Education For A Multicultural Society

Educators everywhere confront critical issues related to families, schooling, and teaching in diverse settings. Directly addressing this reality, Home-School Connections in a Multicultural Society shows pre-service and practicing teachers how to recognize and build on the rich resources for enhancing school learning that exist within culturally and linguistically diverse families. Combining engaging cases and relevant key concepts with thought-provoking pedagogical features, this valuable resource for educators at all levels: Provides detailed portraits of diverse families that highlight their unique cultural practices related to schooling and the challenges that their children face in school settings Introduces key sociocultural and ethnographic concepts, in ways that are both accessible and challenging, and applies these concepts as lenses through which to examine the portraits Shows how teachers and researchers have worked with diverse families to build positive relationships and develop learning activities that incorporate children’s unique experiences and resources Disrupting deficit assumptions about the experiences and knowledge that culturally and linguistically diverse children acquire in their homes and communities, this book engages readers in grappling deeply and personally with the chapters’ meanings and implications, and in envisioning their own practical ways to learn from and with families and children.

This collection of essays deals with philosophical and educational questions about multi-culturalism in primary and secondary schools.

The National Association for Multicultural Education in Washington, D.C., listed a number of issues that the school curriculum should address with reference to multicultural education, including racism, sexism, classism, linguicism, ablism, ageism, heterosexism, and religious intolerance. It is noteworthy that of all these issues, religion is about the only one that throughout history people are willing to die for, although whether what is at issue is really religion or other things such as territory is another matter. It is also interesting that all the others have isms in their names but religious issues are characterized by intolerance. Perhaps we should try to understand this intolerance and look at what steps might help to alleviate it. However, while intolerance might seem a simple thing, understanding what is behind it and how it plays such a crucial role in religion requires what we refer to in the Introduction chapter as a multifaceted approach at multiple levels. It is not enough just to try to dispel stereotypes of followers of other religions, or to point out commonalities in world religions. We should, for example, try to understand and appreciate how adherents of other religions try to answer questions regarding their adaptation to the contemporary environment. It is through understanding how different religions coexist side by side at various levels that we truly come to learn about religion in multicultural education.

As the first country in the world to enact a formal policy of multiculturalism, Canada has made impressive strides toward promoting civic inclusion for all; however, the education system remains less than forthcoming about the injustices that shape our democracy and create conditions that teach young people to see difference as deficiency. Ratna Ghosh and Mariusz Galczynski seek to persuade educators to incorporate the ideology of multiculturalism into their classroom pedagogy and professional practice. In this third edition, Redefining Multicultural Education mobilizes an expanded definition of multiculturalism that encompasses gender identity, sexual orientation, religious expression, and (dis)ability. New features include material on environmental awareness, cyberbullying, multilingual learners, digital technologies, youth radicalization, and recent events in Quebec and First Nations communities. Integrating vignettes, discussion questions, and sample activities with techniques for applying a multicultural lens to any subject area or level of study, this lively and accessible guide is essential for those interested in preparing students for a global economy in which innovation relies, before all else, on diversity.

Teachers and the educational systems need to handle the variety of different cultural groups in a sensitive and intelligent way.This book surveys the problems and the responses to the world around them.

The second edition of this source book contains essays and annotations on a number of issues related to multicultural education. The authors define multicultural education as a process-oriented creation of learning experiences that foster an awareness of, respect for, and enjoyment of the diversity of our society and world. Inherent in this definition of multicultural education is a commitment to create a more just and equitable society for all people. This book, then, offers suggestions relevant to the teaching of all children, all teaching and curricular decisions, and every aspect of educational policy.

This conceptually rich and empirically grounded book draws upon expertise from a panel of emerging and established international scholars to explore the institutionalization and effect of multicultural education on a global scale. Previous studies of multicultural education have largely ignored the significance of understanding the combination of multiple sociopolitical influences on multicultural education in both policy and practice. Filling this void, this book sheds light on the two main reasons for taking a “glocal” perspective on multicultural education. First, children should be provided with meaningful learning opportunities to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to live in a culturally and ethno-linguistically diverse society, where the distinction between the local and the global is becoming blurred. Second, understanding both the “global grammar” and the “local semantics” of multicultural education helps researchers and policy-makers grasp the whole picture of multicultural education as an evolving social construct and phenomenon. This new book provokes a new round of discussion and research to expand and enrich our inquiry into cultural diversity and educational inclusion.