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Isabella Trader

English Composition II

Nate Hellmers

15 July 2021

Literature Review

What is multicultural education? Multicultural education is defined as “a field in

education that calls for total school reform and is based on the belief that education is an

intellectual and ethical endeavor where students are provided equity in schools” (Pang 16).

Based on a relationship centered and culture centered framework, multicultural education can be

referred to as any histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different

cultural backgrounds that are integrated into forms of education and teaching. So, multicultural

education: what is its importance in the curriculum of education?

The field of multicultural education did not develop overnight. It took many years of hard

work and numerous educators to develop the form of multicultural education assembled in

schools across the world. The field of multicultural education has roots in three major

movements: Intercultural Education Movement, Intergroup Education Movement, and the Civil

Rights Movement. First, The Intercultural Education Movement focused on cultural assimilation

versus acculturation. Cultural assimilation is “the process by which an individual adopts

language, behaviors, values, and way of life from the dominant culture while letting go of home

or heritage cultures” (Pang 9). Acculturation is the process of people learning about and feeling

comfortable with the practices and cultural ways of the dominant culture while keeping heritage

culture practices intact, or “the exchange of cultural elements” (Pang 9). Rach David DeBouis,

one of the intercultural-educator activists, did not believe in cultural simulation but valued
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acculturation. In 1934, DuBois founded the Service Bureau for Intercultural Education and was

against assimilation of immigrants. She continued to push for acculturation while believing in

cultural democracy, respecting diverse cultural immigrant groups, integration of cultural

heritage, and creating books, ckits, plays, and curriculum materials for schools. In 1935 through

1950 New York City African and Jewish teachers grassroots movements believed in the

integration of curriculum materials about African Americans and other cultural groups and better

quality schools. Secod, the Intergroup Education Movement focused on individual prejudice.

Hilda Taba, a curriculum theorist and social studies educator, wanted to address the lack of

tolerance among students in schools. During 1944, Hilda Taba led summer workshops at Harvard

on Intergroup Education and during 1945, she became the Director of the Center for Intergroup

Education. Taba, prepared students to participate in democracy, taught prejudice reduction skills,

developed tools to evaluate bias and views about race and ethnicity, and developed a spiral

curriculum for social studies education. Jean Dresden Grambs, looked at the impact of prejudice

and stereotypes on students of color and found that children held prejudice on African

Americans. Grambs suggested that teachers use their classrooms to counteract prejudice while

role playing. Third, the Civil Rights Movement which focused on the ideas of equality and

equity. In education, equality is “providing students with the same instruction, curriculum,

counseling, approaches, and other activities in school; it is about fair and equal treatment” (Pang

11.) Equity is “providing students with what they need in order to excel and demonstrate equality

of outcome” (Pang 11). Individuals that pushed for changes during the Civil rights Movement

include Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall. Key events include: 1954

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka United States Supreme Court decided desegregation of

schools that separate is not equal, overruling the former court case Plessy v. Ferguson; 1964
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Civil Rights Act, legislation addressing systematic and institutional discrimination based on race,

class, and ethinicty; and 1968 Black high school students, parents, and comunit protest in

Chicago integrateing Black history into curriculums, hiring black teachers, increasing the amount

of Black administrators, and firing racists teachers. All these events led up to the 1970s and

present day where scholars in education create the field of multicultural education.

James Albert Banks, nicknamed as the “father of multicultural education” for his

pioneering research and contribution to the development of the field, is a former elementary

school teacher, renowned social studies methodologist, and strong advocate for social justice

issues, and the first Black professor hired by the College of Education at the University of

Washington. Banks identified five dimensions of multicultural education: content integration, the

knowledge construction process, prejudice reduction, an equity pedagogy, and an empowering

school culture and social structure. Content integration is when teachers use examples and

content from varying cultures to illustrate key concepts, generalizations, and issues within their

subject areas or disciplines (“Multicultural Education: Goals and Dimensions”). Knowledge

construction describes how teachers help students to understand, investigate, and determine how

the biases and perspectives within a discipline influence how knowledge is constructed

(“Multicultural Education: Goals and Dimensions”). Equity pedagogy exists when teachers

modify their teaching for academic achievement of students from diverse racial, cultural, and

social-class groups (“Multicultural Education: Goals and Dimensions”). Prejudice reduction

describes lessons and activities used by teachers to help students develop positive attitudes

toward different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups (“Multicultural Education: Goals and

Dimensions”). Empowering school culture and social structure is created by transforming the
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culture and organization of the school to enable all students to experience equality and equal

status (“Multicultural Education: Goals and Dimensions”).

Good morning, Miss Toliver! Kay Toliver is a middle school mathematics teacher at East

Harlem Tech P.S. 72 in New York who produced a film with the title Good Morning Miss Toliver.

The film covers the adventure of Toliver's teaching throughout the school year, focusing on the

pedagogical strategies she uses to engage her students into the lesson. While using certain

strategies peer teaching, project based learning, small groups, field trips, integrating language

arts into mathematics, using mathematics in real world problems, cooperative learning, inquiry

learning, and anti-racist, social injustice, and multicultural integration. The film is an outstanding

demonstration of multicultural education. It shuts down racist, classist, prejudice, and other

discriminatory actions made about teaching and learning in environments of color. To Miss

Toliver, “every class is gifted and talented, I truly believe they can be anything they want to do

but they have to believe it and they need people to believe that they can do anything so that's

why I am where I am.” (Toliver, Good Morning, Miss Toliver”).

There are numerous goals in education, however, in multicultural education, there are

three major goals: attaining equality and equity, eliminating the achievement gap, and developing

responsible and empowered citizens. First, to attain equality and equity each school must be

structured for every child to be provided with equal opportunities and access to education. In

order for this goal to occur, student outcomes are as important as student access. One strategy

teachers can use to create equity in schools is to detrack, not placing students into stereotypical

groups, and use compex instruction, an approach to instruction that uses group activities. Second,

eliminating the achievement gap which can be done by successfully teaching all learners. Third,

developing responsible and empowered citizens who are ready to participate in democracy.
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Creating a multicultural education has an effect on the classroom, so it is beneficial to

create a multicultural classroom. A multicultural classroom “must thrive on these differences and

use them as a foundation for growth and development” (Fish 1). In order to create a multicultural

classroom the teacher must practice open mindedness with their students. If closed mindedness,

then the students will reciprocate back to the teacher. In addition, the teacher must know the

learning patterns of every student. Teachers must learn to overcome language barriers, as

learning a word or two from another culture has a great impact in the classroom. The “students in

multicultural educational environments can learn how to value all cultures, bonding with peers

over what makes them similar as well as what makes them unique” (“What Is Multicultural

Education? An Educator’s Guide to Teaching Diverse Students”).

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Works Cited

Good Morning, Miss Toliver. Directed by Richard Neill, cinematography by David Trulli, and

performance by Kay Toliver. FASE Productions, 1994.

“Multicultural Education: Goals and Dimensions.” Multicultural Education: Goals and

Dimensions | UW College of Education, education.uw.edu/cme/view.

Pang, Valerie Ooka. Diversity & Equity in the Classroom. Cengage Learning, 2018.

“What Is Multicultural Education? An Educator's Guide to Teaching Diverse Students.” What Is

Multicultural Education | American University, 19 May 2020,

soeonline.american.edu/blog/multicultural-education.

Fish, Larri. “Building Blocks: The First Steps of Creating a Multicultural Classroom.” EdChange

Consulting and Workshops on Multicultural Education, Diversity, Equity, Social Justice,

www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/buildingblocks.html.