes of ethnic minority children and 19 research reports on studies that have as their subjects children from specific ethnic groups. The latter include studies on children’s academic achievement, school competence, peer interactions, social expectations, gender roles, high-risk behaviors, and family dynamics. This issue of Child Development was a landmark because it represented a shift toward looking at children typically underrepresented in the research literature within their own contexts, not simply comparing them with their White counterparts. This volume also provided a forum for assessing the current state of research on minority children, identifying the gaps, and setting future goals for both research and funding. Child Development. (1994). Special Issue: Children and Poverty, 65(2).

This special issue of Child Development contains 29 articles that report on research about the effects of poverty on families and children; the kinship and community support available to families living in poverty; the health and nutrition of poor children; the roles of school and day-care centers in aggravating or ameliorating conditions related to poverty; family mediators of the effects of poverty; and evaluations of particular social, medical, and educational interventions with poor families and their children. The volume contains many excellent sources of new information. Many of the studies are longitudinal and all of them are more complex analyses than studies done in the 1960s, which were more linear and tended to focus on single outcomes such as IQ. This volume is noteworthy, as it is an attempt to address the criticisms of the field of child development for ignoring the social and economic contexts of development and relying exclusively on White, middle-class subjects. Comer, J.P. (1988). Maggie’s American dream. New York, NY: Plume.

This story is a fascinating and inspiring account of Maggie Comer’s journey from a childhood of extreme poverty to becoming the mother of five outstanding children, who have all become distinguished professionals, dedicated to working for social justice. The first part of the story is told in Maggie’s words, and the second part is by her son James Comer, a well-known psychiatrist and leader of educational reform. The story personalizes the effects of racism and economic deprivation on children and vividly portrays how limited the options for Black families were in the early 20th century. However, it also illustrates the strength of families in the face of adversity and contradicts the view of poor African


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Americans as passive victims. This book is an excellent resource for teaching child development and family relations, as well as providing new information about the muchneglected history of African Americans in the early part of the 20th century. Connolly, P. (1998). Racism, gender identities and young children: Social relations in a multiethnic, inner-city primary school. New York, NY: Routledge.

This book is based on a qualitative study of 5- and 6-year-old children in a multiracial, urban primary school in England. The author observed the children for a year and a half, interviewed them in groups, and interviewed families, teachers, and community people. The result is a fascinating, yet disturbing, account of how children are learning and applying racial beliefs in their everyday peer relationships and how teachers’ and administrators’ racial beliefs permeate their teaching and, in particular, their disciplinary practices. Four chapters focus on the complex development of ethnic and gender identities of Black and South Asian boys and girls. They also include classroom observations that illustrate how school-based efforts to foster positive identities and peer relationships often have unintended negative effects. Cross, W.E. (1985). Black identity: Rediscovering the distinction between personal identity and reference group orientation. In M.B.Spencer, G.K.Brookins, & W.R.Allen (Eds.), Beginnings: The social and affective development of Black children (pp. 155–171). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Cross reviews 161 Black identity studies that were conducted between 1939 and 1977. He articulates the distinction between assessments of group reference orientation, in which race or color is an explicit attribute of the stimulus materials and scoring technique, and measures of personal identity, which focus on universal personality elements. He tabulates the number of studies that fit into each or both categories and then analyzes the previous conclusions drawn from these studies in light of this distinction. He argues that Blacks have had a consistently high sense of self-esteem and have had a multifaceted reference group orientation. He concludes that the Black Movement in the later part of the 20th century did not change Blacks’ personal self-esteem, but did increase the degree of Black reference group orientation. He concludes that reference group orientation is related to value systems, political posture, and likelihood of joining a collective struggle, but not to personal self-esteem. Cross, W.E. (1991). Shades of Black. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

In this hard-hitting critique, Cross argues that earlier studies that showed that African American children had lower self-esteem because they preferred White dolls to Black dolls were measuring reference group orientation, not personal selfesteem or identity. He suggests that children’s “misidentification” as White may be an attempt to resolve the contradiction between feeling personally valued, yet disparaged because of group membership. His account of the research, how it was done and interpreted, illustrates how difficult it is to change the course of an area of research, once people have become committed to a certain set of assumptions— in this case, the pathology of “Negro self-hatred.” Cross discusses in detail the


relationship between reference group orientation and personal identity and points out that attaining a strong Black identity (he uses the term Nigrescence) changes one’s values, priorities, and orientation to both the Black and the White community, but does not change one’s personality or personal identity. In the last section of the book Cross provides a detailed account of the different stages on the path to attaining a strong Black identity. Delgado-Gaitan, C., & and Trueba, H. (1991). Crossing cultural borders. New York, NY: Falmer.

This ethnographic study portrays how cultural discontinuity can disrupt children’s learning. By observing Mexican American children as they went between home and school, the authors provide vivid details about how children’s interest in learning was often undermined by school rules and teaching practices that were either unfamiliar or contrary to the way that children and adults interacted at home. The examples illustrate how some children quickly developed an antagonistic relationship with the school. The authors point out that most teachers are ill-prepared to work with children from another culture and that even well-intentioned efforts to be more responsive usually give way to enforcing the rules and routines. De Lone, R.H. (1979). Small futures: Children, inequality, and the limits of liberal reform. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

The main theme of this book is that social and economic justice cannot be brought about by social reforms such as educational improvement, but requires that economic and social structures be changed to provide more equitable futures for children. The author illustrates how the unequal distribution of wealth ensures the inequality of children’s opportunities, despite legislative reform. Of particular relevance to multicultural educators are his accounts of how children develop theories of social reality that reflect the lives of adults in their families and communities. In several poignant examples, he shows how at an early age children’s future aspirations are based on the educational and employment constraints and opportunities that they see in their immediate families and communities. Diamond, K.E., & Hestenes, L.L. (1996). Preschool children’s conceptions of disabilities: The salience of disability in children’s ideas about others. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 16(4), 458–475.

In this study, preschoolers without disabilities who were enrolled in inclusive classrooms (i.e., ones that included at least one or two children with identified disabilities) were interviewed about different disabilities and their effects. The tasks included sorting photographs to see how salient specific disabilities were in comparison to gender and age differences. The children were then asked questions about a series of photographs of children with different disabilities. The results revealed that most of the children were aware of physical disabilities and how they might affect children’s lives. Close to half of the children noticed sensory disabilities, but were less clear about their consequences. No children recognized


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cognitive or emotional disabilities. These findings suggest that young children understand disabilities better when they can actually see physical evidence (e.g., a wheel-chair) and relate them to their own experiences (e.g., “He can’t run like I can”). Diamond, K.E., Hestenes, L.L., & O’Connor, C.E. (1994). Integrating young children with disabilities in preschool: Problems and promise. Young Children, 49(2), 69–75.

This review gives an overview of the legal changes related to early intervention and shows how they have affected practice in preschools. The authors describe appropriate practices for successfully integrating children with disabilities and conclude that thoughtful, well-executed programs are beneficial for children with and without disabilities. They describe optimal administrative and teaching practices and advocate activity-based interventions as the most effective avenue for supporting cognitive, language, motoric, and social skills of young children with disabilities. Diamond, K.E., & Innes, F.K. (2001). Young children’s attitudes toward peers with disabilities. In M.Guralnick (Ed.), Early childhood inclusion: Focus on change (pp. 159– 178). Baltimore, MD: Paul Brookes.

This review synthesizes a number of studies about the development of children’s attitudes about people with disabilities. The authors show how these developing attitudes are similar to the development of racial and gender attitudes, yet also are distinct. They describe how children’s reactions differ across specific disabilities. The last part of the chapter includes summaries of recent studies on the effects of various interventions and educational strategies to improve the social inclusion of children with disabilities. The authors suggest a number of effective strategies, including: positive and sensitive adult attitudes toward children with disabilities, high frequency of peer contact in cooperative situations, minimization of the social disruptions and conspicuousness (e.g., therapies are done in the classroom and other children can participate), and opportunities for children to talk about disabilities and develop strategies to include children with disabilities in games and conversations (e.g., all sitting at the same height as a child in a wheelchair). Doyle, A.B. & Aboud, F.E. (1995). A longitudinal study of White children’s racial prejudice as a social-cognitive development. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 41(2), 209–228.

In this longitudinal study the researchers used the Preschool Racial Attitude Measure (PRAM II), a multiple response racial attitude measure (MRA), and several other measures to assess 47 White children’s prejudice toward Black people at the age of 6 and again when they were 9. An additional group of 40 9year-olds was tested one time. In the assessments children use pictures of people representing different racial groups to designate which racial group they associate with particular positive and negative adjectives and feelings. The findings revealed that favorable-White and unfavorable-Black evaluations did not decline with age, but unfavorable-White and favorable-Black evaluations did increase. The authors concluded that as children get older, they do not necessarily reduce their ingroup


bias, but they do strengthen their counter-prejudice attitudes. Children also begin to perceive more interracial similarities and intra racial differences and accept the validity of racially different perspectives. Overall, the authors found that developmental shifts were more predictive of prejudice than individual differences. Edelman, M.W. (1986). Families in peril: An agenda for social change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

This famous and passionate analysis showed how the changing economic and employment patterns devastated many children and their families and led to the withdrawal of government programs for poor families that occurred in the 1980s. Edelman points out that although Black families are disproportionately affected, childhood poverty has increased in all racial and ethnic groups. She suggests some very specific goals and strategies for ameliorating specific problems, such as teen pregnancy, and for developing more effective social programs for families. This book, written in 1986, was highly publicized at the time. Unfortunately, a decade and a half later, conditions for many families have worsened and solutions seem even more elusive. Edwards, C.P. (1986). Promoting social and moral development in young children: Creative approaches for the classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This book describes and illustrates the early development of children’s understanding about different aspects of their social environment—specifically, age, gender and sex roles, race, culture, family, friends, economic institutions (including the economic system and occupations), rules, and authority. The book is based on a Piagetian framework, and for each area, the author describes specific cognitive developmental shifts that children may experience as they learn more about these phenomena. Each chapter also includes suggested activities called “thinking games.” Reflecting a constructivist approach to learning, they are designed both to reveal how children think about these aspects of their environment and to challenge those assumptions. Teachers can use these examples to develop their own activities to address any number of issues. Fordham, S. (1988). Racelessness as a factor in Black students’ school success: Pragmatic strategy or Pyrrhic victory? Harvard Educational Review, 58(1), 54–84.

In this article Fordham describes in detail how African American students are confronted by the challenge of maintaining their ties with their community and succeeding in school. The gap between the Black fictive kinship system and the individualistic competition of schools forces students to choose one orientation or another. This ethnographic study shows how six African American students (three males and three females) go to great lengths either to deny their race in order to achieve academically or to hide their academic success from their peers. Female students, in particular, tend to become “raceless.” Furnham, A., & Stacey, B. (1991). Young people’s understanding of society. New York, NY: Routledge.


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The authors review the literature on how children understand different facets of society. This volume includes chapters on politics and government, economics and trade, work and employment, sex and gender, religion, race, law and justice, and social class. The authors view the development of understanding in these areas from a Piagetian perspective (stage theory), but also stress the influence of the sociocultural context of children’s upbringing. Many of the studies they cite are ones with adolescents, but they often refer to the earlier stages of these concepts. The chapters on children’s understanding of economics and employment are particularly interesting because little has been written about this area of development. The chapters on race and social class are somewhat dated and do not represent the full range of recent research. Furth, H.G. (1980). The world of grown-ups: Children’s conceptions of society. New York, NY: Elsevier.

In this major research project the author interviewed 195 British children, ages 5 through 11, about their understanding of communities, societal roles, money, stores, schools, bus systems, and government. The author found that children appear to go through four stages of societal understanding, from personalistic interpretations of social institutions to a more systematic framework. Transcripts of the children’s responses are included, to provide the reader with specific examples of how children perceive and process social information during the childhood years. Gallas, K. (1998). “Sometimes I can be anything”: Power, gender and identity in a primary classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

The author, who teaches first and second grades, shares 4 years of observations of children’s interactions, conversations, and stories to show how they develop their ideas about gender, race, and power. The author also traces the development of particular children and groups over that time span. The observations are vivid and filled with fascinating and sometimes disturbing quotes and actions. Collectively, they reveal the complexities and nuances of children’s thinking and feelings, which are often blurred in quantitative and short-term assessments of children’s attitudes. Garbarino, J., Dubrow, N., Kostelny, K., & Pardo, C. (1992). Children in danger: Coping with the consequences of community violence. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

This book illustrates how community violence affects children’s development and mental health. The authors compare children living in high-violence neighborhoods with those living in war-torn areas such as Palestine and Mozambique. However, they point out that in the latter situations, ideology gives some meaning to events, and families and neighbors unite to protect themselves from an invading or dominating group. In contrast, the violence in neighborhoods in this country is often random and meaningless. Using case studies, the authors show how violence disrupts families and thwarts children’s psychological development. To counteract these effects, the authors advocate high-quality early childhood programs with stable and dedicated staffs that are committed to teaching in developmentally appropriate ways and providing children and their


families with a refuge from the violence. They offer guidelines for setting up programs and training teachers to work with children in high-violence areas. However, they also point out that these programs are expensive and that they can only enhance children’s resilience; they do not change the conditions of their lives. García Coll, C., Lamberty, C., Jenkins, R., McAdoo, H.P., Crnic, K., Wasik, B.H., & Vazquez Garcia, H. (1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. Child Development, 67, 1891–1914.

The authors elaborate on Bronfenbrenner’s framework (1979, 1986) and present a comprehensive and integrative model for studying the developmental outcomes and competencies for minority children. They analyze children’s development within the context of social stratification that at the national level includes racism, prejudice, discrimination, oppression, and segregation and at the local level is evident in schools, neighborhoods, and health care. The authors describe the community, family structures, and cultures that evolve in response to the demands and inhibitions of living in an economically disadvantaged tier of society. Although they do not dispute the deleterious effects of social, political, and economic disadvantages, the authors caution researchers and practitioners to avoid pathologizing minority groups and instead focus on how communities, families, and individual children develop strengths and strategies to overcome and resist these hardships. Gibbs, J.T., Huang, L.N., & Associates (Eds.) (1989). Children of color: Psychological interventions with minority youths. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

This edited volume provides excellent overviews of families, children, and adolescents from six different ethnic groups: Chinese American, Japanese American, American Indian, African American, Mexican American, Puerto Rican American, Southeast Asian refugees, and biracial families. Written primarily for clinicians, the chapters offer many insights into how culture and oppression affect family issues and children’s behavioral patterns. The authors show how practitioners unfamiliar with particular groups commonly misinterpret behavior. Specific examples from clinical cases make the book compelling and very readable. Many of the issues and suggestions apply to schools, as well as to clinical settings (e.g., establishing trust, rapport). Gibson, M.A., & Ogbu, J.U. (Eds.) (1991). Minority status and schooling: A comparative study of immigrant and involuntary minorities. New York, NY: Garland.

In this volume John Ogbu’s well-known distinction between voluntary immigrants and involuntary minorities is examined in a series of studies in the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and Britain. Collectively, these studies illustrate how, in many different countries, involuntary minorities are thwarted by generations of discrimination, job ceilings, and unfair treatment and come to view education as another tool of subjugation on the part of the dominant group. Many youths from these backgrounds see the experiences of their parents and other relatives and conclude that they will not have good jobs,


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regardless of their efforts in school. The voluntary immigrants, on the other hand, view education as a benefit and a way to get ahead. When they experience discrimination and racism, they see them as barriers to overcome in their quest for a better life. Several research studies illustrate how these differences emerge even when the groups share cultural roots and physiological characteristics. Greenfield, P.M., & Cocking, R.R. (Eds.) (1994). Cross-cultural roots of minority child development. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This edited volume contributes to the current critical examination of the cultural bias in developmental theories and research by showing how development and socialization are expressed in ancestral cultures and reexpressed in new social contexts. The studies in this volume are a departure from the usual “compare and contrast” view of cross-cultural studies, in which non-Western groups are compared to the Western “norms.” Instead, the authors of these studies (who represent groups from all over the world and within the United States) use these differences to challenge the assumptions of universality that underlie many developmental theories. Specific groups represented in the volume are Native and Mexican Americans within the United States; Africans, living in Africa and in Europe; and Korean, Chinese, and Japanese families living in their home countries and in the United States. Heath, S.B. (1983). Ways with words; Language. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

This well-known ethnographic study compares children’s language learning across three communities: a working-class African American community, a working-class White community, and a middle-income racially mixed community, all located in the southeastern part of the United States. Heath concludes that it is not the quantity of talk, but the kind of talk in homes and communities that makes the difference in children’s adjustment to the language demands of school. The author points out ways in which schools could change to incorporate the language experiences of a broader range of children. Helms, J. (1990). Black and White racial identity: Theory, research, and practice. West-port, CT: Greenwood.

In this book, Helms identifies and analyzes several stages of White racial identity that are somewhat parallel to Cross’s stages of Black racial identity. In the United States many Whites can live out their lives without ever confronting racial issues and may never go through any of these stages. Others, however, may have an experience or relationship that makes them aware of racism, and they will begin to confront the reality of racism and the realization that they are the beneficiaries of unearned racial privilege. In the face of resistance and rejection by their White friends and families, some may retreat back to ignoring race or even espousing racist beliefs. Others, on the other hand, go on to identify with White antiracists and to take pride in the history of White resistance to racism. With these more secure White identities, they can become antiracist activists—


challenging the stereotypes and assumptions about White superiority that they absorbed while growing up. Hirschfield, L.A. (1995). Do children have a theory of race? Cognition, 54, 209–252.

In this article the author challenges the view that young children classify other people based only on superficial and observable differences (e.g., skin color). He reports on five studies done with predominately White children ages, 3 to 7, in which children matched pictures of adults and children that differed by race. body type, and occupation. Together, the results suggest that young children are developing theories about race that reflect some of their emerging ideas about biology. In particular, they appear to understand that some characteristics are inherited and permanent (e.g., skin color) and others (e.g., occupation) are not. These findings raise questions about the common assumption that young children do not yet understand that race is a permanent physical characteristic. Holmes, R.M. (1995). How young children perceive race. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

This book describes an ethnographic study of children’s conceptions about race and how it influences their social relationships. The author (European American) was a participant observer in five kindergarten classes with a total of 102 children: 44 African American, 42 European American, 12 Latino, and 4 who belonged to other groups. During her hours in the classroom the author observed the children play together and engaged them in conversations and drawing activities that focused on children’s ideas about various dimensions of racial differences and similarities. In contrast to studies that have used experimental or forced choice methods in which children respond to predetermined stimuli and labels, this study reveals children’s own conceptualizations about race in their natural settings. Holmes includes examples of conversations and drawings to illustrate the variety and complexity of children’s thinking about race and how it influences their sense of self, categorization of people, and ideas about friendship, romance, and procreation. The author found that, with rare exceptions, the children whom she observed and talked with had positive cross-race beliefs, were comfortable interacting with children from different racial groups, and often espoused racial harmony. She attributes these positive feelings to the fact that the children were relatively young and not yet influenced by prevailing negative racial attitudes and stereotypes and had the benefit of ongoing positive interracial encounters in school. Huston, A.C. (Ed.) (1991). Children in poverty: Child development and public policy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

This edited volume addresses three questions: Why are so many children in our country growing up in poor families? What are the effects of poverty on children’s physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development? What role can public policy and policy research play in preventing or alleviating the devastating effects of poverty? Central to the book is the contention that public policies are usually judged on economic outcomes (e.g., reduction in the number of welfare


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recipients) and very rarely in terms of outcomes for children (e.g., how do parents’ return to the workforce affect their children?) The first chapter describes the rise in poverty in the 1980s and makes a distinction between transitory and persistent poverty. Some chapters focus on circumstances that often lead to children being raised in poverty, such as female-headed households and adolescent parenting. Others illustrate how poverty affects family processes and mental and physical health. The final chapters describe successful programs and strategies to alleviate the effects of poverty. However. all the authors stress the intractability of the problem and the need to go beyond simplistic questions, methods, and analyses in planning and evaluating programs. Igoa, C. (1995). The inner world of the immigrant child. New York, NY: St. Martin’s.

This volume is a personal account of a teacher who experienced many dislocations in her own life and went on to work with students who are the offspring of recent immigrants. She describes children’s experiences of being uprooted from one culture and transplanted into another and the confusion, exhaustion, and fear that accompany learning a whole new set of rules, languages, and school expectations. Igoa articulates the different stages that children go through as they become more comfortable with their new surroundings and how teachers can work with children and families to help them maintain a sense of cultural continuity and psychological safety as they adjust to school. Katz, P.A. (Ed.) (1976). Towards the elimination of racism. New York, NY: Pergamon.

This book contains 11 essays that address several major issues, theories, and research findings on racial attitude development and change prior to 1976. The authors represent a number of fields, including psychology, sociology, communications, and government. The book is divided into three sections. The first part includes three essays that summarize several theoretical viewpoints about the factors that account for the acquisition and maintenance of negative racial attitudes. In the second section, research on the modification of individual racial attitudes and behavior in children and adults is reported. The final section focuses on institutional racism, such as employment patterns and resistance to legal reform. Katz, P.A. (1982). Development of children’s racial awareness and intergroup attitudes. In L.G.Katz (Ed.), Current topics in early childhood education (pp. 17–54). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

This chapter is a review of theories and research about the course of the development of children’s racial attitudes. Based on research prior to 1982, it includes a discussion of the developmental forerunners of racial attitudes and a critique of commonly used measurements of racial awareness. The author delineates and compares some of the environmental factors that influence the course of racial attitude development, including reinforcement, direct instruction, and child-rearing styles, and the psychological factors, such as perception, cognition, and personality. The author compares racial attitude acquisition with the development of other attitudes, such as sex roles, and proposes a sequence of eight overlapping stages that span the preschool and elementary years.


Leahy, R.L. (1983). The development of the conception of social class. In R.L.Leahy (Ed.), The child’s construction of inequality (pp. 79–107). New York, NY: Academic Press.

The author reviews several theories and previous research on the development of the concept of social class. He then proposes a Piagetian-based cognitivedevelopmental theory to explain how children learn about social class. A study of 720 children from the ages of 6 through adolescence illustrates how children’s concepts of social class progress through qualitatively different stages. The participating children answered questions about their concepts of wealth and poverty, their explanations for inequality, and their ideas about individual mobility and social change. Leahy describes the levels of awareness and understanding of social class and illustrates them with quotations from the interview transcripts. Leahy, R. (1990). The development of concepts of economic and social inequality. New Directions for Child Development, 46, 107–120.

In this article, Leahy uses a Piagetian framework to explore a developmental progression of children’s explanations for social class differences. Based on several studies with children from different age, race, and social class groups, he identified the following pattern in children’s explanations. Children from ages 6 to 11 rely on physical evidence (e.g., mentioning that poor people do not have food). Early adolescents (11–14) emphasize work, effort, and education as reasons for the unequal distribution of wealth and say that the rich should help the poor. Older adolescents, who are capable of seeing the effects of unfair systems, use equity arguments (people should get paid for how hard they work) to justify the unequal distribution of wealth. They also are more fatalistic about the persistence of poverty, stating that it is inevitable. As they get older, both Black and White students, across all social classes, increasingly justify the existing unequal distribution of resources. Lubeck, S. (1985). Sandbox society: Early education in Black and White America. London: Falmer.

In this ethnographic study, the author compares two preschool classrooms: one is a Head Start program for low-income children and the other one is a tuitionbased program for middle-class children. Working as a participant observer over a period of a few months, the author observed and recorded the ways in which the teachers structured the programs and the actions of the children. She analyzed the observations by comparing the two programs on the following dimensions: allocation of time, use of space, structure and use of activities and materials, and patterns of teacher-child interactions. In her analysis, she concluded that the cultures of the two communities were transmitted in many subtle ways through teaching practices. Macias, J. (1990). Scholastic antecedents of immigrant students: Schooling in a Mexican immigrant-sending community. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 21, 291–318.


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Macias, J. (1992). The social nature of instruction in a Mexican school: Implications for U.S. classroom practice. Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, 10, 13–25.

In these two articles, Macias describes classrooms in a small community in Mexico that is the hometown of many immigrants to the United States. Compared with classrooms in the United States, the Mexican classrooms had fewer materials, but more children and more social interactions among them and between teachers and children. This socially oriented milieu reflects the daily life of the community, which involves a great deal of face-to-face interactions as people shop, visit, and work. Macias discusses how U.S. classrooms, with their emphasis on individual work and quiet order, are strange environments for children from Mexico and may lead to poor adjustment and underachievement. These outcomes are particularly ironic because the elementary curriculum in Mexican Primarias is more rigorous than the curriculum in the United States. These detailed accounts of how schools in another country differ from schools in the United States may help teachers to rethink their assumptions about the nature of education and to recognize the challenges that immigrant children face as they adjust to a new educational system. McAdoo, H.P. (Ed.) (1993). Family ethnicity: Strength in diversity. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

This edited volume is a compilation of studies about different families living in the United States, including African American, Latino American, Native American, Muslim, and Asian American families. The chapters each describe a particular study or an area of family life (e.g., the care of the elderly), so they are not parallel reviews of different groups. However, common experiences emerge across a number of chapters: the disruptive effects of immigration and discrimination on family life; cultural clashes between the dominant culture and ethnic groups and how families navigate in two worlds; the intergenerational conflicts that often arise as a result of these clashes; and the strengths and resourcefulness with which families have met these challenges. The underlying question is, how do families find the balance between maintaining their ethnic identity and succeeding in the dominant culture? This book was written from a clinical perspective, but the insights are applicable to schools and teachers. The one drawback of this book is that in some of the chapters, the references are somewhat dated. McIntyre, T., & Silva, P. (1992). Culturally diverse child rearing practices: Abusive or just different? Beyond Behavior, 4(1), 8–12.

This article describes ways in which teachers and families sometimes misinterpret each others’ actions due to different culturally defined ideas about appropriate discipline techniques and ways of caring for children. The numerous examples are helpful, in that they force the reader to recognize assumptions that are common in the teaching profession. The authors suggest that teachers learn as much as they can about the child-rearing practices of their families and use community people as sources of information to avoid drawing erroneous conclusions about families’ discipline practices.


McIntosh, P. (1995). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. In M.L.Anderson and P.H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class, and gender: An anthology (pp. 76–87). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

This article was first published in 1988 as a working paper and, since then, has been widely used for teaching White students to recognize the racial privilege that they enjoy, but often do not see. The author uses her awareness of male privilege that she has experienced as a woman to identify 46 ways in which she daily benefits from her status as a White person. Using her own life, she describes how, at every juncture, her unearned racial advantage has smoothed the way and allowed her freedoms and access to resources that are denied people of color. She acknowledges that for most of her life, she was oblivious to these advantages because they seemed to be the norm. At the conclusion of the chapter, McIntosh applies the same scrutiny to her heterosexual advantage, illustrating that this model can be applied to many dimensions of advantage and disadvantage. McLoyd, V.C. (1998). Changing demographics in the American population: Implications for research on minority children and adolescents. In V.C.McLoyd & L.Steinberg (Eds.), Studying minority adolescents: Conceptual, methodological, and theoretical issues (pp. 3–28). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the changing demographics of the United States and the resulting inadequacies of current research practices. The author emphasizes that researchers need to develop new research frameworks that reflect a greater diversity of experience and new strategies for collecting meaningful and authentic data. The chapter has a list of research priorities that includes developing culturally relevant frameworks, studying mediators of race and ethnicity effects, and identifying norms relevant to minority groups and precursors to problematic development and resilience. It concludes with a list of strategies for increasing the quantity and quality of research on minority children. McLoyd, V.C., & Ceballo, R. (1998). Conceptualizing and assessing the economic context: Issues in the study of race and child development. In V.C.McLoyd & L.Steinberg (Eds.), Studying minority adolescents: Conceptual, methodological, and theoretical issues (pp. 251–278). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

The author describes how socioeconomic status and poverty are measured and reported and critiques the simplistic and outdated measures that are often used. These methods typically ignore factors such as inherited wealth, stability of family income, and source of income, which affect families’ economic stability. Several examples in the chapter illustrate how the complicated and intransigent interaction between race and economic status affects all aspects of family life and influences not only the level of economic success (e.g., income), but the financial liabilities faced by families living in different circumstances (e.g., the availability and cost of services in different neighborhoods). Meyer, L.H., Park, H-S., Grenot-Scheyer, M., Schwartz, I.S., & Harry, B. (Eds.). (1998). Making friends: The influences of culture and development. Baltimore, MD: Paul Brookes.


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This edited volume contains many chapters that cumulatively present a wideranging analysis of the experiences of children with disabilities and how their developmental status and cultural contexts influence their social and academic lives. Several chapters focus on preschool and elementary age children and others focus on adolescents. Most of the chapters are based on qualitative studies of particular children and classrooms that portray the challenges that children, families, and teachers face across many situations and in different cultural settings. A few chapters illustrate how particular strategies can improve the quality of children’s school lives and the connections among families, children, and schools. Several authors criticize common assumptions and practices for their cultural bias and deficitoriented view of people with disabilities. Mirza, H.S. (1992). Young, female and Black. London: Routledge.

This ethnographic study of Black girls in two British schools shows how the persistence of inequality in British society forms and limits their education and occupational aspirations. The descriptions of the covert and overt racism of the teachers are compelling and may help readers to examine their own attitudes. The author’s accounts of failed attempts to institute multicultural and antiracist curriculum by naive and well-intentioned “crusaders” are also instructive, as they illustrate how this work cannot be done without a clear understanding of the communities and the issues involved. Nabors, L. (1997). Social interaction among preschool children in inclusive child care centers. Applied Developmental Science, 1(4), 162–167.

This study of 70 children revealed that children both with and without special needs preferred playing with children without disabilities. White boys and African American boys and girls were more likely to play in groups that included one or more children with disabilities than White girls were. The author advocates that children’s interactions be observed more systematically and longitudinally to ascertain the extent to which children with disabilities are or are not integrated into their social groups and how these relationships change. She also urges that the effects of teachers’ interventions to promote more social interaction among children with and without disabilities be systematically analyzed. Ogbu, J.U. (1978). Minority education and caste. New York, NY: Academic Press.

In this classic analysis of African Americans’ educational performance, Ogbu attributes higher than average failure rates to the caste system in this country that relegates African Americans to a subordinate status in this society. He describes how this system influences both the quality of education available to Blacks and their performance in schools, as an adaptation to that system. He discusses the educational experiences of other groups that are also caste-like minorities in the United States and in other countries, although not necessarily racially distinct from the more privileged members of the society. He concludes by discussing the policy implications of his interpretation of Blacks’ school performance.


Phelan, P., & Davidson, A.L. (1993). Renegotiating cultural diversity in American schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

The chapters in this book are based on the Spindlers’ work on cultural therapy. Each describes a specific psychological and social dilemma presented by the increasing cultural diversity in our schools, such as the question of first language maintenance, students’ needs to negotiate several worlds, the cultural influence on perceptions of self and others. teachers’ assumptions about students from different groups, the effects of tracking, and distant family-school relationships. Several chapters also propose strategies for dealing with some of the disjunctures between students and schools, including cultural therapy and closer collaborations between families and schools. Phinney, J.S. (1996). When we talk about American ethnic groups, what do we mean? American Psychologist, 51, 916–927.

In this article, Phinney argues that ethnic categories vary over time, context, and individuals and that we need to consider them as dimensions, rather than categories. She points out that, psychologically, three aspects of ethnicity are most relevant: the cultural values, attitudes, and behaviors associated with specific ethnic groups; the extent to which a person identifies with an ethnic group; and experiences associated with minority status (discrimination, exclusion, powerlessness). Ethnicity is a complex and multidimensional construct, and members of particular groups may vary from each other along these three dimensions and may also change over time. Phinney, J.S., & Rotheram, M.J. (Eds.) (1987). Children’s ethnic socialization: Pluralism and development. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

This edited volume has been widely used and provides a good overview of the research in ethnic socialization done prior to 1987. The 15 chapters cover several aspects of this process, including the individual variables of cognition, identification, language, and behavior and the environmental ones of minority status and sociohistorical context. Taken together, the essays address a wide range of issues that are germane to young children, school-aged children, and adolescents. The editors conclude that ethnic group differences, the sociocultural context of these differences, the status of one’s group, and developmental stages all contribute to the individual variations in the ethnic socialization of children. Polakow, V. (1993). Lives on the edge. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

In this book Polakow explores the historical images of childhood and especially the plight of poor children in past centuries in both Europe and the United States. She then reports on her interviews with 15 Black and White single mothers about their struggles to raise children with very little financial or emotional support. The stories and quotations vividly portray the unremitting struggles with poverty, homelessness, and the welfare bureaucracy that these women face while trying to raise their children. Their hope and determination in the face of all these odds is inspiring. The book also includes classroom observations of the children that illustrate the inadequacy and low expectations


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that characterize education for children from poor families. Several poignant examples also show how teachers and peers alike stigmatize poor and homeless children. Polakow, V. (Ed.) (2000). The public assault on America’s children: Poverty, violence and juvenile injustice (pp. 59–77). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This edited volume contains chapters that detail the many ways that unjust social and educational policies damage poor children. Three chapters are particularly relevant to young children. The introductory chapter describes the devastating effects of the 1990s welfare laws that force mothers to place their children in substandard and developmentally damaging day care centers. The second chapter describes how poverty conditions lead to environmentally induced health problems for children, especially tuberculosis, asthma, and lead poisoning. In the third chapter, the authors describe the risk factors associated with poverty that are the most damaging for children growing up in poor communities. The remainder of the chapters focus on the criminalization of children who are increasingly tried and punished as adults, the zero-tolerance policies at schools, and the inadequacy of the juvenile justice system. Throughout these chapters the authors illustrate in devastating detail and case studies how these policies are applied more stringently to poor children and children of color. They also show how these punitive measures can destroy the lives of young people for minor infractions and unintentional mistakes. Procidano, M.E., & Fisher, C.B. (Eds.) (1992). Contemporary families: A handbook for school professionals. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This edited volume provides brief, but comprehensive, summaries of research to the early 1990s on families from a range of configurations, backgrounds, and circumstances. In particular, it includes chapters on dual-wage families, single parents, and step families; Latino, African American, and Korean American families; and families in stressful situations, such as living in poverty, experiencing the death or serious illness of a family member, or caring for vulnerable family members such as a chronically ill or learning disabled child. Each chapter provides an overview of studies about that particular family issue and how it affects children at different ages and the relations between families and schools. Each chapter’s concluding section on “Implications for School Professionals” offers suggestions for how school professionals can work more effectively with the particular group in question. This handbook provides useful background and guidance, but readers should be cautious about overgeneralizing the information. Quintana, S.M. (1998). Children’s developmental understanding of ethnicity and race. Applied and Preventive Psychology, 7, 27–45.

Quintana describes a developmental model of ethnic perspective-taking ability that is based on Selman’s (1980) stages of social perspective taking and incorporates many research findings about children’s ethnic and racial understanding. For each age range, he describes the trends in children’s cognitive and affective development at that time and their implications for children’s


understanding and feelings about race and ethnicity. His model suggests that children shift from a rudimentary awareness to a concrete and literal view of ethnic differences. Then children come to understand the subtle distinctions and the consequences of ethnic divisions and finally form active ethnic group identities. The author points out that throughout this process children struggle to make sense of information and experiences that reflect the contradictions and inequities that underlie cross-ethnic and racial relations in this country. Ramirez, M., III. (1983). Psychology of the Americas: Mestizo perspectives on personality and mental health. New York, NY: Academic Press.

In this classic critique of European psychology, Ramirez contrasts the origins, roles, and assumptions of European and Mestizo psychologies and asserts that relying only on Euro pean psychology limits our understanding of non-European people and leads to a deficitoriented view of them. The author describes the philosophical, social science, and theoretical foundations of Mestizo psychology. In contrast to the focus on decontextualized individual development of European psychology, Mestizo psychology has a phenomenological orientation, which involves viewing people in a more holistic way and in the context of their cultural, social, historical, and economic environments. Ramirez proposes models of research and mental health treatment that are based on a synthesis of European and Mestizo psychologies. Root, M.P. (Ed.) (1992). Racially mixed people in America. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

This edited volume includes 26 essays written by authors who are, for the most part, from racially mixed backgrounds. Together, the essays examine both the sociological and the psychological dimensions of what it means to be racially mixed in a racially divided society. These essays challenge many prevailing assumptions about race and raise questions about how it is used as a variable in psychological and sociological research. Several of the chapters are portraits of how the racial contradictions and confusions in this country affect individuals who live with these dilemmas all the time. They also illustrate how the experience of being multiracial is also a source of strength and flexibility. Rosenfield, D., & Stephan, W.G. (1981). Intergroup relations among children. In S.S. Brehm, S.M.Kassin, & F.X.Gibbons (Eds.), Developmental social psychology (pp. 271– 297). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

In this chapter, the authors review the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of racial attitudes and present findings from a study on the effects of desegregation on elementary schoolchildren’s self-esteem and on their racial attitudes and contact patterns. The authors also include findings from several studies done prior to 1980 that identified the following factors that contribute to positive intergroup relations: school and classroom structures that encourage positive, cooperative intergroup contact; an educational climate that is conducive to interethnic contact; community and family support for integration; and individuals’ capabilities to form positive interpersonal relationships.


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Sadker, M., & Sadker, D. (1994). Failing at fairness: How our schools cheat girls. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

This book has become a classic for its detailed, yet readable, analysis of the many ways that girls are shortchanged in schools. Observations and interviews with students, parents, and teachers reveal the pervasiveness of sex bias in all educational settings, from elementary school through college. The authors illustrate how sexism is often hard to detect because gender biases influence the unconscious perceptions and actions of even relatively aware and well-meaning adults. The book includes a chapter on the “Miseducation of Boys,” which shows how sexism adversely affects boys as well as girls. Schofield, J.W. (1989). Black and White in school: Trust, tension, or tolerance. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This book is the report of a 3-year longitudinal ethnographic study of students, teachers, and administrators in a recently desegregated middle school. Using extensive observations and interviews, the author describes how teachers unconsciously resegregated students and how students avoided cross-race contacts and relationships. The author also analyzes the complex interplay between race and gender in students’ relationships with each other. Based on the changes in crossrace behaviors and relationships that occurred during the 3 years of the study, the author expresses cautious optimism that desegregation can potentially facilitate cross-race understanding and respect. Slavin, R.E. (1995). Cooperative learning and intergroup relations. In J.A.Banks & C.A.M.Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 628–634). New York, NY: Macmillan.

This chapter provides an overview of the almost 2 decades of research on the effects of cooperative learning on intergroup relations. The author describes the different models of cooperative learning that have been used and summarizes the research that has evaluated their impact on cross-ethnic relationships. He concludes that ethnically mixed, cooperatively learning groups definitely increase intergroup friendships. According to his analysis, not only do the children within the cooperative groups become friends, but their friends who were not in the groups also develop more intergroup friendships through their contacts with group participants. Sleeter, C.E. (1994). White racism. Multicultural Education, 1 (spring), 5–8, 39.

In this article Sleeter points out that most Whites are silent on the issue of racism and advocates that Whites, especially White teachers, reflect on their own racial identity and the extent to which they enjoy many unearned racial privileges (advantages that come their way only because they are White, not because of any effort they have made). She describes many subtle ways in which Whites pressure each other to engage in “racial bonding” against people of color. She notes that antiracist Whites are often rejected by their families and friends, leading some to retreat from their new awareness and commitment and to return to their familiar racist beliefs.


Slonim, M.B. (1991). Children, culture, and ethnicity: Evaluating and understanding the impact. New York, NY: Garland.

This resource book is a series of essays and annotated bibliographies that illustrates how culture and ethnicity influence children’s lives. The first five chapters are discussions about how culture and ethnicity affect families. The author, who writes from a medical and social service background, also has a chapter on the implications of how different child-rearing patterns and values influence the interactions of health, education, and social service practitioners with families from different cultures. The last four chapters are brief overviews and lists of references related to Asian cultures, Hispanic American cultures, Black cultures, and European cultures. These chapters provide some useful guidance in terms of identifying intergroup and intragroup distinctions. However, as the author cautions, they should not be read as definitive accounts about particular groups, but simply as an introduction to the widely varied individual and group differences that make up our society. Soto, L.D. (1991). Understanding bilingual/bicultural young children. Young Children, 46 (2), 30–36.

This review describes the demographic changes and the increasing numbers of bilingual children in the schools, particularly in preschools and early elementary grades. It includes explanations of commonly used terms and programs and challenges common misconceptions about bilingual learners. The author gives an overview of successful approaches for teaching bilingual children and, based on that information, provides a list of guidelines for early childhood teachers. Spencer, M.B., Brookins, G.K., & Allen, W.R. (Eds.) (1985). Beginnings: The social and affective development of Black children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

When it was first published, this volume represented a significant departure from the vast majority of research about ethnic groups at that time because it contained studies of Black children that were conceptualized and conducted from the perspective of the social ecology of the Black families, rather than by comparing them to White middle-class “norms.” This edited volume has 17 essays on topics related to the development of Black children. The first part focuses on the traditional treatment of Blacks in research studies and on the social context variables that have a differential impact on Black and White children. The second section consists of several research reports and reviews that articulate Blackspecific patterns in areas such as sociodramatic play, test performance, teacherchild relationships, and coping strategies. The next section includes five essays on cognitive, personality, and social factors in the development of African American children’s identities. In the fourth part, there are three chapters on Black families. The final section is a summary of the major points raised in this volume and implications for research and social policy. Spencer, M.B., & Markstrom-Adams, C. (1990). Identity processes among racial and ethnic minority children in America. Child Development, 61, 290–310.


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This review is a synthesis of many studies on the identity processes among children of racial and ethnic minorities. The authors show how both developmental and environmental perspectives must be considered to adequately understand the processes of how children in these groups develop healthy identities. The authors describe some of the barriers to positive racial and ethnic identities that are experienced by children of Ogbu’s caste-like minorities. The review concludes with a series of recommendations to foster healthy identity formation among ethnic and racial minorities, many of which reflect the goals of multicultural and antibias education. Stevens, R.J., & Slavin, R.E. (1995). The cooperative elementary school: Effects on students’ achievement, attitudes, and social relations. American Educational Research Journal, 32(2), 321–351.

This article reports on a 2-year study of a full-school cooperative model, in which academically delayed students were fully integrated into all the classrooms and cooperative learning strategies were used across a number of subject areas. Teachers also worked together in cooperative groups, and parents were involved in school decision making. After 2 years, the academically delayed students were more advanced in all academic areas and were more socially accepted than were comparable students at the control schools, which were demographically similar but did not use the cooperative model. Stronge, J.H. (Ed.) (1992). Educating homeless children and adolescents: Evaluating policy and practice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

This volume begins with an essay that describes the history of homelessness in the United States and shows how the current wave of homelessness is unique because many more families with children are affected. The subsequent chapters in the first part describe the myriad of problems associated with educating children who are homeless, such as the lack of access to schools, frequent school transfers, stigmatization, and the pressures on families merely to survive. The next two parts of the book focus on changes in educational policies and practices that would provide good educational experiences for children of homeless families. The authors advocate maintaining close teacher-parent communication and frequent contacts between schools and shelter staffs. They also recommend educational practices that emphasize emotional support, positive social relationships, and individualization. Above all, teachers and principals must learn about homelessness and must genuinely welcome these children into their classrooms. The book concludes with a strong statement about the urgent need to make profound social and economic changes to eliminate homelessness. Swadener, B.B., & Lubeck, S. (Eds.) (1995). Children and families “at promise.” Albany: State University of New York Press.

