Banks Multicultural Myths

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Multicultural Education: Development, Dimensions, and ChallengesAuthor(s): James A. BanksSource: The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Sep., 1993), pp. 22-28Published by: Phi Delta Kappa InternationalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20405019 .

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MulticulturalEducation

Developmnent Dimensions, and Callenges

Mr. Banks focuses on thedevelopment and attainmentsOfmulticultural education - astory that needs to be told, hesays, afor the sake ofbalance, scholarly integrity,and accuracy."BY JAMEs A. BANKS

THE BITTER debate over theliterary and historical canonthat has been carried on inthe popular press and in several widely reviewed books 4has overshadowed the progress that hasbeen made inmulticultural education dur

ing the last two decades. The debate hasalso perpetuated harmful muisconceptionsabout theory and practice inmulticultural education. Consequently, it has heightened racial and ethnic tension and trivialized the field's remarkable accomplish- Xments in theory, research, and curricu- rlum.development. The truth about the development and attainments of multicultural education needs to be told for the I1sake of balance, scholarly integrity, andaccuracy. But if I am to reveal the truthabout multicultural education, Imust firstidentify and debunk some of the widespread myths and misconceptions about 'it.Multicultural education is for the

others. One misconception about multicultural education is that it is an entitlement program and curriculumo v e-e

JAMES A. BANKS is a professor of educa-Stion and director of the center for Multicultujral Education at the University of Washing


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ment forAfrican Americans,Hispanics,the poor, women, andothervictimizedgroups.1The major theorists and researchers nmulticulturalducationagreethatthemovement is designedto restructure educational institutionsso that allstudents, includingmiddle-class whitemales, will acquire heknowledge, skills,and attitudes eededtofunction ffectively in a culturally and ethnicallydiversenation and world.2 Multicultural education, as its major architects have conceived it during the last decade, is not anethnic- or gender-specificmovement. Itis amovement designed to empower allstudentsto become knowledgeable, caring, and active citizens in a deeply troubled and ethnicallypolarizednation andworld.The claim thatmulticulturaleducationis only for people of color and for thedisenfranchised is one of themost pernicious anddamagingmisconceptionswithwhich the movement has had to cope. Ithas caused intractable problems and hashauntedmulticulturaleducationsince itsinception. Despite all that has been written and spoken about multicultural education being for all students, the imageof multicultural education as an entitlement program for the "others" emainsstrong and vivid in the public imagination, as well as in the hearts and mindsof many teachers and administrators.Teachers who teach in predominantlywhite schools and districts often statethat they don't have a program or planformulticulturaleducationbecause theyhave few African American, Hispanic, orAsian American students.

When educators view multicultural education as the study of the "others," it is

marginalized and held apart from mainstreameducationreform.Several criticsof multicultural education, such as ArthurSchlesinger, John Leo, and Paul Gray,have perpetuated he idea thatmulticultural education is the study of the "other" by defining it as synonymous withAfrocentriceducation.The historyof intergroup education teaches us that only

when education reform related to diversity is viewed as essential for all students- and as promoting the broad public interest - will ithave a reasonable chanceof becoming institutionalizedn thenation's schools, colleges, and universities.4 The intergroup education movement of the 1940s and 1950s failed in

large part because intergroup ducatorswere never able to persuademainstreameducators to believe that the approachwas needed by and designed for all students. To its bitter but quiet end, mainstreameducators iewed intergroup ducation as something for schools withracial problems and as something for"them" and not for "us."Multicultural education isopposed totheWestern tradition. Another harmfulmisconceptionaboutmulticultural ducation has been repeated so often by itscritics that many people take it as selfevident. This is the claim that multicultural education is amovement that is opposed to theWest and toWestern civilization.Multicultural education isnot anti

