Multicultural Education: Development, Dimensions, and Challenges Author(s): James A. Banks Source: The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol.

75, No. 1 (Sep., 1993), pp. 22-28 Published by: Phi Delta Kappa International Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20405019 . Accessed: 21/09/2011 15:27
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MulticulturalEducation

Developmnent

Dimensions,

and Callenges

Mr. Banks focuses on the development and attainments education - a Ofmulticultural story that needs to be told, he says, afor the sake of balance, scholarly integrity, and accuracy."
BY JAMEs A. THE BANKS

BITTER debate over the literary and historical canon that has been carried on in the popular press and in sev eral widely reviewed books has overshadowed the progress that has been made inmulticultural education dur ing the last two decades. The debate has also perpetuated harmful muisconceptions about theory and practice inmulticultur al education. Consequently, it has height ened racial and ethnic tension and trivial ized the field's remarkable accomplishments in theory, research, and curriculum. development. The truth about the de velopment and attainments of multicul tural education needs to be told for the sake of balance, scholarly integrity, and accuracy. But if I am to reveal the truth about multicultural education, Imust first identify and debunk some of the wide about ' spread myths and misconceptions it. Multicultural education is for the others. One misconception about mul ticultural education is that it is an en titlement program and curriculum mo
JAMES A. BANKS is a professor of educa-S of Washing

X r

I1

e-e

tion and director of the center for Multicul

tujral Education at the University

ment forAfricanAmericans, Hispanics, largepart because intergroup educators mainstream the poor, women, and other victimized were never able topersuade groups.1 The major theorists and re educators to believe that the approach educationagree was needed by and designed for all stu searchersin multicultural thatthe movement is designed to restruc dents. To its bitter but quiet end, main ture educational institutions so that all streameducators viewed intergroup edu students, includingmiddle-class white cation as something for schools with males, will acquiretheknowledge, skills, racial problems and as something for effective "them" and not for "us." andattitudes needed to function ly in a culturally and ethnically diverse Multicultural education isopposed to nation and world.2 Multicultural edu theWestern tradition. Another harm ful multiculturaled cation, as itsmajor architects have con misconception about
ceived it during the last decade, is not an

edge implies action. Consequently, dif ferentconcepts, theories,andparadigms implydifferent kinds of actions.Multi
culturalists believe that, in order to have

valid knowledge, informationabout the social condition and experiences of the knower are essential. A few critics of multicultural edu
cation, such as John Leo and Dinesh

ethnic- or gender-specific movement. It is amovement designed to empower all studentsto become knowledgeable, car
ing, and active citizens in a deeply trou

ucation has been repeated so often by its critics that many people take it as self evident. This is the claim that multicul that is op tural education is amovement posed to the West and to Western civiliza

D'Souza, claim that multiculturaleduca tion has reducedor displaced the study of Western civilization in the nation's schools and colleges. However, asGer
ald Graff points out in his welcome book

Beyond theCultureWars, this claim is

simply not true. Graff cites his own re search at the college level and that of

bled and ethnicallypolarizednation and world. The claim that multiculturaleducation

is only for people of color and for the is one of themost perni disenfranchised

tion. Multicultural education is not anti

West, because most writers of color such as Rudolfo Anaya, Paula Gunn Al len, Maxine Hong Kingston, Maya An gelou, and Toni Morrison - are West

ArthurApplebee at thehigh school level to substantiate conclusion thatEuro his

pean and American male authors and Hemingway still dominate such the re

as Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer,Twain,

cious anddamaging misconceptionswith

which the movement has had to cope. It has caused intractable problems and has

ernwriters.Multiculturaleducationitself quired reading lists in the nation'shigh isa thoroughly Westernmovement.Itgrew schools and colleges.5Graff found that, out of a civil rights movement grounded in the cases he examined, most of the
in such democratic ideals of theWest as books by authors of color were optional

haunted multiculturaleducationsince its

inception. Despite all that has been writ edu ten and spoken about multicultural cation being for all students, the image of multicultural education as an entitle

freedom,justice, and equality. Multicul

tural education seeks to extend to all people the ideals thatwere meant only for an elite few at the nation's birth.

rather than required reading.Applebee

found that, of the 10 book-length works

most frequently required in the high

school grades, only one title was by a female author (Harper Lee's To Kill a

ment program for the "others"remains

strong and vivid in the public imagina tion, as well as in the hearts and minds of many teachers and administrators.