This edited volume is based on the premise that the “at risk” label is a “highly problematic and implicitly racist, classist, sexist, and ableist…model which locates problems or ‘pathologies’ in individuals, families, and communities rather than in institutional structures that create and maintain inequality” (p. 3). The book has


three sections. The first one provides a historical and political context for the emergence and critique of the term at risk. The second section consists of four stories of students and families who have struggled against enormous odds to resist and overcome their oppressive circumstances. The final section contains four case studies of successful school programs that are based on the ideology of “at promise,” rather than “at risk.” Together, these chapters reveal the biases that underlie the “at risk” analysis of poor families and families of color. Readers will also find hope and inspiration in the vivid and compelling examples of how families and teachers can overcome daunting challenges and create classrooms and learning partnerships that enable children to fulfill their “promise.” Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

As a social psychologist, the author examines the research in cross-group perceptions, attitudes, and behavior that was done in Europe and the United States prior to 1980. In particular, he focuses on the interplay of individual psychology and relationships with the dynamics of the larger social context. He describes a number of his own studies on prejudice in both children and adults, which analyze how perceptual judgment, the status of being an insider versus an outsider, and intergroup conflict affect the formation and maintenance of social stereotypes. Tharp, R.G. (1989). Psychological variables and constants: Effects on teaching and learning in schools. American Psychologist, 44, 349–359.

The author describes four dimensions of cultural differences between home communities and schools that may account for the discomfort and underachievement manifested by some children from cultures that differ from the dominant culture. They are: the social organization (e.g., emphasis on peer cooperation vs. individual accomplishments); sociolinguistics, which include the conventions and courtesies of speech (e.g., the length of time one waits for a response, rhythms of speech, and responses); patterns of cognitive functioning (e.g., the difference between verbal/analytic and visual/holistic thinking); and motivation (e.g., responses to praise and affection). Tharp illustrates how the effectiveness of specific educational practices depends on the cultural context in which they occur and argues that educators should endeavor to increase the cultural compatibility between home and school. At the same time, they also must support the development of new skills so that all children (including members of the dominant group) can function in a wider range of modalities and settings. Thompson, T., & Hupp, S.C. (Eds.) (1992). Saving children at risk: Poverty and disabilities. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

This edited book focuses on the relationship between poverty and disabilities. First, it includes an analysis of the causes of the increase of childhood poverty during the 1980s. Then, drawing from a number of different studies, the authors collectively demonstrate how the inadequate health care available to poor people


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has contributed to the rise of developmental delays and deficits associated with low birth weight and poor prenatal and early infant care. The authors also point out that the health-care system in the United States focuses on remediation, rather than on prevention, and is more expensive and serves people less well than health care that is directed toward wellness. A number of programs designed to offset the negative effects of poverty on children’s development are described, although the authors caution that single-focused and short-term programs are not effective. They argue for comprehensive and integrated health and education programs to ensure that all children in this country grow up with a chance for a productive life. Troyna, B., & Hatcher, R. (1992). Racism in children’s lives: A study of mainly-White primary schools. London: Routledge.

This book describes the data collected by the two authors during their 2-year study, in which they observed and interviewed children from ages 8 to 10 in predominately White schools in Britain. The authors describe in detail the relationships between Black and White children and the harassment that Black children routinely experience. They illustrate through case studies of individual children and groups how the peer culture both exacerbates and ameliorates racism. Children’s concerns with fairness mitigate their racist views, yet their desires to dominate their peers heighten them. These dynamics, which reflect the larger national and local cultures, are played out repeatedly in interactions among the children and in their comments to the interviewers. The children and the authors criticize traditional “multicultural” teaching for avoiding issues of racism and power and unintentionally stigmatizing children of color and antagonizing White children. Valdés, G. (1996). Con respeto: Bridging the distances between culturally diverse families and schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This ethnographic study of 10 Mexican immigrant families reports on how they decided to come to the United States and how they arrived and adjusted to life in their new country. The stories vividly portray the stresses of relocation on family life and the determination with which families create new economic and social structures. The disjunctures and misunderstandings between the schools and the families are explored. The author challenges the popular belief that poor Latino parents do not care about the children’s education and explains why many school and parent programs do not work. She provides suggestions for how school staffs can work with the strengths of families to develop more effective and collaborative programs. West, C. (1993). Race matters. Boston, MA: Beacon.

In this series of essays Cornel West recasts the issues of race in our society. He critiques both the liberal position of blaming the plight of African Americans on racist economic and political structures and the conservative position of blaming it on the pathology of individuals. He asserts that both positions are too narrow to encompass the complexities of racial issues in this country and that social and


economic structures and individuals’ behaviors are inseparable. West advocates a “politics of conversion,” which is a commitment at the local level to collective social responsibility and morality directed to changing the structural inequalities of this country, much like the freedom fighters of the mid–1990s. Williams, J.E., & Morland, J.K. (1976). Race, color, and the young child. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

The authors begin this book with a discussion of the way racial differences were treated in this country in laws, religion, literature, and the social sciences through the early 1970s. They then discuss many studies that they did since the early 1960s, in which they examined the development and modifications of racial attitudes, with a particular emphasis on the role of the symbolic meanings attached to different colors. In their reports, the authors describe numerous instruments that they used to measure reactions to the colors black and white and racially related attitudes, acceptance, preferences, and classifications. The authors also discuss the relationships among these processes and integrate them into a theoretical model to explain the development of racial bias in young children. Wright, C. (1992). Race relations in the primary school. London: David Fulton.

In this ethnographic study, the author describes in detail the racial harassment that she observed in four primary schools (among children from 3 to 8 years old) in the United Kingdom. In her analysis, she concludes that the peer culture embodies a status hierarchy in which White children distinguish themselves from other groups, particularly from the Asian children (mostly, Pakistanis) who are at the bottom of the hierarchy. The classroom observations illustrate how teachers often exacerbate the marginalization of children of color with their stereotyped assumptions and differential treatment of them. In several discouraging episodes, teachers attempted to include some multicultural material. However, their efforts backfired and led to more ridicule of the children of color.

3 Multicultural Curriculum and Teaching

The evolution of multicultural curriculum and teaching resources guiding classroom work with young children (ages 3 to 12) has paralleled, reflected, and, in some cases, challenged the broader social, political, psychological, and educational movements within our society, which were discussed in the first two chapters of this source book. As awareness and sensitivity regarding issues of cultural diversity have increased, educators’ interest in incorporating multicultural approaches into educational settings has also grown. Throughout the history of multicultural education, educational commentators have offered several ways of describing or categorizing multicultural curriculum and teaching approaches and resources. Such categories can aid teachers, administrators, and other curriculum specialists in discerning which materials reflect or extend their vision for their centers, schools, or classrooms. This chapter summarizes and comments on the most commonly cited descriptions and categories presently used to guide the selection of curriculum and teaching resources for teachers. It then discusses the trends in curricular research that may affect future directions in the field of multicultural curriculum and teaching. Annotations in the bibliography that concludes the chapter provide details on a selection of teaching resources, educational programs, and curricula now available to early childhood centers and elementary schools, with reference to the themes highlighted in this commentary. To understand these descriptions fully, it is helpful to look first at the larger contexts in which the curricular materials have appeared, especially at the contexts of multicultural curriculum reform. APPROACHES TO MULTICULTURAL CURRICULUM REFORM The move toward infusion of multicultural perspectives throughout curriculum and teaching practices in child care and educational settings for young children has not always been a straightforward one, nor has it proceeded to the same degree of implementation in every instance. For many practitioners and administrators, the move has involved a slow deconstruction of past practices, first through accretion of new or different perspectives, and possibly followed by a reconstruction of programs through reconsideration and realignment of basic purposes and practices. In his description of multicultural curriculum reform


movements, James Banks (1999, p. 31) identifies four levels of practice, which are distinguished by the degree of integration of multicultural content and processes and the ultimate aims of the approach: Level 1 The Contributions Approach (focusing on heroes, holidays, and discrete cultural elements). An example of this approach would be the celebration of Martin Luther King Day as an event without integration of the history and meanings behind that day into the activities done with the children across subjects throughout the year. Another example would be the promotion of multicultural food fairs, commonly held in schools, without the children’s study of the significance of these foods in the past and present lives of the groups who originated them. Level 2 The Additive Approach (adding content, concepts, themes, and perspectives to the curriculum without changing the curriculum’s structure). This approach might be seen in the addition of books by authors of color to an existing list of required readings in a literature program, without examination of their import for the total construction of the program. Level 3 The Transformational Approach (changing the structure of the curriculum to enable students to view concepts, issues, events, and themes from the perspective of diverse ethnic and cultural groups). Here teachers and school administrators examine the whole curriculum and expand or reshape the content to represent multiple points of view, with awareness of the issues of power and oppression that influence what content is considered most valuable and of greatest use to children living within a particular society. An example of this approach in an upper elementary classroom would be moving from a cursory look at “slavery” in the antebellum southern United States (where it has sometimes been implied in curriculum that being a slave was an accepted part of a social order) to beginning to understand the dynamics of “enslavement” (where a formerly free people were subjected to a terrible oppression that many resisted and fought to overcome). Such a change draws upon what is now known of the actual history of the event, the roles played by both oppressors and oppressed, and the ethical dimensions pursued by both African American and European American resisters. Level 4 The Social Action Approach (enabling students to make decisions on important social issues and take action to help solve them). Examples of this approach would be kindergartners’ working under their teacher’s guidance to make new classroom rules to ensure that both boys and girls have access to all different types of materials in their classroom and sixth-graders studying consumerism as a way of reexamining what impels them to see brand name clothing as a marker of social success.

Curricular resources produced during the first decades of the multicultural movement more commonly (though not exclusively) reflected the first two levels, whereas more recent resources tend toward the second two. Teacher resource books from the 1970s and early 1980s, for instance, might offer projects or units that draw upon an art motif from a particular cultural group or acknowledge African American inventors for an exhibit during a particular month or week (e.g., Kuska & Linse, 1987; Perl, 1983; Schubert & Bird, 1976, 1977).

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More recent teacher resource books, however, tend to focus on the complex processes that teachers and schools need to undergo in order to see and work with the cultural knowledge and experience that the children bring with them to the classroom, identify resources that work with these different perspectives across various subject areas, and enable children to address the injustices that they see (eg., De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Derman-Sparks, et al., 1989; Kendall, 1996; Nieto, 2000; Ramsey, 1998; Timms, 1996). All four levels of implementation, with their implied goals, may still be represented in current resources and practices, however. One might argue that these four approaches to multicultural curriculum reform parallel in an interesting way the history of the multicultural movement, as discussed in chapter 1 of this book. It also has been observed that the four approaches echo a common course of professional development undertaken by many teachers and administrators as they grapple with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are needed to teach from a multicultural perspective (see chapter 4). Teachers or administrators who are just beginning to consider the demands of multicultural teaching may be more likely to be attracted to resources reflecting the first two levels, which are less challenging to the status quo (as noted by Derman-Sparks & Phillips, 1997; Goodwin, 1997), whereas teachers or administrators with more experience in the area and a developing vision of transforming fundamental curriculum structures may find resources focusing on the second two levels to be more useful for that purpose (Williams & Ryan, 2000). Thus, assessment of teachers’ or administrators’ own levels of development across these four areas and current goals or desired outcomes around issues of multiculturalism might help them understand what kinds of resources speak to their immediate perceived curriculum and teaching needs. PROCESSES OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR USE OF CURRICULUM AND TEACHING RESOURCES A common and persistent vision of the nature of curricular resources is that they primarily provide activities and materials that teachers can use in their classrooms. This idea of curriculum as a collection of activities comes from a view of teachers as technicians who simply implement or transmit programs and plans created by others, “experts” in curriculum design (Freire, 1970; Schoonmaker & Ryan, 1996). A more current and constructivist view of the nature of teachers and teaching, however, acknowledges the vital role that teachers play as curriculum makers in their own classrooms and highlights the interplay between teacher awareness and both curriculum content and teaching strategies (Freire, 1970; Schon, 1983; Williams, 1996). One could argue that what applies to curriculum and teaching in general applies even more forcefully to multiculturally oriented curriculum and teaching; that the teachers’ role—and, by extension, the preparation of teachers to use multicultural educational approaches—is critical to their success. In her analysis of the


theoretical foundations for preparing teachers to be multicultural educators, Kendall (1996) draws upon the work of Wurzel (1988), who describes seven stages in the development of an individual’s multiculturalism. These stages have discernible parallels with the development of racial identities described by Cross (1995) and Helms (1990), as previously discussed in chapter 2 of this volume. The parallels suggest that a very complex process is entailed in becoming an authentically multicultural teacher, a process that involves self-transformation as much as acquisition of professional proficiency. According to Wurzel, initially, persons who have lived without any contact with persons racially, culturally, or otherwise different from themselves are in the stage of monoculturalism. At this point of departure, people have no awareness that value and belief systems, traditions and life practices, and even the common material elements of people’s day-to-day lives can validly differ from one another. Kendall points out that the underlying assumption here is that there is only one correct perspective and that variation is fundamentally deviant. In relation to Banks’s (1999) description of levels of implementation of multiculturalism described earlier, it can be surmised that teachers in this stage do not implement a multicultural curriculum in any form, as they do not recognize its validity or importance in promoting development and learning in children. The second stage Wurzel describes is that of cross-cultural contact. At this point, teachers may have had some limited exposure to people whose cultures1 are different from their own and may regard those experiences positively. Thinking again of Banks’s description, one can imagine their relating their experiences to the kinds of exposure that they consider good for the children in their classrooms and consequently using the contributions approach—highlighting the achievements of a famous person from a specific cultural group or introducing cultural elements such as particular foods or music from that group. Thus, curricular resources that emphasize such contributions may have a particular appeal at this stage of a teacher/ caregiver’s work. Not all cross-cultural contact may be experienced as so benign, however, and teachers/caregivers may be propelled into Wurzel’s third stage, cultural conflict, by the realization of challenges to their own beliefs and values in the contacts they have had. Teachers may feel confused about what content is worth pursuing (a “standard” curriculum or one with multicultural additions). If teachers feel locked into a particular curriculum plan or do not feel supported in their efforts by their supervisors and administrators, they may not proceed beyond this point in their development of a multieultural approach. Here we can see the relationship of the efforts of individual teachers to reform efforts underway in their school or center or to initiatives emphasized in their school districts. Persistence may require a sense of community or shared efforts. When teachers do persist, however, they generally enter Wurzel’s fourth stage of movement toward multiculturalism—educational interventions. In this stage, teachers or caregivers seek new information to extend what they have previously known. They are aware that culturally specific knowledge exists (or even that knowledge may be constructed differently in different cultures), and they seek to


expand their knowledge base. Now one imagines an attraction to professional development that focuses on elements of a culture with which they are becoming familiar, and they might also be likely to draw on teacher resources that focus on specific cultural groups. In their choices of curriculum content and strategies for their classrooms, teachers may consequently move into the additive approach to the multicultural curriculum implementation that Banks describes. With any serious expansion of one’s knowledge base, however, comes another set of challenges. One may learn that what one has always held to be true (a cherished image of the fair and equal treatment of all cultural groups in the United States, for example) is not in fact the case. Such revelations are likely to propel teachers into disequilibrium, Wurzel’s fifth stage toward multiculturalism. A host of emotions may again be invoked, as teachers discover new realities and the ways that these have affected both their own lives and those of the children whom they teach. As they struggle with these, one can suppose that they may become interested in curricular resources supplying multiple perspectives on issues, in a continued effort to expand their knowledge and transform their thinking about the dynamics of cultures both in their society and in their educational and care practices. Wurzel’s sixth stage is awareness. As teachers work through their disequilibrium, they understand that it is not enough to add cultural elements to an existing curriculum, but that the curriculum must be redesigned from the bottom up, with full attention to the inclusion of multiple perspectives and experiences, varying constructions of knowledge, and a range of strategies that supports the development and learning of the children in their classrooms. At this juncture, it seems likely that teachers may begin using the transformative approach described by Banks and be attracted to resources emphasizing that approach. Finally, the seventh point on Wurzel’s continuum is the achievement of multiculturalism. At this stage, thought and action are united beyond the acts of teaching and learning in classrooms to connect directly to activism within the local, national, or global community in service of social justice. Teachers and their students focus on and take action against oppressive forces (such as poverty and homelessness) affecting the prospects of current and future generations. It is obvious that teachers in this stage are aligned with Banks’s description of the social action approach to curriculum implementation and would seek resources with that orientation. Works on multicultural preservice and inservice teacher preparation are examined in chapter 4 of this source book. However, it is important to point out that preparation (including the growth and development described earlier) does not end in such programs. Many of the current curriculum and teaching resources intended for immediate use by practicing early childhood and elementary teachers contain descriptions of processes that teachers must undertake in order to effect deep-seated changes in themselves, their teaching environments, and the prospects for the children they teach. Thus, most current curricular resources for teachers are intended to be transformational, as much as informative.


Although some variation exists in the particulars described to prepare people to teach from a multicultural perspective, there appears to be widespread agreement on certain elements. The foundation for multicultural practice is generally seen to be teachers’ examination of their own belief systems around issues of race, culture, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability/disability, and other diversities and their consequent expectations for children (Bennett, 1999; De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Derman-Sparks, et al., 1989; Garcia, 1999; Kendall, 1996; Miller-Lachman & Taylor, 1995; Nieto, 2000; Ramsey, 1998; SaponShevin, 1999). The expectation here is that teachers will confront a lack of specific kinds of knowledge and skills, as well as bias, within themselves. They would then work vigorously to overcome both those insufficiencies and their negative feelings, with full awareness of ways these might otherwise influence their practice. The formation of a community of effort in partnership with parents and with other teachers, as well as with the children in the class, is identified as another factor vital to the success of the approach (De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Hernandez, 1989; Miller-Lachman & Taylor, 1995; Ramsey, 1998; Robles de Melendez & Ostertag, 1997; Rogovin, 1998; Sapon-Shevin, 1999; Williams, De Gaetano, Harrington, & Sutherland, 1985). The intention is to build a fund of cultural knowledge that goes beyond the experience of any one person to ground both curriculum content and teaching strategies. A third process commonly cited is that of reenvisioning the classroom environment to reflect the daily life experiences and cultural knowledge that the children, parents, and teachers bring with them into the classroom (Davidman & Davidman, 1997; De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Kendall, 1996; MillerLachman & Taylor, 1995; Robles de Melendez & Ostertag, 1997; Timms, 1996; Williams, De Gaetano, Harrington, & Sutherland, 1985). This effort requires a careful survey of all representations of diversity in instructional materials and room decorations, as well as opening up the possibilities of furniture types and placements and classroom arrangements to ascertain that they positively contribute to, rather than counter, the aims of the multicultural approach. A corollary to the examination of instructional materials is careful study of the content of the texts used by children in each field of study—literature, social studies, science, mathematics, art, music, and others—to see that they are accurate (have not left out part of or distorted the story told, in order to represent a dominant interest) and, whenever possible, represent multiple perspectives on issues under consideration (Banks, 1996; Bennett, 1999; Davidman & Davidman, 1997). Controversies cited in chapter 1 have frequently revolved around this endeavor. Building on preparation of the classroom environment and curriculum content, the processes of curriculum planning, implementation, and assessment of student learning must be given rigorous attention in classrooms that use multicultural approaches (Bennett, 1999; Davidman & Davidman, 1997; De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Goodwin, 1997; Robles de Melendez & Ostertag, 1997; SaponShevin, 1999; Timms, 1996; Williams, De Gaetano, Harrington, &


Sutherland, 1985). Although traditional planning procedures can be applied to teach from a multicultural perspective, more variables need to be factored into the planning process, such as differences in developmental status, learning styles, and varying frames of reference for interpretation and application of concepts and skills being learned. By varying frames of reference, we mean the cultural histories, particular elements of culture, and the day-to-day lived experience that children bring with them into the classroom. Teachers may not know the cultural information most relevant to particular individuals (or shared by members of a specific group); and resources that provide descriptions of common cultural motifs for various ethnic, religious, regional, or other groups may be particularly helpful at such a moment. Information about specific groups is included in a number of the resources annotated at the end of this chapter; in many instances in the texts, the sample learning activities for children that are provided also reveal specific elements of culture. One needs to be careful in using such materials, however, so as not to over-generalize and stereotype in an effort to be culturally responsive. The best corrective for this possibility is to involve parents, other members of a particular community, or both in the integration of specific cultural content (Rogovin, 1998). Finally, exploration of the processes of developing the self as an advocate for children, for parents, and for curriculum reform are now beginning to appear in teacher resource works (De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Pang, 2000; Ramsey, 1998). The intention is to move toward addressing the larger issues of social justice and caring through an expanded vision and practice of education. This area is often tied to the development of critical thinking skills and the exercise of skills in conflict resolution. Varying levels of professional development do seem to relate to the levels of curriculum reform outlined by Banks (1999), as previously noted. They also appear to be tied transactively to the immediate goals or desired outcomes and long-range intentions of multicultural educational practice. GOALS AND PHILOSOPHICAL ORIENTATIONS OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION Banks (1999) suggests that the goals of the four approaches can be viewed through the lenses of the following five dimensions, which reveal the complexity of multicultural education: 1. Content Integration Content integration deals with the extent to which teachers use examples and content from a variety of cultures and groups to illustrate key concepts, principles, generalizations, and theories in their subject area or discipline. 2. Knowledge Construction The knowledge construction process relates to the extent to which teachers help students understand, investigate, and determine how the implicit cultural


assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives, and biases within a discipline influence the ways that knowledge is constructed within it. 3. 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, gender, and social-class groups. This includes using a variety of teaching styles that are consistent with the wide range of learning styles within various cultural and ethnic groups. 4. Prejudice Reduction This dimension focuses on the characteristics of students’ racial (or other) attitudes and how they can be modified by teaching methods and materials. 5. An Empowering School Culture and School Structure Grouping and labeling practices, patterns of sports participation and academic achievement, and the interactions of the staff and the students across ethnic and racial lines are among the components of the school culture that must be examined to create a school culture that empowers students from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural groups.

These five dimensions show up in different proportions in various curricular and teaching resources, ranging from superficial treatment to being fully represented in any particular work. Some resources may focus on one or two of the dimensions (Banks, 1996; King, Chipman, & Cruz-Janzen, 1994), whereas others may treat a wider range (Gollnick & Chinn, 1998; Kendall, 1996), and some may include as well dimensions not considered by Banks (De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Nieto, 2000; Ramsey, 1998). Dimensions beyond those Banks discusses include identity formation and other psychological processes that affect personal growth and development (Tatum, 1997; Timms, 1996) and political processes that affect societal growth and development (Ovando & McLaren, 2000; Timms, 1996). It is helpful to think about how these five dimensions of multicultural practice relate to the four levels of curricular reform that Banks identified. One might imagine that the first two dimensions (content integration and knowledge construction) would be present to some degree in all four levels (contribution, additive, transformational, and social action), but would appear with increasing intensity from the first to the fourth levels. The remaining three dimensions (equity pedagogy, prejudice reduction, and empowering school culture and school structure) would intersect most completely with the third and fourth levels. The goals of multicultural practice implicit in Banks’s approaches and dimensions are reflected in another way of categorizing curriculum and teaching resources that originated in work done in 1987 by Christine Sleeter and Carl Grant. Review of a large number of resources then available revealed at least five philosophical positions related to overall purposes and goals of multicultural curriculum and teaching resources. Subsequent continuation of that review has convinced those authors that the typology remains valid. In their most recent iteration of their categorization, Sleeter and Grant (1999) have refined their explanation of: (1) education of the exceptional and culturally different child (intended for racial, ethnic, ability/disability, or other groups that are


not achieving at a high level and aimed toward assimilation of those populations); (2) single group studies (formerly called “ethnic studies” by these authors, which may be intended for all students or ethnic minorities only and which treat particular groups as distinct entities in separate curricular segments); (3) human relations (focusing on intergroup cooperation for all children); (4) multicultural education (designed for all children and emphasizing the positive, adaptive value of cultural pluralism, while encouraging children’s competence in more than one cultural system); and, finally, (5) education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist (a more fully articulated orientation toward change of the deep structures of society that foster unequal relationships among distinct groups). The fifth is the most far-reaching of the approaches and speaks to a focus on social justice. Like the fourth, it implies infusion of a multicultural perspective throughout the entire curriculum. The first three formulations, on the other hand, are more likely to take the form of self-contained or “add-on” curricular activities. The fourth and fifth approaches have been increasingly represented in the literature over the decade of the 1990s. It should be noted that in educational resources that represent each or combinations of these approaches, there is variation in the terminology used to describe the orientation of the work. The range of designations (multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, etc.) previously discussed in chapter 1, with their particular connotations, appears in the curricular writings just as it does in the works on policy. The annotations at the end of this chapter examine teachers’ guides, manuals, books, and other resources published primarily over the last 20 years for use in early childhood and elementary school settings, which are intent on fostering cultural pluralism and multicultural competence in children and teachers. For the most part, we have chosen to include works oriented toward both the positive, adaptive value of cultural pluralism and its potential to create social change. Some resources (especially those we consider to have been seminal in the field) do contain elements of the three other approaches as well. Valid assessment of the suitability of these resources for use in a particular classroom or district is contingent upon an understanding of the range of possibilities that the materials represent. Each resource can be examined not only according to its purposes, but also in relationship to the issues and dilemmas inherent in multicultural education today. ISSUES AND DILEMMAS Aside from basic definitions of the type of resource each publication represents, there are other issues to consider in a review of available curriculum and teaching resources. One is the various authors’ understanding of what constitutes culture. These differing concepts of culture affect the ways that ideas of race, gender, and other variables are constructed in the writings. Another issue is the view presented of language and linguistic variations. Still other issues involve the nature and availability of the literature on religion, social class and socioeconomic status, ability/


disability, and sexual orientation, as well as the positioning of global education and international multicultural movements. Definition of Culture Like definitions of curriculum, delineation of the elements of culture may run the gamut from broad processes that encompass both a group’s past (its heritage and traditions) and that group’s present living circumstances (its responses to the requirements of living today), to narrow conceptualizations of culture as a fixed set of customs or “folkways.” As discussed in chapter 1, the authors believe that the former view of culture as an inclusive and dynamic expression of life is the more accurate and useful construct. Materials and resources that draw upon culture as a process in understanding human experience generally can be adapted effectively for whatever cultural groups are represented in a classroom. In contrast, resources that view culture only in terms of its specific expression for a particular group may be found to be less versatile, with content requiring total reconstruction in order to address any other cultural group. Moreover, resources relying on such a high degree of specificity in content may be especially prey to stereotypic representations, as intragroup variation is obscured and readers lose sight of the fact that there is often more variation within a group than there is between groups. Process approaches to the definition of culture, on the other hand, highlight the constructive tension between the characteristics of individuals and group tendencies, revealing culture as a continuous construction of mind and spirit. How specifically race and gender are acknowledged in writings as major dynamics at play in the classroom and in the larger society also hinges on the broadness of the definition of culture. How children and adults interact with and respond to individuals or groups according to race, gender, or both, is deeply intertwined with culturally shaped and deep-seated attitudes and beliefs. The power of these motifs is discussed at length in chapter 2 of this source book. When such dynamics are not recognized as part of culture, authors tend to sidestep them as major issues in multicultural education. On the other hand, when authors recognize the power of race (e.g., Watkins, Lewis, & Chou, 2001) and gender (e.g., Wrigley, 1992) as key issues of multiculturalism, their work often appears under the umbrella of anti-bias education; in the United States particularly but also prominently in the United Kingdom, proponents of anti-bias education have sometimes seen themselves as moving beyond multicultural education. There has been a long-standing debate as to which subsumes the other (Blum, 1999; Gillborn, 1995). Linguistic and Other Variations Another issue in multicultural educational materials is the degree of attention paid to language and linguistic variations as aspects of cultural diversity (see chapter 1). Although multicultural programs are not necessarily bilingual in instructional


practice, and bilingual programs may or may not be multicultural in orientation, the two elements cannot logically be divorced from one another. Language is generally understood by multiculturalists to be one of the expressions of culture (De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Hernandez, 1989; Nieto, 2000), and the deep structures of a culture determine when, where, and with whom particular language variations may be employed. Some literary, educational, and psychological theorists, however, see language as the source and shaper of culture (Bahktin, 1981; Dewey, 1938; Vygotsky, 1978) through the social construction of reality. By implication, language thus becomes a critical issue in multicultural work. In the United States at the present time, however, bilingual education and multicultural education have differing political connotations, according to the degree to which the retention of languages other than English has highlighted both the separateness of particular groups and their unequal opportunity in the society in which they are embedded. Although this source book has not reviewed materials that are exclusively bilingual in orientation, a number of the programs and curricula in the annotated bibliography include or allude to bilingual options. Religion Specific mention of religion as an aspect of multicultural education appeared in texts only rarely through the 1980s. By the early 1990s, however, religion began to be recognized explicitly as another major factor in the politics of difference. In the United States, one of the reasons for this delay and caution in the multicultural education literature undoubtedly had to do with the issue of separation of church and state and avoidance of being perceived as “teaching religion” in the public schools. In the most current works (e.g., Uphoff, 2001), the stance taken is descriptive of populations defining their identities by religion, and noting educational implications and curricular resources for teaching about religion (rather than teaching religion). Proponents of this approach (AERA Symposium Audience Participation, 2002) have pointed out that religion is a major divisive factor in current world conflicts as well as a major force for peace, and that it should be a prime concern of multicultural education. The issue of what content should appear in treatment of the issue remains controversial in the United States, however. Social Class and Socioeconomic Status The issues in treatment of social class and socioeconomic differences in the multicultural education literature revolve around use of deficit versus difference paradigms. As previously discussed in chapter 1, in the 1960s and 1970s the cultural deficit hypothesis in education was linked to the development of curricula; and poverty was identified as a major cause of deficits in children’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to equipping children for school success. The deficit paradigm frames children as being at risk for school failure and advocates a compensatory


approach to education. Such an approach is contrary to the aims of multicultural education (which sees children as possessing cultural knowledge and skills) and therefore, from a multicultural point of view, creates a tension in both curriculum making and implementation. According to the deficit paradigm, poor children need “basic skills” and direct instruction, whereas children from more affluent families benefit from enriched curricula and childcentered teaching-learning processes. Each of these educational experiences is tied to lesser or greater tax bases for public schooling as discussed in some of the multicultural educational literature. Anyon (2001), for example, addresses the disparity in resources for support of education between many inner city and suburban schools. The tension produced by this disparity and calls for the fundamental change of social structures that foster it (as well as other oppressive forces) are main focuses of multicultural literature written from a social reconstructionist perspective (eg, McLaren, 1997; Sleeter, 1996; Sleeter & McLaren, 1995). Ability/Disability What has been true for treatment of social class and socioeconomic status in the multicultural educational literature has also been true in the introduction of the concerns of ability/disability. Historically, the field of special education related to disability was rooted in behavioral psychology and reflected a deficit orientation, as previously noted in chapter 2. As in the case of social class, children were often described in the literature as being at risk for delayed development, school failure, or both. From the 1980s to the present day, however, a new cadre of special educational scholars, researchers, and practitioners (e.g., Fahey & Reid, 2000; Reid, 1988) who see issues of ability/disability as a vital part of multicultural practice, have oriented their work toward the constructivist positions in psychology also characteristic of most multiculturalists. These educators see children at promise for growth and development and for a successful experience in school, rather than at risk. They often work toward changing school structures that inhibit opportunities for children with special needs. This new paradigm is aligned with the aims of the multicultural and social reconstructionist approaches to education. Sexual Orientation Attention to the area of sexual orientation is relatively new in the field of multicultural education; in the United States, it remains one of its most controversial elements, as was noted in chapter 1. Our review of child development literature in chapter 2 revealed that to the present moment, relatively little research has been done on the development of young children’s awareness and understanding of sexual orientation Consequently, there has not been the same tradition in early childhood education of a developmental foundation for curriculum construction around the concerns of this area. The circumstance of controversy is also due, however, to continued opposition from


members of the religious and political right, who see sexual disposition as a moral issue that should not be addressed in schools. The strong sentiments against inclusion of the area in texts on multicultural education for young children is reflected in the paucity of educational resources located for review by the authors of this source book. Only a few of the multicultural educational texts identified in our review contained sections explicitly discussing sexual orientation (e.g., Cushner, McClellend, & Safford, 2000; Gollnick & Chinn, 1998), and those sections tended to be brief. By and large, the focus in the works is on antibias strategies for combating homophobia (e.g., Derman-Sparks, 1989). As a result of this difficulty in locating resources containing a more extended treatment, the area of sexual orientation is not as fully represented in the annotations in this source book as we imagine it will be in future editions. Global Education and International Multicultural Movements Global education and the multicultural educational movements in various countries throughout the world that preceded, paralleled, or followed those in the United States have not generally been well recognized in texts published in the United States. At the turn of the present century, global education and the related focus on environmental education as an aspect of multiculturalism began making inroads in the field (e.g., Diaz, Massialas, & Xanthopolous, 1999; Ramsey, 1998; Spring, 2000; Swiniarski, Breitborde, & Murphy, 1999). At the same time, however, the vast literature on multicultural education in other parts of the world has remained relatively untapped by educators in the United States. This may be due on the one hand to recognition that the movements are rooted in varying cultural and national histories and may be driven by different imperatives from those in the United States, as previously noted in chapter 1. On the other hand, one can posit that the lack of awareness has been due to a persistent ethnocentrism in the United States and a general lack of facility of much of the English-speaking American population with languages other than its own. At this point in time, however, it seems self-evident that cross-national exchange of information and experience would strengthen multicultural educational movements wherever they appear. CRITERIA FOR SELECTING MULTICULTURAL RESOURCES Use of a multicultural perspective requires that curriculum and teaching resources that are chosen either be complementary to existing practice (thus refining ongoing work), or that they serve as vehicles for innovation and change. In either case, the articulation and coherence of the materials and methods selected, and the ways those will impact upon what Sarason (1982) calls the “internal regularities” of the classroom or school, must be examined. Many of the resources annotated at the end of this chapter contain criteria for use in reviewing resources and tailoring them to the purposes of a particular classroom.


Criteria for Examining Print and Other Actual Resources A number of works contain lists of children’s literature that meet the authors’ criteria for excellence in multicultural presentation (Beaty, 1997; Miller-Lachman & Taylor, 1995; Schniedewind & Davidson, 1998; Tiedt & Tiedt, 1999). Some works identify materials for children’s use in other areas as well, such as music (Sapon-Shevin, 1999) or social studies teaching social justice (Allen, 1999; Schniedewind & Davidson, 1998). Authors select these works for inclusion in the lists, but the criteria that the works reflect are not always made explicit. To remedy that problem, many of the current works include checklists that teachers can use to assess the presence of multicultural elements in their classroom environments De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Kendall, 1996; Robles de Melendez & Ostertag, 1997), multicultural representation in children’s literature (Beaty, 1997), and the cultural appropriateness of teaching strategies being used (Irvine & Armento, 2000; Kellough, 2000). Virtual Resources As technology rapidly advances, the field of multicultural education has expanded to the Internet. A wide variety of websites have appeared that offer knowledge about specific cultures, processes for conceptualizing multicultural curricula, interactive multicultural pedagogies, opportunities for dialogue and discussion, and links to multicultural organizations and associations (Gorski, 2001). As with print materials, these resources vary greatly regarding their validity and reliability and must be assessed by using rigorous criteria. In an excellent summary of available virtual multicultural resources, Gorski (2001) provides such criteria and warns against inadvertent seduction of “surfers” into substandard, inauthentic, and content-poor sites. Internet users must maintain a critical stance and a clear vision of the goals and intentions of their multicultural practice when selecting materials. Criteria for Assessing the Suitability of Particular Materials in Relation to Educational Aims and Intentions To date, no lists of criteria have been located that explicitly match teachers’ aims or multicultural orientations with particular curricula or teaching resources. For that reason, three checklists are provided in this section to assist educators in making those determinations. The lists are not exhaustive, and readers of this source book can expand them or use them as a base to create more comprehensive ones of their own. The selection and adaptation of materials involve three processes. First, teachers and program administrators need to identify the orientation of the materials and decide whether or not they fit with their multicultural educational aims. Second, they need to analyze the fit between the materials and the needs and resources of their particular program, classroom, or both. Finally, materials must be scrutinized


for their overt and covert messages and the extent to which they convey and support an authentic multicultural perspective. Identification of Orientation or Approach 1. Are the materials intended to be used particularly with children from underrepresented populations, to enable those children to succeed in school? (Education of the culturally different or exceptional children) 2. Do the materials focus entirely on the culture of a specific ethnic or other identified group? (Single group studies) 3. Is the primary purpose of the material to encourage intergroup communication and cooperation among all the children? (Intergroup relations) 4. Do the materials emphasize the positive, adaptive value of multicultural education and its appropriateness for all children? (Multicultural education) 5. Do the materials address power differences between groups and advocate changes in societal structures that inhibit full political, economic, and social participation for all peoples? (Education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist) 6. Are the materials self-contained, or do they promote infusion of a multicultural perspective throughout the total curriculum/program? Suitability of Use of Resources for a Particular Setting 1. What are the purposes or goals of the resource from the author’s point of view? How well do they mesh with your program/classroom orientation and goals? 2. For what population was the resource designed? What view of the child as a learner is assumed? How appropriate are the materials for your particular population of children and families? 3. What sorts of learning activities are proposed, and how will they support, challenge, or both support and challenge your current program or curriculum? 4. What teaching strategies are advocated, and how will they articulate with the total program or curriculum? How well do they match the experience, skills, and interests of the teachers? 5. What learning materials are recommended for use in the classroom? To what extent can existing materials be used? If necessary, how easily can you find or purchase the recommended materials? 6. What mechanisms are suggested for evaluating the effectiveness of the program? Are these assessment strategies feasible for your program? 7. Are the teachers interested in and enthusiastic about the materials? What preparation for teachers or other staff is needed to make good use of this resource? What amount of time and money would be needed to provide adequate preparation?


Assessment of the Multicultural Perspective in Specific Materials 1. Do the materials contain positive messages about members of different cultural, ethnic, racial, social class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability groups? Are they free of pejorative or stereotyped images? 2. Are illustrations of the characters in the materials natural in appearance? Are they accurate? Are different groups equally represented in the illustrations of a particular material? 3. Are people from different groups represented as equals in terms of abilities, strengths, emotional responses, experiences, and so on? Does the author avoid a condescending or patronizing tone when portraying people who have suffered from oppression? 4. Are the lifestyles of many groups depicted as equally valuable? 5. Do the terms used to describe identity group members convey positive images of individuals? 6. When portraying groups that have been oppressed, do the authors emphasize each group’s strengths and history of resistance? Do they avoid portraying people as victims? Although, as has been noted, a great number of curriculum and teaching resources presently exist, and more schools and individual teachers appear to be using them, there is not a long tradition of research in the field to demonstrate the effects on children, teachers, or communities of the use of multicultural approaches to teaching and learning. Still, there is at least a beginning of the documentation of effects that should be considered. PROGRAM AND CURRICULUM RESEARCH Although most multicultural programs include suggestions for program or curriculum evaluation, little has been published that uses those suggestions in formal research on the implementation or impact of particular multicultural programs or curricula. In 1987 Sleeter and Grant noted the absence of research in multicultural education and remarked that the research base for multicultural education has been drawn from other sources, such as child development studies and anthropological works. Almost a decade later, Grant and Tate (1995) echoed these words, in noting, “From the 1960s to the early 1990s was a period when multicultural theorists devoted much, if not most, of their attention to preparing essays and writing books defining and describing multicultural education, and declaring and celebrating it as a field of scholarship. As we head into the 21st century…scholarship in the area of multicultural education research must take center stage” (p. 161). This overview discusses some of the reasons why the multicultural education research is so sparse and so complicated and describes some of the few relevant studies that have been done in early childhood and elementary


school settings. Research on multicultural teacher education is described in chapter 4. Obstacles and Complexities of Multicultural Education Research In their review of research issues related to multicultural education, Grant and Tate (1995) note several barriers to doing multicultural education research: (a) As a group, education faculty lack the experience (many completed their doctorates prior to the multicultural education movement), ethnic diversity (93% are White), and epistemological backgrounds (typically, they have been trained to do quantitative and hypothesis-driven research that does not capture the complexities of multicultural work) to conduct multicultural research and to prepare graduate students to do it; (b) the pervasive Eurocentrism and belief in the United States as a meritocratic society limit researchers’ abilities to critically examine the power relationships that define the prospects of many groups of people in this country; (c) the lack of funding for multicultural education research has resulted in few graduate students being trained to do this kind of research (in particular, funds to do the long-term and multifaceted evaluations that would capture the complexity of multicultural education do not exist); and (d) the conceptual confusion about what multicultural education is has led to many contradictory interpretations that have impeded efforts to develop comprehensive and coherent research programs. Sleeter and Grant (1987, 1999) suggested that another factor may be the fact that multicultural education programs have never received much federal funding and so programs were not required to conduct evaluations. The complexity of multicultural education gives rise to the question of what kind of research is appropriate and meaningful. Grant and Tate (1995) make a distinction between “research on multicultural education” and “multicultural education research.” The former reflects traditional educational research, in which the effects of a particular curriculum are assessed by “objective” pre- and posttests or observations. The authors are critical of this orientation because it is more likely to support an assimilationist orientation in which researchers evaluate multicultural programs and materials for their effectiveness in helping children adapt to and achieve in school, but accept the status quo of schools and society. “Multicultural education research,” on the other hand, is oriented toward studying justice and power relationships in schools from a number of perspectives. Its underlying premise is that race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and abilities/ disabilities influence the relationship between knowledge and power. The primary goal is to apply this information to achieve equity, human dignity, and pluralism, rather than assimilation. Grant and Tate cite as one example of this latter type of research Grant and Sleeter’s (1986) ethnographic study of the power relations in a racially mixed and inclusive (in terms of special needs) junior high school. Others are Proweller’s (1999) ethnographic study of the social construction of White racial identity among adolescent girls in a private school


setting, and Katz’s (1999) ethnographic exploration of the relationship between Latino immigrant middle school students and their teachers. We argue that multicultural research needs to reflect both of these orientations. To gain political and academic support for multicultural education and to understand whether and how various approaches work, we need to assess the extent to which teachers actually implement multicultural curricula and practices and, in turn, how children, families, schools, and communities respond to these efforts. These assessments, however, need to include an analysis of how the existing power relationships affect the implementation of multicultural education and the extent to which multicultural initiatives change and challenge the status quo. For example, a study similar to Grant and Sleeter’s ethnography of the junior high school (1986) might be expanded to analyze how the power relationships change when teachers, parents, children, administrators, or any combination of these groups begin to shift toward a multicultural perspective. Doing good multicultural education research, good research on multicultural education, or some combination is a daunting task. In a volume edited by Grant (1992), Research and Multicultural Education: From the Margins to the Mainstream, the authors of the chapters, drawing on numerous experiences and situations, illustrate both the importance of doing research related to multicultural education and the barriers that thwart it. Research Studies The few studies of programs for preschool and elementary school children are almost all ethnographies or case studies; an extensive review of the literature revealed no published quantitative studies. In some cases, these case studies are teachers’ accounts of their work in their own classrooms, which does raise the question of researcher bias (Grant & Tate, 1995). At the same time, these narratives offer rich firsthand data about the subtleties of teacher-child interactions and children’s responses to the various curricular approaches. The perspectives and goals of the programs analyzed in these studies represent several of the approaches delineated by Sleeter and Grant (1987, 1999). In some cases the programs are a blend of two or more categories. Education for the Exceptional and Culturally Different Some studies analyze curricula and teaching practices that fit the category of education for the exceptional and culturally different. Probably the best-known and most carefully documented one is the KEEP project (the Kamehameha Elementary Education Project) (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). In the original study, classrooms in Hawaii were adapted to make them more compatible with native Hawaiian culture. For example, cooperative peer learning centers (usually, three to five mixed-sex children) replicated the self-managed, peer-oriented interactions that children were accustomed to at home and in their communities. The children who were in the KEEP schools gained many more academic skills


than did their peers in the regular public schools. Although many factors might have contributed to this effect, Tharp and Gallimore conclude that cultural compatibility is a significant factor. When the study was expanded to include children on a Navajo reservation and in the Los Angeles schools, the researchers learned that adaptations had to reflect the subtle differences between groups. For example, in the Navajo schools, the cooperative groups that were successful in the Hawaiian schools did not work until the teachers instructed the children to work in same-sex pairs, which was more compatible with the social patterns in Navajo homes and communities. The authors conclude that education should be based on sound educational and development theory and practices, but that the implementation should reflect the local culture. King, Chipman, and Cruz-Janzen (1994) used microethnographic methods to describe the implementation of the “Circle Never Ends” curriculum designed by educators in an intertribal urban setting for Native American preschool children. The curriculum consisted of nine units centered around Indian legends and teaching models that move in emphasis from self to family and tribal communities, to aspects of the physical, living, and regional world, and finally to membership in “the wide world.” The researchers observed lesson preparation and the classroom environment, the characteristics of the teachers and teaching strategies used, the use of daily learning centers and weekly “cultural circles,” during which specific cultural content was presented, and parent involvement. Following the children through kindergarten to the first and second grades, the researchers found that the children’s engagement in the public school kindergarten appeared depressed, indicating that they were experiencing a form of culture shock; by the time they reached second grade, however, 67% of the children were performing at or above grade level. They interpret these results as validating the preschool curriculum’s emphasis on positive self image and providing foundations for subsequent academic success. They do not note, however, what percentage of the children from the same community had achieved grade-level performance prior to the introduction of the preschool program. Also writing from the framework of teaching the culturally different, Igoa (1995), using observations and interviews, documents how specific techniques have helped immigrant children adjust to life and schools in the United States. For example, children make filmstrips to express the pain at leaving their homes and the hardships of adjusting to new customs, people, and language. Igoa also describes how children find a sense of security when they create their own places in the classroom by surrounding themselves with pictures and artifacts from their homeland. Hayes, Bahruth, and Kessler (1991) describe how children of Mexican American migrant workers who initially were well below grade level became enthusiastic and skilled writers through journal writing and journal dialogues with their teacher.


