Republic of the Philippines

Surigao del Sur State University

Rosario, Tandag City, Surigao del Sur 8300
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
Website: www.sdssu.edu.ph

Reporter: Marie Tishe S. De Honor

Instructor: Mrs. Ma. Raniella Ardiente

Topic: Curriculum and Multicultural Education

What is Curriculum?

Curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a

specific course or program. In dictionaries, curriculum is often defined as the courses
offered by a school, but it is rarely used in such a general sense in schools. Depending
on how broadly educators define or employ the term.

 The term curriculum has been derived from a Latin word „Currere‟ which means
a „race course‟ or a runway on which one runs to reach a goal. If the teacher is
the guide, the curriculum is the path. Curriculum is the total structure of ideas and
activities.
 Curriculum typically refers to the knowledge and skills students are expected to
learn, which includes the learning standards or learning objectives they are
expected to meet; the units and lessons that teachers teach; the assignments
and project given to students; the books, materials, videos, presentations, and
readings used in a course; and the test, assessment, and other methods used to
evaluate student learning.
 Curriculum is an important element of education. Aims of education are reflected
in the curriculum. In other words, the curriculum is determined by the aims of life
and society.
 Curriculum is the crux of the whole educational process. Without curriculum, we
cannot conceive any educational Endeavour.
 Curriculum is not a course, is not a syllabus. It’s the subjects comprising a course
of study in a school or college.
 Curriculum refers to the means and materials with which students will interact for
the purpose of achieving identified educational outcomes.

Past / traditional definition

It focused on the transmitting of knowledge to the learner. The teacher makes the
students memorize knowledge. It focused on the cognitive domain.
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Rosario, Tandag City, Surigao del Sur 8300
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
Website: www.sdssu.edu.ph

Modern definition

It is all the learning experiences presented to the learners or they can find it
themselves whether inside or outside for the purpose of developing the three domains:

 cognitive
 affective
 psychomotor 

Multicultural Education

Multicultural education is an idea, an educational reform movement, and a

process (Banks, 1997). As an idea, multicultural education seeks to create equal
educational opportunities for all students, including those from different racial, ethnic,
and social-class groups. Multicultural education tries to create equal educational
opportunities for all students by changing the total school environment so that it will
reflect the diverse cultures and groups within a society and within the nation's
classrooms. Multicultural education is a process because its goals are ideals that
teachers and administrators should constantly strive to achieve.

Five dimensions of multicultural education

1. Content integration
It deals with the infusion of various cultures, ethnicities, and other
identities to be represented in the curriculum. It is the extent to which teachers
use examples and content from a variety of cultures and groups to illustrate key
concepts, generalizations, and issues within their subject areas or disciplines.

2. Knowledge construction process

The knowledge construction process describes how teachers help
students to understand, investigate, and determine how the biases, frames of
reference, and perspectives within a discipline influence the ways in which
knowledge is constructed within it (Banks, 1996). Students also learn how to
build knowledge themselves in this dimension.
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Rosario, Tandag City, Surigao del Sur 8300
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
Website: www.sdssu.edu.ph

3. Prejudice reduction
Prejudice reduction describes lessons and activities used by teachers to
help students to develop positive attitudes toward different racial, ethnic, and
cultural groups.

4. 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, and social-class groups (Banks & Banks, 1995).

5. Empowering school culture and social structure

An empowering school culture and social structure is created when
the culture and organization of the school are transformed in ways that
enable students from diverse racial, ethnic, and gender groups to
experience equality and equal status. The implementation of this
dimension requires that the total environment of the school be reformed,
including the attitudes, beliefs, and action of teachers and administrators,
the curriculum and course of study, assessment and testing procedures,
and the styles and strategies used by teachers.

Goal of Multicultural Education

 It should help students to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to

participate in a democratic and free society.
 It should also promote the freedom, abilities, and skills to cross ethnic and
cultural boudaries to participate in other culture and groups. It should enable kids
to reach beyond their cultural boundaries.
 It should provide students with the skills to participate in social action to make
democratic and free.
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Rosario, Tandag City, Surigao del Sur 8300
Telefax No. 086-214-4221
Website: www.sdssu.edu.ph

Four Levels of Multicultural Education

Teachers use several different approaches to integrate content about racial,

ethnic, and cultural groups into the curriculum.

1. Contributions Approach
When this approach is used, teachers insert isolated facts about ethnic
and cultural group heroes and heroines into the curriculum without changing the
structure of their lesson plans and units.  Teachers conveniently infuse cultural
themes like holidays and heroes into the curriculum.

2. Additive Approach
Where teachers add content, concepts, themes, and perspectives that are
multicultural without changing the structure of their instructional materials. Here
teachers work hard to infuse multicultural themes, content, and perspective into
the main curriculum. This usually entails worksheets and reading materials on
specific cultural activities’ related to the main topic being taught.

3. Transformative Approach
Requires teachers to change the structure of their curriculum to enable
students to engage concepts, issues, events, and themes from a multicultural
perspective. Here the teacher uses the mainstream subjects like mathematics,
the arts, and language and literature to acquaint students with the ways the
country’s culture and society has emerged from a complex synthesis and
interaction of the diverse cultural elements that originated within the various
cultural, racial, ethnic and religious groups that make up the society.

4. Social Action Approach

Students acquire the knowledge and commitments needed to make
reflective decisions and to take personal, social, and civic action to promote
democracy and democratic living. Opportunities for action help students to
develop a sense of personal and civic efficacy, faith in their ability to make
changes in the institutions in which they live, and situations to apply the
knowledge they have learned (Banks, with Clegg, 1990).