Amity Institute of Education

Multicultural Education
• Multicultural Education describes a system of instruction
that attempts to foster cultural pluralism and acknowledges
the differences between races and cultures. It addresses the
educational needs of a society that contains more than one
set of traditions, that is a mixture of many cultures.

• Multicultural education is an educational philosophy that

focuses on celebrating cultural differences while also
recognizing the importance of challenging all forms of
discrimination based on race, gender, age, religion, ability
or sexual orientation.
 Amity Institute of Education

Multicultural education advocates the belief that students and their life
histories and experiences should be placed at the center of the teaching
and learning process and that pedagogy should occur in a context that is
familiar to students and that addresses multiple ways of thinking. In
addition, teachers and students must critically analyze oppression and
power relations in their communities, society and the world.

To accomplish these goals, multicultural education demands a school

staff that is culturally competent, and to the greatest extent possible
racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse. Staff must be
multiculturally literate and capable of including and embracing families
and communities to create an environment that is supportive of multiple
perspectives, experiences, and democracy. Multicultural education
requires comprehensive school reform as multicultural education must
pervade all aspects of the school community and organization.
 Amity Institute of Education

Characteristics of Multicultural
Education
• Multicultural education is antiracist education.
• Multicultural education is basic education.
• Multicultural education is important for all students.
• Multicultural education is pervasive.
• Multicultural education is education for social
justice.
• Multicultural education is critical pedagogy
 Amity Institute of Education

Principles of Teaching and Learning

in a Multicultural Society
• Principle 1: Professional development programs should help
teachers understand the complex characteristics of different
groups of children in the Indian society and the ways in which
race, ethnicity, language and social class interact to influence
students behavior.
• Principle 2: Schools should ensure that all students have
equitable opportunities to learn and to meet high standards.
• Principle 3: The curriculum should help students understand that
knowledge is socially constructed and reflects the social, political
and economic contexts in which they live and work.
 Amity Institute of Education

• Principle 4: Schools should provide all students with

opportunities to participate in extra- and co-curricular
activities that develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes
that increase academic achievement and foster
positive interracial relationships
• Principle 5: Schools should create or make salient
superordinate crosscutting group memberships in
order to improve intergroup relations.
• Principle 6: Students should learn about
stereotyping and other related biases that have
negative effects on racial and ethnic relations.
 Amity Institute of Education

• Principle 7: Students should learn about the values

shared by virtually all cultural groups (e.g., justice,
equality, freedom, peace, compassion, and charity).
• Principle 8: Teachers should help students acquire the
social skills needed to interact effectively with students
from other racial, ethnic, cultural, and language groups.
• Principle 9: Schools should provide opportunities for
students from different racial, ethnic, cultural, and
language groups to interact socially under conditions
designed to reduce fear and anxiety.
 Amity Institute of Education

Benefits of Multicultural
Education
1. Helps to eradicate prejudice and racism.
2. Brings different races together in harmony.
3. Builds interaction between diverse cultures.
4. Creates tolerance between two groups.
5. It eradicates cultural barriers.
6. Helps students develop positive self-image.
7. Allows multiple perspectives and ways of thinking.
 Amity Institute of Education

The Dimensions of Multicultural

Education
James A. Banks's Dimensions of Multicultural
Education is used widely by school districts to
conceptualize and develop courses, programs,
and projects in multicultural education. The five
dimensions are: (1) content integration; (2) the
knowledge construction process; (3) prejudice
reduction; (4) an equity pedagogy; and (5) an
empowering school culture and social structure.
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 Amity Institute of Education

Content Integration
•content integration focuses on what information should
be included in the curriculum, how it should be
integrated into the existing curriculum, and its location
within the curriculum
•Content integration deals with the extent to which
teachers use examples and content from a variety of
cultures and groups.
•There are frequent and ample opportunities for teachers
to use ethnic and cultural content to illustrate concepts,
themes, and principles in the social studies, the language
arts, and in music. 9
 Amity Institute of Education

The knowledge construction process.

• The knowledge construction process describes teaching activities
that help students to understand, investigate, and determine how the
implicit cultural assumptions, frames of references, perspectives,
and biases of researchers and textbook writers influence the ways in
which knowledge is constructed.
• Multicultural teaching involves not only infusing ethnic content
into the school curriculum, but changing the structure and
organization of school knowledge.

It also includes changing the ways in which teachers and

students view and interact with knowledge, helping them to
become knowledge producers, not merely the consumers of
knowledge produced by others. 10
 Amity Institute of Education

Prejudice reduction
•The prejudice reduction dimension of multicultural
education seeks to help students develop positive and
democratic racial attitudes.
•Focus on building strategies that can be used to help
students develop more positive racial and ethnic
attitudes.
•It also helps students to understand how ethnic
identity is influenced by the context of schooling and
the attitudes and beliefs of dominant social groups.
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 Amity Institute of Education

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, socioeconomic, and language groups.
• This includes using a variety of teaching styles and approaches that
are consistent with the range of learning styles.
• An equity pedagogy assumes that students from diverse cultures
and groups come to school with many strengths.
Teachers practice culturally responsive teaching when an equity
pedagogy is implemented.
• They use instructional materials and practices that incorporate
important aspects of the family and community culture of their
students 12
 Amity Institute of Education

An empowering school culture

• This dimension involves restructuring the culture and organization of
the school so that students from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic,
and language groups experience equality.
• Grouping and labeling practices, sports participation, gaps in
achievement among groups, different rates of enrollment in gifted and
special education programs among groups, and the interaction of the
staff and students across ethnic and racial lines are important variables
that are examined and reformed.
• An empowering school structure facilitates the practice of multicultural
education by providing teachers with opportunities for collective
planning and instruction, and by creating democratic structures that give
teachers, parents, and school staff shared responsibility for school
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governance