Human Relations Approach In the 1970s, many researchers studied children’s racial attitudes and the effects of particular interventions. Although these studies were done by child developmentalists and social psychologists, not by multicultural educators, they do provide some insights into the potential effects of multicultural education on individual children’s racial attitudes and cross-group peer relationships. In a review of this research on children’s attitudes, Banks (1991) concluded that three methods have the most promise to change (particularly White) young children’s own-race preferences: reinforcement of positive feelings about the color black; perceptual training to learn how to differentiate faces of members of less familiar groups; and cooperative learning in mixed ethnic/racial groups. In a review of the effects of cooperative learning on cross-group relationships, Slavin (1995) stated that when the conditions of role equality (Allport, 1954) have been met, relationships between students of different ethnic groups improve. In fact, cooperative learning has resulted in strong intergroup friendships, as well as in more amicable contacts. Not only have children in the same cooperative groups become friends, but crossethnic friendships outside of the groups also increased. Slavin speculates that once one cross-group friendship is formed, then friends of both parties get to know each other and in some cases become friends. In a study of two day-care centers, Swadener (1988) found that in both centers the formal and informal curricula supported children’s appreciation of individual differences and acceptance of their peers with disabilities (both centers had a number of children with disabilities) and flexible gender roles. The sociometric data showed that the children generally accepted their peers with disabilities and cross-ability interactions increased during the year. The observations included many examples of children challenging each other on gender stereotypes and negotiating flexible roles in their dramatic play. Thus, the curricular and teaching practices were successful in increasing children’s acceptance of individual differences and gender role flexibility. However, the teachers did not include as many activities related to racial or cultural differences and did not directly address issues related to oppression or inequality. Thus, the curriculum in both centers fit the category of human relations, rather than multicultural or social reconstructionist education. Swadener reports some of the teachers’ reasons for these limitations. They felt that they could not provide authentic and meaningful activities about groups that were not represented in the school; they were unsure of how to make that information meaningful to young children; and they worked long hours at low pay and did not have the time to do the research and curriculum development to support these kinds of efforts. Aboud (1993) studied the effects of a curriculum called More Than Meets the Eye, which was based on a human relations approach of reducing individual prejudice and heightening children’s ability to differentiate among members of different groups. The impact was gauged using pre- and posttests that measured children’s ability to differentiate members of other racial groups, their racial preferences, and their preference for cross-ethnic classmates. The children in the classroom in which the curriculum was implemented were compared to a similar


control group. The first group showed significant improvement on differentiating members of other groups and a slight increase in cross-race preferences. Children of color in the experimental group also showed an increase in positive feelings toward their own group. These changes were not found in the control group. Over the past decade a number of researchers have studied the effects of programs designed to increase the social integration of children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms. Although not formally labeled “multicultural research,” these interventions and assessments do add to our understanding of factors that promote interpersonal connections among people who are often isolated from each other (i.e., the human relations approach). The findings from these studies cumulatively provide helpful guidelines for enhancing relationships among all children, whether they are separated by race, gender, social class, or ability levels. These studies and guidelines are reviewed in the next few paragraphs. A recurrent theme in this body of research is that adults play a crucial role in the social inclusion of children with disabilities. The findings of a number of studies (Bronson, Hauser-Cram, & Warfield, 1997; Odom, Jenkins, Speltz, & DeKlyen, 1982; Odom et al., 1996; Sheridan et al., 1995; Stevens & Slavin, 1995) provide some guidelines for how teachers and parents can facilitate a more complete integration of children into the social life both inside and outside of classrooms. First, when adults obviously enjoy interacting with children with disabilities and support interactions between them and their peers, the children with disabilities are more a part of the classroom social life. Second, adults can facilitate interactions by closely monitoring the level of social integration, providing activities to develop social skills and positive peer relations, explicitly instructing children who lack social skills, subtly supporting children as they play together, providing a variety of activity contexts so that children can interact at different levels (e.g., working side by side versus actively cooperating), and providing enough academic support to ensure that children do not flounder and get frustrated. Third, activities and classrooms that are structured around cooperative learning are more conducive to integration than competitive ones are. One study (Putnam, Markovchick, Johnson, & Johnson, 1996) showed that children with disabilities who attended traditional classes were more negatively perceived by their nondisabled peers by the end of the year, whereas the opposite trend was true in classrooms organized around cooperative groups. In fact, a full-school cooperative model that supports cooperative learning in all subject areas and close collaborations among teachers and parents appears to be optimal (Stevens & Slavin, 1995). Fourth, children should be identified by everyone, including themselves, as full members of the group and integral parts of all activities. To support this goal, absences for special help should be done sparingly and in ways to minimize disruption (which obviously argues against extensive “pull-out” programs). Fifth, participation in after-school activities and group friendship activities (e.g., Forest & Lusthaus, 1989) enables children to develop more common ground with their peers, to develop their friendships. Sheridan et al. (1995) give many detailed


examples of how changing the environment to accommodate children with disabilities helps them academically and socially. In their review of research on the integration of children with disabilities in preschools, Diamond et al. (1994) conclude that when it is thoughtfully done, integration benefits children with and without disabilities. Children with disabilities make significant cognitive, linguistic, motoric, and social gains, and their peers learn to be less prejudiced and more responsive and helpful to others. Social Reconstructionism In a couple of studies, the themes of empowerment and social reconstructionism are woven into the approach of educating the culturally different. Delgado-Gaitan (1990) studied 20 Mexican American families for 3 years and described what happened when the parents organized and began to participate more in the schools and to collaborate with the teachers as equals. The first part of the book details some of the shortcomings of the literacy program in the schools and the power differentials between teachers and parents. The author then describes how the Spanish-speaking parents formed a group that worked with teachers and administrators to make the schools more culturally compatible for their children. This study is both an analysis of existing power relationships and an account of the effects of an intervention that challenged those dynamics. It combines both research on multicultural education and multicultural education research. Another study documents how Mexican American parents became politically active change agents in their community and were able to make the schools more culturally accessible to their children (Trueba, Rodriguez, Zou, & Cintron, 1993). The authors describe how parents got involved in local elections, became members of the local school board, and influenced the schools to become more culturally accessible to their children. The book includes a description of a local school that has bilingual and Spanish immersion classes and to some extent follows a social reconstructionist model of education. The one drawback of the book is that it does not address the larger issues of inherent discrimination and racism in the political system and could be interpreted to imply that the current democratic system is equitable, which contradicts the social reconstructionist view. A classroom teacher who is able to blend culturally compatible, human relations, and social reconstructionist approaches is the subject of another study (Levine, 1993). The narratives from the kindergarten-first grade classroom illustrate how the teacher creates a safe space for all children in the classroom to express and compare their perspectives and to challenge the “authority” of the written word and social conventions. The analysis captures some of the subtle ways that the teacher fosters these conversations. Unfortunately, the study does not include any data about how the children changed during the year, so we do not know the extent to which this pedagogy affected their ways of thinking about differences and equity. A few studies of classrooms or schools describe the effects of an explicit social reconstructionist approach. Goodman (1992) provides a firsthand illustration of


how the goals of critical democracy can be implemented in an elementary school. From detailed field notes of interactions between staff and among staff and students, he illustrates how the tensions between individual freedom and community emerge and are resolved in ways that support power sharing and critical thought among all children and adults in the school. The work in the school demonstrates how teachers and children can create a democratic community that is both idealistic and functional. The school described in this book is a small independent school, and it is not clear whether or not these methods would work in other sites, especially in large public schools. However, the book contains many thought-provoking examples of the complexities and possibilities of teaching from the vantage point of critical democracy. May (1994) uses a detailed ethnography to describe the particular form that a primary school in New Zealand took to give children and families from Maori, other Pacific cultures, and British backgrounds access to shared power in the teaching/learning process. In the New Zealand educational experience of the past century, Maori and other Pacific island children have historically exhibited depressed academic performance in the typical schools of the region. To counter this trend, the faculty and parents of the Richmond Road Primary School worked together to create bilingual cohorts across the school that worked with full realization of the connection among language, culture, and school achievement. Cultural content representative of the several groups whose children attended the school was infused throughout the curriculum. Traditional hierarchies of administrators, teachers, and parents were restructured into partnerships for children’s learning. The results showed a clearly discernable rise in reading achievement across the populations of the school. A review team from the local education authority criticized the school’s results and processes, however, finding them to be below standards they had expected. The school personnel took issue with that report and raised concerns about old constructs being used to evaluate new approaches. This debate captures one of the key concerns in research on multicultural educational practices—that of the appropriateness of student assessment and program evaluation instruments. On a much smaller scale is a teacher’s documentation of her efforts to implement the Anti-Bias Curriculum (Derman-Sparks et al., 1989) in a racially mixed kindergarten in the Midwest (Marsh, 1992). The teacher describes the organization of the year and the major themes that she addressed, including topics such as immigration, conflict resolution, cooperation, peace, Native Americans, and friends from around the world. Marsh then uses excerpts from children’s conversations and from her own journal to describe children’s responses to the curriculum. According to these excerpts, some of the children became more aware of injustices and began to take actions such as protesting the lack of African American crossing guards and organizing a peace march. This kind of observational study is very helpful because it can show more precisely how children actually respond to anti-bias curricula. In future studies that use this methodology, it would be helpful to have more systematic accounts of how individual children changed, in order to ascertain whether or not the curriculum


influenced all the children or only a few. Another extension of this kind of research would be follow-up studies to assess the long-term effects of the AntiBias Curriculum. The task of analyzing existing power relationships in schools and assessing the effects of multicultural curricula and teaching practices is daunting. No one study can possibly capture all of the dimensions of the status quo or all aspects of pedagogical innovations. Moreover, what works in one setting may not work in another one; the context of each study is critical. Authentic multicultural education research will require that faculty members at schools and universities develop more truly collaborative relationships. The outside researcher/expert from a university cannot grasp the subtle, contradictory, and elusive power relationships at a school as well as a member of the community can. Nor can an outsider gain a true picture of the day-to-day life in the classroom to understand how children and parents respond to the curriculum and process it over time. Thus, teachers, children, and parents must play active roles as researchers, not just as passive subjects. University researchers will need to become involved in a much more immediate and encompassing way than traditional researchers have. The complexities of multicultural education demand large-scale and long-term studies. However, at this point, the small-scale descriptive studies, as exemplified by some of the ones reported in this chapter, may be the most realistic way to proceed (Banks, 1991). Teachers and teacher educators can work together to describe and analyze what is occurring in specific classrooms. As we accumulate these separate databases, generalities will emerge and, it is hoped, will point the way to more comprehensive research studies. SUMMARY Existing resources on multicultural programs, curricula, and teaching strategies can be characterized according to their approaches, dimensions, and philosophical orientation to multicultural education. In many of the resources available today, authors have strongly emphasized the processes that teachers must go through in order to teach from an authentically multicultural perspective, moving from an earlier assumption of teacher as technician to a recognition and full acknowledgment of teachers as curriculum makers and reflective practitioners. This change moves the level of multicultural curriculum and teaching into the transformative and social justice modes advocated by Banks (1999). Broadly conceived, the works discussed in this chapter represent the translation into educational practice of the philosophies and policies discussed in chapter 1 and the understanding of child development reviewed in chapter 2 of this source book. Definitions of culture and incorporation of other aspects of human variation strongly influence the overall applicability of each work and need to be examined closely by potential users of the works. Consumers using particular resources should be aware of the many possibilities that these works can represent and, consequently, select those that best suit their intent.


Note 1 . In this description, as throughout this source book, the terms culture and cultural should be interpreted broadly to include not only ethnicity, but also race, gender, class, religion, sexual orientation, and ability/disability.

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Helms, J. (1990). Black and White racial identity: Theory, research, and practice. West-port, CT: Greenwood. Hernandez, H. (1989). Multicultural education: A teacher’s guide to content and process. New York, NY: Merrill. Igoa, C. (1995). The inner world of the immigrant child. New York, NY: St. Martin’s. Irvine, J., & Armento, B.J. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Lesson planning for elementary and middle grades. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Katz, S.R. (1999). Teaching in tensions: Latino immigrant youth, their teachers, and the structures of schooling. Teachers College Record, 100(4), 809–840. Kellough, R. (2000). A resource guide for teaching: K–12 (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall. Kendall, F.E. (1996). Diversity in the classroom: New approaches to the education of young children (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. King, E.W., Chipman, M., & Cruz-Janzen, M. (1994). Educating young children in a diverse society. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Kuska, G. & Linse, B. (1987). Live again our mission past (3rd ed.). Larkspur, CA: Arts Books. Levine, L. (1993). “Who says?” Learning to value diversity in school. In F.Pignatelli &S. W.Pflaum (Eds.), Celebrating diverse voices: Progressive education and equity (pp. 87–111). Newbury Park, CA: Corwin. Lynch, James. (1981). Teaching in the multicultural school. London: Ward Lock Educational. Marsh, M.M. (1992). Implementing anti-bias curriculum in the kindergarten classroom. In S.Kessler & B.B.Swadener (Eds.), Reconceptualizing the early childhood curriculum: Beginning the dialogue (pp. 267–288). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. May, S. (1994). Making multicultural education work. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. McLaren, P. (1997). Revolutionary multiculturalism: Pedagogies of dissent for the new millennium. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Miller-Lachman, L. & Taylor, L.S. (1995). Schools for all: Educating children in a diverse society. Albany, NY: Delmar. Nieto, S. (2000). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Addison Wesley Longman. Odom, S.L., Jenkins, J.R., Speltz, M.L., & DeKlyen, M. (1982). Promoting social interaction of young children at risk for learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 5, 379–387. Odom, S.L., Peck, C.A., Hanson, M., Beckman, P.J., Kaiser, A.P., Lieber, J., Brown, W.H., Horn, E.M., & Schwartz, I.S. (1996). Inclusion at the preschool level: An ecological systems analysis. Social Policy Report of the Society for Research in Child Development, 10(2 & 3), 18–30. Ovando, C.J., & McLaren, P. (2000). The politics of multiculturalism and bilingual education. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Pang, V.O. (2000). Multicultural education: A caring-centered, reflective approach. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Perl, L. (1983). Piñatas and paper flowers: Holidays of the Americas in English and Spanish. New York, NY: Clarion. Proweller, A. (1999). Shifting identities in private education: Reconstructing race at/in the cultural center. Teachers College Record, 100(4), 776–808. Putnam, J., Markovchick, K., Johnson D.W., & Johnson, R.T. (1996). Cooperative learning and peer acceptance of students with learning disabilities. Journal of Social Psychology, 136, 741–752.


Ramsey, P.G. (1998). Teaching and learning in a diverse world: Multicultural education for young children. (2nd ed.) New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Reid, D.K. (1988). Teaching the learning disabled: A cognitive developmental approach. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Robles de Melendez, W. & Ostertag, V. (1997). Teaching young children in multicultural classrooms: Issues, concepts, and strategies. Albany, NY: Delmar. Rogovin, P. (1998). Classroom interviews: A world of learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Sapon-Shevin, M. (1999). Because we can change the world: A practical guide to building cooperative, inclusive, classroom communities. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Sarason, S.B. (1982). The culture of the school and the problem of change. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Schon, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books. Schniedewind, N., & Davidson, E. (1998). Open minds to equality: A sourcebook of learning activities to affirm diversity and promote equity (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Shubert, B. & Bird, M. (1976, 1977). Culturally based activities for K–6 Children (American Indians, Black History, Alaska and Hawaii, Chinese, Mexican [in separate volumes]). San Jose, CA: Reflections & Images. Schoonmaker, F. & Ryan, S. (1996). Does theory lead practice? Teachers’ constructs about teaching: Top-down perspectives. In J.A.Chafel & S.Reifel (Eds.) Advances in early education and day care, v. 8 (pp. 117–152). Greenwich, CT: Jai. Sheridan, M.K., Foley, G.M., & Radlinski, S.H. (1995). Using the supportive play model: Individualized intervention in early childhood practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Slavin, R.E. (1979). Integrating the desegregated classroom. Educational Leadership, 37 (3), 322–324. Slavin, R.E. (1995). Cooperative learning and intergroup relations. In J.A.Banks & C.A. M.Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 628–634). New York, NY: Macmillan. Sleeter, C.E. (1996). Multicultural education as social activism. Albany State University of New York Press. Sleeter, C.E., & Grant, C.A. (1987). An analysis of multicultural education in the United States. Harvard Educational Review, 57(4): 421–444. Sleeter, C.E. & Grant, C.A. (1999). Making choices for multicultural education: Five approaches to race, class, and gender. (3rd ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice-Hall. Sleeter, C.E., & McLaren, P.L. (1995). Multicultural education, critical pedagogy, and the politics of difference. Albany State University of New York Press. Spring, J. (2000). The intersection of cultures: Multicultural education in the United States and the global economy (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Stevens, R.J., & Slavin, R.E. (1995). The cooperative elementary school: Effects on students’ achievement, attitudes, and social relations. American Educational Research Journal, 32(2), 321–351. Swadener, E.B. (1988). Implementation of education that is multicultural in early childhood settings: A case study of two day-care programs. Urban Review, 20(1): 8– 27. Swiniarski, L.A., Breitborde, M., & Murphy, J. (1999). Educating the global village: Including the young child in the world. Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.


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CHAPTER 3 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Entries in this bibliography are arranged alphabetically within two broad categories: (1) resources on curriculum content and teaching strategies for the classroom, and (2) research reports and commentaries on the effects of various forms of multicultural education. For the most part, the works selected for inclusion in this listing embody a multicultural perspective, a social reconstructionist perspective, or both in their guidance, although a few resources that utilize other perspectives are also included. Their content is summarized below, with special attention to issues raised and descriptions provided in this chapter.


Curriculum and Teaching Classroom Resources Allen, J. (Ed.) (1999). Class actions: Teaching for social justice in elementary and middle school. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This book contains a set of compelling essays written by teachers who have worked together and separately to enable the children they teach to challenge “life as usual” around issues of injustice and inequity that appear in the students’ immediate world. Written from a strong, social reconstructionist position, the work is full of examples taken from the teachers’ classrooms of children encountering and, with teacher assistance, facing up to the demands of democratic action. The text also records the teachers’ frustrations with efforts that proved less than successful, and details the teachers’ reflections on their practice and on their own preparation as teachers as they work toward transforming obstacles to equitable teaching and learning. Of special interest to practitioners interested in social studies and the social sciences are the descriptions of the demands of creating authentically democratic learning communities and the pressures felt by children and adults alike when disagreeing with a majority opinion. Arora, R.K., & Carlton, G.D. (Eds.) (1986). Multicultural education: Towards good practice. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

This edited volume explores the British multicultural educational experience through the mid-1980s, with a variety of chapters devoted to examples of curriculum applications. The chapters written by Arora (on curriculum processes for the primary grades), Collicot (multicultural approaches to mathematics), Watts (science education from a multicultural perspective), and Klein (on choice of multicultural resources) all offer suggestions useful to teachers of primary and upper elementary schoolchildren. The emphasis throughout the work is on challenging societal structures that promote continuing discrimination and inequality of opportunity in culturally diverse populations. Baker, G.C., Brody, M., Beecher, C., & Ho, R.P. (1977). Modifying curriculums to meet multicultural needs. In D.E.Cross, G.C.Baker & L.J.Stiles (Eds.), Teaching in a multicultural society (pp. 22–36). New York, NY: Free Press.

In this early work, the authors trace the ways that classroom curricula can be reformulated to reflect a multicultural perspective suitable for use with all children. The authors recommend, first, the establishment of a knowledge base through use of such resources as children’s books and increasingly available audiovisual materials (carefully reviewed ahead of time for accuracy in presentation and avoidance of stereotyping). Their second step is selection of teaching strategies, and their third, the choice of a curriculum design that reflects, at a deep level, the goals the teacher wishes to achieve. The authors contend that existing curricula can be modified into successful multicultural presentations, but that close attention must be given to the articulation of each of the curricular elements, so that the children experience a coherent whole. Examples of applications spanning the elementary school years are provided to illustrate the points made.


Banks, J.A. (1991). Teaching strategies for ethnic studies (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Banks’s fifth edition of his classic work represents a shift away from single group studies to permeation of ethnic studies throughout the curriculum, as an aspect of total curriculum reform. Banks provides specific historical and sociological information on a wide variety of Native American (including Native Hawaiian), African American, European American, Hispanic American, and Asian American ethnic groups. Use of the information in teaching strategies, aimed at the primary and intermediate grades (as well as at the upper grades and high school) across subject areas, is illustrated through descriptions of appropriate learning activities. The book is rich in resources pertaining to each of the groups considered. Banks, J.A. (2001). Cultural diversity and education: Foundations, curriculum, and teaching. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

This work was previously annotated in chapter 1 for its strong focus on foundations of the field. The book evolved from the third edition of Banks’ widely read Multiethnic education: Theory and practice (last published in 1994). Over the years, James Banks has developed a number of models to explicate the evolution and movements within multicultural educational theory and practice. Building on these, Banks examines the requirements for knowledge construction and curriculum reform, including references to encourage further inquiry into the cultures of specific groups. He follows with two sections on teaching strategies to build effective decision-making and social action skills and a section on the theory, research, and practice of prejudice reduction. In a section of the book devoted to the role of gender, language, and intergroup relations in culture, a chapter by Ricardo Garcia adds to the multidimensionality. While Banks is generally known for his work in secondary education, many of the principles examined in this book can be adapted well to the context of elementary and middle schools. The Multicultural Educational Program Checklist found in the appendix of the book is a helpful tool for all grade levels. Banks, J.A., & Banks, C.A.M. (Eds.) (2001). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (4th ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.

This edited volume was earlier annotated in reference to its discussion of the issues of multicultural education. It also contains, however, sections that directly address curriculum construction and teaching strategies. Jean Anyon’s chapter (Part II, Chapter 4) offers teacher guidelines for addressing issues of social class and provides a list of “helpful books” for teaching about social justice. James Uphoff (Part II, Chapter 5) has a similar section of educational implications for dealing with religious differences; and David and Myra Sadker outline a dozen strategies for creating gender-fair classrooms (Part III, Chapter 6). James Banks suggests guidelines for teaching multicultural content (Part IV, Chapter 10), while Carlos Ovando (Part IV, Chapter 12) has a section called “Addressing Language Needs in the Multicultural Classroom.” All of Part V is devoted to discussions of exceptionality in relation to the multicultural classroom, with attention to both disabilities and giftedness.


Beaty, J.J. (1997). Building bridges with multicultural picture books for children 3–5. Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Using the multicultural approach of appreciating and celebrating differences, Beaty demonstrates a variety of ways to infuse multicultural picture books throughout the early childhood curriculum. The author’s premises are that young children tend to bond with picture book characters that they perceive to be similar to themselves, and that such bonding can extend children’s growth in all domains of development. Among the issues of multiculturalism addressed throughout the book are ethnicity, race, exceptionalities, language differences, and care of the earth’s environment. The text is rich with examples of curriculum planning strategies and classroom activities; and it fully recognizes the role of the teacher as curriculum maker, while advocating a child-centered perspective. Each chapter concludes with lists of additional possible activities for children, suggested further readings for teachers, and recommended children’s picture books on the subject of that chapter. Frequently, musical sources, identification of recommended manipulatives, sources of consumable supplies, and identification of appropriate computer resources are also included. Bennett, C.I. (1999). Comprehensive multicultural education: Theory and practice (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

The author examines the conversion of theory into practice through consideration of the definitions, assumptions, and goals that underlie multicultural education. Beginning with a presentation of the kinds of knowledge needed by teachers to implement a multicultural perspective, Bennett moves to suggestions of teaching strategies that make use of such knowledge and provides specific examples of infusion of cultural content across curriculum areas. Although the book is designed largely for use by secondary school teachers, there are sufficient examples of applications in upper elementary grades to make the work a valuable addition to the resources of teachers of middle school children. Bennett’s discussion of the dynamic between individual and group (cultural) differences and her review of teachers’ possible misperceptions of children’s behavior are especially thought-provoking. Berman, S., & LaFarge, P. (Eds.) (1993). Promising practices in teaching social responsibility. Albany: State University of New York Press.

This book, written by and for teachers, illustrates innovative classroom practices that have been effective in teaching social responsibility to children of all ages. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate children can learn to work cooperatively, disagree and debate, resolve conflicts, and create positive classroom communities. The authors write from many different perspectives and provide helpful examples of how teachers can integrate global and local social justice issues throughout the curriculum, including science, math, the arts, literature, and social studies. The chapters contain detailed descriptions of teachers’ goals and plans and observations of children’s responses to specific activities, which provide a close-up view of how the ideals of social responsibility play out in real classrooms.


Brandt, G.L. (1986). The realization of anti-racist teaching. London: Falmer.

An early social reconstructionist text drawing upon a “Black Third World definition of social reality in racist British society and a Black tradition and critique of White European scholarship….” the author contends that the presentday writings of much of the multicultural education movement do not fundamentally address the deep social structures that continue to disenfranchise people of color in Western societies. After discussing the sociohistorical background to their current debates in Britain and analyzing the contexts for reorientation to antiracist education, Brandt illustrates how common lessons can be prepared to reflect an antiracist point of view. In this, he feels that he moves beyond the simpler demands of multicultural education itself. Similarly, Brandt examines the reformulation of teaching strategies to eliminate bias in subtler forms of classroom communication. Byrnes, D.A., & Kiger, G., (Eds.) (1992). Common bonds: Anti-bias teaching in a diverse society. Wheaton, MD: ACEI

The essays in this edited volume are intended both to “identify various forms of cultural diversity and suggest ways that teachers can build inclusive classroom environments” (p. 7). The dimensions of difference that are explored are race, ethnicity and culture, religious diversity, ability differences, social class differences, language diversity, and gender equity. Each essay encapsulates major issues around its topic, provides practical suggestions for teachers, and lists resources for teachers and the children they teach. The examples of activities range from those for elementary and middle schoolers to those more appropriate for secondary school teaching. Also included in several of the chapters are case studies of practice that examine the dynamics of teacher/student interactions. The work ends with a checklist for diversity in the classroom that addresses curriculum materials, teaching strategies, and teacher/student behaviors. Casper, V., & Schultz, S.B. (1999). Gay parents/straight schools: Building communication and trust. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Open and comfortable acceptance of gay parents has not been typical in many schools and classrooms in the United States. Issues of sexual orientation have generally been avoided in curriculum development as well. This text offers pathways to overcoming those circumstance by building accurate bases of knowledge and strengthening anti-bias approaches to communication between teachers and parents. The authors see the pivotal point for authentic contact as the establishment of trust, and they develop that central motif throughout the work. Topics include exploration of children’s conceptions of family and sexual orientation, adults’ points of view, ways disclosure might appear in communications, and implications for curriculum. The book concludes with guidelines for action to support children and families. Cech, M. (1991). Globalchild: Multicultural resources for young children. Menlo Park, CA: Addison—Wesley.


On the surface, this activity book looks very much like a classic “tourist approach” to multicultural education. Seasonal activities from different countries and groups within Canada are the core of the book and could be implemented in superficial ways. However, the book does contain quite a lot of useful information about different traditions and artifacts. If used as a resource book, not as a guide to multicultural education, it is potentially useful. Unfortunately, most of the references and suggested children’s books are quite dated, which limits their usefulness and casts some doubt on the information in the book. Chud, G., & Fahlman, R., with R.Baker & P.Wakefield. (1985). Early childhood education for a multicultural society: A handbook for educators. Vancouver, BC: Western Education Development Group, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia.

This is a one-volume program resource for administrators and teachers working at the preschool level. The authors lay the foundations for program development in the attitudes, knowledge, and skills of the adults delivering educational services to culturally diverse children. Moving from teacher introspection to strategies for working with families and making home-school connections, they illustrate concrete ways to foster second-language acquisition and continued development in the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual domains. Preparation of the classroom environment and the content of learning activities are derived from analysis of the cultural traditions brought by individual children to the classroom and from attention to the children’s present, everyday experience. Concepts and skills arising from these sources are arranged into thematic presentations. Teaching strategies aimed at confronting prejudices and stereotyping are also included. Clegg, L.B., Miller, E., & Vanderhoof, W.Jr. (1995). Celebrating diversity: A multicultural resource. New York, NY: Delmar.

For teachers seeking specific information on ways people of different cultures in the United States celebrate holidays and other events in their lives, this resource offers a useful compilation. Designed for teachers of intermediate elementary and middle school, the book is arranged in a month-by-month sequence that reflects the rhythm of a typical school year. The authors provide background information on events and suggest a range of possible activities for the children. “Culture” in this work is defined almost exclusively as ethnicity and national origin; thus the dimensions of difference that relate to antibias and equity issues are not addressed except sporadically and incompletely. Cook, R.E., Tessier, A., & Klein, M.D. (2000). Adapting early childhood curricula for children in inclusive settings (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall. Cushner, K., McClelland, A., & Safford, P. (2000). Human diversity in education: An integrative approach (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

The authors have provided a work that includes aspects of teaching the exceptional and culturally different and human relations orientations, although their dominant approach to education is multicultural. The book contains both social science and historical backgrounds for understanding issues related to “the sources of cultural knowledge”: race, sex/gender, health, ability/disability, social class and social


status, ethnicity/nationality, religion/spirituality, geographic location, age, sexuality, and language. It introduces the concepts of social networks and how they may be applicable to teaching communities of learners in diverse settings. In the chapters on practice, attention is given to early childhood and developmentally appropriate practice, as well as classrooms for older children, creating inclusive classrooms responsive to children’s health and ability/disability needs, fostering collaborative approaches to learning (particularly as these relate to gender and sexual orientation), and focus in the classroom on race, ethnicity/ nationality, and region as manifestations of a global community. The text utilizes thought-provoking case studies and “critical incidents” as examples of the kinds of opportunities and dilemmas that teachers confront in their present-day work. Each chapter ends with both print and virtual site references/resources. (See the annotation in chapter 4 for Cushner’s accompanying workbook for teacher preparation.) Davidman, L. & Davidman, P.T., (2001). Teaching with a multicultural perspective: A practical guide (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Addison Wesley Longman.

This text is designed for students entering the teaching profession and/or novice teachers seeking specific and practical guidance on ways to integrate a multicultural perspective through the totality of the teaching/learning experience in their K–12 classrooms. Multicultural in overall orientation, the authors consciously emphasize “the historical and contemporary relationship between multicultural education and the ongoing development of our democratic society” (p. xi). Thus, a particular concern of the work is addressing educational equity (with renewed attention to gender equity as an important part of the whole). The text provides a multitude of organizational devices, such as observation guides and checklists, to help beginning teachers keep clearly in mind the many dimensions of multicultural infusion throughout the curriculum. A special feature of the work is a set of profiles of eight educators considered by the authors to be exemplary in their multicultural practice. The text also includes examples of lesson plans, units, and other planning models, and abundant print and virtual resources. De Gaetano, Y., Williams, L.R., & Volk, D. (1998). Kaleidoscope: A multicultural approach for the primary school classroom. Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Kaleidoscope illustrates a process for integrating cultural content across developmental domains and subject areas at each grade level (kindergarten through grade three) by building on the cultural knowledge that all children bring with them to the classroom. Representing both multicultural and social reconstructionist approaches, the text begins with cultural and developmental frameworks for identifying and observing children’s frames of reference, and then illustrates ways of using this information in preparing the classroom environment, designing learning activities, selecting teaching strategies, and assessing children’s progress. Issues of language development and a dual language approach to teaching and learning are also addressed in a dedicated chapter. The final two chapters include involving parents as partners in their children’s education and preparing teachers as advocates in addressing issues of social justice that affect


children both in and outside the classroom. Guidance on observing young children, directions for constructing learning materials that can be adapted to the local environment and culture, and a program implementation checklist appear in the text’s appendices. Derman-Sparks, L., & the A.B.C.Task Force (1989). Anti-bias curriculum: Tools for empowering young children. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

This book blends theory and practice into a very accessible tool for teachers to implement anti-bias teaching, which embodies the multicultural education and social reconstructionist approaches. It had a major impact on early childhood multicultural education for several reasons. First, it linked various sources of oppression, including race, gender, class, and disabilities. Second, it introduced the idea of teaching young children to be critical thinkers and social activists. Third, it criticized many of the popular multicultural efforts for being superficial and “touristy.” Each chapter of the book provides background information on related developmental and social issues and then provides a comprehensive list of activities and environmental considerations. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize the need for teachers and administrators to constantly monitor their own attitudes and to work closely with families and community people. Ford, D.Y., & Harris, J.J. (1999). Multicultural gifted education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This volume is one of the first to bring together the fields of gifted and multicultural education in a work designed for teachers. The text draws on the foundations of both fields (using multicultural and human relations or antibias approaches and concept-based or theme-based lessons to promote thinking skills) to present a strong rationale for their connection and mutual enhancement. Although the discussion of educational principles clearly applies to the full K–12 grade range, the many examples of curriculum that the authors provide feature planning geared to elementary and middle school children. The many suggestions for classroom activities included in chapters 4 and 5 of the text illustrate how multicultural perspectives can be integrated across subject areas. Issues of student assessment and program evaluation are raised throughout the work, bringing to the fore one of the major complexities of multicultural practice and research. Policy implications derived from the questions of curriculum and assessment are also discussed. García, R.L. (1984). Countering classroom discrimination. Theory into Practice, 23, 104– 109.

Garcia provides strategies for countering stereotypes of gender, race, ethnicity, or social class that arise in societies due to ignorance, unpleasant incidents, folk wisdom socialization, hard times, or internal colonialization. Garcia’s premise is that teachers can make a difference for themselves and the children they serve by, first, honestly examining their own attitudes and beliefs and, subsequently, recognizing the extent of their own ethnocentrism. Stereotypes caused by


ignorance, hard times, and folk wisdom socialization may be countered by providing accurate information. Stereotypes arising from unpleasant incidents or colonialism may be best addressed through simulations or other forms of role play. Most important, teachers can counter discrimination by expecting excellence from all their students and can support that expectation by maintaining high standards of performance. García, R.L. (1990). Teaching in a pluralistic society: Concepts, models, and strategies (2nd ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins.

This book contains useful and accessible social scientific and historical background information on issues related to social class, race, ethnicity, culture, gender, religion, and disabilities. It also has a few chapters that provide overviews of different pedagogical models and strategies for teaching children from different cultural and language backgrounds and for promoting positive intergroup relationships. In general, this book reflects the teaching exceptional and culturally different children and the human relations approaches. Gay, G. (1979). On behalf of children: A curriculum design for multicultural education in the elementary school. Journal of Negro Education, 48, 324–340.

Gay explores mechanisms for integrating a multicultural perspective throughout the elementary school, so that it becomes totally integrated into all subject and skill areas addressed. Beginning with a powerful rationale for change of orientation in the elementary school toward active recognition of cultural diversity, Gay proceeds to examine the implications for practicing that point of view. She looks at each of the elements of curriculum design (diagnostic techniques, skills to be mastered, content and materials, learning activities, teaching behaviors, and evaluation procedures) in relation to each other and in relation to the ways each should reflect a multicultural approach. Specific procedures for carrying out the process of integration are described. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

The author, who has been active in the multicultural educational movement since the 1970s, brings her extensive expertise to bear in a current account of teaching strategies that are effective with learners across ages (from kindergarten through teacher education programs), and representing the wide cultural, racial, ethnic, social class, gender, and ability diversity that is typical of many North American classrooms today. Rooting her work in the concept of caring, Gay relates cultural responsiveness to recognition of different communication and learning styles, the power of cultural diversity in curriculum content, and the involvement of the learners’ larger communities in the successful teaching of both children and adults. A special feature of this work is the author’s weaving of descriptions of theory and research with accounts of practice, so that each can be seen as reflections of the other. Her use of story in this endeavor is particularly powerful as a medium for both recording past efforts and imagining future


possibilities; and she offers her own teaching story to encourage her readers’ reflection on the evolving nature of multicultural practice. Gollnick, D.M., & Chinn, P.C. (1998). Multicultural education in a pluralistic society (5th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby.

This is a resource book devoted largely to the provision of detailed background information on the specifics of cultural pluralism (religion, language, ethnicity, gender, etc.) needed in order for teachers successfully to implement multicultural teaching strategies. Gollnick and Chinn explore the complexity of each dimension of diversity, with attention to intragroup as well as cross-group variation. The cumulative effect is to sensitize the reader to the issues and to clarify questions one should ask when preparing to teach in culturally diverse circumstances. The final chapter of the work discusses instructional strategies, suggesting general guidelines helpful to teachers who are beginning to initiate the approach in their classrooms. Goodman, J. (1992). Elementary schooling for critical democracy. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Goodman provides a firsthand account of how the goals of critical democracy can be implemented in an elementary school. The author places this work in the historical tensions between individualism and community that have prevailed in this country. From detailed field notes of interactions between staff members and among staff members and students, he describes how these tensions emerged and were resolved in ways that support power sharing and critical thought among all children and adults in the school. The work in the school is inspiring because it demonstrates how teachers and children can create a democratic community that is idealistic, but also functional. The author concludes that the “life-affirming intellectual and emotional connection that existed among the teachers and students gave substance to [the school’s] democratic ideology and practice” (p. 178). All aspects of teaching, from discipline to curriculum planning, are described through examples of how teachers and children attempted to resolve particular situations and dilemmas. The school described in this book is a small independent school, and the author cautions readers about the applicability of these experiences to other sites. However, the book contains many thought-provoking examples of the complexities of teaching from the vantage point of critical democracy. Grant, C.A., & Sleeter, C.E. (1989). Turning on learning: Five approaches for multicultural teaching plans for race, class, gender, and disability. Columbus, OH: Merrill.

In this book, the authors offer very concrete illustrations of their five approaches to multicultural education: teaching the exceptional and culturally different; human relations; single group studies; multicultural education; and education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist. By showing how lesson plans can be changed to reflect these different approaches, the authors clarify the distinctions between the different approaches. They also demonstrate


how almost any lesson, regardless of topic and age, can be adapted to have a multicultural perspective. Gorski, P.C. (2001). Multicultural education and the Internet: Intersections and integrations. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

While many current texts include virtual listings in their resource sections, this is the first text to appear that is devoted entirely to examination of multicultural educational sources on the Internet. This very useful text enables novices to “surf the net” to locate sources and discover tools both to enhance classroom teaching and learning and to transform curriculum. It also offers guidance on evaluating the worth of particular multicultural education websites. Throughout the text, sites germane to specific aspects of multicultural teaching are identified, and tools for searching even more widely are described. Hamilton, D.S., Flemming, B.M., & Hicks, J.D. (1990). Resources for creative teaching in early childhood education (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

This activity book contains information and instructions for a number of activities that can support a multicultural approach, particularly for different holiday traditions. Although the authors list a number of multicultural goals at the beginning of the book, the activities are not presented in that context and could be misused to portray unfamiliar groups as exotic holiday celebrants. A number of the music activities are songs and “parodies” that have been written by the third author—usually, new words set to familiar tunes. It is unfortunate that the authors used these invented songs, rather than using songs that reflect various cultural traditions. Hayes, C.W., Bahruth, R., & Kessler, C. (1991). Literacy con cariño. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

The authors describe how one group of fifth-grade children of Mexican American migrant farm workers overcame their poor academic records and experiences and learned to enjoy writing through journal writing and journal dialogues with their teacher. This account includes many examples of the children’s writing and shows how the children became more fluent during the course of the year. The authors present an encouraging view of how writing can be used to engage and teach children who have not had much previous academic success and thus represent the teaching the exceptional and culturally different approaches. Writing is also an excellent tool to foster children’s critical thinking. However, the writing projects were limited to descriptions of such topics as one’s family, research about specific animals or countries, or fantasies about aliens. The authors do not raise the question of using writing to analyze the oppression their families had experienced. Hernandez, H. (2001). Multicultural education: A teacher’s guide to linking context process, and content (2nd ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

The second edition of Hernandez’ text continues the richness of demographic information that characterized her earlier work. Intended for both elementary and


secondary teachers, the book makes a special contribution in its attention to the “hidden curriculum,” through which values are transmitted in the classroom. Hernandez adopts an anthropologically based definition of culture as referring to “the complex processes of human social interaction and symbolic communication” (p. 20). For Hernandez this definition highlights issues of ethnicity and race, language differences, variations in learning styles, and differences in ability (both special and gifted education). Concerned that earlier work focused on the processes of multicultural practice sometimes at the expense of academic content, the author in this new edition makes the linkages of the two more evident in expanded sections on development of a multicultural curriculum. Also emphasized are connections between classrooms, homes, neighborhoods, and communities as the contexts that imbue new concepts with personal meaning for students. Johnson, D.W., & Johnson, R.T. (2002). Multicultural education and human relations. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

This text is unusual in that it devotes itself entirely to developing teachers’ skills in the human relations approach to multicultural education. Moving from the premise that teachers must work closely with themselves to develop the knowledge and skills needed for expert human relations, the authors have devoted the first part of the work to information and exercises for self-exploration and growth. The second half of the work applies these concepts and skills to teachers’ use of them in the classroom. Long known for their work in the area of cooperative education, Johnson and Johnson see cooperative learning as a major site for developing positive human relations across cultural identity groups. The kinds of interactions they suggest are applicable to children in the upper range of elementary school, as well as middle and high school. The text offers many examples of planning and evaluation procedures for classroom activities. Kendall, F.E. (1996). Diversity in the classroom: New approaches to the education of young children (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Originally using Barber and Shapiro’s developmental-interaction approach to curriculum formulation in combination with Taba’s emphasis on promotion of human relations as the foundation for curriculum development, Kendall expands her theoretical base in this second edition to include the perspectives of Vygotsky, Cole, and Gardner, emphasizing the cultural contexts of development, learning, and thinking. Her curriculum guidelines offer specific suggestions of ways to teach about race, culture, and gender within classrooms serving young children. Kendall’s goals are to reduce bias and promote affirmation of one-self and others through attention to the selection of learning materials and reflective planning within each of the traditional early childhood curriculum areas (blockbuilding, language experiences, art activities, etc.). Examples of unit planning are provided, along with a variety of resource lists. This work uses the multicultural education approach.


