Celebration and Separation: A Troublesome Approach to Multicultural Education

Middle school classrooms can be fertile ground for positively impacting students' cultural and racial assumptions and understanding, given an effective multicultural curriculum and school structure. This article presents a narrative of the author's contrasting experiences teaching a text with racial themes. Applicable literature provides a framework for explaining the students' differing levels of receptivity towards the text. Three particular areas of study provide the framework for explaining student response: a school's approach to multicultural literature; school structure, in particular, tracking; and theories of racial identity development. In addition, the author challenges adults involved in the educational system to implement truly multicultural approaches to learning, despite the potential discomfort or unpopularity of such change.     

Exploring Names and Identity Through Multicultural Literature in K-8 Classrooms

Children's names reflect their gender, culture, religion, language, and family history. Use of students' personal names has the power to positively affirm identity and signal belonging within the classroom and school community. However, naming practices also have the power to exclude, stereotype, or disadvantage students. For many students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, their names can be a source of cultural conflict and a watershed for issues of identity and belonging within the school setting. Through multicultural explorations of students' names, educators can affirm students' cultures and identities, and draw upon these as resources to support learning and development from early childhood through the adolescent years. The purpose of this article is to (a) discuss the importance of a person's name to cultural identity, (b) describe strategies to build multicultural communities in K-8 classrooms through exploration of students' names, and (c) suggest multicultural children's literature and curricular activities to teach about the importance of personal names, and develop cross-cultural understandings.     

Montana's Indian Education for All: Applying Multicultural Education Theory

Montana's constitutional commitment to the cultural heritages of American Indians exemplifies the practical application of multicultural education. In this article, the authors explore the goals and evolution of Indian Education for All within a multicultural education framework, and discuss how educators are best prepared to implement this transformative educational policy.     

Empowering geographic questions with multicultural perspectives: Suggestions for teachers by teachers

Teachers frequently ask their students various types of geographic questions. The questions may be relevant to academic content and the learning process or they may be pertinent to students' personal lives. All geographic questions and conversations yield ideal opportunities for teachers to convey powerful multicultural perspectives integrated within the context of their curriculum and daily teaching practices. Many teachers are not aware of the meaningful learning experiences that they can create for their students by empowering their geographic questions with multicultural perspectives. Nor are they aware of the powerful role modeling they share with their young learners. These conclusions were some of the outcomes compiled by a group of 25 graduate students, all practicing kindergarten through 12th grade teachers, enrolled in a multicultural education course. They examined the links between various geographic questions that teachers ask their students and the multicultural perspectives that teachers model and reinforce with their students that communicate powerful messages for valuing cultural diversity. This article shares the results of their exploration and gives five suggestions for teachers to integrate into their effective instructional practices.     

Between survival and vision: Boundary-crossing Arab teachers in Jewish schools and Arab teachers in their community

This mixed-methods study examined the experiences of belonging/otherness among Arab teachers in Israel. A group of boundary-crossing teachers: Arab teachers in Jewish schools (AJ; N = 57) was compared with Arab teachers teaching in their own community (AA; N = 103). We found that the AJ group had a multicultural orientation, unlike the AA group, who were community-orientated. These orientations are reflected in different otherness sources, different motivations for selecting a workplace, and differences in identity ratings. While professional and social sources promoted teachers’ sense of belonging in the two groups, the source of AJs' sense of otherness was the national divide as opposed to community-oriented aspects in AAs. Selfefficacy ratings were high in both groups with a significant advantage for AJs, an unanticipated finding given that most of them were women, had attended teacher training colleges rather than universities, and were rarely homeroom teachers. Arab teachers' involvement in Jewish schools was partial with a low proportion of classroom educators or teachers in managerial roles. AJs tend to leave their national identity outside the school, and are not involved in political discourse or in the staffroom power relations. The phenomenon of integrating AJs is relatively new, and within a segregated education system that limits the opportunities for Jews and Arabs to meet, it can provide a viable, albeit limited, tool to inhibit prejudice and antagonism between Jews and Arabs.     

Preparing Teachers to Work with Diversity Issues in Israel: Paradigms,Puzzles, and Praxis

This article presents findings from a qualitative study exploring how Israeli teacher educators prepare candidates to address multicultural issues. Background is presented regarding multicultural education in Israel along with a discussion concerning Israel's unique diversity-related challenges. Findings explore multicultural practices that are used by Israeli teacher educators designed to support development of multicultural sensitivity and create deeper understanding of different groups. Discussion of the data and recommendations for Israeli and American schools are presented.     