West, because most writers of color -such as Rudolfo Anaya, Paula Gunn Allen, Maxine Hong Kingston, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison - areWesternwriters.Multiculturaleducation tselfis a thoroughly esternmovement.Itgrewoutof a civil rightsmovement groundedin such democratic ideals of theWest asfreedom,justice, and equality.Multicultural education seeks to extend to allpeople the ideals thatwere meant only foran elite few at the nation's birth.Althoughmulticultural ducation snotopposed to theWest, its advocates do de

mand that the truth about theWest betold, that its debt to people of color andwomen be recognizedand included n thecurriculum, nd that hediscrepancies etween the ideals of freedom and equalityand the realities of racism and sexism betaught to students. Reflective action bycitizens is also an integral part of multiculturaltheory.Multiculturaleducationviews citizen action to improve societyas an integral part of education in a democracy; it linksknowledge,values, empowerment, and action.Multiculturaleducation is also postmodern in its assumptionsaboutknowledgeand knowledge construction;itchallenges positivist assumptionsabout the relationshipsbetween human values, knowledge, andaction.Positivists, who are the intellectualheirsof theEnlightenment, believe thatit ispossible to structure nowledge thatisobjectiveandbeyond the influenceofhumanvalues and interests.Multicultural theorists maintain that knowledge ispositional, that it relates to the knower'svalues and experiences, and thatknowl

edge implies action.Consequently, differentconcepts, theories,andparadigmsimply different kinds of actions.Multiculturalists believe that, in order to havevalid knowledge, informationabout thesocial condition and experiencesof theknower are essential.A few critics of multicultural education, such as John Leo and DineshD'Souza, claim thatmulticulturaleducationhas reducedor displaced the studyof Western civilization in the nation'sschoolsandcolleges. However, asGerald Graff points out in his welcome bookBeyond theCultureWars, this claim issimply not true. Graff cites his own research at the college level and that ofArthurApplebee at thehigh school levelto substantiate is conclusion thatEuropean and American male authors - suchasShakespeare,Dante, Chaucer,Twain,and Hemingway - still dominate the required readinglists in thenation'shighschoolsandcolleges.5Graff foundthat,in the cases he examined, most of thebooks by authors of color were optionalratherthan requiredreading.Applebeefound that, of the 10 book-length worksmost frequently required in the highschool grades, only one title was by afemale author (Harper Lee's To Kill aMockingbird),andnot a singlework wasby a writer of color. Works by Shakespeare,Steinbeck, and Dickens headedthe list.Multicultural education will dividethe nation. Many of its critics claim thatmulticultural ducation ill divide thenation and undercut its unity. Schlesingerunderscores this view in the title of hisbook, The Disuniting of America: Reflectionson aMulticulturalSociety.Thismisconception is based partly on questionable assumptions about the nature of

U.S. society and partly on amistaken understanding of multicultural education.The claim thatmulticultural educationwill divide the nation assumes that the nation is already united. While we are onenationpolitically, sociologicallyour nation is deeply divided along lines of race,gender, and class. The current debateabout admitting gays into themilitary underscores another deep division in our society.Multicultural education is designedto help unify a deeply divided nation rather than to divide a highly cohesive one.Multiculturaleducation supports heno

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Curriculumhangeslinked ith issues

relatedo raceevokeprimordial

feelings nd reflectthe racial risis.

tion of e pluribus unum - out of many,one. Themulticulturalistsand theWestern traditionalists, owever, oftendifferabout how the unum can best be attained.Traditionally, he largerU.S. societyandthe schools tried to create unity by assimilating studentsfrom diverse racialand ethnic groups into amythical Anglo

American culture that required them toexperience a process of self-alienation.However, evenwhen studentsof colorbecameculturallyassimilated, theywereoften structurallyexcluded frommainstream institutions.The multiculturalistsview e pluribusunum as an appropriate national goal, butthey believe that the unum must be negotiated, discussed, and restructured oreflect the nation's ethnic and culturaldiversity. The reformulation of what itmeans to be united must be a process thatinvolves the participationof diversegroups within the nation, such as people of color, women, straights, gays, thepowerful, thepowerless, theyoung, andthe old. The reformulation must also involve power sharingandparticipation ypeople frommany differentcultureswhomust reach beyond their cultural and ethnic borders in order to create a commoncivic culture thatreflectsand contributesto the well-being of all. This commoncivic culture will extend beyond the cultural borders of any single group and constitutea civic "borderland"ulture.InBorderlands,GloriaAnzalduta ontrasts cultural borders and borderlandsand calls fora weakening of the formerin order to create a shared borderland

culture inwhich people frommany different culturescan interact, relate, andengage in civic talk and action. Anzaldua states that "borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe,todistinguishus from them.A border isa dividing line, a narrow strip along asteep edge. A borderland is a vague andundeterminedplace created by the residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in aconstant state of transition."6