King, E.W. (1990). Teaching ethnic and gender awareness: Methods and materials for the elementary school. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

King supports the positive recognition of pluralism in American society by introduction of multiethnic and gender studies from the early primary through the upper elementary school years. The first half of the book offers a rationale for the study, provides background information on ethnic diversity and the intersection of gender with learning, and describes basic teaching strategies that have been demonstrated to be effective in multiethnic and gender-sensitive presentations. The second half of the work contains many examples of activities (ascending in order from kindergarten to those appropriate for the upper elementary grades) that reflect and draw upon children’s increasing sophistication regarding individual and group variation. King notes that the design of learning activities must attend carefully to children’s developmental levels, in regard to both their cognitive processes and their socioemotional responses. That awareness is illustrated through the specification of objectives for the sample activities and through the choice of teaching materials in each instance. King, E.W., Chipman, M., & Cruz-Janzen, M. (1994). Educating young children in a diverse society. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

In this text, the authors expand King’s longstanding interest in ethnicity and gender to include issues of social class and exceptionality. Designed for teachers of children from 3 to 8 years of age, the authors take a multicultural approach that emphasizes the development of a positive self-image, knowledge of one’s own cultural heritage, and anti-bias techniques for prejudice reduction in the attitudes and behaviors of young children, as well as encourage incorporation of global education, or “education for an interdependent world” (p. 197). Of special interest to early educators is the attention given to blending developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) with a multicultural orientation. Included in the description of particular curricular approaches are accounts of ethnographic research done on the implementation of an early childhood program created for Native American children and families, and naturalistic qualitative research in a bilingual early childhood classroom. Kitano, M.K. (1980). Early education for Asian American children. Young Children, 35(2), 13–26.

Kitano reviews cultural factors and learning characteristics associated with children of Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, Hawaiian, and Samoan descent and reports on a study designed to determine Asian American children’s learning styles and competencies prior to their entrance in public school. Drawing implications from the work for education, the authors reject the “cultural deficit” hypothesis in favor of the “cultural difference” model (the approach now known as teaching the exceptional and culturally different, and reiterate the importance of changing teaching practices to meet the child’s needs. They also point out that teachers from the North American mainstream tend to view Asian Americans as a monolithic group, whereas substantial cultural differences do exist among the various Asian groups. Likewise, the differences that exist for


individuals within a group must also be acknowledged, so that stereotyping can be avoided. Klein, G. (1985). Reading into racism: Bias in children’s literature and learning materials. London: Routledge & Kegan.

Klein offers an analysis of the many ways in which children’s literature and learning materials can shape children’s attitudes about themselves and other people. Criteria for selecting materials and ways of developing skills for evaluating materials for children are explored, as well as strategies for removing bias from the teaching and learning experiences), Klein is particularly intriguing in the ways she identifies bias appearing in materials across subject areas and in her clarification of underlying issues in content presentations that are misleading to the learner. Lewis, B.A. (1991). The kids’ guide to social action: How to solve the social problems you choose— and turn creative thinking into positive action. Minneapolis,: Free Spirit.

This book is filled with examples and practical suggestions for engaging young people in social justice advocacy. The author begins with a story that illustrates how children can have an impact on their communities, and then continues with exercises to help children find a focus for their involvement that both fits their concerns and represents current situations. She next provides practical tips on “power skills,” which include telephoning and writing (to legislators, newspapers, and funding sources), interviewing, testifying and giving speeches, creating and circulating petitions, writing proposals, fundraising getting media coverage, and making proclamations. The third section includes an explanation of how laws at the local, state and national levels are initiated and changed, as well as advice on how to write resolutions and lobby legislators. The fourth part has an extensive list of resources. The stories in the book portray children of all ages taking action in the interest of social justice. Photographs, and samples of letters, posters, and phone conversations accompany the stories, making the book fun to read and the social action seem feasible. Lynch, J. (1983). The multicultural curriculum. London: Batsford Academic & Educational.

This book presents an overall program design for introduction of a multicultural perspective into the public school across grade levels. Although Lynch describes the circumstances of the British school system in particular, many of the processes he details would be equally applicable in the United States. In addition to providing a well-articulated rationale for use of a multicultural perspective in education, he outlines a framework for constructing a multicultural curriculum that would be most helpful to program planners and offers guidelines for actions to assist planners through the maze of decision-making that is part of the overall process. Guidance for individual teachers in the form of suggested approaches, teaching strategies, and planning procedures is also included. McCracken, J.B. (1993). Valuing diversity: The primary years. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

McCracken develops the vision of developmentally appropriate practice popularized by the National Association for the Education of Young Children


(NAEYC) into curriculum implications for the primary school years. Combining multicultural and human relations approaches in the early elementary school classroom, she explores criteria for the selection of learning materials, ways to prepare the classroom environment to attend to human diversity, and ways to infuse both teaching strategies and curriculum with content that both reflects and extends children’s individual and cultural experience. In addition to supporting children’s self-esteem and respecting individual and group differences, teachers are encouraged to design activities that promote social problem-solving and conflict resolution and to teach cooperation as a viable means for addressing difficult issues. Miller-Lachman, L., & Taylor, L.S. (1995). Schools for all: Educating children in a diverse society. Albany, NY: Delmar.

This resource for K-8 teachers first offers descriptions of the changing demographics of the United States and issues affecting children of color in American schools, and then provides detailed practical guidance in two areas— cooperative learning activities and whole language approaches to literacy. Written from the perspective of a multicultural approach to education, the work focuses on recognition and active appreciation of cultural and ability/disability differences. Chapters are devoted to selecting multicultural materials for the classroom, strategies for using multicultural materials, and the school-home-community partnership essential for effective program implementation. The authors provide abundant examples of learning activities and instructional strategies. The infusion of multicultural perspectives across subject areas is also discussed. Multicultural Perspectives (an official journal of the National Assocation for Multicultural Education). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

This journal is published four times a year and includes a broad range of articles and reviews about many aspects of multicultural education, both in the United States and in other countries. Each issue has several sections. It typically begins with a one-page introduction to the articles in that issue. The first section, “Advancing the Conversation,” contains articles that have theoretical orientations, introduce new concepts related to multicultural education, or do both. The second part is “Multicultural Windows Through Art, Music, and Media Images” and reviews current movies or music for the extent to which they support or undermine multicultural goals. Part III, “Creating Multicultural Classrooms,” contains more applied articles, typically descriptions of particular curricula or programs that teachers, administrators, or both have implemented. Part IV of the journal is called Multicultural Library and includes in-depth reviews of recent mulitcultural textbooks and literature and poetry. Part V, Guide to New Resources, contains several brief descriptions and reviews of newly published resources. The sixth section, called “Technology,” profiles multicultural websites, Internet discussion groups, and other uses of the new technologies to support multicultural education. The final section, “Guide to New Resources,” contains the names and publishing information of a large number


of new resources related to many different dimensions of multicultural education. Each resource is briefly described and reviewed. Neugebauer, B. (1992). Alike and different: Exploring our humanity with young children (rev. ed.). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education for Young Children.

The 23 entries in this book are short, and each addresses a particular aspect of teaching in increasingly diverse classrooms. The first section offers background information about anti-bias curriculum, the differences that children notice, and ways of creating a multicultural environment in the classroom. The second section addresses ways of meeting the needs of a wide variety of children, such as those newly arrived in this country, children with physical impairments, and those identified as gifted. The third section addresses ways of getting more diverse staff, and the fourth section deals with working with families and seeing issues from the families’ perspectives. The fifth section addresses how the changing society affects programs and how teachers can mitigate some of the inevitable conflicts and uncertainties. The final section provides criteria for selecting books and materials, along with resource lists of books to use with children and resource books for adults. Nieto, S. (2000). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education (3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.

Using case studies of individual students and a comprehensive overview of educational research, Sonia Nieto analyzes the multiple reasons why students, particularly those in subordinate groups, often fail in school. Her analysis includes historical, economic, and political dimensions, as well as a critique of educational practices. The case studies reveal how adolescents experience schools and teachers and provide clear examples of why practices such as antiracism, multicultural education, and critical pedagogy are essential to students’ success. The book presents a very balanced picture and does not simply advocate a single perspective but engages readers in the process of examining their own views, their practice, and the work and lives of their students in a critical and supportive way. Odom, S.L. (Ed.) (2002). Widening the circle: Including children with disabilities in preschool programs. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This informative work treats the many aspects of inclusion of young children with disabilities in preschool programs, demonstrating an ecological, family- and community-centered approach to the topic. Each chapter provides a clear rationale, background information on the issue being discussed, and practical implications or recommendations for teachers. Successful inclusionary practice requires that families and teachers develop close and trusting relationships, the classroom teachers collaborate with each other and other professionals offering the children specialized services, and community resources be well tapped for the benefit of children and families. All of these dimensions are addressed thoughtfully in relevant chapters. Chapter 10, which treats the influence on preschool inclusion of cultural and linguistic diversity, is of special interest to the emerging vision of disabilities studies as one aspect of multicultural education.


Pang, V.O. (2001). Multicultural education: A caring-centered, reflective approach. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

This text is one of the first in the field explicitly to integrate the concept of caring into a description of multicultural educational theory and practice. Although sharing many elements in common with the social reconstructionist perspective, caring-centered multicultural education is distinguished, in the author’s view, by a shift in focus from a political arena to one of mutual caring and trust embodying “key values of empowerment, compassion, justice, equity, and community” (p. 80). This view sees both teachers and children as responsible for learning and entails constant effort toward sharedpower in all aspects of the work. It undertakes transformation from the inside out toachieve aims of equity. The author addresses teachers across the full range of elementary to secondary settings, with examples of classroom environments, curriculum content, and student/ teacher interactions that illustrate the elements of caring in a multiculturallearning and teaching context. In the concluding chapter of the book, she presents six dimensions for implementation of caringcentered multicultural education—(1) understanding the ethic of caring, (2) reviewing and eliminating prejudice and discriminaion, (3) understanding the impact of culture, (4) learning to utilize culturally relevant teaching, (5) blending and integrating social justice and caring into teaching and the school, and (6) designing and implementing classroom and school change. Each of these is informed by caring as a sense of deep connection with individuals and communities. Perry, T., & Fraser, J.W. (Eds.) (1993). Freedom’s plow: Teaching in the multicultural classroom. London: Routledge.

This is an edited volume that addresses many theoretical and practical issues in teaching from a multicultural perspective. A particular strength of the volume is the inclusion of teachers’ narratives about their efforts, successes, and challenges of teaching from a multicultural perspective. The volume also includes more theoretical writings from well-known commentators, such as Maxine Greene and bell hooks, who provide a reflective and broad perspective that complements the concrete and immediate narratives by teachers in the schools. The volume has four parts: The first part is written by the editors and provides a theoretical and historical argument for the restructuring of schools to become multicultural. Part II includes five chapters, in which teachers from different ethnic, racial, and class backgrounds and teaching in a range of schools reflect on the practice of multiculturalism. The third section is a series of essays that are oriented to helping teachers expand their perspectives and seek new information and curricula. Part IV addresses issues of power and structure and what must be done to make schools an effective part of the struggle toward social justice. Ramsey, P.G. (1982). Multicultural education in early childhood. Young Children, 37(2), 13–24.

Discusses four common misconceptions about multicultural education— namely, that multicultural education should focus on information about other countries and cultures, that multicultral education is only relevant in classrooms


that are obviously culturally or racially diverse or both, that there should be a single set of goals and curriculum for multicultural education, and that multicultural education can be simply added on to an existing curriculum. Ramsey challenges each misconception and provides alternative learning activities to introduce the concept of diversity to young children. The importance of creating connections and continuity with children’s previous experience and of teacher preparation in the form of examination of one’s own attitudes and assumptions is emphasized. Ramsey, P.G. (1998). Teaching and learning in a diverse world: Multicultural education for young children (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Building on the first edition of the work published in 1987, the author has substantially reorganized, expanded, and reoriented the text to include researchbased descriptions of the racial, economic, cultural, gendered and sexually oriented, and ability oriented contexts of young children’s learning. These contexts are then used as powerful backdrops for practical applications of multiculturalism in classrooms for young children Included in the discussion of classroom appplications are suggestions of ways to challenge that status quo is schools around issues of literacy and communication, details of acknowledgement and protection of the natural environment and of the preparation of a multicultural learing environment within classrooms, and ways to develop critical and supportive communities of learners. The text has a strong, social reconstructionist orientation and focuses on advocacy skills as a major aspect of classroom teaching and teacher/parent communication. PattyKids can make a difference (newsletter). P.O. Box 54, Kittery Point, ME.

This newsletter is published four times a year. Its purpose is to help young people understand the root causes of hunger and poverty and to inspire them to take action. Each newsletter includes four to six articles about projects done in classrooms or in whole schools that are geared toward ending hunger and poverty in the immediate community, in the United States, or in other regions of the world. Students or teachers write the articles that offer practical examples of how young people can make a difference. The projects range from collecting food, clothing, and money, to organizing information forums to bring some issue to the attention of the wider community, to working with local homeless shelters or food banks. The purpose of these projects is not simply to perform community service, but to learn about the causes behind the problems and participate in advocacy and long-term solutions. Rethinking Schools: An Urban Educational Journal. Published four times a year. 1001 E. Keefe Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53212.

This nonprofit independent newspaper advocates the reform of elementary and secondary schools, especially around the issues of equity and social justice. The focus is on urban schools, but the issues and curricular ideas are applicable to all schools. The editorial policy states, “We stress a grassroots perspective combining theory and practice and linking classroom issues to broader policy concerns. We


are an activist publication and encourage teachers, families, and students to become involved in building quality public schools for all children.” The scope of the articles ranges from commentaries on national policies to descriptions of specific classroom activities. The journal exemplifies the best of critical pedagogy by providing trenchant analyses of educational policies and reforms and new books, movies, and curricula, yet it offers hope and encouragement in the inspiring accounts of classroom practices and community actions that have made a difference in the lives of children at the local and national levels. Each issue also has annotated lists of new recommended resources, which include children’s books, resources for teachers, and books on broader social and economic issues that affect schools and families. Robles de Melendez, W., & Ostertag, V. (1997). Teaching young children in multicultural classrooms: Issues, concepts, and strategies. Albany, NY: Delmar.

The authors state “the purpose this book is to provide a plan for early childhood professionals for development and teaching of a multicultural curriculum” (p. vii). Part I of the work addresses the theory and social foundations of multicultural education, and Part II examines past and current issues of the field. The aim of both of these sections of the work is to ground early childhood educators in the context, the initiatives, and the compelling impetus for multicultural practice in today’s world. Part III builds on this information to present practical guidelines for teachers and ideas for classroom implementation. The authors personify the pursuit of multicultural practice through “Barbara,” a kindergarten teacher facing the common demands and dilemmas of early childhood teaching. Prominent in her consideration is meeting the intention of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) as supported by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Each chapter in the third part offers examples of the planning and evaluation of classroom activities, as well as management strategies, descriptions of classroom occurrences for reflection, and identification of resources for further exploration. Rogovin, P. (1998). Classroom interviews: A world of learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

For teachers who wish to develop resources for teaching and learning based on the cultural and experiential knowledge of the communities in which they work, this book is an essential tool. The work is devoted to the elements that go into the formation of an instructional partnership with parents. Powerfully illustrating how information acquired from interviews with parents can be used to create a full curriculum for elementary school children, Rogovin shares the strategies and techniques that go into the creation of teacher/parent bonds and mutual support in the educational enterprise. The work is infused with a sense of respect for parents and recognition of the unique knowledge they bring to the classroom. Rogovin describes how to conduct interviews in a comfortable way and how to transform what is learned from them into an inquiry-based curriculum for primary age children. Her focus is on making meaning with children through connecting them with the living funds of knowledge that surround them.


Sapon-Shavin, M. (1999). Because we can change the world: A practical guide to building cooperative, inclusive classroom communities. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Focusing on several kinds of diversity—racial, ethnic, family, ability/disability, gender, and social class—this text addresses ways to establish and maintain practices from prekindergarten through middle school that include all children in a cooperative classroom learning community. The author’s approach is to highlight six values (courage, inclusion, value, integrity, cooperation, and safety) captured by the acronym “civics,” and representing a core curriculum rooted in social studies. All learning areas and subjects appear under the larger civics umbrella, with the aim of developing students who accept one another, include others different from themselves, and have the skills and convictions to support themselves and others in advocacy for a just society. In addition to abundant suggestions for learning activities and detailed descriptions of teaching strategies, a special feature of this text is its many annotations of children’s picture books and other literature, music, and games that illustrate and foster the concepts of cooperation and community. Schniedewind, N., & Davidson, E. (1998). Open minds to equality: A sourcebook of learning activities to affirm diversity and promote equity (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

This remarkably rich resource for elementary, middle, and high school teachers contains a process for addressing issues of social justice that permeate everyday life in and out of classrooms. Focusing on a social reconstructionist approach addressing racism, sexism, classism, ageism, heteorsexism, anti-Semitism and other religious oppression, ableism, and language differences, the authors advocate following four steps to confront these debilitating forces in our society: (1) create an inclusive, trusting community where students appreciate diversity in the classroom; (2) enable students to empathize with others’ life experience and explore why and how inequality based on difference exists; (3) Help students examine discrimination in the institutions in their lives and see how it has affected them; and (4) empower students to envision and create changes to foster greater equality (pp. 2–3). A wide variety of sample activities and suggested materials are provided. Seeley, V. (Ed.). (1993). Globe multicultural literature collection: Plains Native American literature. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Globe.

The 16 writings of Native American authors in this book span the period between 1830 to 1993 and include stories, poems, plays, speeches, and folk tales. Together, the writings provide a view of the diverse experiences of the Plains Indians as they coped with the conquest by the Europeans and the long aftermath of current poverty and dislocation. Because many books about Native Americans are written by outsiders, this volume offers a muchneeded voice from the inside. The stories are written for elementary or junior high students, but could be adapted for younger children. The themes are appealing and relevant to children of all ages and from many backgrounds. Equivalent volumes by Seeley exist for Chinese American and Mexican American literature


Sheridan, M.K., Foley, G.M., & Radlinski, S.H. (1995). Using the supportive play model: Individualized intervention in early childhood practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This book presents an approach to designing inclusive classrooms in which play is the central means to enhancing the development of all children, especially those with special needs. The first part of the book provides a historical and philosophical background for this model, methods for identifying the range of needs and strengths of children, and guidelines for adapting programs to enable children to develop to their full potential. The second part of the book consists of four case studies that illustrate how this model has worked with children having a range of developmental needs. The many observations and creative ideas make this volume a rich resource for teachers and students of child development and early education. Stern-LaRosa, C., & Bettmann, E.H. (2000). Hate hurts: How children learn and unlearn prejudice. New York, NY: Scholastic (with the Anti-Defamation League).

This book is written for parents and other laypeople working with children from infancy through adolescence. In the first section the authors give a brief description of how children at different ages respond to differences and then discuss the perceptions of various dimensions of human differences, including race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, culture, and ability. They also have a chapter on why people hate and how parents can respond. The second part of the book focuses on how children perceive and react to hateful acts at different ages. This section also has chapters on the different expressions of hate, including namecalling, joking, excluding, and violence. For each action, the authors discuss possible responses that parents and children can make. The final section of the book describes strategies that parents and children can use to challenge hateful content and actions in schools, in the media (television, movies, and books), on the Internet, and in their communities. The book also includes a list of organizations and websites dedicated to counteracting prejudice and promoting justice. This book is very accessible and is filled with lively examples that will enable families and children to recognize themselves in these situations and feel empowered to act. The book includes some references to research, but most of the examples are based on personal experiences of the authors and people whom they have worked with. This book is written from the human relations orientation, in that it stresses individual acts of hate and individual responses to them and does not discuss or challenge the social and economic structures that support prejudice and discrimination. Suzuki, B.H. (1984). Curriculum transformation for multicultural education. Education and Urban Society, 16, 294–322.

This article advocates a social reconstructionist approach to the reformulation of curriculum. Arguing that the permeation of multicultural ideas throughout the educational experience cannot do other than address societal change, the author suggests goals for students and teachers and ten guiding principles for transforming theory into educational practice—namely, (1) starting where people are by incorporating children’s experiences into the planning of learning activities; (2)


helping people decenter (from their own ethnocentric perspectives); (3) approaching curriculum transformation as a long-term process; (4) viewing multicultural education as integrative, comprehensive, and conceptual in scope; (5) producing changes in the teaching practices and social structures of a classroom, as well as in curriculum content; (6) raising issues that are personally relevant to students; (7) helping students increase their academic achievement through sensitive and relevant teaching approaches and materials; (8) involving families and utilizing multicultural community resources; (9) dealing with the social and historical realities of American society; and (10) exhibiting care, understanding, concern, and sensitivity toward students. Suzuki concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of those principles for teacher education programs and for educational research, as well as for curriculum making. Swiniarski, L.A., Breitborde, M., & Murphy, J. (1999). Educating the global village: Including the young child in the world. Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

The focus of this book, for early childhood teachers, is on the need for global educational approaches with young children. Citing the International Rights of the Child formulated by the United Nations, the authors look at the common elements of childhood from international, multicultural, and inclusive perspectives, focusing on the dimensions of culture and exceptionality as platforms for development and learning. The first part of the book establishes the rationales for multicultural and inclusive education to meet the needs of today’s diverse learners. The second part offers specific teaching and curriculum construction strategies around such world issues as hunger and poverty, violence and the media, war and violence, teaching peace, and breaking the cycle of consumerism. These are brought together in the presentation of model curriculum themes and discussion of the research that teachers can do in their own classrooms to refine their practice. Tiedt, P.L., & Tiedt, I.M. (2002). Multicultural teaching: A handbook of activities, information and resources (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

This book is designed for use by primary and upper elementary schoolteachers. Tiedt and Tiedt’s orientation is toward child-centered teaching, preferably in open settings, although their suggestions could be applied in more traditional settings as well. Acting on their understanding of the goals of multicultural education, such as esteem, empathy, and equity, the authors begin by illustrating the processes for infusing multicultural perspectives into the curriculum and creating interdisciplinary thematic learning experiences that address multicultural aims. They then move on to present extended examples of infused, interdisciplinary practice, using learning about one’s own or other cultural or identity groups as points of focus. The book alternates between providing specific information on a wide variety of cultural/linguistic/identity groups and illustrating the use of that information in sample classroom activities. The procedures a teacher might use to present the activities are woven into the activity descriptions, and extensive resource and classroom materials lists appear in the appendix at the end of the work.


Teaching Tolerance. (1997). Starting small. Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center.

This book accompanies a videotape of the same name that offers six scenarios of multicultural early childhood (pre-kindergarten through grade three) classroom practice. This text provides a description of each scenario and guidelines for discussion. Teachers who volunteered for the video project exemplify different approaches to multicultural practice with young children, with different aims (such as addressing issues of skin color, promoting conflict resolution, or reducing bias/misinformation about persons living with handicapping conditions) and different strategies (such as conversation, constructive art projects, and the use of puppetry). Commentaries by well-known educators, including Vivian Gussey Paley and Alvin Poussaint, highlight the importance of treating multicultural issues early in children’s educational experience. Timm, J.T. (1996). Four perspectives in multicultural education. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Using the concept and experience of personal or group identity as a focal point, Timm examines its construction from the point of view of culture, psychology, education, and the political forces shaping multiculturalism in the United States. The text first identifies and provides specific descriptions of many types of cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity that are presently part of America’s reality and then examines psychological processes, such as cultural or learning styles and the development of prejudice, that may emerge in the context of contact across these differences. The 12th chapter of the work, in which the author provides guidelines for multicultural classrooms, ties all of the perspectives raised into considerations in curricular content (cultural information), combating bias through pedagogy (focus on social issues), and behavioral processes (such as home/school relationships and attention to the ethics of care). Examples are given from early childhood through high school settings, with particular emphasis on uses of literature and social studies. Villa, R.A., & Thousand, J.S. (Eds.) (1995). Creating an inclusive school. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

This edited collection contains essays from theorists and practitioners on the history and foundations of inclusion and on current practices that support and develop children with special needs in the regular classroom. Covering the range from kindergarten to Grade 12, the text provides not only historical information and rationales for inclusion, but descriptions of promising practices that foster inclusive education and processes for adapting curriculum in inclusive classrooms. A distinctive and especially useful feature of the text is the presence of periodic essays between the contributed chapters entitled “Voice of Inclusion….” Each of these describes a particular child and tells his or her story of inclusion in a classroom or school. References to relationships with families appear across chapters, but there is not a specific chapter that explores this important aspect of inclusionary practice. Likewise, cultural context and its relation to the processes of inclusion are not specifically addressed.


Whitney, T. (1999). Kids like us: Using persona dolls in the classroom. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

Using a technique made popular in the Anti-Bias Curriculum (Derman-Sparks, et al. 1989), this work provides a step-by-step introduction to the use of persona dolls in the early childhood classroom. The premise is that young children can consider and confront differences among themselves most easily by listening to and interacting with stories featuring dolls that embody particular characteristics. Storytelling is presented in five steps—introducing the dolls, setting up the situation, identifying feelings, discussion and problem-solving, and resolving the story. The author illustrates differences in the presentations for different age groups and offers advice on the planning and researching of doll stories. This work is most effectively used in conjunction with the broader concerns presented by the Anti-Bias Curriculum. Williams, L.R. (1987). Teaching from a multicultural perspective: Some thoughts on uses of diversity. In F.S.Bolin & J.M.Falk (Eds.) Teacher renewal: Professional issues, personal choices, pp. 139–147. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This chapter introduces the use of a multicultural perspective to teachers who may not have been familiar with it previously. Williams examines the benefits that are likely to result from an incorporation of the perspective, ways to develop the approach within existing curricula in the schools, and possibilities for evaluation of both implementation of the process and its impact upon children in classrooms. Examples are given of infusion of a multicultural perspective throughout learning activities at the early childhood and elementary school levels, as well as suggestions of principles to follow in selecting materials for classroom use. Williams, L.R., De Gaetano, Y., Harrington, C.C., & Sutherland, I.R. (1985). ALERTA: A multicultural, bilingual approach to teaching young children. Menlo Park, CA: AddisonWesley.

This work is a guide for early childhood teachers, administrators, staff developers, and family involvement workers wishing to infuse a multicultural perspective throughout an educational program for 3- to 5-year-olds. Designed for use in diverse settings (public school, Head Start centers, private school, day care, etc.), ALERTA is organizing into nine levels of program implementation, moving from information-sharing among the adults in the program, to processes for determining cultural and community content of activities, to planning and organizing of the curriculum, to specific teaching strategies, and, finally, to techniques of assessment and evaluation. For each level of implementation, background information is provided, and staff/parent development exercises are described. Examples of applications to activities for children are given to illustrate the various levels of implementation, and resources for ongoing program development are suggested. The processes presented can be utilized with any cultural or linguistic group.


Wolfgang, A. (1977). The silent language in the multicultural classroom. Theory into Practice, 26, 145–152.

This article alerts teachers to possible difficulties in communication with their students, which may be caused by three types of nonverbal behavior—proxemics, kinesthetics, and paralinguistics (i.e., use of space and distance in relation to objects and other people, use of gesture and facial expression, and use of sound features, such as tone of voice and pauses). All three types of behavior are understood as culturally acquired repertoires used to enhance or intensify verbal exchanges. Oriented to the Canadian immigration circumstance, but with examples clearly applicable to the United States as well, the author provides six strategies for moving from awareness of one’s own nonverbal behaviors (and their possible effects on others), to creating a classroom atmosphere sufficiently reassuring to enable students to develop cross-cultural communication skills. York, S. (1991). Roots and wings: Affirming culture in early childhood programs. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf.

This work draws on a variety of texts to create an accessible and clear plan for implementing one form of multicultural education in the early childhood classrooms. Geared toward early childhood educators who may not have been previously familiar with or utilizing multicultural practices, the book introduces elements of multicultural practice and encourages teachers to work in partnership with parents and with each other to create a curriculum that reflects the cultural heritages of children in the program. The work unfolds with attention to the classroom environment, activities for teaching children about culture, treatment of holidays, and confronting cultural and racial prejudices. A variety of worksheets for teachers are included to aid in planning processes. As the work defines culture as ethnicity, it does not attend to other kinds of differences. Its orientation is for the most part multicultural, although it does use elements of the human relations approach as well in work around issues of prejudice. Zamora, G.R. (1985). Nuevo amanecer/New dawn. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.

This is a set of three manuals that contains a detailed management system to enable early childhood staff members to put a multicultural program into place in their classroom or center. It includes ways to assess…are presented to assess the children’s incoming knowledge and skills, record their ongoing acquisition of skills and concepts, and select or plan learning activities on the basis of that information. Communication with families and their participation in the carrying out of the classroom activities, as well as other forms of community involvement, are encouraged through the use of informative notes sent home with the children and conversations during home visits. The manuals offer plans for arrangement of classrooms, selection of materials, teaching strategies, and sample learning activities, and are oriented toward the approach of teaching the exceptional and culturally different.


Research Reports and Commentaries Aboud, F.E. (1993). A fifth grade program to reduce prejudice. In K.A. McLeod (Ed.), Multicultural education: The state of the art (pp. 20–27). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

In this chapter Aboud describes the curriculum materials called More Than Meets the Eye and discusses her findings about the appropriateness of the curriculum and the impact that it had on the children. The curriculum was based on a human relations approach of reducing individual prejudice and heightening children’s ability to differentiate among members of different groups. The impact was assessed using pre- and posttests that measured children’s ability to differentiate members of other racial groups, their racial preferences, and their preference for cross-ethnic classmates. The children in the experimental classroom (in which the curriculum was implemented) were compared to a similar control group. The first group showed significant improvement in differentiating members of other racial groups and a slight increase in cross-race preferences. Children of color in the experimental group also showed an increase in positive feelings toward their own group. These changes were not found in the control group. Aboud, F.E., & Fenwick, V. (1999). Exploring and evaluating school-based interventions to reduce prejudice. Journal of Social Issues, 55(4), 767–786.

This article describes three studies that measured the impact of different strategies to engage children and adolescents in discussions about race geared to reducing prejudice. The first study evaluated an 11-week program for fifth-graders called More Than Meets the Eye. Through teacher-led class discussions and the use of vignettes about children from different backgrounds, students learned to see and attend to individual differences in order to challenge stereotyped assumptions that all members of a group are the same. Results indicated that the program was most effective in reducing levels of prejudice in high-prejudiced White children. In the second study, White children between the ages of 8 and 11 participated in discussions in which high- and low-prejudiced children were paired to discuss positive and negative evaluations of different racial groups. Transcripts of conversations revealed that low-prejudiced students frequently challenged their high-prejudiced partners; in posttests, the latter’s views showed a shift toward less prejudiced assumptions. The final study indicated that with the use of simulated conversations, college students can learn to interrupt and challenge racist conversations. All three of these studies reflect a human relations approach and employed an experimental paradigm in which pre- and posttests were used to assess the effects of a particular intervention. Collectively, these findings suggest that carefully constructed conversations among peers and simulation experiences can help to reduce prejudice and enhance the likelihood of students’ challenging racist comments.


Banks, J.A. (1991). Multicultural education: Its effects on students’ racial and gender role attitudes. In J.P.Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning (pp. 459–469). New York, NY: Macmillan.

Banks provides a review of research on racial attitudes and on gender stereotypes, based on work primarily done in the 1970s (when these areas of research were most active). The author concludes that, in terms of improving cross-racial attitudes (in particular, the ownrace preferences of White children), three methods had the most promise: reinforcement of positive associations with the color black, perceptual training to teach children to differentiate among faces of members of less familiar groups, and cooperative learning in mixed ethnic/ racial groups. He also notes that some curricula—in particular, books that contradict gender stereotypes—may help children to acquire more flexible views of male and female roles. Cummins, J. (1989). Empowering minority students. Sacramento: California Association for Bilingual Education.

In this book the author briefly reviews research on minority children’s language proficiency, bilingualism, and academic development. The author develops a model that explains why school success eludes children from some groups more than those from others. Central to the text is the theme that children must feel empowered in order to learn, and that many social and historical forces ensure that certain groups are victimized. The author makes the point that in order for teachers to empower their children, they themselves must engage in critical thinking and be willing to challenge authority. The author describes a number of programs that have been effective in reversing patterns of failure among bilingual children, but shows how critics undermine the efforts of bilingual educators by promulgating “disinformation” about the effects of bilingual education. The author also points out that the current levels of racism in this country and the continuing exploitation of poor countries by rich nations perpetuate the secondclass status of certain groups in this country. Delgado-Gaitan, C. (1990). Literacy for empowerment: The role of parents in children’s education. New York, NY: Falmer.

This study of 20 Mexican American families for 3 years illustrates both some of the short-comings of local schools and the strengths of families in engaging children in literacy activities. The book includes an analysis of parent-teacher relationships and shows how the parents’ lack of power affected their children’s learning. The author then describes how the Spanish-speaking parents formed a group that worked with teachers and administrators in the local schools to make the schools more culturally congruent with their children’s home lives. This study demonstrates how making schools more culturally compatible can also involve empowering both children and their parents. Gimmestad, B.J., & De Chiara, E. (1982). Dramatic plays: A vehicle for prejudice reduction in the elementary school. Journal of Educational Research, 76, 45–49.


The authors describe a study designed to reduce prejudice among fourth-, fifth-, and sixthgraders by incorporating of dramatic plays about four ethnic groups (Black, Hispanic, Jewish, and Chinese) into the classroom curriculum. The experimental children worked in racially/ethnically mixed groups on tasks assigned in relation to reading and enacting four plays (one on each of the four ethnic groups). Pre- and posttests of knowledge about attitudes toward the four groups yielded statistically significant results when the performances of the experimental children were compared with those of the controls. The authors conclude that when small, ethnically heterogeneous groups of children work together on a task where some measure of success is forthcoming, the group members are likely to develop positive attitudes toward each other. Grant, C.A., & Tate, W.F. (1995). Multicultural education through the lens of the multicultural education research literature. In J.A.Banks & C.A.M.Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 145–166). New York, NY: Macmillan.

In this chapter, the authors make a distinction between “research on multicultural education” and “multicultural education research.” The former reflects traditional educational research, in which the effects of a particular reform or innovation are assessed by “objective” pre- and posttests. “Multicultural education research,” on the other hand, is oriented to studying justice and power relationships in schools. This research includes multiple voices and explores the relationship between knowledge and power in schools from a number of perspectives. The authors point out that research in either of these categories is sparse. They offer several explanations for this gap. Grant, C.A. (Ed.) (1992). Research and multicultural education: From the margins to the mainstream. Washington, DC: Falmer.

This edited volume is a testimony to both the significance and the challenges of multicultural education research. Several chapters illustrate the complexities of conducting authentic multicultural research, particularly when the researcher is from a background other than those of the population being studied. The chapters also illustrate the need to include many perspectives in efforts to assess environments and intervention efforts. Most of the chapters are discussions about the challenges of doing research, rather than reports of actual studies, but several authors draw on a number of research experiences to provide some helpful guidelines and caveats to researchers embarking on multicultural education research. Hawley, W.D., & Jackson, A.W. (Eds.) (1995). Toward a common destiny: Improving race and ethnic relations in America. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

This edited volume includes a comprehensive review from a number of perspectives of race and ethnic relations in the United States. The first part provides a historical and international context for studying and improving these relations. The second section contains several chapters on how people develop their ethnic and racial identities and attitudes. The third section is devoted to


reports about educational strategies that have been effective in improving race and ethnic relations. The final part summarizes what has been learned in previous programs and proposes new research questions. Several of the chapters provide excellent reviews of the research in particular fields, and many challenge commonly held assumptions and paradigms. Levine, L. (1993). “Who says?” Learning to value diversity in school. In F.Pignatelli & S.W.Pflaum (Eds.), Celebrating diverse voices: Progressive education and equity (pp. 87– 111). Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press.

This study provides a close look at how a classroom teacher is able to blend culturally relevant, human relations, and social reconstructionist approaches. The narratives from an ethnically diverse, inner-city, kindergarten/first grade classroom illustrate how a teacher creates a safe space for all the children in the classroom to express and compare their perspectives and to challenge the “authority” of the written word and social conventions. The author includes observations of children’s discussions and reading groups to show how the teacher models participatory democracy by encouraging children to question and elaborate on the stories that they read. He also teaches children to respect each other’s backgrounds and perspectives as they discuss their different interpretations of stories that often reflect their particular experiences. The observations illustrate how White middle class children often try to dominate discussions by claiming to have the “official” information and how teachers can intervene to create a more equitable and mutually respectful environment in which all perspectives are honored and taken seriously. Marsh, M.M. (1992). Implementing anti-bias curriculum in the kindergarten classroom. In S.Kessler & B.B.Swadener (Eds.), Reconceptualizing the early childhood curriculum: Beginning the dialogue (pp. 267–288). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

In this account of implementing an antibias curriculum, Marsh describes the organization of the year and the major themes that she was addressing, which include topics such as immigration, conflict resolution, cooperation, peace, Native Americans, and friends from around the world. Marsh then uses excerpts from children’s comments and conversations and her own journal to describe how the children responded. Overall, the curriculum appears to have made some difference in children’s views. Near the end of the year, some of the children were clearly more aware of injustices and began to initiate actions such as protesting the lack of African American crossing guards and organizing a Peace March. May, S. (1994). Making multicultural education work. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

This critical ethnography provides a detailed account of “one unusually successful multicultural and multilingual school” (p. ix) in New Zealand. The primary school described in the study was conceived by its Maori principal as exemplifying the partnership between the Maori and British cultures set forth in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. The treaty implied shared power, and educators at this school have worked to make that vision a reality in the educational process.


The first half of the book provides the theoretical framework for the study, solidly based in a critical pedagogy and a social reconstructionist approach to multicultural education. The second half describes the school’s location and organization; its pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment procedures; and its evidence of educational effectiveness. Of particular interest are the substantial gains in reading achievement among children who started the program with literacy skills far below those expected for their age. Slavin, R.E. (1995). Cooperative learning and intergroup relations. In J.A.Banks & C.A.M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 628–634). New York, NY: Macmillan.

For almost two decades, Slavin and his colleagues have studied the effects of cooperative groups on a number of developmental outcomes. In this review, Slavin states that when the conditions of contact theory have been met, relationships between students of different ethnic groups have become more amicable. In fact, cooperative learning has resulted in strong intergroup friendships, as well as in simply more amicable relationships. Not only do children in the same cooperative groups become friends, but cross-race friendships outside of the groups have also increased after the cross-ethnic cooperative groups were instituted. Slavin speculates that once one cross-group friendship is formed, then friends of both parties also get to know each other and go on in some cases to become friends. Sleeter, C.E., and Grant, C.A. (1987). An analysis of multicultural education in the United States. Harvard Education Review, 57, 421–444.

In this seminal article Grant and Sleeter provide the reader with a thorough review and analysis of literature that addresses multicultural education from the United States and other English-speaking countries. The review covers articles that deal with policy, purposes and goals, models, curriculum, instructional processes, teacher education, research, and critiques of multicultural education. Of interest to most advocates of multicultural education is the typology of multicultural purposes and goals. The authors categorized the approaches to education that are found in the literature into five areas: Education for the Culturally Different, Ethnic Studies, Human Relations, Multicultural Education, and Education That Is Multicultural and Social Reconstructionist. Their discussion of the weaknesses of each approach provides much insight into the need for more clarity, more specificity in ways they are to be implemented, and research on the outcomes of such conceptual changes in educational practices in society. These categories have been widely used in the literature into the 21 st century. Swadener, E.B. (1988). Implementation of education that is multicultural in early childhood settings: A case study of two day-care programs. Urban Review, 20(1), 8– 27.

This ethnographic study of two day-care centers reveals that in both centers, both the formal and the informal curricula supported children’s appreciation of individual differences and acceptance of their peers with disabilities (both centers


had a number of children with disabilities) and flexible gender roles. The data show that cross-ability interactions increased during the year and that children frequently challenged each other on gender stereotypes. The author concludes that the curricula and teaching practices were successful in increasing children’s acceptance of individual differences and gender role flexibility. However, she noted that the teachers did not include as many activities related to racial or cultural differences and did not directly address issues related to oppression or inequality. Thus, the curriculum in both centers fit the category of human relations, rather than that of multicultural or social reconstructionist education. Tharp, R.G., & Gallimore, R. (1988). Rousing minds to life: Teaching, learning, and schooling in social context. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The authors critique current education practices and describe their model, which they call assisted performance. Based on Vygotsky’s theory, they propose that educators support students to perform at their highest potential level (zone of proximal development). Most germane to multicultural education are the chapters in which the authors describe use of the well-known KEEP project (the Kamehameha Elementary Education Project), which involved schools for native Hawaiian children, on a Navajo reservation in Arizona, and in Los Angeles. This research project was designed to assess the effects of using culturally compatible educational practices. Trueba, H.T., Rodriguez, C., Zou, Y., & Cintron, J. (1993). Healing multicultural America: Mexican immigrants rise to power in rural California. New York, NY: Falmer.

The authors describe how Mexican American parents became politically active in their community, were elected to the local school board, and used their influence to make schools more culturally accessible to their children. Although it is an account of the parents’ gaining political power and taking on decisionmaking responsibilities in the community, the book does not address the larger issues of inherent discrimination and racism in the political and economic system. In fact, it might lead readers to assume that any group could organize and become a political force—in other words, that the current democratic system works, which contradicts the social reconstructionist view.