Althoughmulticulturaleducationis not
opposed to theWest, its advocates do de mand that the truth about the West be told, that its debt to people of color and

Mockingbird), andnot a singlework was

by a writer of color. Works by Shake

Teachers who teach in predominantly women be recognizedand includedin the white schools and districts often state curriculum, thatthediscrepancies and be
that they don't have a program or plan or

speare, Steinbeck, andDickens headed the list. Multicultural education will divide
the nation. Many of its critics claim that

formulticulturaleducationbecause they
have few African American, Hispanic,

Asian American students.

When educators view multicultural edu cation as the study of the "others," it is marginalized and held apart from main

tween the ideals of and the realities of taught to students. citizens is also an

freedom and equality racism and sexism be Reflective action by integral part of multi

will multicultural education divide thena

tion and undercut its unity. Schlesinger underscores this view in the title of his book, The Disuniting of America: Re

cultural theory. Multicultural education views citizen action to improve society flections on aMulticulturalSociety.This
as an integral part of education in a de is based partly on ques misconception tionable assumptions about the nature of U.S. society and partly on amistaken un education. derstanding of multicultural

streameducationreform.Several critics mocracy; it linksknowledge,values, em of multicultural education, such as Arthur powerment, and action. Multicultural
Schlesinger, John Leo, and Paul Gray, education is also postmodern in its as

multicul have perpetuatedthe idea that

tural education is the study of the "oth er" by defining it as synonymous with

Afrocentriceducation.The historyof in
tergroup education teaches us that only when education reform related to diver sity is viewed as essential for all students - and as promoting the broad public in terest - will it have a reasonable chance

of becoming institutionalizedin the na tion's schools, colleges, and universi

ties.4 The intergroup education move

sumptionsaboutknowledge and knowl The claim thatmulticultural education edge construction; it challenges positiv will divide the nation assumes that the na ist assumptions about the relationships tion is already united. While we are one between human values, knowledge, and nationpolitically, sociologically our na action. tion is deeply divided along lines of race, Positivists, who are the intellectual gender, and class. The current debate heirs of theEnlightenment,believe that about admitting gays into themilitary un it is possible to structure knowledge that derscores another deep division in our so is objective andbeyond the influenceof ciety. Multicultural education is designed humanvalues and interests. Multicultur
al theorists maintain is that knowledge positional, that it relates to the knower's to help unify a deeply divided nation rath er than to divide a highly cohesive one.

ment of the 1940s and 1950s failed in values and experiences, and thatknowl

Multicultural education supportstheno

SEPTEMBER 1993

23

culture inwhich people frommany dif ferent cultures can interact, relate, and

changes Curriculum with issues linked to related race evoke primordial feelings reflect and crisis. the racial

engage in civic talk and action. Anzal dua states that "borders are set up to de fine the places that are safe and unsafe,

ticulturaleducation in its teachereduca tion curricula includingboth thegeneral and professional studies components." Themarket for teachereducation text books dealingwith multicultural educa
tion is now a substantial one. Most ma jor publishers now have at least one text

to distinguishus from them.A border is

a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and

undeterminedplace createdby the resi

due of an unnatural boundary. It is in a

in the field. Textbooks inother required courses, such as educationalpsychology

and the foundations of education, fre quently have separate chapters or a sig nificant number of pages devoted to ex

constant state of transition."6

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION HAS MADE PROGRESS While it is still on the margins rather than in the center of the curriculum in

amining concepts and developments in multicultural education.