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATIONHAS MADE PROGRESSWhile it is still on the margins rather

than in the center of the curriculum inmost schools andcolleges, multiculturalcontenthasmade significant nroads ntoboth theschool and thecollege curriculawithin the last two decades. The truthlies somewherebetween theclaim thatnoprogresshas been made in infusing theschool andcollege curriculawith multiethnic content and the claim that suchcontent has replaced the European andAmerican classics.In the elementary and high schools,

much more ethnic content appears in social studies and language arts textbookstoday than was the case 20 years ago.In addition, some teachers assign works

written by authors of color along with themore standard American classics. In hisstudy of book-length works used in thehigh schools, Applebee concluded thathis most striking finding was how similar present reading lists are to past onesand how little change has occurred. However, he did note thatmany teachers useanthologies as amainstay of their literature programs and that 21% of the anthology selections were written by womenand 14% by authors of color.7

More classroom teachers today havestudied heconceptsofmulticultural ducation than at any previous point in ourhistory. A significant percentage of today's classroom teachers took a requiredteacher education course inmulticulturaleducation when they were in college. The

multicultural education standard adoptedby theNational Council for Accreditationof Teacher Education in 1977, which became effective in 1979, was amajor factor that stimulated the growth of multicultural education in teacher education programs. The standardstated: "The institution ives evidenceof planning ormul

ticultural ducation in its teachereducation curriculaincludingboth the generaland professional studies components."The market for teacher ducation textbooks dealingwith multicultural education is now a substantial one. Most major publishers now have at least one textin thefield.Textbooks inother requiredcourses, such as educationalpsychologyand the foundations of education, frequently have separate chapters or a significant number of pages devoted to examining concepts and developments inmulticultural education.

Some of the nation's leading collegesanduniversities, such as theUniversityof California at Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, and Stanford University, have either revised their general corecurriculum to include ethnic content orhave establishedanethnic studiescourserequirement. he listof universitieswithsimilar kinds of requirementsgrowslonger each year. However, the transformation of the traditional canon on college and university campuses has oftenbeen bitter and divisive. All changes incurriculumcome slowly and painfullytouniversitycampuses, but curriculumchanges that are linked with issues related to race evoke primordial feelings andreflect the racial crisis inAmerican society. For example, at the University ofWashington a bitter struggleendedwiththe defeat of the ethnic studies requirement.

Changes are also coming to elementaryand high school textbooks, as Jesus Garcia points out elsewhere in this specialsection of theKappan. I believe that thedemographic imperative is themajor factor driving the changes in school textbooks. The color of the nation's studentbody is changing rapidly. Nearly half(about 45.5%) of the nation's school-ageyouths will be young people of color by2020.9 Black parents and brown parentsare demanding that their leaders, theirimages, their pain, and their dreams be

mirrored in the textbooks that their children study in school.

Textbooks have always reflected themyths, hopes, and dreams of people withmoney and power. As African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and women become more influential, textbooks will increasingly reflect their hopes, dreams,anddisappointments.extbookswill haveto survive n themarketplace f abrowner

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America. Because textbooks still carrythe curriculum in the nation's publicschools, theywill remain an importantfocus for multicultural curriculum reformers.

THE DIMENSIONS OFMULTICULTURAL EDUCATIONOne of theproblems thatcontinues toplague themulticulturaleducationmovement, both fromwithin andwithout, isthetendency f teachers,administrators,

policy makers, and the public to oversimplify theconcept.Multicultural ducationis a complexandmultidimensional concept, yet media commentators and educators alike often focus on only one ofitsmany dimensions.Some teachers iewit only as the inclusion of content aboutethnicgroups intothecurriculum; thersview it as an effort to reduce prejudice;still others view it as the celebration ofethnic holidays and events. After Imadea presentation in a school inwhich I described themajor goals of multiculturaleducation, a math teacher told me that

what I said was fine and appropriate forlanguage arts and social studies teachersbut that it had nothing to do with him.After all, he said, math was math, regardless of the color of the kids.