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4 Multicultural Teacher Education

The development of multicultural teacher education in the United States has reflected the same movements influencing teacher education in general from 1975 through the turn of the millennium, including renewed attention to the recruitment and retention of teachers, focus on the design and evaluation of teacher education programs, and rising concern regarding the preparation of teacher educators (e.g., Edelfelt & Raths, 1999; Goodlad, 1999; Goodwin, 1991). Simultaneously, however, multicultural teacher education has struggled with the political dimensions of multiculturalism that have slowly but steadily appeared in curriculum and teaching resources for classroom teachers (see chapter 3), and its broad intentions have been both supported and challenged by newly arising program accreditation and state teacher certification standards that embody particular visions of ways to address diversity in student populations in the preparation of teachers (Futrell & Witty, 1997). The issues affecting teacher education in general reflect the permeability of the field to societal pressures. The last 2 decades of the 20th century brought continued criticism of the educational system, with concomitant dissatisfaction with programs of teacher education (Darling-Hammond, 1984; Holmes Group, 1986; National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983; Passow, 1984). Massive teacher shortages projected for the opening decade of the 21st century (Bolin & Sawyer, 1994; Darling-Hammond, 1984; Goodwin, 1991; Sears, Marshall, and OtisWilborn, 1994) materialized, and a tide of “alternate routes” to teacher certification arose in response to the length of time needed to prepare teachers through the traditional sequences (Natriello & Zumwalt, 1992, 1993). Teacher educators and policy makers have subsequently expressed concern over the quality of these alternatives and have sought improvement of traditional programs through the reform of programs within higher educational institutions (Darling-Hammond, 1995). Changing societal visions of the purposes and conduct of education have also strongly impacted the directions followed by teacher education programs. Cochran-Smith (2000) sees a progression of questions driving teacher education from the 1960s to the present day, moving from (1) concerns about attributes (what traits characterize good teachers and good programs?); to (2) focus on effectiveness (what strategies and processes are used by effective teachers and how might those be best nurtured in prospective teachers?); to (3) attempts to identify


the knowledge base (what knowledge, skills, and dispositions do teachers need?) needed to teach specific subject areas and to provide a foundation for effective practice; and, most recently, to (4) the question of the desired outcomes of teacher education. The concern regarding outcomes encompasses not only the questions of “What for?” and “For whom?” but also the issues of documentation, demonstration, measurement of such outcomes, or any combination of these. A further concern addresses the relationship of these issues to those of recruitment of a more diverse pool of candidates to programs of teacher education and retention of what little variation in the pool of teachers in service already exists. Focus on the design and evaluation of teacher education programs has inevitably led to debate on the preparation of faculty (the “teachers of teachers”) in schools of education (see whole issue, Journal of Teacher Education, 50[5], 1999). Confusion over the provinces of the PhD and the EdD degrees and their relative attention to the requirements of educational research and teaching practice have revealed the intransigence of many colleges of education in changing their vision of the academic pursuits of their faculty. For some faculty, connection to the daily life of teaching children and youth is tenuous. Clearly, these larger movements in teacher education have affected and will continue to affect multicultural teacher education (Ladson-Billings, 1995). The field has certainly suffered from the same ill-defined mission and body of study and from the program incoherence (Goodlad, 1990) that has afflicted teacher education in general. Multicultural teacher education, however, also has had to battle entrenched, unself-conscious racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia that over the decades first took the form of assumed biological (genetic) or moral inferiority, or both, of populations originating outside of northwestern Europe and of women and gay/lesbian people (Goodwin, 1997; Tatum, 1992). In subsequent years, these oppressions appeared again in teacher education programs in the form of the deficit hypothesis, wherein populations were seen as lacking the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that were assumed to characterize White, middle-class people in the United States. Only relatively recently has the view of cultural difference, rather than deficit, allowed exploration of multicultural approaches to teacher preparation (Goodwin, 1997; Martin, 1995; DermanSparks & Phillips, 1997; Irvine, 1997). At the same time, the fluid nature and rapid expansion of the domains of multicultural education itself has made the definition and full articulation of principles within multicultural teacher education programs elusive. One could argue, however, that the fresh visions required to reconstruct teacher education from a now many-faceted multicultural perspective have contributed to reshaping structures that had been formerly resistant to change, including accreditation standards, preservice and inservice program content, and expectations of outcomes of programs of preparation on subsequent practice. Thus, interactions between the directions of teacher education in general and those of multicultural education have contributed to the distinctive character of multicultural teacher education. This chapter explores some of the particular forms of multicultural teacher education and examines areas still under development in

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the field. Whereas the previous chapter focused on resources for early childhood and elementary classroom teachers, this present commentary and the annotations that follow highlight resources for teacher educators. Understanding the emphases appearing in resources for multicultural teacher educators requires consideration of several recurring themes: (1) the differing needs of preservice and inservice teachers and the forms of multicultural teacher education best suited to meet those needs, (2) the impact of the distinctive history of multicultural teacher education on present programs of preparation, (3) the challenges of evolving standards for teacher education, (4) the variation in published goals and guidelines for the field of multicultural teacher education, (5) the controversies surrounding integration of multicultural perspectives into undergraduate liberal arts programs (regarded by those following the Holmes Report [1986] recommendations as foundational for the graduate teacher education to follow), and (6) the relatively undeveloped nature of research in the area of multicultural teacher education. THE ARENAS OF MULTICULTURAL TEACHER EDUCATION: PRESERVICE AND INSERVICE PROGRAMS As with teacher education in general, the literature on multicultural teacher education does not always make a clear distinction between the arenas of preservice and inservice teacher education. The implementation of a multicultural perspective in teacher education does, however, face different challenges in the two types of programs. Preservice teacher education programs may consist of 4 years of undergraduate study, during which students take liberal arts courses as part of a liberal arts major with an education minor, resulting in a BA degree, or an education major that results in a BS degree (an alternative no longer accepted by many states). In the 1980s the Holmes Report (1986) advocated that all preservice teacher education be done at the graduate level, and a number of colleges and universities responded with fifth-year or Master’s-only preservice education programs. Colleges of education or universities geared preservice MA programs toward applicants with liberal arts undergraduate backgrounds, and many current preservice teacher education programs are of this type. Although graduate preservice teacher education programs have the advantage that candidates (teacher education students) are more mature and are now likely to have a solid liberal arts background, they do reduce the amount of time that candidates can be exposed to the concept of multicultural education and related topics. In particular, candidates are likely to have completed their undergraduate liberal arts program with little awareness of the need to have a broad base of cultural literacy in order to be effective teachers (King, Hollins, & Hayman, 1997), unless deliberate attention was given to incorporation of multicultural content throughout their liberal arts program. As will be seen further on, however, the introduction of multicultural perspectives into undergraduate liberal


arts programs has not been without controversy (Sleeter, 1996), and students may still enter their graduate programs of teacher preparation without a firm grounding in issues of diversity (Banks, 1991). With their limited experience, preservice candidates may also come to teacher education programs with stereotypic views about particular groups that need to be addressed (Goodwin, 1997; Irvine, 1997; Lawrence & Bunche, 1996; Martin, 1995; Tatum, 1992). At the same time, relatively young undergraduate or graduate preservice candidates are often developing their own identities and are very anxious about their own teaching skills. This self-preoccupation may make it difficult for them to think about broader educational issues or address the needs of diverse groups (Sleeter, 1996; Titone, 1998). Serious attention to the requirements of multiculturalism in preservice education programs provides the opportunity for candidates to be exposed to multicultural perspectives in many different ways, such as through development of reflective practice, interdisciplinary and multiple media approaches, field experiences in diverse settings associated with course work, or any combination of these (Goodwin, 1997; Merryfield, 2000). If a comprehensive multicultural approach is integrated into the 4 years of undergraduate liberal arts study and is subsequently reinforced in the graduate program of preservice teacher education, there is clearly more potential to effect attitudinal change and development of related knowledge and pedagogical skill than if there is minimal or tangential exposure to issues of diversity in teaching and learning. Inservice education of practicing teachers also poses some particular challenges (Cochran-Smith, 1997). As staff development, inservice teacher education is frequently done on site in single sessions, with a number of instructors used for different workshops over time. This structure often results in a fragmented and incomplete experience (Nixon, 1985) and makes it difficult for participants to honestly and thoroughly explore their own attitudes and to have experiences that challenge them. Another form of inservice teacher education that is offered in colleges or universities at the MA level of study has more continuity. However, typically, graduate classes meet only once a week, late in the afternoon and evening, and therefore may not always be conducive to extended discussions of issues (Williams & Ryan, 2000). Furthermore, inservice education at the MA level often does not provide a vehicle for teachers to grapple with the challenges posed by their particular situations, due to a lack of direct connection between the college or university and the teachers’ ongoing practice, so teachers feel frustrated by what they may perceive as lack of relevance to their situation (Cochran-Smith, 1997). Because inservice teachers are often in situations that they themselves cannot change, they may see inservice courses and other experiences as focusing only on surface issues, rather than on the roots of some difficulties (Johnson, 1999; Lea, 1999). On the other hand, practicing teachers enter inservice teacher development programs with more experience and fewer “survival” concerns than characterize preservice candidates. Thus, practicing teachers may be able to make more immediate use of the available opportunities (Baker, 1994).


Although the aims of multicultural teacher education are the same for preservice candidates and inservice teachers, the forms through which they are implemented must take into account the past exposure, specific needs, experiences, and strengths of the participants. Through an extensive review of the literature, Zeichner (1993) proposed a number of elements that he considers to be the hallmarks of effective multicultural teacher education, with those needs, experiences, and strengths in mind. The elements include, among others, (1) use of biography, (2) attention to attitudinal change, (3) provision of diverse field experiences, (4) opportunity to increase cultural knowledge, (5) development of ethnic and cultural identities, (6) teaching about the dynamics of prejudice and racism and how to deal with them in the classroom, and (7) curriculum that gives much attention to sociocultural research knowledge about the relationships among language, culture, and learning. In a review of literature on multicultural teacher education that incorporates Zeichner’s elements, however, Ladson-Billings (1995) does note that although these elements are frequently mentioned in the works she reviewed, there has yet been found “little empirical evidence to support their validity” (p. 753). There also has not been systematic exploration of which forms might better serve preservice or inservice teacher education. It is notable that Zeichner’s compilation in the early 1990s gave no attention to the development of a sense of social activism as a key element of multicultural teacher education. As will be seen further on, however, recent work in these areas is addressing that gap. TYPES OF IMPLEMENTATION Another distinction that is sometimes blurred in the multicultural teacher education literature is whether the descriptions that are provided of multicultural teacher educational practice, at either the preservice or the inservice level, refer to (1) infusion of multicultural content, processes, and perspectives into courses in specific disciplines or subject areas; (2) particular courses dedicated to study of the issues inherent in multicultural education; (3) practica, student teaching, or other field experiences conducted in diverse settings; (4) structural changes affecting the overall design of the teacher education program; or (5) some combination of these (Melnick & Zeichner, 1997). Which of these arenas is being studied has implications for the kinds of studies done, the methods used for research, and the effects sought. Particular forms for implementing multicultural teacher education have varied over time and according to the possibilities of specific programs, but the trend has been toward a combination of two or more of the previous forms. With the advent of the newest program accreditation standards (NCATE, 2000) and further moves toward an outcomes-based orientation (Cochran-Smith, 2000), one may surmise that the most likely future scenario will be full structural change of teacher education programs to infuse multicultural concerns throughout all the experiences offered. This possibility is supported by the trends evident over time in the history of the field.


HISTORY OF MULTICULTURAL TEACHER EDUCATION Prior to the inception of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1950s, very little attention was being given to issues of diversity in the preparation of teachers. The fundamental assumption was that assimilation of both teachers and children to the teaching and learning norms that were assumed to be part of White middle-class society was the desired aim of teacher education, and that any deviation from that assimilation on the part of “minority” learner populations denoted an inability to perform that was probably genetic (biological) in origin (Goodwin, 1997; Tatum, 1992). The one exception to that deficit-oriented attitude was found in the Intergroup Education Movement, a teacher education effort that focused on easing racial tensions, which were occasioned by the return of Black and White GIs to a society segregated by race and class at the end of World War II (Taba, Brady, & Robinson, 1952). The Intergroup Education Movement (as discussed in chapter 1) can be seen as one of the first challenges to the then pervasive geneticdeficit hypothesis. Awareness of the interaction of societal contexts with children’s learning and development began in the 1960s with research in education that offered an alternative hypothesis, that of environmental, rather than genetic, deficit (Gray & Klaus, 1966; Hunt, 1961). In this version, differences in achievement among children were due to lack of access to learning materials and limited growthproducing experiences, leaving the children with a “cultural deficit.” Therefore, teachers needed to be prepared to remediate the deficits, and teacher education centers began to offer brief inservice training for teachers in recently desegregated settings. The formats ranged from 1-day workshops to institutes of several weeks’ duration. With the inception of Teacher Corps and other federal programs in the late 1960s, the model of a field-based internship was introduced. Several schools of education began to incorporate community-based programs in which preservice teachers worked in culturally diverse or poor communities, or in those that were both poor and culturally diverse (Dumais and Teacher Corps Associates, 1982; Fox and Teacher Corps Associates, 1986). These programs, however, were limited to students who selected them and were not usually part of undergraduate programs, so that they did not represent a broad reform in teacher education (Baker, 1994). It has been suggested by one of the original participants in the New York City Teacher Corps project, however, that ultimately the work did have deep effects. Many of the leaders of the emerging multicultural teacher education movement of the next decade had begun their careers in Teacher Corps (Fromberg, Personal Communication, 2001). The need for all teachers to be multicultural in their approach became more apparent in the 1970s, with the introduction of a third hypothesis for the depressed achievement of “minority” populations—that of “cultural difference” (Baratz & Baratz, 1970; Valentine, 1971)—and the passage of the Ethnic Heritage Act, the National Origins Desegregation Act, the Racial Desegegration Act, and the Lau v.Nichols Decision of 1973. At this point in time, inservice teacher


development sessions began to include such topics as intergroup relations, conflict management, understanding cultural and linguistic differences, and improving school and community relations. Teacher “training” rarely consisted of a comprehensive approach in which all of these areas were incorporated (Goodwin, 1997). In 1977, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) also revised its standards to mandate a multicultural perspective in all teacher education programs. All of these initiatives implied the need for specific training of teachers to recognize and respond to the particulars of cultural differences in the populations they would teach, to enable children to bridge the gap between the cultures of their home and that of the school. Baptiste & Baptiste (1980) framed these teacher education needs in terms of the competency-based teacher education movement that was growing in strength in the same period. To support these reforms, several model teacher preparation programs were funded and implemented; and a number of publications in the late 1970s and early 1980s provided guidelines and models for the implementation of the NCATE standards (Gollnick, Osayande, & Levy, 1980; Klassen & Gollnick, 1977) in ways that celebrated diversity, rather than seeking to remediate it—a significant departure from the motivation that had undergirded earlier iterations of preparing teachers to teach the “culturally different.” This trend was further reinforced in the 1980s when a school reform movement in the United States began to gather strength (Darling-Hammond, 1984; Passow, 1984), and implications for the preparation of teachers began to be articulated (Holmes Report, 1986) that related to changing the structures of teacher education programs. During the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, model programs for multicultural teacher education were also implemented in other countries. Model programs aside, during the 1980s most of the references to multicultural teacher education in the literature were reviews that criticized the fragmented and superficial modifications employed by many teacher education programs to meet the NCATE standards. Authors, both here and abroad, pointed out that there was an increasing need for a multicultural perspective in all areas of education, but that little real change had occurred. They advocated more profound reforms to make teacher education programs genuinely multicultural (for reviews of these critiques of the 1980s, see Ladson-Billings, 1995, and Zeichner, 1993). In the late 1980s and the 1990s, “reconceptualists” who were thinking about the content of the care and education of young children, as well as about the education of elementary school children, began to interject their concerns into the general school reform debate (Kessler & Swadener, 1992; Lubeck, 1994; Silin, 1994). By the mid-1990s those concerns became crystallized into a call for a social reconstructionist stance in multicultural teacher education (Grieshaber & Cannella, 2001; Nieto, 1997, 2000; Ramsey, 1998; Sleeter, 1996). These discussions, in turn, began to affect accreditation standards for teacher education institutions (NCATE, 2000), state teacher certification requirements (eg., New York State Education Department, 1999, for teacher credentialing in New York; Walton & Carlson, 1997, for teacher credentialing in California), guidelines for


program/curriculum development (ACEI, 1998; Bredekamp & Rosegrant, 1992, 1995; Bredekamp & Copple, 1997; NAEYC, 2001), and the position statements of major professional organizations (AACTE, 1999; Gayton & Byrd, 1999). Transformation of such requirements and guidelines into fully articulated multicultural teacher education programs, however, has lagged behind these statements, and rigorous research on the effects of the efforts is still in the intermediate stages of development (Banks & Banks, 1995; Irvine, 1997; King & Castanell, 2001; King, Hollins, & Hayman, 1997; Martin, 1995). Major obstacles to realization of the vision, as noted previously, include inadequate preparation of teacher education faculties for implementing multicultural teacher education programs (Cochran-Smith, 1997; Melnick & Zeichner, 1997; Williams & Ryan, 2000), the inadequate preparation of all teachers for confronting the dynamics of racism and other exclusions that affect teaching and learning (Derman-Sparks & Phillips, 1997; King & Castenell, 2001; Scheurich, 1993), low rates of recruitment and retention of people of color in teaching and higher educational fields (Goodwin, 1997; King & Castenell, 2001), and the kinds of support needed to make that retention possible (Bolin & Sawyer, 1994). Still, some progress in each of the areas noted here has been made that offers direction for future development, and in a parallel fashion teacher education accreditation standards have continued to evolve in recognition of the complex and changing nature of the field, as will be discussed in the next section. THE EVOLUTION OF NCATE STANDARDS FOR MULTICULTURAL TEACHER EDUCATION (1977– 2000) Multicultural education was mandated to be an integral part of teacher preparation in the 1977 standards of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). References to multicultural education appeared in standards on governance, faculty, students, resources, and long-range planning. The major reference from that period (NCATE, 1977) reads as follows: 2.1.1 Multicultural Education Multicultural education is preparation for the social, political, and economic realities that individuals experience in culturally diverse and complex human encounters. These realities have both national and international dimensions. This preparation provides a process by which an individual develops competencies for perceiving, believing, evaluating, and behaving in differential cultural settings. Thus, multicultural education is viewed as an intervention and an ongoing assessment process to help institutions and individuals become more responsive to the human condition, individual cultural integrity, and cultural pluralism in society. Provision should be made for instruction in multicultural education in teacher education programs. Multicultural education should receive


attention in courses, seminars, directed readings, laboratory and clinical experiences, practicum, and other types of field experiences. Multicultural education could include but not be limited to the experiences which: (1) promote analytical and evaluative abilities to confront issues such as participatory democracy, racism and sexism, and the parity of power; (2) develop skills for values clarification, including the study of the manifest and latent transmission of values; (3) examine the dynamics of diverse cultures and the implications for developing teaching strategies; and (4) form a basis for the development of appropriate teaching strategies. Standard: The institution gives evidence of planning for multicultural education in its teacher education curricula including both the general and professional studies components. (p. 16) In the mid-1990s, NCATE undertook a substantial revision of the standards (NCATE, 1997) and restated its concern for multicultural awareness and instructional practice in the following manner: Standard I.D. The unit ensures that teacher candidates acquire and learn to apply the professional and pedagogical knowledge and skills to become competent to work with all students. (p. 17) This standard was elaborated through a series of indicators that included under section I.D.2 attention to “different student approaches to learning for creating instructional opportunities adapted to learners from diverse cultural backgrounds and with exceptionalities” (p. 17). The NCATE standards were redeveloped in the late 1990s to reflect an even more pervasive and expanded multicultural stance. The current formulation (NCATE, 2000) reads: Standard 4. Diversity: The unit (school or department of education) designs, implements and evaluates curriculum and experiences for candidates to acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn. These experiences include working with diverse higher education and school faculty, and diverse and exceptional students in P–12 schools. (p. 15) The supporting explanation for the standard reveals the considerations that have shaped its new form: America’s classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse; over one-third of the students in P–12 classrooms are from minority groups. An increasing number of students are classified as having a disability. At the same time, minority teachers are less than 15 percent of the teaching force. As a result,


most students do not have the opportunity to benefit from a diverse teaching force. Teacher candidates need to develop competencies for working with students from diverse backgrounds and with exceptionalities to ensure that all students have the opportunity to learn. Regardless whether they live in areas with great diversity, candidates must develop knowledge about the diversity in the United States and the world, dispositions that respect and value differences, and skills for working in diverse settings. One of the goals of this standard is the development of educators who can help all students learn and who can teach from a multicultural and global perspective. Therefore, the unit provides opportunities for candidates to understand the roles of diversity and equity in the teaching and learning process. Coursework, field experiences, and clinical practice are designed to help candidates understand the influence of culture on education and be able to develop meaningful learning experiences for all students. Candidates learn about exceptionalities and inclusion as well as gender differences and their impact on learning. Competencies, including dispositions, are drawn from the standards of the profession, state, and institution; they are clear to candidates and are assessed as part of the unit’s performance assessment system. (pp. 16–17) Comparison of the earlier and later content of the standards reveals a broadening in the definition of multiculturalism to include not only issues of race, class, and gender, but also other diversities, exceptionalities, and global (international, crosscultural) awareness. Furthermore, the rubric articulating the new standard addresses not only the design, implementation, and evaluation of teacher education curriculum and experiences, but also provision of a diverse teacher education faculty, identification and preparation of diverse teacher candidates, and field experiences and clinical practice in schools serving diverse P–12 (preschool through grade 12) populations. Clearly, the new standard reflects a changing image of the goals of multicultural teacher education toward a broader description of what constitutes diversity and inclusion, but it stops far short of advocating critical pedagogy and a social reconstructionist approach. PUBLISHED GOALS AND GUIDELINES FOR MULTICULTURAL TEACHER EDUCATION Over the past two decades a number of articles and books have articulated the goals of multicultural teacher education, and several have also provided guidelines with varying levels of specificity. Most of those from the early 1980s to the early 1990s typify Sleeter and Grant’s (1987/1999) categories of the human relations approach and multicultural education (see chapter 3), rather than their social reconstructionist category. From approximately the mid-1990s onward, however, the more radical social reconstructionist position has begun to appear in goal


statements and guidelines with greater frequency (Irvine, 1997; King, Hollins, & Hayman, 1997). The Evolving Nature of the Goals and Guidelines Similar to the goals represented in curriculum and teaching resources for teachers reviewed in chapter 3, the goals and guidelines for multicultural teacher education vary in terms of their focus, breadth, and level of specificity. Once again, a review of the evolution of these goals and guidelines over time is instructive. In 1977, Banks stressed the need for teacher education to foster students’ understanding of multiethnicity and their commitment to a multicultural perspective, reflecting the focus on teacher attributes that was current in teacher education in general. Responsive to the emphasis on effectiveness and the competency-based teacher education also prominent in that time period, Gay (1977) delineated more specific attitudinal, cognitive, and skill components of multicultural teacher education. Using a similar competency-based framework, Baptiste and Baptiste (1980) identified 11 specific multicultural competencies, each with several related rationales, instructional objectives, enabling activities, and assessments. Gay (1983) discussed the need for prospective teachers to learn how to adapt materials and teacher styles to be relevant to and effective with a wide range of children and to impart a multicultural perspective to all children. Other writers (e.g., Hayes, 1980) described skills specific to effectively communicating with and involving the community. Kohut (1980) addressed the issue of field experiences and ways in which options can be broadened so that students will have a wider range of experiences. Another pioneer comprehensive source was Guidelines for Multicultural Teacher Education by Klassen, Gollnick, and Osayande (1980). The authors described ways in which institutional governance, curriculum, faculty members, students, and resources should be changed in order to provide an environment supportive of multicultural teaching and learning. In the creation of their guidelines, all of these works drew on goals later characterized by Sleeter and Grant (1987, 1999) as teaching the culturally different, human relations, and multicultural education (see chapter 3 for definitions of these approaches). Considering the emerging goals of multicultural education (as they were presented in the mid–1970s), Grant (1977a) expressed concern about whether or not a multicultural perspective was compatible with the specific competencies, accountability, and production that characterized competencybased teacher education. Ten years later, Bennett (1988) developed another type of guidelines for teacher education. Focusing on development of a necessary knowledge base, Bennett’s model had four areas to be included in programs of teacher preparation: (a) knowledge of historical perspectives and current cultural differences; (b) understandings of culture that lead to intercultural competence; (c) attitudes that embody a commitment to reduce racism, prejudice, and discrimination; and (d) skills in teaching multicultural students. Over the decade that followed, authors increasingly emphasized a fundamental reorientation of both preservice and


inservice teachers toward social reconstructionist goals to address in teacher education the subtler issues of power and privilege that impact prospects for equitable teaching and learning (Bennett, 1995; Derman-Sparks & Phillips, 1997; hooks, 1993; King, Hollins, & Hayman, 1997; Irvine, 1997; Nieto, 2000; Sleeter, 1992, 1994, 1995). This reorientation had echoes of the earlier focus in teacher education in general on teacher attributes (in this case, the attributes of openness to difficult questions and willingness to engage in often painful discussions in the service of confronting injustice). Presently, Banks (1999) also reflects this interest in attributes and earlier movements by stressing community involvement in the planning and development of courses and programs and the need for the faculty to be both representative of diversity and genuinely committed to a multicultural perspective. Melnick & Zeichner (1997), Scheurich (1993), and Williams & Ryan (2000) describe faculty development programs that are designed to facilitate the implementation of multicultural teacher education at the individual and institutional levels. It is notable that texts on multicultural teacher education have thus far included only limited discussion of the renewed attention in teacher education in general on standards, or an outcome orientation to the preparation of teachers. Those that do (e.g., Futrell & Witty, 1997; Walton & Carlson, 1997) are descriptive of standards movements, their use in specific programs, or both, but do not challenge the appropriateness or adequacy of the standards-based orientation in addressing the equity concerns of multicultural education. In addition to emphases on teacher attributes, teaching effectiveness, development of relevant knowledge bases, and outcomes that appear in articles and books focusing specifically on preservice teacher preparation and inservice teacher education, several recent multicultural resource books for teachers have included sections that discuss processes that teachers must undertake to enact multicultural educational practice (e.g., Banks, 1999; De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Ramsey, 1987/1998). Obviously, these processes also are important to consider in the preparation of teachers in teacher education programs; they are equally essential for the development of multicultural teacher educators and for the transformation of educational institutions as a whole. Essential Processes to Transform Teachers, Teacher Educators, and Educational Institutions Current guidelines addressed to multicultural teacher educators speak to the need for prospective and practicing teachers to learn to monitor their own biases, assumptions, and belief systems and to rethink them in the light of issues of social justice. Pang, Anderson, and Martuza (1997), for example, see transformative learning, experiential learning, problem-posing dialogues, provision of theoretical frameworks for learning and teaching, continual theory/practice connections, and the development of trusting relationships as key elements of the professional development process for teachers and teacher educators. In addition to the


exploration of biases, Irvine (1997) and Smith (1998) discuss the development of the knowledge bases needed for teachers (and teacher educators) to enact a multicultural practice. It is expected that through such work, prospective and practicing teachers and teacher educators will develop a clear commitment to presenting a realistic portrayal of society and will approach all children and candidates preparing to be teachers with an enabling attitude (Goodwin, 1997). Goodwin (1997) relates such elements to the transformation of institutions through a series of processes, including autobiography and personal history, connection through context, confronting new realities, reflection/reassessment, reconstruction, and return to autobiography, linking the professional development activities of candidates (prospective teachers in teacher education programs), practitioners (practicing teachers in public and private schools), and faculty (in schools of education, i.e., institutions). Pang, Anderson, & Martuza (1997) explore how consortia of institutions can work to transform themselves through pooling their resources, and Peretti (1997) examines the effects of redesigned field experiences on both candidate development and the evolution of the associated institutions. This orientation originally assumed that teacher educators themselves were able to do this analysis in their own work. Prior to the early 1990s, however, there was not much evidence in available publications of such work among teacher educators. More recently, individual teacher educators have begun to address the need to face the shortcomings in their own previous preparation in multicultural education (Derman-Sparks & Phillips, 1997; Dilworth, 1992; Williams & Ryan, 2000), and recent works on multicultural teacher education frequently call attention to the continuing needs of teacher educators (King, Hollins, & Hayman, 1997). In terms of a more collective concern, issues of multiculturalism in teacher preparation began moving outside of caucuses and special interest groups in the mid-1990s to become a prominent part of the main agenda at the annual meetings of professional associations such as ATE (the Association of Teacher Educators) and AACTE (the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education). From early on, writers strongly emphasized that teachers needed to be skilled at interpreting words, gestures, and behaviors of people from other cultures and to be able to convey information and feelings in ways that are appropriate to specific cultural groups. Poor cross-cultural communication skills can create discomfort, disrupt interactions, and inhibit child-teacher and family-teacher relationships (Kleifgen, 1987). Mitchell and Watson (1980) identified several potential sources of cultural conflict between families and schools and described how learning about family values and lifestyles, individual styles of learning, and culturally related verbal and nonverbal communication enables teachers to be more prepared to ease children’s transitions into school. More recently, the same concerns have been emphasized in works focusing on the needs of children of specific ethnicities and linguistic backgrounds (eg., Dillard, 1997; Hilliard, 1997; Nieto and Rolon, 1997; Pang, 1997). In response to these concerns, current thinking suggests that teacher educators, when considering crossracial and cross-


ethnic communication, must focus (both for their teacher education students and themselves) on the power of language (i.e., choice of descriptors and terminology) in influencing perceptions about the capabilities of members of various races or ethnic groups (Fennimore, 2000). The need to recruit and retain teacher education students from more diverse backgrounds is emphasized by Sleeter (1994) and King & Castenell (2001). They describe changes that need to be made in recruitment, admissions, retention, and postgraduate placement policies, in order to meet this goal. Likewise, the need to recruit and retain teacher education faculty from diverse backgrounds is being emphasized in professional standards publications (Gayton & Byrd, 1999; NCATE, 2000). Another notable process being undertaken by some undergraduate institutions of higher education and teacher educators over the decade of the 1990s was strongly influenced by the Holmes Report (1986)1 and also reflected the emphasis on the development of a knowledge base that appeared in the early 1990s. The infusion of multicultural perspectives into the undergraduate liberal arts courses was seen to be foundational for graduate-level teacher education. Banks (1987) argued that these courses should be designed to provide students with a meaningful context for understanding both the lifestyles and life chances of various ethnic groups. Another example of focus on infusion of multiculturalism into undergraduate studies is an edited volume by Baskauskas (1986) that includes essays on how to incorporate a multicultural perspective into a range of collegelevel social science courses. Because of the far-ranging implications of the movement to integrate multicultural perspectives into the liberal arts, special attention is given to it in the following section. Although obvious import exists for the possible effects of such efforts on potential teachers, there is also a tantalizing glimpse here of the visions of multiculturalists for the development of society as a whole. MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE LIBERAL ARTS Students at the undergraduate level spend a great deal of their time taking courses in the liberal arts. These courses potentially play a significant role in shaping students’ perceptions of society, economics, and the nature of knowledge. Yet rarely are the liberal arts discussed in articles and books on multicultural teacher preparation. This review is written in the hope of closing that gap. In the 1990s, controversies about “political correctness” on college campuses brought attention to efforts to make the liberal arts more reflective of and responsive to the diverse views and voices in this country and in the world. From the promulticultural forces, college curricula were often portrayed as the impenetrable domain of DWM (Dead White Men), taught by traditionalists who tenaciously cling to outdated beliefs. From the conservative perspective (e.g., Bloom, 1987; D’Souza, 1991), college curricula were being taken over by ethnic, gay, and feminist studies.


In 1992, Change magazine conducted a survey of multicultural initiatives at 270 colleges and universities that were stratified to be representative of American higher education (including 2-year and 4-year institutions, both public and private) (Levine & Cureton, 1992). The responses showed that issues related to diversity and inequities were high on the agendas of most colleges and universities and that change was occurring, but not at the expense of more traditional subjects. Of the 196 respondents (73% of the total sample), three-quarters of the deans reported that they talk about multiculturalism frequently or continually. According to the survey, curricular innovations at that time fell into two different categories. Over half of the responding institutions reported that rather than mounting new courses and eliminating traditional ones, faculties were expanding existing courses in their disciplines to include broader perspectives and to deal with issues of race, culture, class, gender, and sexual orientation (Levine & Cureton, 1992). A second common approach, reported by one third of the respondents, was a multicultural general education requirement (Levine & Cureton, 1992). Disciplinary-Based Approach The first approach most closely fit the infusion model (as described earlier) that was being advocated by many writers for multicultural education in primary and secondary schools. The goal was to expose as many students as possible to texts and materials that represent the voices of women and people of color and other marginalized groups (Fitzgerald & Lauter, 1995). An example of this kind of inclusion was the Heath Anthology of American Literature (1990). The advantages of this model were that a multicultural perspective was incorporated throughout the curriculum and visibly established multiculturalism as an institutional priority, which served to validate students who might otherwise feel marginalized (Fitzgerald & Lauter, 1995). However, one limitation of this approach was that these changes to the curriculum were often additive: a few new readings were added to a course without really challenging the paradigms and assumptions that underlie the course. Another issue was that the infusion of multicultural perspectives varied across disciplines. According to Levine and Cureton’s findings, English, history, and the social sciences were ahead of the natural sciences in their efforts to develop a more multicultural perspective. Thus, majors in some fields were more likely to be exposed to multicultural principles than were majors in other fields. A variation on this approach and one that went further, in terms of developing students’ critical awareness, was to examine and critique more closely the assumptions underlying traditional material. For example, Shakespearean scholars have usually dismissed the fact that Othello was Black as a mere distraction (Salway, 1991). Some scholars, however, began to use the play Othello to critique the construct of race expressed by Shakespeare and by interpreters of the play over the last 400 years.


The previously mentioned trends represent conscious attempts to move beyond what Banks (1999) described as the additive approach to multicultural curriculum development (see chapter 3)—simple additions of content to existing curricula— to a deeper level of effort, that is, structural transformation of the curriculum. To make the distinction between additive and transformative more clear, one can consider how developmental psychology has been taught and the kinds of changes that have and could still be made. The field of developmental psychology has often been criticized for representing child development research findings and theories as universal, even though they have been based primarily on White middle-class subjects (see chapter 2). One response, which reflects the additive approach, is to add material about “other groups” and compare and contrast the styles and outcomes of child rearing. Unfortunately, experiences that do not fit the White middle-class “norm” are often portrayed as the “other” or even as deviant. A more transformative approach is to challenge the assumptions underlying the field of developmental psychology. For example, studying child rearing in cultures that value the development of interdependence and collaborative skills, rather than independence and competitiveness (which underlie most Western developmental theories), enables students to identify and critique the cultural, historical, political, and economic forces that have shaped the assumptions underlying the field (Greenfield, 1995). Armed with this knowledge, students and faculty can also critique the educational and social policies that reflect the traditional child development assumptions and become activists for changing those policies that impose unfair burdens on particular groups. Diversity Requirements In the second approach, institutions required that students take a separate course or series of courses with a multicultural focus. These courses were either electives drawn from a number of possible courses or required courses that were designed specifically to address issues of multiculturalism. In some cases, traditional core courses such as “Western Civilization” were revised to have a strong multicultural focus. Individual courses To make this requirement politically acceptable across many departments, colleges often lumped together all “otherness” and allowed students to satisfy the “diversity requirement” with a course on U.S. minorities or on women or on non-Western cultures (Butler & Schmitz, 1992), which allowed students to take courses that did not necessarily challenge them to rethink their assumptions and worldviews (e.g., White women taking a course in women’s studies; students taking a course on the ancient history of a particular Chinese city) (Gaff, 1992). This pattern shows that when schools use existing courses to satisfy this requirement, the criteria for diversity courses should be discussed in light of the overall multicultural goals of the institution and rigorously applied. Another


limitation of this approach is that students may simply “get the multicultural requirement over with” and not see how these issues are related to other courses, which also argues for a more in-depth and pervasive transformation of the curriculum. Sequence of courses Some institutions have developed a sequence of courses that focuses on multicultural issues. For example, one institution developed a year-long interdisciplinary course for first-year students around the theme of “identity” (Gaff, 1992). During the first semester, students critically examined their own backgrounds and beliefs, and during the spring they engaged in a multidisciplinary exploration of the African American experience in this country. Another college, which is predominantly White, developed a four-course Heritage Program that all students took in their first 2 years (Smiley, Steege, & Tobin, 1993). This sequence included a critical examination of Western intellectual traditions; an exploration of the encounter (colonization) between Europe and Africa from both perspectives; an in-depth, interdisciplinary study of Japan; and, finally, an analysis of American culture through the eyes of writers who represent many different ethnic groups. Reconstructing “Western Civilization” With the changing demographics of colleges and universities and the emergence of the new multicultural scholarship, students and faculty at a number of institutions began to challenge the narrow scope of the traditional “Western Civilization” requirement. Often in the past, the requirement consisted of two or three courses that traced the history of ideas in the West or were built around studying the “Great Books.” Many institutions either abandoned these courses or changed them to reflect a broader and more critical perspective on Western Civilization. The most well-known case was Stanford University’s shift from “Western Culture” to “Culture, Ideas, and Values.” Although this kind of reform was being done in many institutions, the Stanford experience was unique, in that it attracted vituperative media attention and served as a lighting rod for the neoconservatives (Fitzgerald & Lauter, 1995). Multicultural Pedagogy In addition to focus on changing the content of the curriculum, attention to authentic multicultural pedagogy also arose during this period. This approach required learning new ways of teaching that are more open-ended and democratic (Gay, 1995; hooks, 1993; Yarbrough, 1992). The instructor is no longer the “expert,” but rather provides the resources and structures for students and faculty to learn together and challenge each others’ ideas. Bringing many cultures, histories, and perspectives into the classroom exposed the weaknesses and


injustices of traditional disciplines, and many faculty were afraid of the anger, conflict, and frustration that inevitably followed (Wilkerson, 1992). Although these fears were real, many classes that were taught in this way were successful in engaging students in examinations of ideas, assumptions, and personal beliefs, which were both rigorous and intensely personal (e.g., Tatum, 1992; Yarbrough, 1992). Given the racial, ethnic, and class tensions in our society, it was thought that students need to learn how to talk constructively about these sensitive issues. Liberal arts courses were seen as having the potential to provide this kind of experience. Barriers to Change Resistance to incorporating a multicultural perspective in the liberal arts curriculum soon emerged at many colleges and universities. The National Association of Scholars (NAS), a group of conservative faculty members, actively worked against multicultural initiatives across the United States. Even faculty members who were willing and eager to rethink and revise their courses balked at acknowledging that their courses as currently taught reflected a political perspective (hooks, 1993). One way to gain this broader perspective was to have frequent conversations with colleagues from other ethnic and SES backgrounds. As Sleeter (1992) said in her analysis of inservice teacher training, “Predominantly White groups rarely develop the range of insights and commitments they need to address diversity constructively” (p. 209). The possibilities for interaction were limited, however, as in the early 1990s 89.5% of the faculty from across all institutions of higher education in the United States were White, and the situation would not change significantly over the decade to follow, given the relatively low numbers of new PhDs awarded to people of color (Boot, 1992). An obvious strategy was to increase the number of PhD candidates of color by encouraging them at the undergraduate level to continue on to graduate school. However, the deep alienation that many students of color experience at most predominantly White campuses is a severe impediment to this approach. Although this review has focused primarily on the curriculum and teaching force at liberal arts institutions, the extracurricular, as well as the curricular, lives of students of color are indicators of whether or not these institutions are becoming more multicultural and may be decisive as to whether or not they pursue academic careers. The alienation that many students of color feel is a vivid reminder of the yawning gap between the goals and reality of multiculturalism on college campuses (e.g., Altbach and Lomotey, 1991). College administrators must continue to lead efforts that include all segments of the population (students, support staff, faculty, administrators) in critically examining the assumptions underlying the college course of study, social life, structure of student organizations, traditions, and so on, to identify and change elements that make students of color feel uncomfortable and perpetuate the dominance and privilege of the White students.


Toward Multicultural Liberal Arts Education Liberal arts institutions of all kinds are still going through a painful reexamination. Although the considerations discussed earlier do not appear frequently in current literature, with varying degrees of reluctance, enthusiasm, naïveté, and wisdom, faculty are continuing to examine their curricula and pedagogy from (to many of them) new and challenging perspectives. One approach has been for colleges and universities to participate in regional coalitions and summer institutes (Wilkerson, 1992) that can provide support and resources to faculty trying to change their courses. Faculty, staff, and students engaged in this work also need to belong to support groups so that they can get support and reassurance when they need it. It is striking that in the literature on multiculturalism and the liberal arts, teacher education is seldom mentioned. Likewise, the numerous books and articles about multicultural teacher education rarely include any mention of the liberal arts backgrounds of the students taking teacher preparation courses. These two groups could mutually support these changes. Education faculty, with their backgrounds in curriculum and pedagogy, can support and advise their colleagues in the liberal arts who are revising courses and trying out new ways of teaching. Liberal arts faculty can provide their peers in education with information about histories, customs, literatures, technologies, and arts of different groups that can support efforts to both address diverse educational needs and develop multicultural curriculum for elementary and secondary programs. Together, both groups could uncover the hidden paradigms that form the basis of all disciplines—including education—and identify how they reflect the perspectives and interests of the dominant cultural groups. Unfortunately, the status differential between liberal arts and education in colleges and universities makes such collaboration difficult. The stakes are high, and now is the time for liberal arts institutions to search for interdisciplinary and creative ways of liberating their faculties and students from their worn-out and often untested assumptions about their fields and about society. The note struck by King and Ladson-Billings a decade ago still rings true: If education is to contribute to more fundamental social change, teachers need to develop critical perspectives about the society and multicultural competence that help them value diversity, not just tolerate it [,] and which help them oppose inequity rather than inadvertently perpetuate it. (King & Ladson-Billings, 1990, p. 17) RESEARCH ON MULTICULTURAL TEACHER EDUCATION In the first edition of this book in 1989, we commented on the lack of research on the effects of various approaches to prepare students to teach from a multicultural perspective and the need to fill this gap. Since that time, however, the body of work has grown to a point that we see research on all aspects of multicultural teacher education as being in an intermediate stage—much more


fully developed than a decade ago, but still in need of expansion and refinement (Banks & Banks, 1995; Bennett, 2001; Grant, 1992, 1999; Grant & Tate, 1995). Early research (from the 1970s through the early 1990s) focused on two areas— the degree to which teacher education programs had implemented strong multicultural components and the effects that these innovations had had on preservice and inservice teachers. Also important during this time period were attempts to capture the broad effects of multicultural education though survey and interview studies. Later research (from the early 1990s to the present) has moved away from more global concepts of effects to examine the effects of particular aspects, elements, or representations in multicultural teacher education programs on the attitudes and beliefs, cultural literacy and knowledge base, and practical skills of preservice and inservice teachers. Several of these works are intensive studies of particular dimensons of a multicultural teacher education program or of individual teachers’ development proceeding from such efforts. Sources of data for these studies include field observations, interviews, and self-reports in journals and other tools for reflecting on one’s personal and professional growth. Also prominant in the search for effects on programs and individuals was concern for appropriate assessments that could capture change over time in teaching from a multicultural perspective. In this last category, the evolution has been from a focus on instrumentation to attention to authentic records. Implementation Studies The first implementation studies were conducted soon after NCATE developed its multicultural guidelines in 1977. Several case studies of programs in the United States and in the United Kingdom illustrated how teacher education was being changed to incorporate a multicultural perspective. These accounts also provided insights into some of the problems that impeded these reforms or rendered programs ineffective, short-lived, or both. In their edited volume, Klassen and Gollnick (1977) included case studies of six teacher education programs. Five of the programs were at large public universities, and one was at a regional center established to assist schools with problems related to desegregation. All of these programs were comprehensive and offered models of training that addressed the goals and guidelines described earlier in this chapter. Each description included a brief account of the history of the program, the clients that it served, and a projection of the future growth and directions of the program. Some of the studies included descriptions of problems that had been encountered in the establishment of these programs. A few years later, Gollnick, Oyasande, & Levy (1980) conducted 13 case studies of programs that were considered exemplary and represented a variety of institutions, ranging from small private colleges to large state universities. Each case study included descriptions of the institution, curricula, governance, faculty and students, and projections about the future strength and direction of the program.