Some of the nation's of California at Berkeley, leading colleges the Universi

and universities, such as theUniversity

most schools and colleges, multicultural ty of Minnesota, and Stanford Universi contenthasmade significantinroadsinto ty, have either revised their general core both the school and thecollege curricula curriculum to include ethnic content or within the last two decades. The truth have establishedan ethnic studiescourse tion of e pluribus unum - out of many, The listof universities with lies somewhere West between theclaim thatno requirement. one. The multiculturalistsand the often differ progress has been made in infusing the similar kinds of requirements grows ern traditionalists, however, longer each year. However, the trans school and college curricula with multi about how the unum can best be attained. U.S. societyand ethnic content and the claim that such formation of the traditional canon on col Traditionally,the larger lege and university campuses has often content has replaced the European and the schools tried to create unity by as been bitter and divisive. All changes in similating students from diverse racial American classics. In the elementary and high schools, curriculum come slowly and painfully and ethnic groups into a mythical Anglo to university campuses, but curriculum American culture that required them to much more ethnic content appears in so changes that are linked with issues relat experience a process of self-alienation. cial studies and language arts textbooks ed to race evoke primordial feelings and However, even when studentsof color today than was the case 20 years ago. so reflect the racial crisis in American were In addition, some teachers assign works became culturallyassimilated, they often structurallyexcluded frommain written by authors of color along with the ciety. For example, at the University of more standard American classics. In his Washington a bitter struggleendedwith stream institutions. The multiculturalists view e pluribus study of book-length works used in the the defeat of the ethnic studies require high schools, Applebee concluded that ment. unum as an appropriate national goal, but
they believe that the unum must be ne

gotiated, discussed, and restructuredto reflect the nation's ethnic and cultural
diversity. The reformulation of what it means to be united must be a process that

involves the participation of diverse

groups within the nation, such as peo ple of color, women, straights, gays, the

powerful, thepowerless, theyoung, and

the old. The reformulation must also in

his most striking finding was how simi lar present reading lists are to past ones and how little change has occurred. How ever, he did note thatmany teachers use anthologies as a mainstay of their litera ture programs and that 21% of the anthol ogy selections were written by women and 14% by authors of color.7 More classroom teachers today have

studiedtheconceptsof multiculturaledu
cation than at any previous point in our history. A significant percentage of to day's classroom teachers took a required teacher education course inmulticultural education when they were in college. The multicultural education standard adopted by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education in 1977, which be came effective in 1979, was amajor fac tor that stimulated the growth of multicul tural education in teacher education pro

by volve power sharingandparticipation who many differentcultures people from

must reach beyond their cultural and eth nic borders in order to create a common

civic culture thatreflectsand contributes

to the well-being of all. This common civic culture will extend beyond the cul tural borders of any single group and con

stitute a civic "borderland" culture. InBorderlands,Gloria Anzaldutacon

trasts cultural borders and borderlands

Changes are also coming to elementary and high school textbooks, as Jesus Gar in this special cia points out elsewhere section of the Kappan. I believe that the demographic imperative is themajor fac tor driving the changes in school text books. The color of the nation's student body is changing rapidly. Nearly half (about 45.5%) of the nation's school-age youths will be young people of color by 2020.9 Black parents and brown parents are demanding that their leaders, their images, their pain, and their dreams be mirrored in the textbooks that their chil dren study in school. Textbooks have always reflected the myths, hopes, and dreams of people with money and power. As African Ameri cans, Hispanics, Asians, and women be come more influential, textbooks will in creasingly reflect their hopes, dreams,

and calls for aweakening of the former grams. The standardstated: "The insti in order to create a sharedborderland tution gives evidenceof planningfor mul

anddisappointments. Textbooks will have to survivein the marketplace a browner of

24

PHI DELTA KAPPAN

America. Because textbooks still carry data, and information from a variety of the curriculum in the nation's public cultures and groups to illustratethekey schools, theywill remain an important concepts,principles,generalizations, and focus for multicultural curriculum re theoriesin theirsubjectareaor discipline. formers. Inmany school districts as well as in pop ular writing, multicultural education is viewed almost solely as content integra THE DIMENSIONS OF tion.This narrowconceptionofmulticul
MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

One of theproblems thatcontinues to plague the move multiculturaleducation ment, both fromwithin andwithout, is of the tendency teachers,administrators,
policy makers, and the public to oversim

Multiculturaleducation plify theconcept. is a complex andmultidimensional con

cept, yet media commentators and edu cators alike often focus on only one of

view its many dimensions.Some teachers

it only as the inclusion of content about

others ethnicgroups into thecurriculum;

view it as an effort to reduce prejudice; still others view it as the celebration of ethnic holidays and events. After Imade a presentation in a school inwhich I de scribed the major goals of multicultural education, a math teacher told me that what I said was fine and appropriate for language arts and social studies teachers but that it had nothing to do with him. After all, he said, math was math, re gardless of the color of the kids. This reaction on the part of a respect ed teacher caused me to think more deep ly about the images of multicultural edu cation that had been created by the key actors in the field. I wondered whether we were partly responsible for this teach