This reaction on the part of a respected teacher caused me to think more deeply about the images of multicultural education that had been created by the keyactors in the field. Iwondered whetherwe were partly responsible for this teacher's narrow conceptionof multiculturaleducationasmerely content integration.Itwas in response to such statements byclassroomteachers hatIconceptualizedthe dimensions of multicultural education. Iwill use the following five dimensions to describe the field's major components and to highlight important developmentswithin the last twodecades:1) content integration, ) theknowledgeconstruction rocess, 3) prejudicereduction, 4) an equity pedagogy, and 5) anempowering school culture and socialstructure.10 Iwill devote most of the restof this article to the second of thesedimensions.

CONTENT INTEGRATIONContent integration deals with theextent towhich teachersuse examples,

data, and information from a variety ofcultures and groups to illustrate hekeyconcepts,principles,generalizations, ndtheories n their ubjectareaordiscipline.Inmany school districts as well as in popular writing, multiculturaleducation isviewed almost solely as content integration.This narrowconception fmulticultural education is a major reason why

many teachers in such subjects as biology, physics, andmathematics rejectmulticultural ducationas irrelevanto themand theirstudents.In fact, this dimensionof multicultural education probably has more relevanceto social studies and language arts teachers than it does to physics and math teachers. Physics and math teachers can insertmulticulturalcontent into theirsubjects- e.g., by using biographies of physicists and mathematicians of color and examples from different culturalgroups.

However, these kinds of activities areprobably not themost importantmulticultural tasks that can be undertaken byscience andmath teachers. Activities related to theotherdimensionsofmulticultural education, such as the knowledgeconstructionprocess, prejudice reduction, and an equity pedagogy, are probably themost fruitful areas for the multicultural involvement of science andmath teachers.KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION

The knowledge constructionprocessencompasses heprocedures ywhich social, behavioral, and natural scientistscreateknowledge in theirdisciplines.Amulticultural focus on knowledge construction ncludesdiscussionof thewaysinwhich the implicit cultural assumptions, framesof reference,perspectives,and biaseswithin a discipline influencethe constructionof knowledge. An examination of the knowledge constructionprocess is an important part of multicultural eaching.Teachershelp students ounderstand owknowledgeiscreatedandhow it is influenced by factors of race,ethnicity, gender, and social class.

Within the last decade, landmark workrelated to theconstructionof knowledgehas been done by feminist social scientists and epistemologists, as well as byscholars in ethnic studies. Working inphilosophy and sociology, SandraHarding, Lorraine Code, and Patricia Hill

Collins have done someof themost importantwork relatedto knowledge construction."1his ground-breaking ork,although influentialamongscholars andcurriculum developers, has been overshadowed in thepopularmedia by theheated debates about the canon. Thesewriters and researchershave seriouslychallenged the claimsmade by thepositivists thatknowledgecan be value-free,and they have described the ways inwhich knowledge claims are influencedby thegender and ethnic characteristicsof theknower.These-scholarsarguethatthe human interestsand value assumptions of thosewho create knowledgeshouldbe identified,discussed, and examined.Code states that the sex of the knoweris epistemologicallysignificantbecauseknowledge is both subjective and objective. Shemaintains thatboth aspectsshouldbe recognizedanddiscussed.Collins, anAfrican American sociologist,extendsandenrichestheworksof writerssuchasCode andHarding by describing

theways inwhich race and gender interact to influenceknowledgeconstruction.Collins calls theperspectiveof AfricanAmericanwomen theperspectiveof "theoutsiderwithin." She writes, "As outsiders within, Black women have a distinctview of the contradictionsbetweenthedominantgroup'sactionsand ideologies."12Curriculum heorists nddevelopersinmulticulturaleducationare applying totheclassroom hework beingdoneby thefeministand ethnic studiesepistemologists. InTransforming nowledge,ElizabethMinnich, aprofessorof philosophyand women's studies, has analyzed thenatureof knowledgeand describedhowthedominant radition,hrough uchlogical errors as faulty generalizationandcircularreasoning,has contributedo themarginalizationof women.13

I have identified ive typesof knowledge anddescribedtheir mplicationsormulticultural teaching.14 eachers needto be aware of the various types of knowledge so that they can structure a curriculum thathelps studentsto understandeach type. Teachers also need to use theirown cultural knowledge and that of theirstudents oenrich teachingandlearning.The typesof knowledge Ihave identifiedand describedare: 1) personal/cultural,2) popular, 3) mainstream academic, 4)