According to the authors, each of these programs addressed the NCATE goals, although there was some variation in the extent to which they had integrated a multicultural perspective throughout their programs (Gollnick et al., 1980). Interestingly, the authors concluded that small colleges were more successful in integrating multicultural education throughout the institution. Large universities, though often having more resources, were less flexible and had less involvement of the total faculty. The authors felt that there were many strengths in these programs. First, the programs were supported by the ethnic communities and local education agencies with whom they worked. In terms of funding, most of the programs were initiated and maintained with “hard” monies from the institution. Almost all of the programs included field experiences and student teaching placements in culturally diverse settings. Administrative support for multicultural programs was also evident in the active recruitment of minority faculty members and in faculty development programs that supported individuals’ efforts to develop skills in related areas and to conduct research and consulting projects in culturally diverse communities. Finally, all the programs enjoyed the enthusiastic support of their students. The weaknesses that the authors identified suggested that a multicultural perspective had not at that time been fully embraced by the institutions. First, few of the institutions had faculties and student bodies that represented the ethnic/ racial diversity of this country. Second, the multicultural programs were usually adjunct to, rather than fully integrated into, the core of the teacher education programs. Third, some administrators and faculty viewed multicultural education as a fad that would soon disappear and did not give it serious attention. Related to this, programs were often dependent on a few dedicated individuals who were potentially jeopardizing their careers due to the amount of time they spent on promoting and sustaining these programs. Finally, both short- and long-range plans seemed vague and did not use the needs assessments and evaluation procedures that were available. The authors concluded that there was a great need for research to assess what aspects of programs are most effective and to determine the effect of these programs on teachers and students. Finally, no empirical data were available to demonstrate whether or not these programs were effective in preparing teachers to work in culturally diverse settings or to impart a multicultural perspective to children from all groups. Despite their weaknesses, these programs were still exemplary in terms of their comprehensiveness. Unfortunately, they were not typical. In a small survey done around the same time (Olstad, Foster, & Wyman, 1983), most institutions reported using only course work to meet the NCATE requirements. There were three ways in which this coursework was structured: (1) a single course that was required of all certification candidates, (2) electives from a list of approved courses, or (3) components in existing courses. Even in a fairly comprehensive program in which multicultural education was incorporated in a number of courses, Grant (1981) found that there was a tendency for course instructors to repeatedly cover the same “safe” ground, such


as identifying bias in textbooks, and to avoid engaging students in more fundamental analyses. In a follow-up study, Grant and Koskela (1986) found that the quality of the course information had improved, in that students were exposed to a greater variety of multicultural concepts, but that very little attention was given to the application and integration of multicultural perspectives in the classroom. The authors emphasized that students needed to see teachers modeling the implementation of multicultural education. Another problem in many schools of education is that faculty had little interest in incorporating a multicultural perspective in their courses because they had neither the motivation nor the knowledge to do it (Moultry & Wayson, 1988). The superficial approaches used by most teacher education programs in the 1970s and early 1980s highlighted the complexity involved in implementing a multicultural teacher education program. A case study of the program at Bradford College in Sunderland Polytechnic Institute in England (Arora, 1986; Lynch, 1981) illustrated the profound changes that must occur in the institutional structure, as well as in the content of courses, in order to offer training that is authentically multicultural. Another example of the depth of thinking and deliberation that is required to mount a truly multicultural program was illustrated in a case study of the process of designing a single course for students who were going to teach Native American children (Mathieu, 1978). During the planning period, the political and academic ramifications of the course created tensions between members of different disciplines and constituents that were resolved only after protracted deliberations. A more recent review (Gollnick, 1992) of institutions undergoing NCATE reviews in the late 1980s showed that most institutions included multicultural goals in their mission statements. However, the NCATE evaluators were unable to detect where these were implemented in their curriculum. Only 13.6% of the programs were in full compliance with the multicultural standards. Moreover, there was great variation among programs in terms of what aspects of multicultural educations they included or emphasized. Some focused on gender issues, some on prejudice reduction, others on multicultural curriculum development. Very few had a comprehensive program that would approach Zeichner’s (1993) components of effective programs. The most common focus was on knowledge about cultural groups and developing strategies for teaching the culturally diverse and exceptional students, Sleeter and Grant’s (1987) first approach. Very few programs not located in urban areas had any significant field experiences in which candidates worked with children who differed from the candidates’ own backgrounds. Although one of the clear goals of the new NCATE standards is to increase the number of students of color who enter the teaching profession, the report concluded that institutions were having great problems ensuring cultural diversity in their student bodies and faculties. Recruiting plans were, in general, neither well developed nor fully implemented. This variation in degree and type of implementation held true through the mid-1990s. In review of research supportive of multicultural teacher education from a social justice perspective, Pattnaik & Vold (1998) discuss their findings on


teacher competencies and expected outcomes of multicultural education in selected teacher education institutions. Within their own survey sample, they found minimal compliance with the standards set forth by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). The finding caused the authors to raise the questions of whether NCATE’s multicultural standards make a difference in the quality of programs that prepare teachers for diversity, and what degree of consistency regarding issues of diversity within and between universities in the content knowledge, the critical experiences to develop multicultural competencies and staffing practices should there be if institutions of higher education are NCATE-approved and meet the NCATE standards. Research on the Broad Effects of Multicultural Reforms in Teacher Education The initial research on the broad effects of multicultural teacher education on institutions and teacher practice was sparse. Providing an example of this gap, Grant and Secada (1990) reviewed all of the multicultural teacher education literature published between 1964 and 1988. Out of 1,200 entries, only 23 assessed the effects of multicultural teacher education initiatives or reforms. The authors found no studies on the recruitment of a diverse teaching force, 16 studies on preservice training, and 7 on inservice training. Moreover, only one of the programs that was studied fit the category of having a social reconstructionist orientation. Grant and Secada called for a major research effort to study all aspects of multicultural teacher education, including the recruitment of preservice teachers of color, all teacher preparation courses and field work, and graduates’ implementation of multicultural education in their classrooms. The early studies of the effects of teacher education programs on students’ attitudes, skills, and knowledge presented a mixed picture. Many students were positively affected by multicultural modules in courses (e.g., Henington, 1981), but a sizable minority was not. Furthermore, there is evidence that the effects were short-lived and were not supported by adequate skills and knowledge that would enable students to implement multicultural education. One longitudinal study (Bennett, 1988) showed that exposure to multicultural education had a positive effect on students, but was most effective with students who were openminded at the outset of the course. Furthermore, without any subsequent instruction, the initial knowledge and attitude gains were not maintained one year later. In a large study of student teacher attitudes (Moultry & Wayson, 1988), the majority of the respondents (60–70%) expressed some awareness of issues related to diversity and had considerable empathy and concern for groups that have suffered discrimination. However, 30–40% showed the opposite pattern. A little over one half of the students indicated that they felt confident to teach in a multicultural classroom, whereas the remainder did not. Furthermore, there was only moderate interest in teaching in multicultural settings. Very few of the respondents knew elementary facts about the history, culture, and contributions


of the ethnic groups that are highly represented in American schools. Thus, even if these preservice teachers wanted to broaden their curriculum, they did not have the knowledge to support these efforts. Larke (1990) studied the attitudes of students who already had had 3 years of undergraduate courses, including one multicultural education course. Most of the 51 subjects (all but 5 were White) were aware that they would be teaching students from backgrounds different from theirs, but only 20% of them preferred to work with students from different cultures. The majority felt uncomfortable about children speaking languages and dialects other than standard English. Many also indicated that in their classrooms, they would not object to ethnic jokes and would just ignore racial comments, rather than take a proactive stance against racism and other forms of discrimination. Grant and Grant (1985) did one of the most comprehensive studies of multicultural teacher education in the 1980s. They studied the effects of a 2-week inservice institute for teachers and principals that followed a model of awareness, acceptance, and affirmation. They found that during the institute, the participants did change their attitudes concerning age, class, gender, disabilities, and race. Also, most of the participants gained more ideas about how to implement multicultural/social reconstructionist ideas in their classrooms. However, their success in changing their curriculum varied, according to the subject matter that they were teaching. Moreover, several participants commented that they had to spend so much time on basic skills in their classes that they did not have time to incorporate many new activities. In the follow-up study, the teachers who were part of a“buddy system” (teachers and principles from the same school who had all attended the institute) were more successful in implementing a multicultural/ social reconstructionist perspective. This study suggests that teachers can change their attitudes and practices, but that they need support and time to do it. It is also noteworthy that the participants of this study were all members of Teachers Corps and, therefore, as a group, might have been more favorably disposed to multicultural education than most teachers are. Field experiences in which teacher education students work with populations that are ethnically, racially, and economically different from themselves are considered a cornerstone of good multicultural teacher education (e.g., Zeichner, 1993). However, we have little research that clearly supports these effects. One limitation inherent in fieldwork placements is that many cooperating teachers do not teach from a multicultural perspective, so that students who have learned about multiculturalism in their courses do not see how it can be applied in an ongoing way in a classroom. In some cases, cooperating teachers might even discourage students from trying to implement multicultural curricula. A study (Haberman & Post, 1990) of 227 White cooperating teachers revealed that teachers in both urban and suburban schools were committed to teaching children to “tolerate” people different from themselves. They did not recognize the impact of being a member of a marginalized group and focused only on helping individuals learn to get along better. Almost none of them acknowledged the inequities in our society and the need to change them. Thus, even if they are


working with teachers who practice multicultural education, teacher candidates are more likely to see models of the human relations approach and very unlikely to see teachers teaching from a social reconstructionist approach. Despite these limitations, it has been shown that fieldwork can stimulate candidates to begin to challenge their assumptions. One example was a mentorship program in which teacher education candidates mentored elementary students for a full academic year by doing tutoring, taking them out to social and sporting events, and having weekly contact even during the holidays (Larke, Wiseman, & Bradley, 1990). This experience was accompanied by weekly seminars that focused on multicultural issues and provided support and supervision. Comparisons of candidate attitudes before and after working with their mentees for a year revealed that students changed from pitying their mentees and assuming that they would have problems to seeing their strengths and enjoying warm, personal, and respectful relationships with them. In another study (Cooper, Beare, & Thorman, 1990), teacher education candidates doing their student teaching near their college campus in Minnesota were compared with their peers who chose to student teach in a school in South Texas. The results showed that the candidates who had taught in Texas were much more confident in their cross-cultural skills and multicultural competencies than were their peers who had stayed in Minnesota. Unfortunately, the study did not include a pre-student teaching assessment, so we cannot rule out the possibility that students who were more confident to begin with had chosen to go to Texas to do their student teaching. In a comparison of candidates who did their student teaching overseas with their peers who did it close to their university in Indiana (Mahan & Stachowski, 1990), the former group demonstrated that it had acquired a broader perspective and had used more community resources than the student teachers who had stayed in Indiana. However, as with the previous study, we have no baseline data to rule out the possibility that the students who chose to student teach abroad were more predisposed in these directions in the first place. Despite these positive findings, sometimes field experiences reinforce candidates’ stereotypes, as found by Haberman and Post (1992) in a study of 23 White college sophomores who taught in a remedial summer program for lowincome and minority children. Even when the field experiences are effective and students do undergo some attitudinal changes, most still do not acquire a multicultural perspective that embodies social change. As with the course work described previously, most fieldwork experiences affect teacher education candidates in ways that are more congruent with Sleeter and Grant’s (1999) teaching the culturally different or human relations approaches (see chapter 3). Very few studies have followed up on graduates of multicultural teacher education programs, so the long-term effectiveness of these types of programs has not been evaluated. In one early study (Aotaki-Phenice & Kostelnik, 1983), candidates and graduates of an early childhood teacher preparation program were compared. Both groups supported multicultural education, but there was no significant difference in their attitudes, which raises questions about the impact of


their training experiences. Although the effect on individuals may not have been clear, participation in a multicultural program appears to have substantially improved preservice teachers’ employment prospects (Mahan & Lacefield, 1982). In this study of 733 graduates of a teacher preparation program, those students who had taught in culturally diverse settings more often found the type of teaching job that they wanted. Dissatisfactions with the surface quality of the information coming from the implementation and broad effects studies during the 1980s led the next generation of multicultural teacher education researchers to investigate alternative methodologies from the 1990s to the present. Most particularly, model teacher education programs that have been experimenting with a wide variety of alternative pedagogies have recently been described and analyzed (Hale, 1991; Oakes & Lipton, 1999). Their intention has been to uncover less of the general and more of the particular in details that could give definition to the results. Thus, attention has turned toward in-depth case studies and research on individual teachers exemplifying use of a multicultural perspective in their teaching. Case Studies of Multicultural Teacher Education Case studies of multicultural teacher education investigate specific processes that were undergone and particular effects experienced by program participants. In this form of inquiry, individuals’ responses to a program or course(s) or their enacted practice are described qualitatively, rather than assessed in more quantitative and linear ways. One of the most compelling examples of this type of research is Sleeter’s Keepers of the American Dream: A Study of Staff Development and Multicultural Education (1992). This ethnographic study of 30 teachers (26 White, 3 Black, and 1 Mexican American) who participated in a 2-year multicultural education inservice training program illustrates some of the barriers to becoming multicultural educators. The accounts of the inservice training sessions reveal how teachers, even those who embrace the idea of multiculturalism, have trouble with overcoming their own backgrounds, professional training, and familiar perspectives to take a more critical stance toward society, schools, and their roles in them. Sleeter concludes that to implement multiculturalism in schools, we must diversify the teaching force and attract teachers who are risk-takers and predisposed to challenge the status quo. However, she points out that most schools are highly controlled and not compatible with risk-taking and innovation. Sleeter’s overall message is that creating truly multicultural schools will require changing institutions, as well as training individual teachers. In another study, Tatum (1992) illustrates how college students (particularly, White students) can begin to change their basic assumptions about how society works. By creating a safe and confidential environment and stimulating student discussions and reflective writings with films, readings, and role playing, Tatum was able to help students begin to move through the stages described by Cross (1991) and Helms (1990), as mentioned in chapter 2. Lawrence and Bunche


(1996) did intensive case studies of five teachers who took a race-focused undergraduate multicultural education course and documented subsequent attitudinal changes. The difficulties of White teacher education candidates confronting their own racism in a preservice education course were also studied by Cochran-Smith (1995). She used quotations from students’ autobiographies, reaction papers, letters, and discussions to analyze the complexities of maintaining open dialogue about racism and teaching. The struggles of White students to define themselves as allies when they are the beneficiaries of unearned White privilege are also illustrated through the comments of the students. The author raises questions about the structure of teacher education courses and how teacher educators may unwittingly and unintentionally be “uncertain” allies of students of color. One of the most serious problems in teacher education today is the small number of people of color, both in the field and entering the field, as mentioned previously in this chapter. Although this problem is widely acknowledged, almost no research has been done on programs aimed at recruiting and retaining students of color in teacher education programs. One study (Dillard, 1997) describes the positive effects of an 8-week summer program designed to prepare undergraduate students of color for graduate school. The program involved a great deal of both oral and written interactions to encourage students to explore their identities and aspirations. The instructor provided many experiences to give students honest inside knowledge of some of the barriers for students of color in the educational system and how to overcome them. She also worked with students on how to maintain their own identities and priorities and integrate them into their careers as educators. The data, which are primarily quotations from student conversations and journals, illustrate how these experiences did help students develop the confidence and commitment to pursue teaching as a career. Bennett (2002) addresses the issue of recruitment and retention of teachers of color in her description of Project TEAM at the University of Indiana. Using a combination of a pre- and postadministration of a questionnaire on ethnic identity, interracial contact experience, and multicultural competence, as well as periodic individual interviews, focus groups, and specific school course assignments over several years of the program’s operation, Bennett and her colleagues saw more than a 50% rise in the recruitment rate of prospective teachers of color on her campus, with a 92% graduation rate of those recruited. She attributes the success of the program to date to the creation of an atmosphere of support for the students and the teaching of knowledge and skills fostering multicultural competence. Critical multiculturalists point out that a major issue in previous research on recruitment and retention of teachers of color is that the voices of the teachers themselves have not often been heard (Goodwin, Genishi, Asher, & Woo, 1997; Knight, in press; Meacham, 2000; Rosebud, 2001). The unique perspectives that teachers of color bring to their teacher preparation programs and subsequently, to their working lives are of vital importance in ascertaining ways to support future teachers and to transform teacher education programs in ways that honor and


respect those teachers’ cultural knowledge, skills, and experience. Teacher education programs must abandon deficit approaches in the education of teachers of color as surely as they abandon such approaches in the multicultural curricula that they advocate for children in schools, and programs must create atmospheres of living and learning that are warmly receptive of the diversity of the student body. Thus, an important move in teacher education research is toward self-study of the perceptions and knowledge of teachers of color. Studies of Individuals’ Expertise in Practice and Professional Development One of the most recent research initiatives in multicultural teacher education is to study classroom practices of successful teachers working with children of color and in classrooms that are diverse and to learn from these “experts” how they do it (Ladson-Billings, 1992). One advantage of this strand of research is that it shifts the relationship between practitioners and researchers from a hierarchical one to a more collaborative exploration of the connection between theory and practice (Ladson-Billings, 1995). An example of this is Lipka’s (1991) study of a Yup’ik Eskimo teacher. In his analysis of a lesson, Lipka shows how practices that would be considered inadequate by many Anglo teachers and teacher educators are much more compatible for the Yup’ik children in the classroom. This study raises serious questions about the role of teacher education in preparing teachers to work with diverse populations. Had the teacher followed “good educational strategies,” the lesson would not have worked. Assessment Instruments/Procedures A number of instruments have been used to measure teacher education candidate attitudes and knowledge. Because researchers have adapted existing instruments or have created their own, most of them are not in print, but could be obtained by contacting specific authors. Bennett (1988) used a revised Social Distance Scale to measure students’ reactions to members of 30 ethnic groups. She also developed a 30-item Multicultural Knowledge Test that uses true and false questions to determine the level of students’ knowledge about other groups. A modified version of the Zeigler scale (1980) was used to assess Openness to Human Diversity. With 23 Lickert scale-type items, the test measured levels of receptiveness to diverse groups, reactions to equity policies, and opinions about interracial couples. Moultry & Wayson (1988) developed the Multicultural Teaching Scale from several sources, including Grant (1977b), Halverson (1975), Noar (1974), and the California State Department of Education (1977). Crosscultural programs often include assessment of knowledge, perception, and attitude change to measure the effectiveness of the training (e.g., Renwick, 1980), which also might be adapted to measure both the short- and long-term impact of multicultural programs.


Villegas (1997) describes the development by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of Praxis III: Classroom Performance Assessments, one part of The Praxis Series: Professional Assessments for Beginning Teachers that was developed largely for use by state or agency personnel in the licensing of teachers, but can be used as well in the preparation of preservice teachers. Praxis III is a process designed to assess teacher performance through classroom observation and both pre- and post observation conferences (semi-structured interviews with the teacher). The process consciously reflects a vision of teaching as encompassing four critical elements: (1) openness toward diversity and belief that all children can learn; (2) awareness that teaching and learning occur in a sociocultural context and subsequent choice of instructional procedures that recognize that context; (3) use of topics and examples from children’s daily lives within their families and communities to teach new content, drawing on children’s previous knowledge, and (4) using all of the above information in planning, implementing, and evaluating instruction. To guard against the external threat to validity posed by this high inference system, ETS has instituted a rigorous 5-day training program followed by completion of at least one full assessment cycle in an actual classroom before a candidate can be certified as an assessor. In terms of assessing programmatic change, this review of the literature revealed only one instrument designed specifically for that purpose. Klassen, Gollnick, and Osayande (1980) include specific questions to use in evaluations of teacher education programs. SUMMARY There are a number of resources to guide teacher educators in the task of making their teacher preparation programs multicultural. Guidelines, case studies, and commentaries provide detailed descriptions of goals, methods, and potential problems. Unfortunately, relatively little research has been done on the effectiveness of various models, so that setting priorities and gaining support for the necessary funding and staffing are difficult tasks. In the very recent literature, however, there are signs that the effect of multicultural teacher education is beginning to be studied in more systematic ways. The tone of the writings has changed over the past three decades. In the late 1970s a proliferation of materials enthusiastically predicted that teacher education would become multicultural. After the early 1980s, the tone became more critical, as teacher educators recognized the difficulty of making meaningful changes in their institutions. The British critiques show some evidence of moving multicultural teacher education toward the social reconstructionist perspective that is advocated by Sleeter and Grant (1987). As with multicultural education as a whole, the youthful enthusiasm for the reform of teacher education that prevailed in the 1970s became the critical and thoughtful analysis of the 1980s and 1990s. Three positive indicators relieve this otherwise grim outlook for multicultural teacher education. First, the more recent writings recognize the depth and subtlety of the personal, institutional, and societal changes required to make schools


truly multicultural, which may lead to more thoughtful and effective approaches. Second, these efforts are international in scope, and the exchange and collaboration among teacher educators in several countries have the potential to enrich and accelerate the reform of teacher education. Third, many colleges and universities, alarmed at the increase in racism among their students, are initiating efforts to incorporate a multicultural focus in their liberal arts curricula. If successful, these reforms will support the goals of multicultural teacher education. Note 1 . The Holmes Report took the position that teacher education should be pursued at the graduate, rather than at the undergraduate, level and advocated strong liberal arts and science backgrounds for prospective teachers.

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CHAPTER 4 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Altbach, P.C., & Lomotey, K. (1991). The racial crisis in American higher education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

The first part of this edited volume contains essays that describe a number of racial issues on American campuses today. They include: (a) the current prevalence of racism on campuses; (b) the inadequacy of various affirmative action efforts in terms of recruiting and retaining undergraduate and graduate students and faculty of color; (c) the backlash of White students to what they perceive as special services and accommodations to students of color; and (d) the tensions about the role of ethnic studies and what to include in the core curriculum. The second section includes four chapters that address the dilemmas and barriers that faculty of color experience, as well as the failure of White faculty to overcome their own unconscious racist assumptions about students of color. The final section consists of four case studies of race relations at Columbia, Stanford, Arizona State, and Cornell. Each of these accounts illustrates the complicated and tenuous process of establishing college communities in which both diversity and community are valued. Alvarado, C., Derman-Sparks, L., & Ramsey, P. (Eds.) (1999). In our own way: How antibias work shapes our lives. St. Paul, MN: Readleaf.

This volume contains the stories of seven early childhood teachers who describe the personal and professional challenges and transformations that they have experienced being antibias educators. The teachers were interviewed in depth, and the chapters are based on the transcripts of those interviews. The teachers come from many different racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds and work in a variety of settings; each story is unique. The teachers share, however, a commitment to teaching for social justice and have found the antibias work of Louise Derman-Sparks to be a source of inspiration and connection to other like-minded teachers. Following the seven stories, the editors describe


common themes in the teachers’ experiences and their implications for teachers, directors of programs, and teacher educators. Baker, G. (1994). Planning and organizing for multicultural instruction (2nd ed.) Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley.

Included in the work is a chapter that describes a model of teacher training that has three phases: first, the acquisition of information about one’s own cultural identity and other cultures; second, the development of a philosophy that embodies a commitment to multicultural education; and third, the involvement in the implementation of multicultural instruction. The chapter concludes with 10 imperatives for teacher training programs. In this second edition of the work, Baker includes research findings on program effectiveness and projects future research needs to validate and expand emerging multicultural teacher education practices. Baptiste, H.P., Baptiste, M.L., & Gollnick, D.M. (Eds.), (1980). Multicultural teacher education: Preparing educators to provide educational equity. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

This edited volume focuses on the improvement of teacher effectiveness. The authors review studies that have found that teachers often react differentially to children from diverse backgrounds, and describe how teachers can become more effective with a broader range of students if they increase their interpersonal awareness and skills. In contrast to the more conceptual approach of human relations training, this model provides specific skills in attending, responding, personalizing, and initiating with students. The authors discuss how the model can be integrated into a multicultural framework, and describe procedures and delivery systems in higher education and inservice training. Another model discussed by contributing authors posits teacher education as the shared responsiblity of the educational institution and the communities that will eventually employ the program graduates. The authors suggest that students have a variety of contacts and field experiences in order to learn about the subtle ways in which people in the community interact. Other contributors advance the thesis further by recommending use of student teaching programs in other countries and in a variety of communities across the United States as other ways that students can expand their knowledge of cultural diversity. Banks, J.A. (1977). The implications of multicultural education for teacher education. In F.H.Klassen and D.M.Gollnick (Eds.), Pluralism and the American teacher (pp. 1–30). Washington, DC: ACCTE.

In this chapter, Banks discusses the distinctions among multicultural education, ethnic studies, and multiethnic education. He briefly reviews the research on teacher attitudes and delineates and critiques the assimilationist, pluralist, and pluralist-assimilationist ideologies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the stages of emerging ethnic encapsulation, ethnic identity, biethnicity, and multiethnicity and the curricular implications of each stage in teacher education programs.


Baptiste, M.L., & Baptiste, H.P. (1980). Competencies toward multiculturalism. In H.P. Baptiste, M.L.Baptiste, & D.M.Gollnick (Eds.), Multicultural teacher education: Preparing educators to provide educational equity (pp. 44–72). Washington, DC: AACTE

The authors summarize the history to 1980 of various delivery systems and techniques for training teachers to become more multicultural in their approach. They then describe in detail how the goals of multicultural teaching can be met by using the framework of competency-based teacher education and argue that the specification of skills and the emphasis on mastery ensure a more systematic approach in multicultural teacher education. The authors articulate 11 competencies, divided into three phases: cultural pluralism, multicultural education, and multiculturalism. For each competency the authors include a rationale, instructional objectives, illustrative enabling activities, methods of assessing the mastery of that competency, and a list of suggested courses that potentially lead to mastery. Baskauskas, L. (Ed.). (1986). Unmasking culture: Cross-cultural perspectives in social and behavioral sciences. Novato, CA: Chandler & Charp.

This edited volume includes seven essays on how to teach history, sociology, psychology, and geography from a multicultural perspective. The authors challenge the notion that many of these areas are, by definition, multicultural and point out ways in which a proWestern bias is embodied in the basic theories and structures of these fields. Each chapter includes a list of bibliographic and media resources that college faculty could use in their courses. Several chapters also include sample syllabi, examples of class discussions and activities, or all of these. Bennett, C.I. (1995). Research on racial issues in American higher education. In J.A. Banks & C.A.M.Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 663– 682). New York, NY: Macmillan.

The chapter reviews the research on many questions and issues relevant to race on American campuses. The author first provides a very comprehensive overview of the changes (between 1976 and 1991) in rates of high school completion, college participation, and enrollment in graduate and professional schools of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and European Americans. Along with the quantitative data, the author briefly discusses particular barriers, advantages, or both that each group has encountered. The chapter also includes a brief review of the resurgence of racism on American campuses and the tensions between academic freedom and multicultural reform. The chapter concludes with a section advocating “Democratic or Integrated Pluralism,” which embodies an activist stance among different groups of students and discusses creating college communities that accommodate many groups, rather than communities that expect one-way assimilation to the dominant White culture. Bennett, C.I. (2001). Genres of research in multicultural education. Review of Educational Research, 71(2), 171–217.


This thoughtful article posits a typology of research in multicultural education that may be used in future descriptions of work in both multicultural education and in multicultural teacher education. The author identifies 4 research clusters with 3 strands each for a total of 12 strands. The 4 types are (1) curriculum reform research in which the field is examined in light of its sociocultural context, (2) research on equity pedagogy, which focuses on teaching practices, (3) research on promoting multicultural competence in both prospective and experienced teachers, and (4) research on issues of social equity in curriculum and teaching. The discussion of each type includes examples drawn from work done by educational multiculturalists over the past two decades. The author also examines gaps in the research literature and identifies possible future research directions. Bennett, C.I. (2002a). Enhancing ethnic diversity in a Big Ten university : A case study in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 31(2), 21–29.

In this report of a longitudinal case study, the author addresses the issue of recruitment and retention of teachers of color in her description of Project TEAM in the undergraduate education program at the University of Indiana. Using a combination of a pre- and postadministration of a questionnaire on ethnic identity, interracial contact experience, and multicultural competence, as well as periodic individual interviews, focus groups, and specific school course assignments over several years of the programs operation, Bennett and her colleagues saw more than a 50% rise in the recruitment rate of prospective teachers of color on her campus, with a 92% graduation rate of those recruited. In analysis of the data on student perceptions, four major themes emerged—(1) creating a community on a predominantly White campus, (2) strengthening ethnic identity, (3) working for social justice through multicultural education, and (4) professional development and commitment to teaching. She also describes the processes used in initial recruitment of students to the program. Casey, K. (1993). I answer with my life: Life stories of women teachers working for social change. London, UK: Routledge.

This work contains oral histories of women teachers who have worked for social change through their teaching. It uses the life histories of 33 women, from three groups: Catholic nuns, who teach in parochial schools and have been involved in the social justice ministry; secular Jewish women, who were politically involved in the ‘60s and have taught in inner city schools; and Black women, whose personal, political, and professional lives are dedicated to uplifting other African Americans. Their stories show how they became activists for social change and how they perceive their work. Interestingly, the impetus for engaging in social change grew out of early experiences, influential family members, and political activity, not from courses in teacher education. Collectively, these stories offer an inspiring, yet down to earth, portrait of dedicated teachers who are doing the real work of addressing issues of social justice in classrooms and show how they maintain their commitment despite many hardships and obstacles. Change. (1992). 24 (February), whole issue.


This issue of Change has a number of articles about multicultural initiatives and dilemmas in higher education. Among other articles is one that reports on a survey that provides a very helpful overview of what colleges and universities are doing in response to increased diversity on campus, and on the new scholarship that focuses on race, gender, class, and culture. Several articles address issues and provide guidelines for implementing these changes, particularly in helping faculty develop skills to teach in a more democratic and collaborative fashion. Clark, C. & O’Donnell, J. (Eds.) (1999). Becoming and unbecoming white: Owning and disowning a racial identity. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

This edited volume contains 12 autobiographical stories, in which antiracist activists describe how they became aware of their White racial privilege and subsequently struggled to develop ways of becoming authentic antiracists. The stories are compelling accounts of how Whites grow up isolated from racial concerns yet immersed in racist views. The writers describe the painful and moving experiences and relationships that initially set them on paths to question their racial privilege and work for social change. Several point out that the journey is never over. Even after many years of antiracist work they still struggle to create positive antiracist White identities. The forthright accounts in this book can encourage White teachers and teacher education students to scrutinize more closely and critically their own lives, positions, and assumptions. The editors, however, do caution the readers that the search for meaningful White identities must not become the center of the multicultural movement or related education courses. It should be seen as only one part of the struggle for social justice, and the focus should continue to be on the experiences and social movements of people of color. Cushner, K. (1999). Human diversity in action: Developing multicultural competencies for the classroom. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

This wookbook for the preparation of preservice teachers accompanies the Cushner, McClelland, and Safford text, Human diversity in education: An integrative approach (3rd ed) previously annotated in chapter 3. The workbook references activities suggested at the end of each chapter of that text and illustrates ways for teacher education students to transform theoretical concepts into their practical implications for day-to-day teaching. De Gaetano, Y., Williams, L.R., & Volk, D. (1998). Kaleidoscope: A multicultural approach for the primary school classroom. Columbus: OH: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

As noted in the annotation of this work in chapter 3, Kaleidoscope illustrates a process for integrating cultural content across developmental domains and subject areas at each grade level (kindergarten through grade three) by building on the cultural knowledge that all children bring with them to the classroom. It represents both multicultural and social reconstructionist approaches and illustrates the preparation and planning that teachers need to infuse a multicultural perspective through the totality of their work. Integrated throughout the text are exercises for


teacher preparation, which can be used as part of a preservice or inservice preparation program. Derman-Sparks, L., & Phillips, C.B. (1997). Teaching/learning anti-racism: A developmental approach. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

The authors present an analysis of a course that they developed for preservice teacher education students that challenges White privilege and requires deep examination of the biases and attitudes that prospective teachers bring to the classroom. In addition to describing the course content, these teacher educators relate their work to theory and research that examines racism in America, discuss the strengths and limitations of their approach to antiracist teaching, and suggest ways that their course can be adapted to other college or university circumstances. Fitzgerald, A.K., & Lauter, P. (1995). Multiculturalism and the core curricula. In J.A. Banks & C.A.M.Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 729– 746). New York, NY: Macmillan.

This chapter uses case studies to describe the approaches that colleges and universities have used to bring a multicultural perspective to the general education requirements for undergraduates. The authors first give an overview of the history of the general education requirements and core curricula and then identify three paradigms of incorporating multicultural perspectives into the core curricula. First, using the example of the Heath Anthology of American Literature, they describe how faculty have attempted to expand the cultural base of textbooks and courses within specific disciplines. Second, Denison University’s adoption of a single course “diversity requirement” is used to illustrate the motivations and tensions involved in creating and requiring courses that address discrimination and oppression in the United States. Third, using Stanford University’s experience in expanding the focus of its “Western Cultures” course, the authors discuss how curricular reform is often imbedded in and shaped by political concerns. Gay, G. (1977). Curriculum for multicultural teacher education. In F.H.Klassen & D.M. Gollnick, Pluralism and the American teacher (pp. 31–62). Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

In this chapter, Gay articulates the three curriculum components of multicultural teacher education. The first is the knowledge component, which includes the content of cultural pluralism (information about the historical and contemporary experiences and contributions of diverse groups); the understanding of the philosophy of multicultural education; the awareness and interpretation of classroom dynamics, especially in relationship to ethnic differences among children or between children and teachers; and information about ethnic materials. Second, the attitudes component embodies realistic views toward cultural diversity, enabling attitudes toward all children from all backgrounds, awareness of one’s own attitudes, and a sense of security about teaching about ethnic diversity. Third, the skills component includes cross-cultural interactional skills, the ability to critique and select multicultural curriculum materials, and the


skills to incorporate a wide range of cultures into the curriculum through a variety of methods and materials. Gay, G. (1983). Why multicultural education in teacher preparation programs? Contemporary Education, 54, 79–85.

The author argues that a multicultural perspective is essential for all teachers for a variety of legal, social, pedagogical, and psychological reasons. Teachers who are open to diversity and are knowledgeable about ethnic differences are prepared to teach children from a variety of backgrounds. Gay states that until the early 1980s little progress had been made on extending the data bases of sociology and psychology to include ethnicity in a constructive way. She argues that preservice teachers need to learn more about the wide range of possibilities in human behavior and that all teacher education courses must reflect a multicultural perspective. Gollnick, D.M. (1992). Multicultural education: Policies and practices in teacher education. In C.A.Grant (Ed.), Research and multicultural education: From the margins to the mainstream (pp. 218–239). Washington, DC: Falmer.

The author reviews the history of multicultural education, as well as the NCATE standards developed in the early 1990s. She then reports the (mostly disappointing) results of a study that looks at the rate of full compliance with the NCATE standards for multicultural education. The study revealed that programs still had very few faculty and students of color. In spite of the statements in their missions about the goals of multicultural education, most institutions showed very little evidence of any real change and progress in this area. Gollnick, D.M., Osayande, K.I. M, & Levy, J. (1980). Multicultural teacher education: Case studies of thirteen programs, vol. 2. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

This series of case studies done in the 1970s describes a range of teacher preparation programs at institutions ranging from small private colleges to large state universities. Each account includes a description of the institution; the composition of students and faculty; a detailed description of the curricula at undergraduate and, where appropriate, graduate levels; resources available; and future directions of the program. The authors summarize the overall strengths and weaknesses of the programs in the final chapter. Grant, C.A. (1981). Education that is multicultural and teacher preparation: An examination from the perspectives of preservice students. Journal of Educational Research, 75, 95–101.

In this study, 17 students who had received baseline instruction in multicultural education were interviewed at the end of each of the three remaining semesters in their teacher education program. Results showed that although the majority of students had received some additional instruction in multicultural education, its content was limited to discussions of bias in materials and problems of racism in schools and society. Only a small number of students received any additional


instruction during their practicum, and only four students attempted to apply these concepts in their own teaching. Students appeared to be concerned about increasing their own awareness and applying these principles only if they were ordered or encouraged to do so by school or university personnel. Grant argues that an intensive introduction to multicultural education is insufficient, that this perspective needs to be infused into all levels of teacher preparation, and that students should be placed in classrooms that will expand their understanding of human diversity. Grant, C.A. (1983). Multicultural teacher education—Renewing the discussion: A response to Martin Haberman. Journal of Teacher Education, 34, 29–32.

In this study, 23 students in an elementary teacher education program were followed through their elementary preservice program. They were interviewed before and after their student-teaching semesters, and some were observed during their student teaching. Although there was evidence that the students gained some multicultural knowledge from their courses, they applied very little of it in their classrooms during student teaching. The authors attribute this failure to the fact that the courses did not emphasize practical applications enough and to the lack of models of good multicultural teaching in the schools. Grant, C.A., & Secada, W. (1990). Preparing teachers for diversity. In W.R.Houston, M.Haberman, & J.Sikula (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 403–422). New York, NY: Macmillan.

This review focuses on the demographic discontinuity between student populations and the teaching force. Grant and Secada conducted an ERIC search of all of the multicultural teacher education literature published between 1964 and 1988. Out of 1,200 entries, only 23 assessed the effects of multicultural teacher education initiatives and reforms. They found no studies on the recruitment of a diverse teaching force, 16 studies on preservice training, and 7 on inservice training. They also matched the programs that were studied with the approaches described by Sleeter and Grant (1987). Most of the programs fit the multicultural approach; only one of them could be considered social reconstructionist. Grant and Secada call for a major research effort and conclude with a list of nine recommendations related to both subject matter and methodology of future research. Grieshaber, S. & Cannella, G.S. (Eds.). (2001). Embracing identities in early childhood education: Diversity and possibilities. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This edited work illustrates for both teacher educators and advanced education students the application of critical multicultualism (including postmodern, radical feminist, and post-colonial perspectives) in both teacher education settings and in classrooms for young children. The focus of the work is on the myriad constructions of identity that affect the ways we teach and learn in our rapidly changing society. The intention of the work is to enable teachers and teacher educators to reconsider many of the orthodoxies of the early childhood field, and to create new ways of thinking and acting that reflect the actual and constantly


shifting realities and complex consciousness of children today. Drawing from a body of work that has not always been fully accessible to the uninitiated reader, the authors succeed in speaking plainly about the themes that characterize the field of critical multiculturalism and provide abundant examples through narratives and case studies of how this perspective manifests in teaching/learning transactions. Hollins, E.R., King, J., Hayman, W.C. (Eds.) (1994). Teaching diverse populations: Formulating a knowledge base. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

This edited volume focuses on preparing teachers to work with culturally diverse populations. Fitting into the category of teaching the culturally different, this volume provides very specific illustrations of how teachers can effectively relate children’s cultural and experiential backgrounds to their work in school and reasons why this is not the norm in public schools. The final section contains a number of chapters that describe particular challenges and potentially promising educational practices for African American children. hooks, b. (1993). Transformative pedagogy and multiculturalism. In T.Perry & J.Fraser (Eds.), Freedom’s plow (pp. 91–97). New York, NY: Routledge.

In this essay, hooks reflects on her experiences of becoming a more democratic teacher and more directly addressing issues of race, gender, and class with her students. She describes her efforts to work with other faculty members at Oberlin College to get them to analyze and change their own teaching practices and content. Her account embodies an inspiring vision of how liberal arts education could become truly “liberatory.” hooks also analyzes the reasons that many faculty, even those who are supportive of multiculturalism in general, tenaciously resist making these changes themselves. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. New York, NY: Routledge.

This already classic work explores critical multiculturalism through case studies of teachers of color. The premise is that persistent inequity in education must be interrupted through deliberate and consistent attention in enactment of one’s own teaching practices to changing the structures of institutions that oppress. This work examines teaching as a moral endeavor and documents how individual teachers can make a difference in the prospects for children’s lives. The author makes clear, however, that individual action alone is not sufficient to surmount the devastating damage done to whole populations of children within educational systems. The tranformation of teacher preparation programs is crucial in supporting the work of those who seek to reconstruct educational institutions. Irvine, J.J. (Ed.). (1997). Critical knowledge for diverse teachers and learners. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

This work is devoted to identifying critical knowledge, skills and experiences for teaching culturally diverse learners in work with both preservice teacher education students and practicing teachers in the field. Among the contributed


chapters are reflections on the preparation and professional development of teachers from Latino, African American, and Asian Pacific American perspectives and on the relation of such perspectives to the revision of standards for the preparation of teachers. A feature of the work is that all chapters draw strongly on the emerging research in multicultural teacher education to illustrate a changing tide in teacher preparation toward a critical, social reconstructionist consciousness. The tensions arising from the interactions of this stance with more traditional views of teacher education are highlighted, and the abundant references at the end of each chapter provide an excellent point of departure for persons wishing to investigate social reconstructionist positions. King, J.E., Hollins, E.R., & Hayman, W.C. (Eds.). (1997). Preparing teachers for cultural diversity. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Focusing on paradigmatic models for preservice multicultural teacher education, this rich edited volume illustrates multiple ways to re-envison the preparation of teachers. Each chapter draws upon theory and research to identify practical implications for tranforming preservice programs. The work is strongly oriented toward social reconstructionist and social justice perspectives in identification of the dispositions, skills, knowledge, and attitudes that teachers need successfully to teach in culturally and linguistically diverse settings. In addition to delineating a knowledge base, the authors describe the kinds of experiences in both the university classroom and the field to enable beginning teachers to work in a culturally responsive manner. Among the experiences emphasized are creating communities of learners, narrative self-inquiry, and moving from exposure to engagement in field-based activities. The authors also stress the importance of tranforming academic institutions as well as individual teacher preparation programs, to create environments that nurture and facilitate authentically multicultural teacher education. King, S.H., & Castenell, L.A. (Eds.). (2001). Racism and racial inequality: Implications for teacher education. Washington, DC: American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education.

The authors of this edited work focus squarely on racism as a major dynamic in persistent inequities in educational systems and address the implications of that circumstance for teacher education programs. Among the topics treated are the preparation of teachers of color in preservice programs, White resistance to equity in public education, and principles of anti-racist teacher education for both preservice and inservice teacher development. The authors use both theoretical literature and research reports to frame explicit and practical suggestions for transformation of teacher education. Klassen, F.H., & Gollnick, D.M. (Eds.). (1977). Pluralism and the American teacher. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

This volume includes several essays that have been annotated separately. There are also six case studies of multicultural teacher education programs. Five of the programs are in large public universities, and one is a regional center established


to assist public schools that were going through the desegregation process. Each description includes a history of the program, an account of the clients it serves, a description of the curricular components, and an assessment of future directions. In some cases, the authors include details about the problems that they encountered in establishing and maintaining these programs. Klassen, F.H., Gollnick, D.M., & Osayande, K.I.M. (1980). Multicultural teacher education’. Guidelines for implementation, vol. 4. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

The authors describe guidelines for the following components of teacher education programs: governance, preservice curricula, faculty, students, resources, and evaluation. Each guideline is amplified with several questions designed to evaluate the degree to which a multicultural perspective is reflected in these areas, and the extent of its effectiveness. This monograph is designed to assist faculty and administrators in assessing their current work and in developing goals for more fully implementing a multicultural orientation in their programs. There is one major omission in the faculty guidelines: Recruiting and hiring faculty from diverse backgrounds is only mentioned in the discussion of part-time faculty, not in that of the regular faculty. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Multicultural teacher education: Research, practice, and policy. In J.A.Banks & C.A.M.Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 747–759). New York, NY: Macmillan.

In this review chapter, Ladson-Billings discusses multicultural teacher education in the context of the changes and limitations of teacher education in general. She categorizes the articles on multicultural teacher education according to Banks’s five categories of content integration, knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and empowering school structure. Ladson-Billings points out that more articles have dealt with content integration (which has not been associated with substantive changes in classrooms) than with any of the other categories. The author reviews some of the reforms designed to make teacher education more multicultural, including writing autobiographies, restructuring field experiences, and using case studies of teachers who are effective with diverse learners. Luke, A. (1986). Linguistic stereotypes, the divergent speaker and the teaching of literacy. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 18, 397–408.

Although this article does not address teacher education per se, it does highlight an important issue for teachers that is often misunderstood or neglected in teacher education programs. The author articulates the need for teachers to avoid judging children on the basis of linguistic stereotypes. Instead, they should develop a sensitivity to the culturally specific communication patterns of the children they teach and incorporate these into their teaching, using a whole language or language experience approach. Although he emphasizes the need for all children to learn standard English, the author states that this approach will develop children’s meta-linguistic awareness of the differences in patterns of speech and will facilitate their fluency in both ways of speech.


Lynch, J. (1981). Multicultural education and the training of teachers: A case study. South Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 9, 43–54.

In this article, Lynch advocates a permeation approach, rather than an additive one, in terms of reforming teacher education curriculum to prepare students to teach from a multicultural perspective. He then describes the program at Bradford College, Sunderland Polytechnic Institute, England, that aims to train students to practice emancipatory education, rather than compensatory education. In the first 2 years, all courses, including social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities, are taught from a multicultural perspective and stress both the diversity of human experience and the common elements of all cultures. In the 3rd year, students conduct an in-depth study of school curricula from a multicultural perspective, and, in the final year, they engage in a critical appraisal of educational theories and research from a multicultural perspective. This comprehensive program emphasizes the reciprocal nature of learning and advocates “interlearning” between teacher and learner. Lynch, J. (1986). An initial typology of perspectives on staff development for multicultural teacher education. In S.Modgil, G.K.Verma, K.Mallick, & C.Modgil (Eds.), Multicultural education: The interminable debate (pp. 149–165). London, UK: Falmer.

In this critique of the state of multicultural teacher education in Britain in the mid-1980s, Lynch points out that efforts at reforming teacher education have been limited to individual programs and minor curricular changes. He proposes a model for faculty and staff development that employs both Gay’s components (knowledge, attitudes, and skills) and Bank’s stages of emerging ethnicity. He stresses the need for teacher education in Britain to move from its predominantly ethnocentric orientation to an institutional and national commitment to multicultural education. Mahan, J.M., & Lacefield, W. (1982). Employability and multi-cultural teacher preparation. Educational Research Quarterly, 7, 15–20.

This account of the development of guidelines for a course in American Indian studies, which in the early 1980s was required of all new teachers in South Dakota, articulates some of the dilemmas inherent in training teachers with a multicultural perspective. The author describes the initial tension between providing teachers with information about American Indians that might contribute to a change in attitude and a focus on usable classroom skills. The resulting guidelines emphasize practical applications, but also include content that familiarizes teachers with both the history and the cultural background of specific Native American groups. This course is designed to enable teachers to critically evaluate curricula and to work effectively with Native American families. According to the authors, the most important component is the concept of bicultural education; this emphasizes the incorporation of students’ backgrounds, rather than the deficit orientation of many compensatory education programs. Citing the works of Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich, the guidelines stress the need for teachers to learn how to stimulate learning in the context of reality as their Indian students experience it.


Martin, R.J. (Ed.). (1995). Practicing what we teacher: Confronting diversity in teacher education. Albany: State University of New York Press.