Aftereffect of 9-11: A Call to Balance Patriotism and Multiculturalism in the Classroom

The events of September 11, 2001, have had a large impact on the psyche and politics of America. The impact has filtered its way down to education. The aftereffect of September 11 has caused educators to confront the issue of balancing a need for patriotism and multiculturalism in the classroom. Patriotism, intolerance (of terrorists), and nationalism seemingly contrast with the multicultural education goals of tolerance, understanding of other perspectives, and internationalism. In this article, the roots of misunderstanding and prejudice toward people of Middle Eastern or Muslim descent are explored within American society. The authors then give suggestions to modify the curriculum, reduce prejudice, deal with intolerance, and stand unified in the midst of this national crisis.     

Fortifying the Foundation: Tools for Addressing Disability Within the Multicultural Classroom

In a 2007 issue of Multicultural Perspectives, Johnson and Nieto highlighted the need for more deliberate, robust, and balanced conversations regarding disability, especially within the context of multicultural education. Although researchers echo the importance of disability-based discussions and related curriculum, disability programming at the elementary and secondary levels is often sporadic or non-existent. This article melds Banks' (2004) five dimensions of multicultural education with disability-based constructs in order to provide a set of tools for fortifying teachers' knowledge base regarding disability and considering how disability can become a more integral part of the multicultural classroom.     

Multiculturalism in Malaysia and Singapore: Contesting models

Malaysia and Singapore are good examples of multicultural societies albeit with different acculturation ideologies. Both countries comprise three main ethnic groups but in diametrically opposite proportion. In Malaysia, 50.4% of the population is Malay, 23.7% Chinese, 11% indigenous peoples, 7.1% Indian, and 7.8% other races. In Singapore, the ratio is 74.1% Chinese, 13.4% Malay, 9.2% Indian and 3.3% other races. Due to its colonial past, “ethnicity” has been the central policy issue in Malaysia and remains so up to this day. The dominance of communal politics can be understood in Stephan and Stephan's (2000) model of integrated threat theory. In Singapore, the city-state does not believe in affirmative action and it prefers to manage cultural identities on the basis of a multicultural ideology (Berry and Kalin, 1995, Berry et al., 1977). In this article, multiculturalism is used to refer to public policies carried out by the two countries to manage their plural societies. We will discuss the development of the multicultural models that have evolved in the two countries. While Malaysia's model of multiculturalism is based on policies that have been instituted to manage inter-group tensions, prevent violence, and pursue social justice between the ethnic groups as a result of its past, Singapore's model is guided by pragmatic realism and market fundamentals associated with the needs of a global city. Both models will face challenges in the coming years as they each adapt to the seismic shifts in the geo-economic landscapes.     

Multiracial and Multiethnic Students: How They Must Belong

The number of multiracial and multiethnic children in our nation's schools continues to increase. This population is challenging our schools-and our schools' multicultural efforts-to be truly inclusive. This requires schools to examine what historically has been a single-race approach to diversity: curriculum materials, curriculum content, celebrations and holidays, student organizations, and teacher training. Schools, multicultural programs within schools, and teacher preparation courses must find ways to support and celebrate multiracial and multiethnic children, their families, and their histories.     

The Mutual Symbiosis Between Inclusive Bi-lingual Education and Multicultural Education

In this article the authors postulate a mutual symbiosis between multicultural and inclusive bi-lingual education. Combining bi-lingual and multicultural education to create a symbiotic relationship can stimulate reform in schools and can promote inclusive educational systems, thereby keeping native languages and cultures alive for minority students and enhancing native English speakers’ language and cultural understandings.     

PART IV: THE MULTICULTURAL LIBRARY

The changing demographic representation of students in United States public schools has significant implications for colleges of education. These changes make it imperative for colleges of education to produce candidates that possess the knowledge, skills, and sensitivity to deal with diverse student populations. To do so effectively, teacher educators would have to understand the meaning of cultural diversity and how to effectively integrate it into all facets of their teacher education programs. Such integration processes will include helping candidates to become more diversity mature (that is, to be comfortable with who they are) so that they can develop the self-efficacy that will propel them to contribute to the goals of a multicultural society. This article suggests the systems approach based on the systems analysis theory as a model for integrating cultural diversity in colleges of education. The process of systems analysis consists of a sequence of activities that includes (a) definition of the problem, (b) determination of the objectives and criteria for performance, (c) examination of alternative plans, and (d) evaluating the chosen alternative in light of resulting outcomes from the process. Using the systems approach to integrate cultural diversity will lead to a comprehensive assessment of current diversity efforts in individual colleges of education. Integrating cultural diversity will also entail collaboration among the systems and subsystems within and outside the college community, and finally, it will lead to the designing of a cultural diversity plan that takes advantage of the values inherent in the material and human resources possessed by the institution. This article challenges educators to examine their commitment to promoting cultural diversity and offers a plan to make their programs more multicultural in nature.     

Drawing Parallels in Search of Educational Equity: A Multicultural Education Delegation to China Looks Outside to See Within

In 2004, a professional delegation of multicultural educators visited the People's Republic of China to explore how diversity issues are addressed and how students are prepared for entry into the international workforce. The delegation, sponsored by the People to People Ambassador Programs, observed numerous parallels to the American system of education, including the challenge of providing equity for students of minority cultures, especially those in poor rural areas, and the conflict between modernization and preservation of cultural heritage.     