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transformative, and 5) school. (Iwill notdiscuss schoolknowledge in thisarticle.)Personal/culturalknowledge consistsof theconcepts,explanations,and interpretations thatstudentsderive frompersonal experiences in their homes, families, and communitycultures.Culturalconflict occurs in the classroom becausemuch of thepersonal/culturalnowledgethatstudentsromdiversecultural roupsbring to the classroom is inconsistent withschool knowledge andwith the teacher'spersonal and cultural knowledge. For example, research indicates thatmany African American andMexican American students are more likely to experience academic success in cooperativerather hanin competitive learningenvironments.15Yet the typical school culture is highlycompetitive, and children of color mayexperience failure if they do not figureout the implicit rules of the school culture. 16The popularknowledge thatis institutionalized by the mass media and otherforces that shape the popular culture hasa strong influence on the values, perceptions, and behavior of children and youngpeople. The messages and images carriedby the media, which Carlos Cortes callsthe societal curriculum,17ften reinforcethestereotypes ndmisconceptionsaboutracial and ethnic groups that are institutionalizedwithin the largersociety.

Of course, some films and other popularmedia forms do make positive contributions to racialunderstanding.Dances

with Wolves, Glory, andMalcolm X areexamples. However, there aremany waysto view such films, and both positive andnegative examples of popular culture needto become a part of classroom discourseand analysis. Like all human creations,even these positive films are imperfect.The multiculturally informed and sensitive teacher needs to help students viewthese films, as well as other media productions, from diverse cultural, ethnic,and gender perspectives.

The concepts, theories, and explanations that constitute traditional Westerncentric knowledge in history and in thesocial and behavioral sciences constitute

mainstream academic knowledge. Traditional interpretations of U.S. history -embodied in such headings as "The European Discovery of America" and "TheWestwardMovement" -are centralconcepts inmainstreamacademicknowledge.

Mainstream academic knowledge is establishedwithin mainstream professional associations, such as the AmericanHistoricalAssociation and theAmericanPsychological Association. It providesthe interpretations that are taught inU. S.colleges and universities.

The literary legacy of mainstream academic knowledge includes suchwritersas Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, andAristotle.Critics of multicultural ducation,suchas Schlesinger,D'Souza, andLeo,believe thatmainstreamacademicknowledge in thecurriculum s being displacedby the new knowledge and interpretations that have been created by scholars

working in women's studies and in ethnic studies.However, mainstream academic knowledge is not only threatenedfromwithout but also fromwithin. Postmodem scholars in organizations such astheAmericanHistoricalAssociation, theAmerican Sociological Association, andtheAmerican Political ScienceAssociation are challenging the dominant positivist interpretationsndparadigmswithin theirdisciplines and creating alternative explanationsandperspectives.Transformativeacademic knowledgechallenges hefacts,concepts,paradigms,themes, and explanations routinely accepted inmainstream academic knowledge.Thosewho pursue ransformativecademicknowledge seek to expand and substantiallyrevise establishedcanons, theories,explanations, and research methods. Thetransformative research methods and theory that have been developed inwomen'sstudies and in ethnic studies since the1970s constitute, inmy view, the mostimportant evelopments n social sciencetheory and research in the last 20 years.

It is important for teachers and studentsto realize, however, that transformativeacademic scholarship has a long historyin the United States and that the current ethnic studiesmovement isdirectlylinked to an earlier ethnic studies move

ment that emerged in the late 1800s.18GeorgeWashingtonWilliams publishedvolume 1of the first history of AfricanAmericans in 1882 and the second volume in 1883. Other important works published by African American transformative scholars in times past included worksbyW. E. B. Du Bois, Carter Woodson,Horace Mann Bond, and Charles Wesley.'19The works of these early scholars in