This edited work presents the accounts of teacher educators who are working from social reconstructionist perspectives to address the dynamics of race, class, and gender in their university classrooms, while preparing teachers to do the same in their classrooms in schools. The first part of the work presents alternative “templates” for considering the issues, different ways of conceptualizing the impact of race, class, and gender on teaching and learning. The second part highlights the importance of examining and using teacher biographies in the creation of a tranformational teacher education practice; and the third part presents spcific accounts of teacher educators’ examinations of their own attempts to enact multicultural practice at the college and university level. Examples are given of both course designs and infusion models, and the descriptions treat work in both the university classroom and field placement settings. Minister of Supply and Services. (1985). Cross-cultural awareness, education, and training for professionals: A manual. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: Department of Education.

This manual uses a case study method as the basis for a cultural awareness workshop designed for educators and other professionals. By including photographs of the participants and transcripts from speeches, it, in itself, is a case study of how a series of workshops might be conducted. The seven case studies include situations of failed communication, discrimination, or desire for institutional change. They occur in several settings, including a hospital, a union, a school, a police department, and different community organizations. Each case study is described in detail and is followed by suggested discussion guidelines. These are designed to help participants recognize common types of problems that occur over many situations and the potential impact of individual expectations and the institutional climate. Nixon, J. (1985). A teacher’s guide to multicultural education. New York: Basil Blackwell.

This book includes a chapter on teacher education that is a critique of the mid-1980s in England. The author discusses the problems of shifting educational policy, a lack of diversity among educators at all levels, and the cynicism of teaching faculties. He proposes that course content at both the preservice and inservice levels be designed to induce students to develop both the knowledge and the commitment to teach from a multicultural perspective. Olstad, R.G., Foster, C.D., & Wyman, R.M. (1983). Multicultural education for preservice teachers. Integrated Education, 21, 137–139.

The authors studied the enrollment patterns of 515 teacher education students who were required to elect one course from each of the following categories: (1) the broad issues of socioethnic differences, and (2) courses that focus on specific socioethnic groups. The enrollment patterns suggest that students tend to take courses about their own ethnic or social group; hence, this course requirement fails to provide a broad multicultural perspective. The authors are especially dismayed at these findings, because many universities are attempting to use this model as a


means of incorporating a multicultural perspective. They suggest as an alternative that institutions engage in the following process: First, define multicultural education as it is approved by the institution; second, involve representatives of diverse communities in the planning and development process; and third, generate and implement a systematic plan for integrating a multicultural perspective in all teacher education courses. Paley, V.G. (1979). White teacher. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

This personal account of a White teacher of an ethnically mixed kindergarten provides many insights into the process of teachers recognizing and dealing with subtle forms of prejudice. Written in a journalistic style, the book includes numerous observations of children’s peer interactions and their contacts with their teacher. Paley’s commentary describes her reactions, perceptions, and changes. This volume might be used effectively to stimulate teacher education students’ discussion about their own feelings. Pattnaik, J. & Vold, E.B. (1998). Expected multicultural education outcomes in teacher education and the NCATE factor. In E.B.Vold (Ed.) Preparing Teachers for Diverse Student Populations and for Equity (pp. 97–110). Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt.

This chapter reports on a survey supportive of multicultural teacher education from a social justice perspective. The authors discuss the research on competencies and expected outcomes of multicultural education in selected teacher education institutions. Within their own sample, they found minimal compliance with the standards set forth by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). In addition, the authors raise the fundamental questions: Do NCATE’s multicultural standards make a difference in the quality of programs that prepare teachers for diversity? If institutions of higher education are NCATE-approved and meet the NCATE standards, should there be a degree of consistency regarding issues of diversity within and between universities in the content knowledge and the critical experiences to develop multicultural competencies and staffing practices? Although the results of the study do not fully answer each of the questions, they provide the reader with a stimulus for discussion and debate. Ramsey, P.G. (1998). Teaching and learning in a diverse world: Multicultural education for young children (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

This book specifically addresses teachers’ readiness to implement a multicultural perspective. Suggestions include exercises, questions, and experiences designed to help prospective or practicing teachers identify and challenge their own attitudes and learn more about the community and the specific children with whom they work. Throughout the book, there is an emphasis on teachers’ questioning their assumptions and critiquing the curriculum from a multicultural perspective. Robinson, G.L.N. (1985). Crosscultural understanding. New York, NY: Pergamon Institute of English.


To emphasize the complexity of culture, the author discusses its many visible and invisible aspects and the multiple and subtle ways in which it influences perceptions of ourselves and others. One chapter discusses the acquistion of culture and cultural roles, and two others deal explicitly with forming positive perceptions of other groups and modifying negative ones. The book concludes with a discussion of the cognitive and attitudinal aspects of a multicultural orientation. Throughout this volume, the author integrates psychological theories and research with practical applications. Rodriguez, F. (1983). Mainstreaming a multicultural concept into teacher education: Guidelines for teacher training. Saratoga, CA: R & E.

In this practical guide, the author discusses some of the impediments to incorporating a multicultural orientation into teacher preparation programs, such as conflicts among faculties and programs, conflicts between teacher education programs and local schools, and faculty resistance. He describes specific activities to engage faculty in the process of analyzing the current program and setting goals to increase its multicultural orientation. The book contains several instruments for assessing programs and materials and for defining personal and departmental goals. There is a model workshop designed to facilitate these processes. The volume concludes with a comprehensive list of books, libraries, periodicals, and organizations that are potential resources for teachers and teacher educators. Saville-Troike, M. (1978). A guide to culture in the classroom. Roslyn, VA: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

This classical monograph discusses several aspects of cultural influences on learning and identity. The author cautions the reader about the prevalence of unfounded assumptions about members of particular cultures and provides a comprehensive list of questions for educators to use to learn for themselves about specific cultures and individuals who are members of the group. The author also discusses the need for teachers to know sensitive ways of learning about cultural differences and teaching children from many groups. Schoem, D., Frankel, L., Zuniga, X., & Lewis, E.A. (Eds.), (1993). Multicultural teaching in the university. Westport, CT: Praeger.

This edited volume includes 23 chapters, each of which describes the author’s or authors’ efforts to teach particular courses from a multicultural perspective. Although some of these courses focus explicitly on issues of ethnicity, power, and gender, most of the chapters describe efforts to teach subjects such as biology, law, landscape architecture, mathematics, and so on, from a multicultural perspective. These accounts are helpful because they provide clear guidelines and examples of how professors can make real changes in their courses in disciplines not necessarily seen as “multicultural.” Most of the chapters are written in an engaging and honest style, with examples of ideas that worked and those that did not. The chapters also represent a number of different interpretations of “multicultural teaching.” The final two chapters are discussions among the


authors and editors about some of the dilemmas that they have confronted in their teaching from a multicultural perspective. Sims, W.E. (1983). Preparing teachers for multicultural classrooms. Momentum, 14, 42–44.

In this article, Sims advocates the infusion method of curriculum reform, rather than the addition of one or two courses, as a means of meeting the original NCATE requirement. He argues that this approach is both more effective and economical and demonstrates how the traditional sequence of teacher preparation courses could be adapted to incorporate a multicultural perspective. He also lists specific multicultural teaching competencies. Sleeter, C.E. (Ed.). (1991). Empowerment through multicultural education. Albany: State University of New York Press.

In this edited volume, empowering oppressed people is contrasted with the benevolent and often debilitating efforts to help them. The first section has four chapters that illustrate how schools disable many students, especially those from less privileged groups. The chapters in the second section illustrate strategies for empowerment, in its many different aspects. The final section contains two chapters that discuss how empowerment operates or can potentially operate in teacher education. Sleeter, C.E. (1992). Keepers of the American dream: A study of staff development and multicultural education. Washington, DC: Falmer.

This ethnographic study of 30 teachers who participated in a 2-year multicultural education inservice training program illustrates some of the barriers to becoming multicultural educators. The accounts of the inservice training sessions reveal the ways in which teachers, even those who embrace the idea of multiculturalism, struggle with overcoming their own backgrounds, professional training, and familiar perspectives to critically consider society and their role in it. The author follows particular teachers throughout the book, which enables the reader to understand their experiences and perspectives more fully. The changes that do occur in their practice provide a hopeful picture of the effects of inservice training on individuals. However, Sleeter’s overall message is that creating truly multicultural schools will require institutional, as well as individual, changes. Sleeter, C.E. (1994). White racism. Multicultural Education, 1, 5–8, 39.

In this short article, Sleeter describes the many subtle ways in which Whites ignore racism, while continuing to enjoy the privileges it bestows upon them. She analyzes how the ideology of individualism enables Whites to ignore the reality of status differences between groups and to attribute success and failure to individual effort. She also describes the phenomenon of White racial bonding, when Whites (often quite subtly and even unconsciously) support each other’s stance on racially related issues (such as affirmative action). Sleeter advocates that Whites form deep personal bonds with White antiracists and people of color.


Sleeter, C.E. (1995). Reflections on my use of multicultural and critical pedagogy when students are White. In C.E.Sleeter & P.L.McLaren (Eds.), Multicultural education and critical pedagogy. Albany: State University of New York Press.

This account of using multicultural and critical pedagogy with White students offers a number of concrete suggestions about readings, assignments, and in-class experiences to make students more critically aware of their social context and their privilege. Sleeter points out that even when students appear to change their attitudes and their positions relative to others in the society, they often revert back to their assumptions when their self-interest is involved. Villegas, A.M. (1997). Assessing teacher performance in a diverse society. In A.L. Goodwin (Ed.), Assessment for equity and inclusion: Embracing all our children (pp. 261–278). New York, NY: Routledge.

The author describes the development by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of Praxis III: Classroom Performance Assessments, one part of the Praxis Series: Professional Assessments for Beginning Teachers, which was developed largely for use by state or agency personnel in the licensing of teachers, but can be used as well in the preparation of preservice teachers. A process designed to assess teacher performance through classroom observation and both pre- and postobservation conferences (semistructured interviews with the teacher), Praxis III consciously reflects a vision of teaching as encompassing four critical elements: (1) openness toward diversity and belief that all children can learn; (2) awareness that teaching and learning occur in a sociocultural context and subsequent choice of instructional procedures that recognizes that context; (3) use of topics and examples from children’s daily lives within their families and communities to teach new content, drawing on children’s previous knowledge; and (4) using all of the previous information in planning, implementing, and evaluating instruction. To guard against the external threat to validity posed by this high inference system, ETS has instituted a rigorous 5-day training program, followed by completion of at least one full assessment cycle in an actual classroom before a candidate can be certified as an assessor. Williams, L.R., De Gaetano, Y., Harrington, C.C., & Sutherland, I.R. (1985). ALERTA: A multicultural, bilingual approach to teaching young children. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley.

The ALERTA curriculum is implemented though nine levels of activity undertaken by teachers to work with young children in a culturally responsive manner. The keystone of the program is the first level, in which teachers develop partnerships with parents and other teachers by sharing specific aspects of their cultural backgrounds, recognizing each other’s contributions to a total teaching team, and developing skills in a constructivist approach to teaching and learning. The book contains one chapter devoted to a variety of staff and parent development activities and also threads teacher preparation activities throughout the remaining chapters to illustrate the implementation of the program. The process is geared to early childhood teachers who work at the inservice level of


preparation, but could also be used by teacher educators who supervise preservice teacher preparation. Williams, L.R., & Ryan, S. (2000). Hearts and minds: Addressing multiculturalism in an inservice M.A. program requiring mutual development of teachers and teacher educators. In E.B.Vold (Ed.), Preparing Teachers for Diverse Student Populations and for Equity. (pp. 230–272). Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.

In a field in which specific preparation of beginning teachers to work within diverse educational contexts is still in its early stages, programs of preparation in colleges or universities of inservice teachers to accommodate diversity among students in their classrooms are even less well developed. Focusing on the need for such preparation of experienced teachers, this account of one inservice MA program for early childhood teachers at a university examines the kinds of knowledge that inservice teachers bring with them to their advanced preparations and explores ways to build on that knowledge to engage teachers in the demanding work of culturally responsive teaching. The premise is that by connecting affective responses to issues of cultural awareness and social justice with the building of new professional knowledge and skills, teacher repertoires can be effectively expanded. Included are summaries of three case studies of teachers who were observed at work in their own classrooms from 9 months to a year after graduation from the MA program and subsequently interviewed to assess what aspects of the MA program had been effective in promoting a multicultural approach to teaching and learning. York, S. (1992). Developing roots and wings: A trainer’s guide to affirming culture in early childhood classrooms. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf.

This is the companion volume to Roots and wings: Affirming culture in early childhood programs previously annotated in chapter 3. Intended for persons implementing inservice teacher development with a multicultural orientation, the manual provides both rationales and full descriptions of activities for teacher workshops focusing on multicultural practice with young children. Many different kinds of activities are presented, including icebreakers to warm up groups, exercises to clarify major issues, and the planning and implementation of a curriculum for children that embodies the principles of cultural affirmation. The text also provides workship plans and examples of handouts to facilitate the various teacher development activities. Zeichner, K. (1993). Educating teachers for cultural diversity (special report). East Lansing, MI: Center for Research on Teacher Learning.

This comprehensive report focuses on training White, monolingual teachers to teach children with whom they do not share a similar background. The author reviews the problem of the growing disparity between teachers and their students and the knowledge and skills that teachers need to work successfully with diverse students. He then describes different models and strategies of preparing teachers and concludes that teachers need to learn how to study the children whom they teach, rather than learn specific information about cultural groups that may or


may not be relevant to their particular children. He also emphasizes that multicultural teacher education is a lifelong process and that we need to take a longer view of teacher education and identify what kinds of experiences are most useful at different career stages. At the end of this paper, the author states that we do not fully understand what occurs in multicultural teacher education and its long-term effects. The report includes a list of “Key Elements in Effective Teaching for Ethnic and Language Minority Students” and “Key Elements of Effective Teacher Education for Diversity.” The author, however, does caution the reader that these guidelines, though supported by some research, are not supported by extensive data.

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5 Trends, Obstacles, and Future Possibilities of Multicultural Education

The quantity and range of multicultural educational materials have grown exponentially during the last 3 decades. When the first edition of this text appeared in 1989, the authors noted that the number of multicultural educational resources published in the 1980s had doubled in the last decade. In the intervening 12 years, the number has tripled or even quadrupled. Informal surveys of professional conferences on educational research and practice reveal a similar surge of interest in the topic of multicultural issues. Many state curriculum guidelines and teacher certification requirements include multicultural standards. Likewise, national organizations such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) include multicultural items in their accreditation standards. Clearly, forces in our national experience are bringing multiculturalism to the fore, even as other pressures seek to diminish its impact. This volume has sought to capture the major historical and current trends of the multicultural educational movement and, in doing so, to enable teachers and teacher educators to knowledgeably access a wide variety of resources relevant to their work. Seeing the “past as prologue” to the future (Shakespeare, The Tempest), we began by describing the antecedents and origins of the field, then moved to analyzing its present, increasingly complex manifestations. In this final chapter, we summarize these trends, make some tentative predictions, and conclude with a vision of how a community and a school could create a multicultural environment geared to advancing a more equitable and socially just world for all people. ROOTED IN THE SOIL OF CONTROVERSY Multicultural education rose out of times of crisis and conflict in the United States and other Western societies. For 3 decades it has been a force for change and has itself evolved and expanded in many directions. Its primary goals, however, have remained constant: to design systems of education that are culturally relevant and are inclusive, rather than exclusive; to ensure that all students leave school possessing the skills for social, academic, political, and economic success; to teach students to relate respectfully to others, perceiving and


appreciating both differences and commonalities; and to recognize, investigate, and actively challenge injustices. Multicultural education by its very nature is responsive to events, movements, and demographic shifts and so has changed greatly over the past 30 years. For example, within hours after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, multicultural e-mail lists and websites were filled with suggestions and resources for teachers to help children cope with the emotional aspects of the crisis, to present their students with a range of world perspectives on the causes of the attacks, and to counteract the thirst for revenge and rise in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments that engulfed the country following the attacks. The scope of multicultural education has broadened as new immigrants have arrived, as particular groups have experienced increasingly intense economic or social pressures (e.g., Arab and Muslim communities after the attacks in 2001) or have become more aware of their marginal status, and as events have drawn attention to particular injustices. Global changes, such as the consolidation of wealth in fewer hands, increased exploitation of underpaid workers in poor countries, widespread environmental degradation, and massive migrations of people displaced through war, famine, and poverty, have also expanded the context for thinking about social justice and diversity. At the local level, national economic and political movements, such as deregulation and welfare “reform,” often have an immediate impact on children’s lives (e.g., plant closures, homelessness), making issues of social and economic justice an inescapable part of the curriculum and classroom life (whether teachers acknowledge them or not). As new issues arise, the priorities and strategies of multicultural education shift and expand, yet the underlying goals remain constant. The breadth and fluidity of the movement have raised some concerns about the potential diffusion of its identity and constituency. Some groups may feel that their priorities and perspectives will be lost in the vast array of issues that are on the multicultural table. Teachers and administrators may conclude that multicultural education is too amorphous and all encompassing to learn about, let alone implement and evaluate. On the positive side, however, expansiveness and openness mean that anyone who is willing can find an entry point. People might enter the conversation because they are frustrated by their poor economic prospects compared to others who are more racially privileged; they are tired of being teased for being “nerds;” they see the pain and exclusion of their family members who are disabled; they are angered by watching their children torn between the cultures and languages of school and home; they are outraged that hazardous waste plants are being located in their working-class communities instead of at more appropriate sites in nearby affluent towns. Once engaged in the conversation of multiculturalism, then people can see beyond their particular issues and find connections with those that may at first seem distant to their own. The entry of new voices into the multicultural conversation has connected many people and movements, but it has also generated controversy within the

TRENDS, OBSTACLES, AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION 267

movement. For example, challenging homophobia is hard for multiculturalists who belong to religions that denounce homosexuality. People who have suffered discrimination in the United States for many generations may have difficulty fighting for the rights of newly arrived immigrants. Equal rights for women may conflict with traditional cultural values that some ethnic groups want to maintain. Although these tensions can be perceived as threatening to the solidarity of the movement, they in fact create the conditions for its continued growth. Multicultural education at its best creates a space for expressing conflicts; for exploring how different oppressions are distinct, yet connected; and for collaborating to resist injustice in its infinite manifestations. We should not be surprised that multicultural education, given its turbulent roots, has continued to be the focus of controversy from the outside as well. In the 1970s critics claimed that pluralism contained the seeds of separatism, aggravating problems for societies that were already characterized by racial fragmentation (Serow, 1983). These arguments were echoed in the 1990s by conservative critics (e.g., Ravitch, 1990a, 1990b; Schlesinger, 1992) and political movements such as the successful referenda in California to deny rights to immigrants and to curtail bilingual education. Early critics also dismissed multiculturalism as naive in its assumption that a single educational movement might change a society steeped in assimilationism and inequity. Writing in 1983, Serow noted that racism in the United States was so well entrenched that it was beyond the reach of the limited goals of multicultural education. He even suggested that multicultural education might cause harm: Since American society is unlikely to have changed substantially by the time the alumni of today’s ethnic studies courses graduate, it seems pointless, even cruel to some observers to provide children with skills and orientations for a pluralistic society that does not and will not exist. Thus, multicultural education is…seen as distracting from the real needs of minority students. (p. 102.) Two decades later these criticisms still echo in conservative commentaries that deride multicultural education as useless glorification of ethnic groups, and devoid of any rigorous academic work. Current writers on the left also echo these earlier critiques with their dismissals of multicultural education as an ineffectual distraction that masks the deeper structural inequities of our society. Despite these ambiguities and controversies, the multicultural movement has profoundly influenced our views of children and their families, the design and implementation of curricula, and priorities and strategies for teacher education. The controversies, although difficult at times, are an essential part of multicultural education. They force theorists, researchers, and practitioners at all levels to critique their assumptions and practices and to become advocates and activists in the transformation of educational, economic, and political institutions.


EVOLVING VIEWS OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES Multicultural education and complementary movements in developmental psychology have exposed many biases in traditional child development theory and research. These new perspectives have given rise to new theoretical and research paradigms that look more closely at the contexts of human development and learning and have forced a critical reexamination of assumptions about universal developmental norms and priorities. As discussed in chapter 2, researchers, theorists, and teachers are beginning to see developmental variations as differences that reflect children’s experiences in their particular cultural, social, and economic milieu, instead of as deficits, as has been the case in the past. To teach from a multicultural perspective, teachers must see children within their contexts—that is, the collective experiences that children bring with them to school and subsequently use to interpret what they are taught. Where children have been raised; the objects, events, and people that have shaped their lives; and the values and beliefs that they have absorbed constitute powerful frames of reference. Whether or not children learn and value what is taught in school depends on how well the new information or skills relate to their previous understanding of their world and their perception of their future. Where little or no relationship exists, academic content and skills may be rejected as irrelevant. Recognizing the possible impact of children’s backgrounds requires that teachers and researchers be conscious of how the racial, cultural, economic, gender, and ability divisions in our society potentially affect the lives of children. At the same time, they need to view these general patterns cautiously and critically in order to avoid erroneous assumptions about individuals and particular communities. As researchers and teachers learn more about the effects of discrimination and economic inequities, they can use this information to advocate for equalizing the distribution of resources and ending discriminatory practices. Another aspect of children’s development that is relevant to multicultural education is how children’s ideas and attitudes about differences evolve and what psychological and environmental factors affect them. The review in chapter 2 illustrates how children learn about the assumptions, contradictions, and inequities that characterize our views about diversity. From a young age they readily notice physical differences and absorb stereotypes. They are often confused by the discrepancies between their own experiences and prevailing attitudes. As they get older, children develop abilities to understand the perspectives of others and to see individual differences that potentially counteract stereotyping. However, as they struggle to form their own identities and worldviews, many children become enmeshed in peer and popular cultures that may affirm in-group solidarity by claiming superiority and excluding outsiders. In a similar vein, research on children’s understanding and attitudes toward social class differences reveals that, as they get older, many children in the United States shift from criticizing the unequal distribution of resources to accepting the status quo and blaming poor people for their deprivation. To resist the lure of stereotyping and the acceptance of the status quo, children need to become flexible and expansive thinkers who can see multiple points of


view, question and critique their own and others’ assumptions, and look beyond what is to what could be. All children construct their own worldviews as they make sense of what they see, hear, and experience. To create meaningful experiences, teachers need to listen to and observe children carefully and develop a deep understanding of what children know, think, and feel about these issues. To promote a deeper understanding of this development, teachers and researchers are beginning to collaborate to study the nuances of children’s developing ideas and feelings about race, culture, social class, gender, sexual orientation, abilities and disabilities, and justice and power. With increased involvement of children in social activism, we will also have a chance to learn what experiences influence children to become activists and how their involvement changes as they get older. As collaborative research efforts gain momentum, they will provide more refined and profound knowledge of how children process information and experiences. These insights in turn will facilitate the design of more effective multicultural curriculum and teaching practices and provide data for evaluating them. TRENDS IN MULTICULTURAL EDUCATIONAL CURRICULUM AND TEACHING Currently, there is a tremendous amount of activity in the field of multicultural education, with numerous books, articles, and websites about multicultural education being produced each year. These materials cover the expanding range of concerns discussed in chapter 1 and express the several different goals and philosophical orientations described in chapter 3. In the early years of multicultural education, curriculum designers frequently created materials that sought to maximize individual potential by making materials more familiar to the children, following the approach of teaching the culturally and linguistically different (Sleeter & Grant, 1999). They also focused on promoting intergroup and interpersonal relationships congruent with the human relations approach (Sleeter & Grant, 1999). The intended outcomes, ranging from improvement of academic performance to symbolic and functional acceptance of diversity, assumed that changes in the attitudes and behavior of individuals would ultimately lead to broadly based social change. Yet as we have learned from the last 3 decades of the multicultural education movement, individual efforts and changes have little impact in the absence of long-term institutional reforms. As a result, recent multicultural curricula and programs have been more transformative in their approach. They have sought to profoundly affect and reorient schools’ and teachers’ and children’s ideas and attitudes about their world. Many current authors write from a social reconstructionist position and include activities that draw children’s attention to inequities, rather than simply promote appreciation of differences. Increasingly, multicultural educational materials and resources include the content, values, and skills needed for individuals and groups to participate in social change.


Another trend has been a move away from specific activity-based programs (sometimes referred to as the “cookbook” approach) to guidelines to help teachers rethink and redesign all their curriculum themes and teaching practices, in order to weave in multicultural goals and perspectives throughout their work. The premise is that children of all ages can consider issues of diversity and equity in their day-to-day experiences, from developing an equitable way to decide who should be first in line for a kindergarten outing to challenging a middle school’s tracking policies. With appropriate and meaningful materials and experiences, children at all developmental levels can learn to recognize and respect different experiences and perspectives and to keep them in mind in order to make more informed and fair decisions and to become advocates and allies to challenge assumptions, images, and policies that are biased and unfair. A potent force in the evolution of multicultural programs and curricular resources for teachers in recent years has been the Internet. Providing rapid access to information, it also has the potential in its informational capacity for overlooking or minimizing the deep-seated processes required for more than superficial changes to curriculum. Authenticity and veracity of material on websites cannot be assumed. Children and teachers need to bring their critical perspectives to their work with the Internet, just as they do with other media. The proliferation of multicultural programs and resources is exciting and creates the potential for authentic change. However, no program, curriculum, website, or teaching strategy will be ultimately successful unless attention is paid to the preparation of those persons responsible for using it. The real key to change may lie in teacher education. CHALLENGES IN THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF MULTICULTURAL TEACHER EDUCATION Multicultural approaches to teacher education have evolved in ways that are similar to the curricular changes in multicultural programs for children. The earliest changes in teacher education emphasized developing skills in intercultural communication, learning about different populations, and adapting the curriculum to meet their needs, all of which reflect the human relations and educating the exceptional and the culturally different approaches (Sleeter & Grant, 1999). More recent reforms have encouraged teachers and prospective teachers to reflect on their lives and to acknowledge and challenge their racial and economic positions and privileges. The recent scholarship on the critical examination of Whiteness has been an outgrowth of this work and has also provided insights to help White teachers recognize their assumptions and reexamine their practices. This emphasis on reflection has pushed many teachers and teacher educators from all backgrounds to confront the dynamics of racial privilege and power (Howard, 1999; McIntosh, 1995; Tatum, 1992) and to learn skills in conflict management and advocacy (Andrzejewski, 1995; Fennimore, 2000).


Although many multicultural theorists have advocated making these critical reflections an integral part of teacher preparation at all levels, implementation has been slow. Teacher education differs from school curricular reform because it is regulated. Changes must be codified in statewide teacher certification requirements that are, in turn, influenced by national educational priorities. Because reforms at both the national and the state levels often lag far behind the thinking in the field, implementation of multicultural teacher education moves at a glacial pace. Multicultural teacher education must also be seen in the context of shifts in teacher education in general. Efforts to incorporate a multicultural approach have reflected concurrent teacher education reforms. For example, some of the earliest multicultural teacher education programs used the competency-based paradigm that was in vogue in teacher preparation in the 1970s. More recent work in both teacher education in general and multicultural teacher education in particular has focused on the concept of the reflective practitioner (De Gaetano, Williams, & Volk, 1998; Farber, 1995; Schon, 1983, 1987; Williams, 1996), the teacher as researcher (Ballenger, 1999; Gallas, 1998; Martin, 1995), and teaching as caring (Pang, 2001). In addition, in multicultural teacher education, the impact and implications of one’s own autobiography for pedagogy (particularly the issues pertaining to Whiteness in the United States) are strongly influencing (Montecinos, 1995; Sleeter, 1995) the directions of the field. The present strong push toward outcomes-based education in general teacher education (Cochran-Smith, 2000), in some ways reminiscent of the earlier competency-based approach, is now beginning to be felt in multicultural teacher education and may eventually counteract some of the promising movements. Because of its comprehensive nature, implementing multicultural teacher education requires a profound reform of all aspects of teacher preparation programs. One obstacle is that most teacher education programs are located in universities that are also heavily regulated and resistant to change. Tenured faculty and departmental structures often impede efforts to create cross-disciplinary approaches to teaching from a multicultural perspective in both the liberal arts and in schools of education. Yet there have been substantial movements toward infusing multicultural perspectives into the liberal arts (Muffoletto, 1995), as well as in undergraduate and graduate courses in education itself (Martin, 1995). These efforts require the involvement of other departments, the institution as a whole, and the community. Curriculum reform affects not only education courses, but courses in all departments, especially those that provide foundation courses for education students (Mitchell, 1999). The recently revised NCATE standards mandate that teacher preparation programs have course work, field placements, supervision, and mentoring all geared toward multicultural and inclusive educational practice (NCATE, 2000). These changes may force universities to overcome their inertia and take creative steps to provide truly multicultural teacher education. Another obvious factor in any educational reform is the faculty. Many schools of education have a disproportionate number of faculty from older generations,


especially at the higher ranks, who did not learn to teach and think from a multicultural perspective when they were undergraduate and graduate students (Goodwin, 1997). One can surmise that the limited multicultural preparation of such faculty in turn curtails the range of courses and the representation of perspectives that they can offer. To ameliorate this problem, serious recruitment efforts should be employed to increase the numbers of faculty of color. For example, persons of color who have recently completed doctorates and who are interested in teacher education, research, and policy might be encouraged and mentored into the profession through postdoctoral opportunities in college and university schools of education (Affirmative Action Committee Initiative, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1997). Finally, new faculty, regardless of racial, ethnic, or cultural background, should be selected for their commitment to multicultural education (Goodwin, 1997). The recruitment and retention of potential teachers and students of education from diverse backgrounds are particular priorities for several reasons. First, it is incumbent upon institutions to practice educational equity in all of their policies regarding admission. Second, we must prepare significant numbers of teachers from diverse backgrounds so that the schools will have staffs that reflect the increasingly diverse student population. Third, the presence of participants from diverse backgrounds and with different points of view creates a more genuinely multicultural learning environment for all students in teacher education programs. However, all these efforts to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers who are committed to multicultural education and who represent diverse backgrounds are being undermined by the poor salaries, low status, and terrible working conditions that define many teachers’ lives. As teachers’ salaries fall further and further behind, the task of attracting and keeping excellent teachers in classrooms becomes more daunting. Schools of education should support teachers’ unions and pressure local and national legislators to raise teachers’ salaries and professional status and to improve the physical and emotional working conditions in schools. FUTURE RESEARCH IN MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION One of the thorniest issues that we discussed in the first edition and that has remained is the difficulty in measuring the implementation and impact of multicultural education. The breadth and fluidity of the transformations that it requires defy the usual linear empirical model of pre- and posttesting. Moreover, the phenomena under consideration are interactive and can be studied only in relation to the settings in which they appear. Unfortunately, most educational research designs have historically ignored context in favor of the experimental models, in order to get “clean” results. To assess both substantively and meaningfully the implementation and effects of multicultural education, researchers need to use a combination of rigorously applied qualitative and quantitative methods. New qualitative research methodologies that involve indepth studies (e.g., ethnographies, case studies, teacher portraiture done from the


perspective of the outsider looking in, and teacher narratives done from the perspective of the insider looking out) offer some promising directions for future research. To get a full picture of the effects and future possibilities of multicultural education, researchers and practitioners from a range of disciplines and research orientations need to collaborate in multifaceted investigations. For example, a project examining the effects of implementing multicultural education in a school could include studies of changes in organizational structures; administrative roles; classroom curricula; teachers’ attitudes and practices; teachers’ relationships with colleagues and families; and children’s ideas, attitudes, friendship patterns, and social behaviors. To address these questions, this investigation would involve researchers from several fields of education, psychology, and sociology. Research projects with this kind of interdisciplinary scope are rare, but they are sorely needed to further our understanding of the complexities of change and to develop more effective interventions. The research possibilities are exciting yet daunting. It is hoped that in the next few years researchers, teachers, and students will combine forces and generate some excellent studies. Some of the many questions about multicultural education that need to be addressed include the following: 1. We know a great deal about what school structures, teaching philosophies, practices, and curricula are most conducive to different students’ academic success. However, this knowledge is rarely implemented. How do we encourage policy makers, administrators, and teachers to make a commitment to educational equity and to use the data that currently exist to build on children’s backgrounds and future goals in order to create true learning environments? and to ensure that all students leave school possessing the skills for social, academic, political, and economic success? 2. What individual actions and environmental conditions influence the development of children’s ideas, attitudes, and identities? How do these interactions change as children develop their cognitive, linguistic, affective, and social capacities and skills? 3. What are the short-term and long-term effects of particular multicultural curricula on children’s ideas and attitudes about social and economic divisions and inequities and their ability and willingness to challenge oppressive practices? In particular, what learning materials and teaching strategies most effectively promote the following orientations and capabilities? a. Positive racial, ethnic, social class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability/ disability identities; b. Ability to recognize and challenge stereotypes; c. Respect for those who are different from themselves along any dimension;


d. Multiple communication strategies that can facilitate cross-group communication; e. Conflict-resolution skills; f. Critical analysis of inequities and the status quo; and g. Activism in local and global efforts to eradicate discrimination and inequities. 4. What are the short-term and long-term effects of multicultural teacher education on preservice and inservice teachers’ attitudes and practice? In particular, what kinds of courses, readings, learning materials, mentoring, and field experiences most effectively promote the following capabilities and behaviors of teachers? a. Openness and flexibility in response to children and families dissimilar to teachers by race, ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability; b. Willingness to learn new information and to take risks; c. Motivation, knowledge base, and skills to create multicultural classrooms; d. Abilities and willingness to truly collaborate with colleagues, families, and community people; e. Commitment to social justice and participation in movements for social change; and f. Skills to advocate for social justice at local and national levels. 5. What experiences help teachers develop a multicultural orientation in both their professional and personal lives? How do they become activists and advocates for social change? What experiences inspire and energize them? Which ones make them give up and retreat? 6. How can organizations change to be truly multicultural? What kinds of leadership are needed? What experiences help or hinder institutions becoming progressive and activist communities? How do educational institutions develop authentic collaborative partnerships with families and communities? Most important, how do individuals, institutions, and policy makers develop the commitment and the will to be truly multicultural? Many other questions also are on the table. If multicultural programs, curricula, teaching strategies, and concomitant programs of teacher education are to become more effective and to gain political strength, this kind of research is a top priority. Federal and philanthropic monies should be sought for scholarly investigation of program effects that uses contextually sensitive and relevant methods. To facilitate the growth of multicultural education and to broaden the base of popular support, multiculturalists need to investigate the complexities of implementing multicultural education and how teachers and children use it to change and develop.


OBSTACLES AND POSSIBILITIES FOR MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION As with all educational endeavors, the implementation and impact of multicultural education are influenced by the prevailing, yet ever-shifting, social values, economic pressures, and political tides. In this section we will show how some of these forces affect child rearing, schooling, and teacher education and how they potentially undermine or support the implementation and impact of multicultural education. The Influence of the Media Children today are growing up in a media-saturated world, in which they commonly spend hours each day (current studies indicate 3–4 hours/day) watching television and videos, playing video and computer games, and surfing websites (Comstock & Scharrer, 2001). Unfortunately, much of what children are seeing is contradictory to the goals of multicultural education. Many popular programs and games contain racist, sexist, and homophobic images and glorify force and violence, reinforcing the notion that these are the only means to resolve conflicts (Levin, 1998). Children are learning to evaluate themselves and others with narrow criteria that reflect the current fad or star. Children are also inundated with messages that promote competitive consumerism and teach them that inequality is fine, as long as you come out on top and are the first to get the newest TV-related toy or item of clothing (Kline, 1993). A number of programs, including dramas, comedies, and talk shows, rely on humiliating others and pointless aggression to raise their ratings. Of course, not all children react to these programs in the same way, nor do they all mindlessly absorb these values (Cortes, 2000). However, teachers and family members frequently describe how these influences create resistance to the goals and principles of multicultural education. Efforts to engage children in critiques of stereotypes pale in comparison to highly entertaining and technically sophisticated shows that validate and reinforce stereotyped images. Respecting and appreciating differences seem absurd to children who are desperately trying to look just like the current music or movie idol and delighting in programs in which characters routinely humiliate each other. When teachers try to encourage children to think about other points of view and to practice conflict resolution skills, they need to contend with children’s fascination with weaponry and wrestlers. Challenging economic disparities may seem irrelevant to children who are fascinated by all the products available on the Internet and worried that their peers will get the latest video game or hot clothing item before they do. Teachers can potentially turn these negative influences into opportunities to critique the images and messages on the media. Media literacy programs often engage children in activities that analyze shows for patterns that reinforce stereotypes, identify misleading commercial messages, and examine how characters resolve conflicts (Brown, 2001). Because the messages and values of many shows are so blatant, even young children can see and critique their intent.


Also, family members, teachers, and children can gain experience in social action by writing letters to producers and organizing boycotts of sponsors of particularly bad pro grams (Levin, 1998). It is important that teachers and family members do not simply engage in wholesale bashing of the media, as children will resent criticisms of their favorite shows and stop paying attention to adults. However, they can learn to be careful and critical viewers and, ideally, generate their own criticisms. The media also have enormous positive potential to expose children to people, ideas, places, and injustices that they would not know about if they did not view them on the Internet or television. In the coming years, multicultural curricula will probably include a lot of media in all its forms, to broaden children’s critical awareness of the world and to engage them in social change. Teachers and family members can use videos, movies, quality television programs, and websites to initiate discussions with children on many multicultural topics. Moreover, the media offer many ways of exploring and expressing ideas about issues. Making videos and websites about local, national, and international injustices and progressive movements may become standard fare in multicultural education. The Internet may prove to be especially powerful in the future. It already is a vehicle for conversations and sharing of ideas and resources among people interested in multicultural education and other social justice movements (e.g., Brown, Cummins, Figueroa, & Sayers, 1998; Gorski, 2001). Teachers can get support and ideas from colleagues all over the world, and students can communicate directly with peers from all around this country and the world and from many different life circumstances. In this capacity the Internet may potentially dissolve, or at least blur, boundaries and challenge students’ stereotypes about people different from them in some way—be it language, culture, nationality, race, social class, gender, sexual orientation, or abilities/disabilities. It can be a democratizing influence because students can communicate with each other without limitations posed by adults. Progressive groups have also used the Internet to quickly inform large numbers of individuals and groups about local and national issues and to galvanize support for progressive initiatives or resistance to discriminatory and oppressive policies and practices. Children and teachers have been able to learn about and participate in local and international struggles. The potential of the Internet, however, is not all positive. It is proving to be an effective organizing tool for hate groups and other conservative forces that often mount strong opposition against multicultural education and other progressive movements. It also provides endless entertainment and escapism and may distract students from looking at the world in more realistic and critical ways. For example, the commercialization of the Internet has enabled some students to both earn money (trading stocks, swapping resources and products) and spend it on an enormous array of products without ever leaving their homes. Aside from fostering children’s passion for consumption, these “faceless” transactions may also erode children’s sense of community and social responsibility. Finally, the cost of computers and their lack of availability in some schools and public libraries have meant that not all children and families have equal access to the Internet (sometimes


referred to as the “World White Web.”) This digital divide may exacerbate the gap and mutual isolation that already exists between affluent and poor families. Economic Polarization As described at length in chapter 2, another challenge facing children and families is the growing disparity between rich and poor, both globally and within the borders of the United States. Some children are growing up with virtually limitless resources to purchase whatever they want and may be “consumed by consuming,” spending a great deal of time and thought on acquiring new items. On the other side, children growing up in impoverished and dangerous circumstances may be so preoccupied with merely surviving that they cannot engage in school at any level, let alone tackle the complexities of diversity and social activism. It is hard to see any positive influences that this growing economic polarity might have on multicultural education. However, as these inequities have become more pronounced since the 1980s, many critics have raised their voices and concern has broadened. As discussed in chapter 3, children in some schools are studying the problems of hunger, homelessness, and unequal use of resources in the world (e.g., Berman & LaFarge, 1993; Kids can make a difference). As the impact of these inequities becomes more unbearable and inescapable, resistance movements will grow. Multicultural education potentially is a vehicle to teach students how to investigate and challenge the many manifestations of economic polarization. Accountability and “High Stakes” Testing The new wave of accountability and high-stakes testing (tests that determine graduation from high school, school funding, and teachers’ job security) will inevitably affect the goals and implementation of multicultural education. On the positive side, the tests and publicity surrounding failure rates are forcing teachers and administrators to pay attention to students who otherwise might “slip by” without mastering the curriculum. In this way, accountability potentially serves the goal of ensuring that all children leave school possessing the skills for social, academic, political, and economic success. However, at this point the accountability movement threatens to have a chilling effect on a number of multicultural initiatives. Several telling examples come from Texas, where the TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) has been in place since 1985 and has been the model that many states have followed. First, in order for skills to be “testable” for large numbers of students, they have to be narrowly defined, simplistic, specific, and linear (e.g., memorizing historical dates, instead of comparing different interpretations of a historical event) (Brady, 2000). This focus is diametrically opposed to the multicultural goal of learning how to critically analyze the complexities and ambiguities of the world. Second, the pressure on schools to perform well on these tests has given rise to mandates


to “teach to the test” and to use published test preparation courses that are replacing the curriculum in some schools. This “noncurriculum” (McNeil, 2000, p. 730) takes all decision making about the curriculum out of the hands of teachers and even principals and superintendents and puts it into the hands of companies that design tests and test prep packages, often with very little or no input from teachers. Thus, the opportunities to create curricula that are relevant to students’ lives, raise meaningful questions, and stimulate critical thinking are foreclosed. Third, the tests exaggerate the educational inequities that already exist (McNeil, 2000). Because schools in poor communities with large populations of students of color and recent immigrants tend to score lower on the tests, their principals and superintendents are most likely to mandate the use of test prep materials to the exclusion of all else. Urban principals report hearing from their supervisors, “Don’t talk to me about anything else until the TAAS scores go up” (McNeil, 2000, p. 730). Thus, these students spend all their time doing rote memorization and practice drills, while their middle- and upper-class counterparts still have at least some time to engage in more substantive learning. McNeil tells the story of one literature teacher who had spent several years creating a rich library of Latino/a authors for her classes of predominately Latino/a students. The students had become enthusiastically involved in reading these works and engaging in fairly sophisticated literary analyses. One day, the principal abruptly ordered the teacher to stop these scholarly endeavors and to devote all of her time to the packaged test prep materials for the next 3 months. Given the already fragile relationship between schools and many students of color and poverty, limiting their classroom experiences to dull, repetitive test preparation curriculum and high-stakes testing is likely to increase the drop-out rate of the very students these tests are supposed to help (Gratz, 2000). In a recent Texas court case, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund presented strong evidence that minorities were beginning to leave school rather than take the test (Pipho, 2000). Needless to say, this rise in the drop-out rate completely undermines the multicultural goal of ensuring that all students experience school success and leave with skills that enable them to become active and successful citizens. Despite many reservations that multiculturalists have about high-stakes testing, we cannot simply resist the accountability movement. “[Multiculturalists] must not permit their very justified suspicions about the current reform movement to allow themselves to be positioned as obstacles to and outsiders from efforts to improve the quality of education” (Olneck, 2000, p. 337). Teachers, researchers, and family members must get involved in the discussions about the tests, how they are constructed and used, and try to get the most problematic aspects eliminated. Ironically, the accountability movement may end up supporting the goal of engaging students in social activism. The blatant political posturing that has accompanied the introduction of high-stakes testing and the exploitation of test scores to sell everything from test prep packages to real estate has made many