Collaborations Between Multicultural Educators and Archivists: Engaging Students with Multicultural History Through Archival Research Projects

When multicultural educators and archivists collaborate to design projects that engage students with multicultural history through archival research, students can learn in-depth research skills with primary source documents, creatively share their knowledge, and, on a broader level, engage with their local community history. The projects shared in this article serve as examples of how partnerships between multicultural educators and archivists can occur, the types of projects that can be developed and how they are implemented, and students' responses to their work. The three student projects, including a display, a history guidebook, and an oral history project, are intended to offer a variety of ideas to inspire multicultural educators to reach out to their local archivists to develop archival research projects of their own. And, to promote effective and fruitful partnerships, also included are lessons learned as well as tips for successful collaborations between multicultural educators and archivists.     

Effective Multicultural Curriculum Transformation Across Disciplines

Resistance to multicultural curriculum transformation has long been assumed to be a function solely of faculty racism, sexism, classism, and so forth, especially in the fields of "advanced" mathematics and "hard" sciences. Although this may account for a percentage of that resistance, it is a small percentage. In fact, most faculty are interested in multiculturally transforming their curriculum. The problem is that few know how to go about doing it. Until recently, few, if any, doctoral programs included coursework on how to teach one's discipline, much less how to teach it from a multicultural perspective. Faculty need opportunities to learn how to develop multiculturally oriented curricula content, pedagogical approaches, and methods of evaluating student learning and teaching effectiveness. Faculty also need opportunities to learn how to build positive relationships with increasingly diverse bodies of students, and how to create more supportive educational environments for that interaction to occur. This article provides faculty with an overview of effective approaches to multicultural curriculum transformation, applicable across disciplines vis-á-vis content, pedagogy, evaluation, relationship building, and environment creation.     

Exploring the other side of cultural boundary-crossing teaching in the polarized Israeli society: Jewish teachers from the majority group who teach at the Arab minority's schools

One of the methods of multicultural societies for advancing a shared society is cross-cultural teaching. Commonly, teachers from the majority group apply to teaching at the majority's schools through the acculturation process. The current study, however, illuminates the understudied situation, in which teachers of the Jewish majority group in Israel teach at the Arab minority's schools. Our findings indicate that these Jewish teachers are mostly motivated by their ideology and moral values, mainly a yearning to bridge between two hostile societies. These teachers' integration into the minority's schools is challenging due to cultural differences, lack of familiarity with Arabic, and difficulties introducing informal pedagogy, that is not common in Arab schools, discipline problems among students, and a challenging national-political discourse.     

Editorial

This article reports on a narrative inquiry with two teacher-researchers of opposite ethnic, social class, and gender backgrounds about how their oppositions became an asset for their multicultural education. The study calls for educators to consider cultural creativity as a pertinent feature of multicultural education in today's polarized culture.     

Current Status and Future Directions for Cultural Intelligence

The concept of cultural intelligence was formulated to ease and understand multicultural interactions in business organizations. Based on the theory of multiple intelligence; it is the cross-cultural facet of intelligence that assists adaptive cultural adjustment. Due to its implications for the contemporary world witnessing increased cultural contact and clashes; it has attracted multidisciplinary scholarly interest. This article reviews the development, validation and major approaches to the construct, along with a focus on its critical analysis. Significance of the construct in promoting intercultural discourse to encourage pacific multicultural existence is implicated. Furthermore, suggestions are made to extend the scope of cultural intelligence research and integrate it in diverse fields encompassing intercultural contact and communication.     

Threat and Prejudice against Syrian Refugees in Canada: Assessing the Moderating Effects of Multiculturalism,Interculturalism, and Assimilation

A survey experiment (N = 529) was used to test the moderating effects of intergroup ideologies (assimilation, multiculturalism, and interculturalism) on the relationship between social dominance orientation (SDO) and expressions of prejudice under conditions of intergroup threat. Moderated multiple regression analyses suggest a multicultural integration frame moderates the relationship between SDO and feelings toward Syrian refugees in Canada when the target outgroup is portrayed as a source of intergroup threat. This moderating effect was unique to the relationship between SDO and feelings toward Syrians and did not extend to other correlates of prejudice including beliefs in zero-sum group competition or a multicultural ideology, nor did it extend to more general measures of prejudice (i.e., attitudes toward immigrants or evaluations of intercultural contact). Findings suggest the prejudice-reducing effects of a multicultural integration narrative affect group evaluations and functions by targeting beliefs in social dominance, rather than zero-sum group competition or ideological support for cultural diversity. The results offer insights into the prejudice-reducing potential for two alternative integration narratives that are institutionalized in Canada.