African American studies,which formedthe academic roots of the current multiculturaleducationmovement when itemerged in the 1960s and 1970s, werelinked by several importantcharacteristics. Their works were transformativebecause they created data, interpretations, and perspectives thatchallengedthose thatwere established by white,mainstream scholarship.Thework of thetransformative cholarspresented positive images of African Americans andrefuted stereotypes thatwere pervasivewithin theestablished cholarshipf theirtime.Although theystrove forobjectivity intheir works and wanted to be consideredscientificresearchers, these transformative scholarsviewed knowledge and action as tightly linked and became involved insocial actionandadministrationthemselves. Du Bois was active in socialprotest and for many years was the editor of Crisis, an official publication of theNational Association for theAdvancement of Colored People.Woodson cofounded the Association for the Study of

Negro (now Afro-American) Life andHistory, founded and edited the Journal of Negro History, edited the NegroHistoryBulletin forclassroom teachers,wrote school and college textbooks onNegro history, and founded Negro HistoryWeek (nowAfro-American HistoryMonth).Transformative academic knowledgehas experienced a renaissance since the1970s. Only a few of themost important

works can be mentioned here because ofspace. Martin Bernal, in an importanttwo-volume work, Black Athena, hascreated new interpretations about the debtthat Greece owes to Egypt and Phoenicia. Before Bernal, Ivan Van Sertima andCheikh Anta Diop also created novel interpretations of the debt thatEurope owesto Africa. In two books, Indian Giversand Native Roots, JackWeatherford describesNative American contributionsthat have enriched the world.

Ronald Takaki, in several influentialbooks, such as Iron Cages: Race andCulture in 19th-Century America andStrangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans, has given usnew ways to think about the ethnic experience in America. The literary contribution to transformativescholarshiphas also been rich,as shownby Th1eig

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nifying Monkey: A Theory of AfricanAmerican Literary Criticism, by HenryLouis Gates, Jr.; Long Black Song: Essays in Black American Literature andCulture, by Houston Baker, Jr.; andBreaking Ice: An Anthology of ContemporaryAfrican-AmericanFiction, editedby Terry McMillan.

A number of important works in thetransformative tradition that interrelaterace and gender have also been publishedsince the 1970s. Important works in thisgenre include Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, edited by Carol Ellen DuBois and

Vicki Ruiz; Race, Gender, and Work: AMulticultural Economic History of Women in the United States, by Teresa Amottand Julie Matthaei; Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, andthe Family from Slavery to the Present,by Jacqueline Jones; and The ForbiddenStitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology, edited by Shirley Geok-lin Lim,

Mayumi Tsutakawa, andMargarita Donnelly.THE OTHER DIMENSIONS

The "prejudice reduction" dimension ofmulticultural education focuses on thecharacteristics of children's racial attitudes and on strategies that can be usedto help students develop more positive racial and ethnic attitudes. Since the 1960s,social scientists have learned a great dealabout how racial attitudes in children develop and about ways inwhich educatorscan design interventions to help childrenacquire more positive feelings towardother racial groups. I have reviewed thatresearch in two recent publications andrefer Kappan readers to them for a comprehensive discussion of this topic.20

This research tells us that by age 4African American, white, and MexicanAmerican children are aware of racialdifferences and show racial preferencesfavoring whites. Students can be helpedto develop more positive racial attitudesif realistic images of ethnic and racialgroups are included in teaching materials in a consistent, natural, and integrated fashion. Involving students in vicarious experiences and in cooperative learning activities with students of other racial groups will also help them to develop more positive racial attitudes and behaviors.

An equity pedagogy exists when teachers use techniques and teaching methodsthat facilitate the academic achievementof students from diverse racial and ethnic groups and from all social classes.Using teaching techniques that cater tothe learning and cultural styles of diversegroups and using the techniques of cooperative learning are some of the waysthat teachers have found effective withstudents from diverse racial, ethnic, andlanguage groups.21

An empowering school culture and social structure will require the restructuring of the culture and organization of theschool so that students from diverse racial, ethnic, and social-class groups willexperience educational equality and asenseof empowerment.This dimensionof multicultural education involves conceptualizing the school as the unit ofchange and making structural changeswithin theschoolenvironment.Adoptingassessment techniques that are fair to allgroups, doing away with tracking, andcreating the belief among the staff members that all students can learn are important goals for schools thatwish to createa school culture and social structure thatare empowering and enhancing for a diverse studentbody.