people aware of how schools have become political footballs and has spawned considerable resistance. Many families, students, and teachers are resisting the imposition of these tests and are leading boycotts and protest marches (Gratz, 2000). Thus, high-stakes testing may provide a proving ground for the next generation of social activists. Accountability for Teacher Education Teacher education is being affected by a similar movement with the introduction or tightening of teacher certification tests in many states. Many of these tests have been criticized for measuring narrow skills that have dubious predictive power for successful teaching. Moreover, they have become a particular barrier to people who are not White, middle-class native English speakers and currently attending college. Prospective teachers from other racial, ethnic, linguistic, social class, and age groups are discouraged from entering the profession, which clearly works against the goals of diversifying the teaching force. This homogenization of the teaching force will be especially devastating in the next several decades, given that by 2035 over half of the children attending schools will be from groups described as “ethnic and racial minorities” (NCES, 1993). The certification tests, the increased number of required courses, and the move to limit teacher education to graduate programs (as discussed in chapter 4) are forcing teacher education faculty to rethink all aspects of their courses and fieldwork. These pressures may help foment some creative changes and result in better prepared and more effective teachers. However, without a heavy commitment to support prospective teachers who are in high school and college, adding requirements may simply reduce both the number and the diversity of people entering the field. In particular, if working conditions, salaries, and professional status do not improve commensurate with the increased requirements, then people will stop entering the profession. Already, teacher shortages exist in many states, resulting in underqualified staffs and larger classes. As usual, the burden falls most heavily on schools in poor communities that need skilled teachers the most. Many urban school districts are forced to hire noncertified teachers, wiping out any gains made by raising the certification standards for teachers. On the positive side, a serious teacher shortage may enable educators to demand substantially better pay and status, which ultimately would attract and retain a more skilled and diverse teaching force. Unfortunately, this positive outcome will only come about if teacher shortages are so severe that politicians finally have to pay attention. By that time, thousands of children, especially those in poor communities, will have suffered irreparable academic harm. SUMMARY Multicultural education, like all facets of education at the turn of the century, faces daunting challenges and pervasive uncertainties. For the last 3 decades,


multiculturalism has thrived on social change and controversy and will continue to do so as long as the movement remains responsive to criticisms and new issues that arise. Throughout its history, new challenges and insights have created tensions and discomfort, but, ultimately, they have given rise to more cogent and coherent theories and more effective practices. Today many educational endeavors are becoming frozen into standards and tests. Teachers and families are burdened and burned out by the challenges of teaching and raising children in a society that favors violence, materialism, and the profit of a few over the needs of many, as is manifested in every aspect of life, from school funding to children’s television commercials. Against this backdrop, it is ever more imperative that multiculturalists fight for excellent education and social justice with passion, openness, and sense of adventure. A VISION FOR THE FUTURE To end this volume, we would like to share one vision of how communities and schools can fully embrace the principles of multicultural education. We hope that it will help readers see possibilities and work toward their own visions of how teachers, communities, and children can learn together. As we approach the Toni Morrison School, we notice that it is a cluster of small buildings connected by enclosed porches. The classroom doors are open and community people are free to come and go. A few older teachers recall the days when schools were locked fortresses, designed to keep undesirable people out and the children in. But with the close collaboration that has evolved between the school and the community, the loyalty and protectiveness of community members ensure the safety of the classrooms. These changes were not easy. At first teachers were resistant to the idea that “nonprofessionals” would be heavily involved in the schools and in the decisionmaking. They found it hard to let go of the old models of parent education in which teachers “helped parents do a better job raising their kids” Moreover, some parents, disgusted by children’s poor education, blamed and distrusted the teachers. Only after many months of discussion in groups composed of parents, community leaders, and teachers, did everyone begin to listen to each other and work toward true partnerships. Now all parties recognize the larger social and economic pressures affecting their thoughts and actions and see the benefits of collaborating to resist them. Still issues often come up, and the school council, composed of the principal, two teachers, two parents, and two community representatives are responsible for mediating conflicts and misunderstandings that arise. Each day elders from the community come in to tell stories, tutor children, and sit with them at lunch. Family members also frequently come by and eat lunch with their children. The days of noisy, unruly cafeterias are gone, as children now eat with community people and parents in their classrooms. Community activists frequently visit the classrooms and talk with the children about their organizations and help teachers and children identify problems and devise ways to improve their school and community. Community and family volunteers, including high school students, make a point of coming in on Wednesday afternoons, which are the times when teachers meet in their planning groups or book clubs. For three Wednesday afternoons each month the teachers


meet in small planning groups composed of colleagues who work with children of similar ages. In these meetings they pool ideas and resources, help each other think of activities, and critically analyze prospective plans and outcomes of activities that they have already implemented. Often, faculty from the local university participate in these discussions. They and the teachers frequently collaborate to develop and assess new curricula. In some cases, teachers and teacher educators take turns running activities in the classrooms and observing the children’s responses. A number of university students also participate by observing, interviewing children, or both, to provide more in-depth information about how children interpret and experience specific activities. The teachers, in turn, often serve as consultants or instructors for university courses. A number of collaborative research projects have been completed and published, with teachers and teacher educators as coauthors. Some former teachers at the school have gone on to earn doctorates and are now members of teacher education faculties. Each teacher also is a member of a book club, made up of faculty from different grades and other school staff, including custodial and administrative staff. On the fourth Wednesday of each month these groups meet to discuss a book that deals with some aspect of education or social justice that the members have all agreed to read. As we wander in and out of classrooms, we notice that both teachers and children represent a wide range of racial and cultural backgrounds. The classroom reflects this diversity in many ways. Music and languages from all over the world can be heard. The classrooms are decorated with artifacts and photographs of people from different communities and regions of the world. They all contain books in several different languages and art materials, dramatic play props, and signs that represent a wide range of human cultures and experiences. These materials are not simply museum pieces. The teachers introduce them to the children by explaining how they are used and how they are similar to materials familiar to the children. Often, community people introduce these materials and tell the children stories about why a particular object is important in their culture. The children use them in their art projects, dramatic play, and cooking and often comment about the objects’ particular properties and similarities and differences. Likewise, songs and artworks are introduced in meaningful ways. On occasion, White families have objected to this approach, arguing that they do not have a particular “culture,” and that their children feel badly not having anything to contribute to the cultural life of the classroom. The teachers have worked with these families to help them identify special family traditions (that may or may not reflect the origins of their ancestors), which they can share with the members of the class. Members of the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades come frequently to the younger grades to be reading, writing, and math buddies. In one preschool classroom a preadolescent boy, resplendent in the latest “cool” clothes, is hunched over a small table, carefully recording a 3year-old’s story about her cat. The halls are filled with ever-changing displays of projects children have done on local and global issues. A third-grade class has a poster of photographs and interview excerpts from a group of workers recently laid off from a local factory that closed because labor costs were cheaper in another country. A reporter from a local television station came to interview the children in the class as part of a program on the effects of the factory closure. A preschool classroom has a display of photographs of its clean-up day, including several close-up shots of the litter itself, with captions explaining how these items can harm local wildlife. The


class also has posted a copy of the letter the students sent to several companies, criticizing their nonbiodegradable and excessive packaging. A sixth-grade class is exhibiting its members’ graphs, which illustrate the increasing inequities in the distribution of world resources over the last 10 years. A fifth-grade class has a colorful poster of stereotyped images from popular television programs, with commentaries from class members about each image. These students, too, have displayed letters that they have written to the networks about their offensive messages and images. The family council has posted a list of companies that it is urging families to boycott because of poor labor or environmental practices, or both. The council also has a list of more socially conscious businesses (many that are local) that it is encouraging families to support. Family members frequently add names to the two lists. Not surprisingly, many people in the community have been unhappy about the social and economic critiques imbedded in these curriculum projects. Particularly at the beginning, several editorials in the local newspaper warned that children were “being indoctrinated by radicals, intent on overthrowing the government and our way of life.” However, these attacks only spurred children, teachers, and families to work together to respond effectively to their critics. They met with their critics, invited them to the school, and wrote letters to the newspaper. They learned to raise issues in ways that demonstrated how everyone in the community was affected. They also frequently, eloquently and imaginatively made the point that their goals of equity, justice, and participatory democracy were aligned with the founding principles of the United States. The classrooms are alive with conversations, as children work in cooperative groups and collaborate on projects. They argue and debate, and sometimes the words get heated. The teachers watch closely, but usually let the children negotiate and resolve their conflicts. Occasionally, teachers remind children to check the rules that they and their classmates have developed to facilitate group communication and conflict management. In some groups children speak more than one language, and several native English speakers haltingly but earnestly explain their ideas in Spanish, French, or Khmer. The physical environment and the activities are structured so that children with disabilities can easily and fully participate. In one class, all the children use sign as well as oral language, as they communicate with their two classmates who have hearing impairments. Several of the classrooms are empty, because the students and teachers have gone to community sites, where they routinely take lessons from local craftspeople, do community service, or study local issues and participate in actions to ameliorate them. Often the children take video cameras and create documentaries about community members and institutions, to record how people confront and resist injustice in its many forms. These videos are edited and refined and then put on the school website to be shared with children all over the world. Children also learn to critique commercials and mainstream news reports for deceptive claims and biased reporting and interpretations. When the school day ends, many children stay to participate in a wide variety of sports, arts, and community service programs. University students, assisted by local high school students, serve as organizers and mentors for these projects. Often family members and community people participate as well. The school is alive with music, conversations, and running feet into the late afternoon and early evening. Since these afternoon programs started, the amount of time that children spend watching television and playing video games has decreased significantly.


Family members also come to the school after hours for discussion groups and meetings with teachers and administrators. They are routinely consulted about changes in school policies and curriculum and serve on personnel and curriculum committees. There are several family book groups, much like the book groups of the school staff. Family members often attend in-service workshops if they are interested in particular topics. They sometimes present workshops themselves about local community issues or about the history, culture, and current circumstances of their particular group. As with the classrooms, the conversations are spirited and conflicts often arise. Yet through many years of working together, teachers, family members, and community people know how to listen to each other and think flexibly and creatively as they dedicate themselves to working together toward creating a wonderful school and a just world for their children. We conclude with the essence of this source book’s endeavor…its end, its beginning, the transformational circle. I can not leave my selves Outside these hollow walls, giant pillars And ever climbing ivy There is no door check for my raced Sexualized, classed, sexed, ableized, Spiritualized, nationalized, linguicized identities Before I get there, after I arrive, and even After I leave, You seek to shut me out Make me other than what I am Desire some other me That I Will not Can not Choose not To be Rather I speak, act, engage Seeking to ensure my survival And if you are committed to me as I am to you Change for the both of us Is inevitable Nadjwa E.L.Norton (2002) REFERENCES Affirmative Action Committee Initiative (1997). Unpublished document of the Affirmative Action Committee of Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY. Andrzejewski, J. (1995). Teaching controversial issues in higher education: Pedagogical techniques and analytical framework. In R.J.Martin (Ed.), Practicing what we teach:


Confronting diversity in teacher education (pp. 3–26). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Ballenger, C. (1999). Teaching other people’s children: Literacy and learning in a bilingual classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Berman, S., & LaFarge, P. (1993). Promising practices in teaching social responsibility. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Brady, M. (2000). The standards juggernaut. Phi Delta Kappan, 81(9), 648–651. Brown, K. (2001). Media literacy and critical television viewing in education. In D.G. Singer & J.L.Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 681–697). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Brown, K., Cummins, J., Figueroa, E., & Sayers, D. (1998). Global learning networks: Gaining perspective on our lives with distance. In E. Lee, D. Menkart, & M. OkazawaRey (Eds.), Beyond heroes and holidays (pp. 334–354). Washington, DC: Network of Educators on the Americas (NECA). Cochran-Smith, M. (2000). The outcomes question in teacher education. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Comstock, G., & Scharrer, E. (2001). The use of television and other film-related media. In D.G.Singer & J.L.Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 47–72). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cortes, C.E. (2000). The children are watching: How the media teach about diversity. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. De Gaetano, Y., Williams, L.R., & Volk, D. (1998). Kaleidoscope: A multicultural approach for the primary school classroom. Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice Hall. Farber, K.S. (1995). Teaching about diversity through reflectivity: Sites of uncertainty, risk, and possibility. In R.J.Martin (Ed.), Practicing what we teach: Confronting diversity in teacher education (pp. 49–64). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Fennimore, B.S. (2000). Talk matters: Refocusing the language of public schooling. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Gallas, K. (1998). Sometimes I can be anything: Power, identity, and gender in a primary classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Gorski, P.C. (2001). Multicultural education and the Internet’. Intersections and integrations. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Goodwin, A.L. (1997). Historical and contemporary perspectives on multicultural teacher education: Past lessons, new directions. In J.E.King, E.R.Hollins, & W.C.Hayman (Eds.) Preparing teachers for cultural diversity (pp. 5–22). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Gratz, D.B. (2000). High standards for whom? Phi Delta Kappan, 81(9), 681–687. Howard, G. (1999). We cannot teach what we do not know: White teachers, multiracial schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Kline, S. (1993). Out of the garden: Toys, TV, and children’s culture in the age of marketing. New York City, NY: Verso. Levin, D. (1998). Remote control childhood: Combatting the hazards of media culture. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Martin, R.J. (Ed.) (1995). Practicing what we teach: Confronting diversity in teacher education. Albany: State University of New York Press. McNeil, L.M. (2000). Creating new inequalities: Contradictions of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 81(10), 729–734.


McIntosh, P. (1995). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. In M.L.Anderson & P.H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class, and gender. An anthology (pp. 76–87). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Montecinos, C. (1995). Multicultural teacher education for a culturally diverse teaching force. In R.J.Martin (Ed.), Practicing what we teach: Confronting diversity in teacher education (pp. 97–116). Albany: State University of New York Press. Muffoletto, R. (1995). Thinking about diversity: Paradigms, meanings, and representation. In R.J.Martin (Ed.), Practicing what we teach: Confronting diversity in teacher education (pp. 27–48). Albany: State University of New York Press. NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education). (2000). NCATE 2000 standards revision. Electronic address: http://www.ncate.org/specfoc/ 2000stds.pdf. NCES (National Center for Educational Statistics). (1993). America’s teachers: Profiles of a profession. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Norton, N.E.L. (2002). Unpublished poem offered as part of a panelist response in an interactive symposium entitled Navigating the Tides and Currents of Multicultural Education: A Conceptual Map for Analyzing the Divergent Perspectives and Trends of the Field presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Olneck, M. (2000). Can multicultural education change what counts as cultural capital? American Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 317–348. Pang, V.O. (2001). Multicultural education: A caring-centered reflective approach. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Pipho, C. (2000). The sting of high-stakes testing and accountability. Phi Delta Kappan, 81 (9), 645–646. Ravitch, D. (1990a). Diversity and democracy: Multicultural education in America. American Educator, 14(1), 16–20, 46–68. Ravitch, D. (1990b). Multiculturalism: E pluribus plures. American Scholar, 59(3), 337–354. Schlesinger, A.M., Jr. (1992). The disuniting of America. New York, NY: Norton. Schon, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York, NY: Longman. Schon, D.A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Serow, R.C. (1983). Schooling for social diversity: An analysis of policy and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Shakespeare, W. (1969). The tempest. Act 2, Scene 1, line 249. London, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sleeter, C.E. (1995). Teaching Whites about racism. In R.J.Martin (Ed.), Practicing what we teach: Confronting diversity in teacher education (pp. 117–130). Albany: State University of New York Press. Sleeter, C.E., & Grant, C.A. (1999). Making choices for multicultural education: Five approaches to race, class, and gender (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: MerrillPrentice Hall. Tatum, B.D. (1992). Talking about race, learning about racism: The application of racial identity theories in the classroom. Harvard Educational Review, 62, 1–24. Williams, L.R. (1996). Does practice lead theory? Teachers’ constructs about teaching: Bottom-up perspectives. In J.A.Chafel & S.Reifel (Eds.), Advances in early education and day care, v.8 (pp. 153–184). Greenwich, CT: Jai.

286

Index

A.B.C.Task Force, 181 Abilities, 77–80, 103–105, 155, 157–158 Abound F.E., 85, 91, 93, 100, 120, 127, 165, 199 Accountability, 277–279 Acculturationist educational trends, 33 Activism, 25 Activity-based programs, 269 Additive approach, 147, 150, 221 Affirming Diversity (Nieto), 25 African Americans, 68 Black nihilism, 64 Cross’s theory of Nigrescence, 91–92 racial educational equality and, 8–10 Afrocentric curriculum, 6 Afrocentric Movement, 24, 28 Alba, R.D., 44 Allen, J., 175 Allen, W.R., 61, 142 Alpuria, L., 91 Altbach, P.C., 244 Alvardo, C., 245 American Association of college for Teacher Education (AACTE), 17–18, 218 American Educational Research Association (AERA), 25 Anderson, M.G., 217–218 Anti-Bias Curriculam (Derman-Sparks), 19, 103, 168–169 Anti-bias education, 156, 158 Anyon, J., 157 Anzaldua, G., 75, 94, 120 Aptheker, H., 44 Arora, R.K., 176 Asante, M.K., 24, 45

Asher, S.R., 86 Asian Americans, as model minority, 65 Assimilationist ideology, 4, 6–8, 30, 33, 266 Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), 218 At risk/at promise children, 158 Australia, 34 Awareness stage, 150 Bahruth, R., 164, 184 Baker, C., 20 Baker, G.C., 15, 176, 245 Baker, R., 179 Banks, C.A., 26, 47, 177 Banks, J.A., 10–11, 15, 18, 26–27, 29, 45– 47, 147, 149–154, 165, 170, 176–177, 200, 216–217, 219, 221, 245 Baptiste, H.P., 15, 18, 48, 212, 216, 245– 246 Baptiste, M.L., 18, 212, 216, 245–246 Baskauskas, L., 219, 246 Bates, J.E., 73 Bear, G., 79 Beaty, J.J., 177 Beecher, C., 176 Beginnings: The Social and Affective Development of Black Children (Spencer, Brookins, & Allen), 61 The Bell Curve (Hernstein & Murray), 2 Bennett, C.I., 15, 177, 216, 232–233, 246– 248 Berman, S., 178 Bernal, M.E., 91, 120 Best, D., 85

287

288 INDEX

Bethune, M., 13 Bettmann, E.H., 195 Bigler, R.S., 84, 100–101, 120–121 Bilingual education, 6, 20–21, 34, 68, 155 dismissive period (1980s-present), 20– 21 opportunistic period (1950s–1980s), 20 permissive period (1700s–1800s), 20 restrictive period (1880s–1950s), 20 Bilingual Education Act (1968), 20 Black nihilism, 64 Boswell, D., 85 Bowles, S., 73, 121 Bowman, B.T., 62, 123 Boyer, J., 15, 18 Boyer, J.B., 48 Bradford College case study (UK), 227 Brand, E.S., 84 Brandt, G.L., 178 Breitborde, M., 196 Brisk, M., 48 Brody, M., 176 Brofenbrenner, U., 62 Brookins, G.K., 61, 142 Brown v. Board of Education, 10, 81 Buddy system, 229 Bullivant, B., 48 Bunche, T., 232 Bymes, D.A., 178 Canada, 33–34 Cannella, G.S., 252 Capitalism, 31 Carlton, G.D., 176 Carrasquillo, A.L., 123 Case studies of multicultural teacher education, 231–233 Casey, K., 248 Casper, V., 178 Castaneda, A., 15, 20, 56 Castenell, L.A., 219, 253 Ceballo, R., 71, 136 Cech, M., 179 Chan, K.S., 65, 123 Change (magazine), 220, 248 Chasnoff, D., 103 Child Development, 70, 124

Child Development Special Issue on Minority Children, 61 Child Development Special Issue on Poverty and Children, 73 Children of Color (Gibbs, Huang, & Associates), 61 Children of the Rainbow, 103 Child development abilities and disabilities, 77–80 Brofenbrenner’s theory of, 62–63 gender divide and, 74–75 norms of, 61, 63 poverty effects, 69–74 race, ethnicity, and cultural influences, 63–69 responses to differences, 80–105, 268 abilities and disabilities, 103–105 cultural differences, 88–89 econonics and social class, 95–99 ethnic perspective taking (Quintana’s model), 89–90 gender differences, 99–102 race and ethnic identity, 81–88, 90– 95 sexual orientation, 102–103 sexual orientation, 75–77 societal divisions and, 62–80 socioeconomic context, 69–74 theories of, 59–62, 267 voluntary/involuntary immigrants, 63– 65 Children’s literature, 159 Children’s Occupation, Activity, and Trait (COAT), 99 Chinn, P.C., 15, 51, 183 Chipman, M., 164, 187 Christian religious right, 29 Chud, G., 179 “Circle Never Ends” curriculum, 164 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 10, 20 Civil Rights Movement, 12, 21, 24–25, 211 Clark, C., 248 Classism, 207 Classroom environment, 152–153 Classroom practices, 233 Clegg, L.B., 179 Clinton, J., 205

INDEX 289

Cochran-Smith, M., 207, 232 Cocking, R.R., 130 Cohen, H., 103 “Color-blind” approach, 6 Comer, J.P., 124 Community action projects (CAPs), 13 Connolly, P., 124 Consumerism, 23, 71, 98–99, 275–276 Content integration, 153 Contributions approach, 147, 149 Cook, D.A., 72 Cook, R.E., 180 Cortes, C., 15 Crawford, J., 49 Critical pedagogy, 24–26 Crnic, K., 63, 129 Cross-cultural contact, 149, 234 Cross, W.E., 91–92, 94, 125, 149, 232 Cruz-Janzen, M., 164, 187 Cultural capital, 28 Cultural conflict stage, 149–150 Cultural democracy, goals of, 17 Cultural heritage, 12 Cultural pluralism, 7–8, 15–16, 32, 35, 155 goals of, 17 Culturally different movements (1960s– 1970s), 12–13 Culture, 30–31, 33 children’s development and, 63–68 children’s responses to differences, 88– 89 defined, 1–3, 155–156 explicit/implicit culture, 66 Cummins, J., 200 Cureton, J., 220 Curriculum; see Multicultural curriculum Curriculum reform, 147–148, 152, 271; see also Multicultural curriculum reform Curriculum research, 146, 161–169; see also Program and curriculum research Cushner, K., 180, 249 Davidman, L., 180 Davidman, P.T., 180 Davidson, A.L., 137

Davidson, E., 194 De Beauvoir, S., 12 De Chiara, E., 201 De Gaetano, Y., 15, 181, 198, 249, 260 De Lone, R.H., 126 De Martinez, B.B., 56 Deculturalization, 12 Delgado-Gaitan, C., 68, 125, 167, 200 Derman-Sparks, L., 15, 19, 95, 181, 245, 249 Desegregation, 6, 13–15, 21, 82 Development; see Child development Diamond, K.E., 126, 167 Dickinson, J., 99 Disabilities, 77–80, 103–105, 154–155, 157–158 Disciplinary-based approach, 220–221 Discrimination, 6, 12, 63–65, 266 Disequilibrium, 150 Dittmar, H., 95, 99 Diversity, 219 diversity requirements, 221–222 educational responses to, 5–6 NCATE standards for, 214–215 Dodge, K.A., 73 Doyle, A.B., 85, 93, 100, 127 Duarte, E.M., 49 DuBois, W.E. B., 8, 13 Dubrow, N., 72, 128 Duckitt, J., 82 Economic polarization, 276–277 Edelman, M.W., 127 Educational equality, 16 Educational history Americanization efforts, 7, 8 assimilation patterns/ideology, 7–8 bilingual education, 20–21 cultural pluralism, 8 culturally different movements (1960s– 1970s), 12–13 dominant ideology of, 5 ethnic/single-group studies, 12–13 intergroup education movement (1930s–960s), 8–11

290 INDEX

multicultural education (1990spresent), 21–27 multicultural education movement (1970s–1980s), 15–20 racial educational equality, 8–11 responses to diversity, 5–6 social reform and, 6 white ethnics (18th–20th c.), 6–8 Educational interventions, 150 Educational Testing Service (ETS), 234 Edwards, C.P., 127 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Title v, 20 Emler, N., 99 Empowerment, 153 Empowerment Through Multicultural Education (Sleeter), 24 English-only instruction, 20 Environmental degradation, 23 Environmental Protection Agency, 23 Equity pedagogy, 153 Erikson, E., 59, 90–91 Ethnic cheerleading, 28 Ethnic Heritage Studies Act (1965), 12, 20, 212 Ethnic identity formation, 91 Ethnic perspective-taking ability (Quintana’s model), 89–90 Ethnic and racial minorities, 21 Ethnic/single-group studies, 12–13, 18, 20, 28, 34, 154 Ethnicity children’s development and, 63–69 children’s responses to, 89–95 defined, 1–2 European American ethnocentrism, 13, 163 Exosystems, 63 Experimental learning, 217 Explicit culture, 66 Fahlman, R., 179 Family Ethnicity (McAdoo), 61 Feminist movement, 22 Fennimore, B.S., 49 Fenwick, V., 199 Figueroa, P., 33

Fine, M., 72 Fisher, C.B., 138 Fitzgerald, A.K., 249 Flemming, B.M., 184 Foerster, L., 49 Foley, G.M., 194 Ford, D.Y., 181 Fordham, S., 93, 128 Foster, C.D., 257 Foster, L., 50 Frankel, L., 259 Fraser, J.W., 190 Freire, P., 24 Freud, S., 59 Friedan, B., 12 Fundamentalist religions, 29 Furby, L., 97 Furnham, A., 96, 98, 128 Furth, H.G., 128 Gallas, K., 128 Gallimore, R., 164, 204 Garbarino, J., 72, 128 García Coll, C., 63, 70, 73, 84, 129 García, R.L., 15,84, 182 Gay, G., 15, 18, 29, 50, 182, 216, 250 Gender and gender roles, 22, 74–75, 83– 84, 156 Bigler’s measures of sex typing, 100 children’s responses to, 99–102 gender cleavage, 101 Germany, 34–36 Gibbs, J.T., 61, 129 Gibson, M.A., 129 Gimmestad, B.J., 201 Gintis, H., 73, 121 Giroux, H.A., 50–51 Glazer, N., 51 Global education, 155, 158–159 Gollnick, D.M., 15, 51, 183, 216, 226, 234, 245, 250, 253–255 Gonzalez, Z., 67 Goodman, J., 82, 168, 183 Goodwin, A.L., 218 Gordon, M., 51 Gorski, P.C., 160, 184 Gramezy, N., 73

INDEX 291

Grant, C.A., 13–15, 17–18, 20, 22, 24, 29, 52, 154, 162–164, 183, 201, 204, 215– 216, 227–229, 231, 234–235, 251 Grant, G., 229 Graves, D., 85 Greenfield, P.M., 66, 130 Grenot-Scheyer, M., 105, 136 Grieshaber, S., 252 Guidelines for Multicultural Teacher Education (Klassen, Gollnick, & Osayande), 216 Haberman, M., 230 Hall, S., 59 Halverson, C.B., 234 Hamilton, D.S., 184 Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education (Banks & Banks), 26 Harrington, C.C., 198, 260 Harris, J.J., 181 Harry, B., 136 Harvey, M.R., 73 Harwood, R.L., 67 Hatcher, R., 87, 144 Hawley, W.D., 52, 201 Hayes, C.W., 164, 184 Hayman, W.C., 252–253 Head Start, 6, 13, 73 Heath Anthology of American Literature (Lauter, et al.), 220 Heath, S.B., 130 Helms, J., 26, 93–94, 130, 149, 232 Hernandez, H., 15, 184 Hestenes, L.L., 126 Hicks, J.D., 184 High stakes testing, 277–278 Hirschfield, L.A., 84, 91, 130 Ho, R.P., 176 Hollins, E.R., 252–253 Holmes, R.M., 132 Holmes Report, 208, 212,219 Homelessness, 72 Homophobia, 75–76, 158, 207, 266, 275 Hooks, b., 24, 252 Housing discrimination, 70 Howes, C., 87 Huang, L.N., 61, 129

Human relations approach, 165–167, 215, 230, 270 Human relations (intergroup studies), 20, 154 Hune, S., 65, 123 Hupp, S.C., 144 Hurston, Z.N., 13 Huston, A.C., 70, 132 Identity formation, 90–91; see also Racial identity Igoa, C., 68, 132 Immigrants, 4, 68 involuntary minorities, 4–5 voluntary immigrants, 4 Immigration Act (1965), 12, 20 Immigration laws, 7, 8 Implementation studies, 226–228 Implicit culture, 66 Inclusion, 77 Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (1990), 22, 78 Inner World of the Immigrant Child (Igoa), 68 Innes, F.K., 126 Inservice teacher education, 208–210 Instructional materials, 152 Integration, 77, 82 Intercultural education, 34 Intergroup attitudes, 85 Intergroup Education Movement, 8–11, 82, 211 Intergroup relations, 160, 212 International multicultural movements, 155, 158–159 Internet, 269, 276 Intraracial attitudes, 85 Involuntary minorities, 4–5, 63–64 Irvine, J.J., 218, 253 It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School (Chasnoff & Cohen), 103 Jackson, A.W., 52, 201 Japan, 33 Jenkins, R., 63, 129 Johnson, D.W., 186 Johnson, R.T., 186 Jones, L.C., 121

292 INDEX

Jones, S.P., 20 Juvonen, J., 79 Kallen, H., 8–8 Kamehameha Early Education Project (KEEP), 69, 164–164 Kaplan, M.G., 86 Katz, J.H., 52 Katz, P.A., 133 Katz, S.R., 163 Keepers of the American Dream: A Study of Staff Development and Multicultural Education (Sleeter), 231 Kendall, F.E., 15, 149, 186 Kessler, C., 164, 184 Kich, G.K., 94 Kiger, G., 178 King, E.W., 164, 186–187 King, J.E., 224, 252–253 King, S.H., 219, 253 Kitano, M.K., 187 Kizer, J.B., 100 Klassen, F.H., 216, 226, 234, 253–255 Klein, G., 187 Klein, M.D., 180 Klineberg, O., 88 Knight, G.P., 91, 120 Knowledge construction, 153 Kohut, S., 216 Koskela, R.A., 227 Kostelny, K., 72, 128 Kozol, J., 72 Lacefield, W., 256 Ladson-Billings, G., 65, 210, 224, 255 LaFarge, P., 178 Lambert, W.E., 88 Lamberty, C., 63, 129 Language and linguistic variations, 155– 156 Larke, P.J., 229 Lau v. Nicholas, 20, 212 Lauter, P., 249 Lawrence, S.M., 232 Leahy, R.L., 97–98, 133 Levine, A., 220 Levine, L., 203

Levy, J., 226, 251 Lewis, B.A., 187 Lewis, E.A., 259 Liben, L.S., 84, 121 Liberal arts education, 219–220, 224 Limited English proficient (LEP), 20 Lipka, J., 233 Little Soldier, N., 15 Lobliner, D.B., 121 Lomotey, K., 244 Lubeck, S., 63, 73, 134, 143 Luke, A., 255 Lynch, J., 188, 255–256 McAdoo, H.P., 61, 63, 129, 134 McClelland, A., 180 McCluskey, A.T., 13 Maccoby, E.E., 101 McCracken, J.B., 188 Macias, J., 134 McIntosh, P., 26, 135 McIntyre, T., 135 McLaren, P., 53–54, 58 McLoyd, V.C., 70–71, 73–73, 135–136 McNeil, L.M., 278 Macrosystems, 63 Mahan, J.M., 256 Mainstreaming, 77 Mapley, C.E., 100 Markstrom-Adams, C., 142 Marsh, M.M., 203 Martin, R.J., 256 Martuza, V., 217–218 Matson, L., 85 Matute-Bianchi, M.E., 64 May, S., 53, 168, 203 Media influences, 274–276 MEES (mundane extreme environmental stress), 64 Melnick, S.L., 217 Melting pot myth, 7–8 Mesosystems, 62 Meyer, L.H., 136 Microsystems, 62 Miller, E., 179 Miller-Lachman, L., 188

INDEX 293

Minister of Supplies and Services (Canada), 257 Minority students, 28–29 Asians as “model minority,” 65 caste-like minorities, 64, 69, 93 Mirza, H.S., 136 Mitchell, E., 218 Monoculturalism, 149 More Than Meets the Eye, 165 Morland, J.K., 82, 145 Moultry, M., 234 Multicultural curriculum ability/disability and, 157–158 culture and, 155–156 evolution of, 146 global education and international movements, 158–159 the Internet and, 269 issues and dilemmas of, 155–159 in liberal arts education, 219–220, 224 linguistic and other variations, 156 professional development and, 148–153 religion and, 157 sexual orientation, 158 social class and socioeconomic status, 157 trends in, 268–269 Multicultural curriculum reform, 147–148 additive approach, 147 contributions approach, 147 social action approach, 147–148 transformational approach, 147 Multicultural education, 18, 20, 34 in 1970s–1980s, 15–20 in 1990s and 2000s, 21–27 accountability and high stakes testing, 277–279 children/families, evolving views of, 267–268 controversies and criticisms, 27–32 critical pedagogy and, 24–26 current research in, 27, 31–32 curriculum/teaching trends in, 268– 269 defining groups and terms, 1–3 economic polarization and, 276–277 ethnic cheerleading, 28 evolution of, xii–1, 3–5

expanding scope of, 22–23 frontlash/backlash criticism, 27–32 fundamentalist religions/religious right, 29 goals and philosophical orientations of, 153–155 content integration, 153 empowering school culture and structure, 153 equity pedagogy, 153 knowledge construction, 153 prejudice reduction, 153 historical perspective of, 3–4 the media and, 274–276 NCATE standards for, 213–215 “No One Model American” statement (AACTE), 17–18 obstacles, controversies, and possibilities of, 265–267, 274–279 in other countries, 32–36 trends and future possibilities of, 263 vision for the future, 280–283 Multicultural Education, Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Difference (Sleeter & McLaren), 25 Multicultural education research education for exceptional/culturally different, 164– 164 human relations approach, 165–167 obstacles/complexities of, 163–164 “research on” vs. “multicultural education research,” 163 research studies, 164–169 social reconstructionism, 167–169 Multicultural Education as Social Activism (Sleeter), 25 Multicultural Knowledge Test, 233 Multicultural liberal arts education, 224 Multicultural pedagogy, 222–224 Multicultural Perspectives, 189 Multicultural Research: A Reflective Engagement with Race, Class, Gender and Sexual Orientation (Grant), 22 Multicultural resources, criteria for selecting, 159–162; see also Teaching resources Multicultural teacher education, 205–234 accountability for, 279

294 INDEX

attributes approach, 207 barriers to change, 224 Bennet’s model, 216–217 case studies of, 231–233 challenges in design/implementation of, 270–272 disciplinary-based approach, 220–221 diversity requirements, 221–222 effectiveness of, 207 evolution of goals/guidelines, 216–217 history of, 211–213 implementation of, 210–211 individual courses, 221–222 knowledge base and, 207 multicultural pedagogy, 222–224 NCATE standards, 213–215 outcomes of, 207 preservice and inservice programs, 208– 210 published goals and guidelines for, 215– 219 research on, 224–234 assessment instruments/procedures, 233–234 Bradford College case study, 226 case studies, 231–233 effects of reforms, 25–231 future research in, 272–274 implementation studies, 226–228 individuals’ expertise and, 233 sequence of courses, 222 transformative processes, 217–219 types of education, 210–211 “Western Civilization” requirement and, 222 Multicultural Teaching Scale, 234 Multiethnic/multiracial education, 18 Murphy, J., 196 Nabors, L., 136 Naimark, H., 98 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 10 National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), 19, 263 National Association of Scholars (NAS), 224

National Coalition for Cultural Pluralism, 15 National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards, 17, 212–215, 226–228, 263, 271 National Education Association, 7 National Origins Desegregation Act, 212 Nationality Act (1906), 20 Native Americans, 164, 169, 227 Native language education, 6 Neugebauer, B., 189 Nieto, S., 15, 25, 27, 29, 31, 53–54, 189 Nixon, J., 257 “No One Model American” statement, 17– 18 Noar, G., 234 Norton, N.E. L., xii, 283 Ocampo, K.A., 91 O’Connor, C.E., 126 Odom, S.L., 190 O’Donnell, J., 248 Ogbu, J.U., 4–5, 63–65, 93, 129, 137 Olneck, M., 28, 30 Olstad, R.G., 257 Omi, M., 54 Ooka Pang, V., 15 Osayande, K.I. M., 216, 234, 251, 255 Ostertag, V., 192 Ovando, C.J., 20, 54 Oyassande, K.I. M., 226 Padilla, A.M., 84 Paley, V.G., 257 Pang, V.O., 190, 217–218 Paraprofessional aides, 78–79 Pardo, C., 72, 128 Park, H-S., 136 Patriarchal system, 24, 31 Pattnaik, J., 228, 257 PattyKids can make a difference (newsletter), 191 Peck, C.A., 105 Peretti, D., 218 Perry, I., 54 Perry, T., 190 Personal growth and development, 154

INDEX 295

Pettit, G.S., 73 Phelan, P., 137 Phillips, C.B., 95, 249 Phinney, J.S., 69, 91, 93, 137 Piaget, J., 59, 88, 90–91 Pledge of Allegiance, 7 Pluralism, 15, 155, 266 Polakow, V., 72–73, 137–138 Porter, J.D., 82, 86 Post, L., 230 Poverty, 69–74; see also Socioeconomic status (SES) Praxis III (ETS), 234 Prejudice reduction, 153 Preschool programs, 73 Preschool Racial Attitudes Measure (PRAM II), 85 Preservice teacher education, 208–210 Print resources, 159 Problem-posing dialogues, 217 Procidano, M.E., 138 Professional development, 148–153; see also Multicultural teacher education awareness stage, 150 cross-cultural contact, 149 cultural conflict stage, 149–150 disequilibrium stage, 150 educational interventions, 150 monoculturalism stage, 149 multiculturalism stage, 150 Program accreditation standards, 211 Program and curriculum research, 161–169 education for exceptional/culturally different, 164–165 human relations approach, 165–167 obstacles and complexities of, 163–164 research studies, 164–169 social reconstructionism and, 167–169 Project TEAM, University of Indiana, 232 Proposition 227 (CA), 21 Proweller, A., 163 Quintana, S.M., 89–90, 138 Race, 30–31 children’s development and, 63–70 children’s responses to, 81–82

affective dimensions, 84–86 behavioral dimensions, 86–88 cognitive dimensions, 83–84 defined, 1–2, 156 Preschool Racial Attitudes Measures (PRAM II), 85 Race Awareness in Young Children (Goodman), 82 Racial cleavage, 87 Racial Desegregation Act, 212 Racial educational equality (1930s–1960s), 8–11 Racial identity, 26 biracial children, 94 children’s responses to, 90–95 Cross’s theory of Nigrescence, 91–92 formation of, 90–92 Helms’ white identity development, 93 Racially Mixed People in America (Root), 94 Racism, 28, 30–31, 63, 65, 207, 266, 275 Radlinski, S.H., 194 Ramirez, M., 15, 20, 56, 140 Ramsey, P.G., 15, 84, 98, 191, 245, 258 Ravitch, D., 31 Religion, 155, 157 Research and Multicultural Education: From the Margins to the Main-stream (Grant), 164 Research studies, 164–164 Researcher bias, 164 Rethinking Schools: An Urban Educational Journal, 191 Rist, R.C., 73 Robinson, G.L. N., 258 Robles de Melendez, W., 192 Rodriguez, C., 205 Rodriguez, F., 258 Rogovin, P., 192 Root, M.P., 94, 140 Rosenfield, D., 82, 140 Rotheram, M.J., 137 Rothstein, R., 56 Ruiz, R.A., 84 Running-Grass, 15 Ryan, R.H., 73 Ryan, S., 217, 262 Sadker, D., 140

296 INDEX

Sadker, M., 140 Safford, P., 180 Sapon-Shavin, M., 192 Sarason, S.B., 159 Saville-Troike, M., 258 Scheurich, J.J., 217 Schniedewind, N., 194 Schoelmerich, A., 67 Schoem, D., 259 Schofield, J.W., 141 School culture, 153 School reform movement, xii, 212–213 Schultz, S.B., 178 Schulze, P.A., 67 Schwartz, I.S., 105, 136 Secada, W., 228, 251 Seeley, V., 194 Segregation, 12, 63, 95 Separation, 6 Separatist movements, 28, 266 Serow, R.C., 56, 266 Sexism, 28, 207, 275 Sexual orientation, 22–23, 75–77, 155 children’s understanding of, 102–103 multicultural curriculum and, 158 Shaver, P., 98 Sheldon, A., 101 Sheridan, M.K., 167, 194 Shoji, M., 33 Silva, P., 135 Sims, W.E., 56, 259 Single-group studies, 13–13, 20, 154, 160 Singleton, L.C., 86 Skinner, B.F., 59 Slavin, R.E., 141–142, 165, 203 Sleeter, C.E., 13–15, 18, 20, 24–25, 27, 29, 31, 57–58, 141, 154, 162–164, 183, 204, 215–216, 219, 224, 227, 231–232, 235, 259–260 Slonim, M.B., 141 Smedley, A., 1, 58 Smith, E.M., 13 Smith, G.P., 218 Smith, S., 49 Social action/activism, 19, 25, 147–148, 151 Social class, 31, 155 children’s responses to, 95–99

multicultural curriculum and, 157 Social class differences, 30, 73, 76, 95 Social Distance Scale, 233 Social isolation, 79 Social justice, 152, 228 Social reconstructionist approach, 18–20, 36, 154, 157–158, 161, 167–169, 215, 217, 228, 230, 235 Socialization, 12 Societal growth and development, 154 Socioeconomic status (SES), 98–99, 155 children’s responses to, 95–99 economic polarization, 276–277 multicultural curriculum and, 157 poverty, 69–74 Soto, L.D., 142 Special education programs, 77 Spencer, M.B., 61, 142 Stacey, B., 96, 98, 128 Staub, D., 105 Stephan, W.G., 82, 140 Stereotyping, 31, 75, 78, 100, 105, 155, 161, 230 Stern-LaRosa, C., 195 Stevens, R.J., 142 Stipek, D.J., 73 Stockley, D., 50 Stott, F.M., 62, 123 Stronge, J.H., 143 Submersion approach, 20 Sutherland, I.R., 198, 260 Sunderland Polytechnic Institute (UK), 227 Suzuki, B.H., 195 Swadener, E.B., 63, 143, 165, 204 Swiniarski, L.A., 196 TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills), 277 Taba, Hilda, 10 Tajfel, H., 143 Takaki, R., 58 Tarver, S., 93 Tate, W.F., 162–163, 201 Tatum, B.D., 95, 232 Taylor, L.S., 188 Teach to the test, 277

INDEX 297

Teacher certification, 205, 270 Teacher Corps, 211–212, 229 Teacher education; see Multicultural teacher education; Professional development Teaching the culturally different, 20, 22, 33, 231, 270 Teaching resources, 146, 148; see also Multicultural curriculum assessment of specific materials, 161– 162 criteria for assessing/selecting, 159–162 identification of orientation/approach, 160–161 print and other resources, 159 professional development processes and, 148–153 suitability of use in setting, 161 virtual resources, 160 Teaching Tolerance (Southern Poverty Law Center), 196 Tessier, A., 180 Testing/high stakes testing, 277–278 Tharp, R.G., 65, 67, 144, 164, 204 Thompson, T., 144 Thorne, B., 102 Thousand, J.S., 197 Tiedt, I.M., 196 Tiedt, P.L., 196 Timm, J.T., 196 Townsend, B.L., 68 Transformational approach, 147, 150–151, 217, 221 Troyna, B., 87, 144 Trueba, H.T., 68, 125, 205 Turning on Learning (Grant & Sleeter), 20 Tyack, D., 6, 59 United Kingdom, 32–33, 35, 156, 227 Urberg, K.A., 86 Valdés, G., 144 Van Duren, M., 95, 99 Vanderhoof, W., Jr., 179 Vazquez Garcia, H., 63, 129 Villa, R.A., 197 Villegas, A.M., 234, 260

Violence, 72 Virtual resources, 160 Vold, E.B., 15, 228, 257 Volk, D., 15, 181, 249 Voluntary immigrants, 4, 64 Wakefield, P., 179 War on Poverty, 13 Wasik, B.H., 63, 129 Watson, M., 218 Wayson, W.W., 234 Weil, A.M., 88 Werner, E.E., 73 West, C., 23, 64, 71, 145 White identity formation (Helms’ theory), 93 Whitney, T., 197 Williams, J.E., 82, 85, 145 Williams, L.R., 15, 181, 197, 217, 249, 260–262 Wilson, L., 73 Winant, H., 54 Wolfgang, A., 198 Women’s Liberation Movement, 12 Women’s studies, 13, 28 Woodsen, C.G., 8, 13 Wright, C., 87, 145 Wu, F., 87 Wurzel, J.S., 149–150 Wyman, R.M., 257 York, S., 15, 198, 262 Young People’s Understanding of Society (Furnham & Stacey), 96 Zamora, G.R., 199 Zangwill, I., 7 Zeichner, K., 210, 217, 227, 262 Zeigler scale, 233 Zou, Y., 205 Zuniga, X., 259

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