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATIONAND THE FUTUREThe achievements of multicultural edu

cation since the late Sixties and early

Seventies are noteworthy and should beacknowledged. Those who have shapedthemovement during the intervening decades have been able to obtain wide agree

ment on the goals of and approaches tomulticulturaleducation.Most multiculturalists agree that the major goal of

multicultural education is to restructureschools so that all students will acquirethe knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to function in an ethnically and racially diverse nation and world. As is thecase with other interdisciplinary areas ofstudy, debates within the field continue.These debates are consistent with the philosophy of a field that values democracyand diversity. They are also a source ofstrength.

Multicultural education is being implemented widely in the nation's schools,colleges, and universities. The largenumber of national conferences, schooldistrict workshops, and teacher educationcourses in multicultural education areevidence of its success and perceived importance. Although the process of integration of content is slow and often contentious, multicultural content is increasingly becoming a part of core courses inschools and colleges. Textbook publishers are also integrating ethnic and culturalcontent into their books, and the pace ofsuch integration is increasing.

Despite its impressive successes, however, multicultural education faces serious challenges as we move toward thenext century. One of themost serious of

MUST EXPERIENCE!SETCLAE SETCLAESelf-Esteem Through Culture Leads toAcademic Excellence, SETCLAE is themost comprehensive, multiculturalAfricentric _ /curriculum forgrades K-12. Initial ETCLAEpackages include in-service trainingvideo, >teacher's manual, workbooks, tests, lesson Iplans and more. A brochure or preview -material is available. Call 1-800-552-1991 ) tor write to African American Images, Dept. -"dAM. e..... ....9KA,1909W.95thStreet,ChicagoL60643. ........

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thesechallenges is thehighlyorganized,well-financed attack by theWestern traditionalists who fear thatmulticultural education will transform America in waysthatwill result in their own disempower

ment. Ironically, the successes thatmulticultural education has experienced during the last decade have played amajorrole in provoking the attacks.

The debate over the canon and thewell-orchestratedattackonmulticultural education reflect an identity crisis inAmerican society.The American identity is being reshaped, as groups on themargins of society begin to participatein the mainstream and to demand thattheir visions be reflected in a transformed

America. In the future, the sharing ofpower and the transformation of identityrequired to achieve lasting racial peacein America may be valued rather thanfeared, for only in this way will weachieve national salvation.

1. Nathan Glazer, "In Defense of MulticulturalismeNew Republic, 2 September 1991, pp. 18-22; andDinesh D'Souza, "Illiberal Education," Atlantic,March 1991, pp. 51-79.2. James A. Banks, Multiethnic Education: Theoryand Practice, 3rd ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon,1994); James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee

Banks, eds., Multicultural Education: Issues andPerspectives, 2nd ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon,1993); and Christine E. Sleeter and Carl A. Grant,

Making Choices for Multicultural Education: FiveApproaches to Race, Class, and Gender (Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1988).3. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting ofAmerica: Reflections on a Multicultural Society(Knoxville, Tenn.: Whittle Direct Books, 1991);John Leo, "A Fringe History of theWorld," U.S.News & World Report, 12November 1990, pp. 25

26; and Paul Gray, "Whose America?," Time, 8 July1991, pp. 13-17.

4. Hilda Taba et al., Intergroup Education inPublicSchools (Washington, D.C: American Council onEducation, 1952).5. Gerald Graff, Beyond the Culture Wars: HowTeaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize AmericanEducation (New York: Norton, 1992); and ArthurN. Applebee, "Stability and Change in the HighSchool Canon," English Journal, September 1992,pp. 27-32.6. Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands: La Frontera: The

New Mestiza (San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute,1987), p. 3.

7. Applebee, p. 30.8. Standards for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (Washington, D.C: National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 1977), p. 4.9. Aaron M. Pallas, Gary Natriello, and EdwardL. McDill, "The Changing Nature of the Disadvantaged Population: Current Dimensions and Future

Trends," Educational Researcher, June/July 1989,pp. 16-22.10. James A. Banks, "Multicultural Education:

Historical Development, Dimensions, and Practice,"

in Linda Darling-Hammond, ed., Review of Research in Education, vol. 19 (Washington, D.C:American Educational Research Association, 1993),pp. 3-49.11. Sandra Harding, Whose Science, Whose Knowl

edge? Thinking from Women's Lives (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1991); Lorraine Code,What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge (Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1991); and Patricia Hill Collins,Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York:Routledge, 1990).

12. Collins, p. 11.13. Elizabeth K. Minnich, Transforming Knowledge(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).14. James A. Banks, "The Canon Debate, Knowl

edge Construction, and Multicultural Education,"Educational Researcher, June/July 1993, pp. 4-14.15. Robert E. Slavin, Cooperative Learning (NewYork: Longman, 1983).16. Lisa D. Delpit, "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy inEducating Other People's Chil

dren," Harvard Educational Review, vol. 58, 1988,pp. 280-98.

17. Carlos E. Cort?s, "The Societal Curriculum:Implications for Multiethnic Education," in JamesA. Banks, ed., Education in the '80s: Multiethnic

Education (Washington, D.C.: National EducationAssociation, 1981), pp. 24-32.

18. James A. Banks, "African American Scholarship and the Evolution of Multicultural Education,"Journal of Negro Education, Summer 1992, pp.273-86.19. A bibliography that lists these and other morerecent works of transformative scholarship appearsat the end of this article.

20. James A. Banks, "Multicultural Education: ItsEffects on Students' Racial and Gender Role Attitudes," in James P. Shaver, ed., Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning(New York: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 459-69; andidem, "Multicultural Education for Young Children:Racial and Ethnic Attitudes and Their Modification," in Bernard Spodek, ed., Handbook of Research on the Education of Young Children (NewYork: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 236-50.21. Barbara J. R. Shade, ed., Culture, Style, andthe Educative Process (Springfield, 111.:Charles

CThomas, 1989). IS

BibliographyAmott, Teresa L., and Julie A. Matthaei.

Race, Gender, and Work: A MulticulturalEconomic History of Women inthe United States. Boston: South EndPress, 1991.

Baker, Houston A., Jr. Long Black Song:Essays in Black American Literatureand Culture. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990.

Bernai, Martin. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization.2 vols. New Brunswick, N.J.: RutgersUniversity Press, 1987, 1991.

Bond, Horace Mann. Negro Education inAlabama: A Study in Cotton and Steel.

Washington, D.C: Associated Publishers, 1939.

DuBois, Carol Ellen, and Vicki L. Ruiz,eds. Unequal Sisters: A MulticulturalReader in U.S. Women's History .NewYork: Routledge, 1990.

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Suppression oftheAfrican Slave Trade to theUnitedStates of America, 1638-1870. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomas, 1896.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The SignifyingMonkey: A Theory of African-AmericanLiterary Criticism. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1988.

Geok-lin Lim, Shirley, Mayumi Tsutakawa, and Margarita Donnelly, eds. TheForbidden Stitch: An Asian AmericanWomen's Anthology. Corvallis, Ore.:Calyx Books, 1989.

Jones, Jacqueline. Labor of Love, Laborof Sorrow: Black Women, Work, andthe Family from Slavery to the Present.

New York: Vintage Books, 1985.

McMillan, Terry, ed. Breaking Ice: AnAnthology of Contemporary AfricanAmerican Fiction. New York: PenguinBooks, 1990.

Takaki, Ronald T., ed. Iron Cages: Raceand Culture in 19th-century America.Seattle: University of WashingtonPress, 1979.

_. Strangers from a Different Shore:A History of Asian Americans. Boston:Little, Brown, 1989.

Van Sertima, Ivan, ed. Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern. New Bruns

wick, N.J.: Africana Studies Department, Rutgers University, 1988.

_, ed. Great African Thinkers, Vol. 1:Cheikh Anta Diop. New Brunswick,N.J.: Transaction Books, 1989.

Weatherford, Jack. Indian Givers: Howthe Indians of the Americas Trans

formed theWorld. New York: FawcettColumbine, 1988._. Native Roots: How the Indians En

riched America. New York: FawcettColumbine, 1992.

Wesley, Charles H. Richard Allen: Apostle of Freedom. Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1935.Williams, George Washington. History oftheNegro Race inAmerica from 1619

to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens. 2 vols. 1882,1883. Reprint. Salem, N.H.: Ayer,1989.

Woodson, Carter G. The History of theNegro Church. Washington, D.C.: As

sociated Publishers, 1921.

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Banks Multicultural Myths