Collins have done some of themost im work related to knowledge con portant work, This ground-breaking struction."1 although influentialamong scholarsand curriculumdevelopers, has been over shadowed in the popularmedia by the heated debates about the canon. These writers and researchershave seriously tural education is a major reason why challenged the claimsmade by theposi many teachers in such subjects as biolo tivists thatknowledge can be value-free, gy, physics, andmathematicsreject mul and they have described the ways in ticultural educationas irrelevantto them which knowledge claims are influenced and their students. by the gender and ethnic characteristics In fact, thisdimensionof multicultur of theknower.These-scholarsargue that al education probably has more relevance the human interestsand value assump to social studies and language arts teach tions of those who create knowledge ers than it does to physics andmath teach shouldbe identified,discussed, and ex ers. Physics and math teachers can insert amined. multicultural content into their subjects Code states that the sex of the knower - e.g., by using biographies of physi is epistemologically significantbecause cists and mathematicians of color and ex knowledge is both subjective and ob amples from different cultural groups. jective. She maintains thatboth aspects these kinds of activities are However, shouldbe recognizedanddiscussed.Col probably not themost important multi lins, an African American sociologist, cultural tasks that can be undertaken by extendsandenrichestheworks of writers science and math teachers. Activities re such asCode andHarding by describing latedto theotherdimensionsof multicul the ways inwhich race and gender inter tural education, such as the knowledge act to influenceknowledge construction. construction process, prejudice reduc Collins calls the perspective of African tion, and an equity pedagogy, are prob Americanwomen theperspectiveof "the ably the most fruitful areas for the mul outsider within." She writes, "As out ticultural involvement of science and siders within, Black women have a dis math teachers. between tinctview of thecontradictions thedominantgroup'sactions and ideolo
KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION gies."12

The knowledge constructionprocess encompassestheprocedures which so by er's narrow conception of multicultural cial, behavioral, and natural scientists educationasmerely content integration. create knowledge in theirdisciplines.A It was in response to such statements by multicultural focus on knowledge con ways classroom teachersthatI conceptualized structionincludesdiscussionof the inwhich the implicit cultural assump the dimensions of multicultural educa tions, framesof reference,perspectives, tion. Iwill use the following five dimen and biases within a discipline influence sions to describe the field's major com the constructionof knowledge. An ex ponents and to highlight important de velopmentswithin the last two decades: amination of the knowledge construction 1) content integration, theknowledge process is an important part of multicul 2) construction process, 3) prejudicereduc turalteaching.Teachers help studentsto how understand knowledge is createdand tion, 4) an equity pedagogy, and 5) an
school culture and social empowering structure.10 Iwill devote most of the rest of this article to the second of these dimensions. how it is influenced by factors of race, landmark work

and Curriculumtheorists developers in multicultural education are applying to work beingdoneby the theclassroomthe feminist and ethnic studies epistemolo Knowledge, Eliz gists. InTransforming abeth Minnich, a professorof philosophy
and women's studies, has analyzed the

natureof knowledge and describedhow thedominanttradition,throughsuch log ical errors as faulty generalization and to circularreasoning,has contributed the marginalizationof women.13 I have identifiedfive typesof knowl for edge anddescribed their implications Teachers need multicultural teaching.14
to be aware of the various types of knowl edge so that they can structure a curric

ethnicity, gender, and social class.

Within the last decade,

ulum thathelps students to understand

each type. Teachers also need to use their own cultural knowledge and that of their

related to theconstructionof knowledge

has been done by feminist social scien tists and epistemologists, as well as by scholars in ethnic studies. Working in

CONTENT INTEGRATION Content integration deals with the

philosophy and sociology, SandraHar

ding, Lorraine Code, and Patricia Hill

studentsto enrich teachingand learning. The typesof knowledge I have identified and described are: 1) personal/cultural,
2) popular, 3) mainstream academic, 4)

extent towhich teachersuse examples,

SEPTEMBER

1993

25

Mainstream academic knowledge is es AfricanAmerican studies,which formed transformative, and 5) school. (Iwill not withinmainstream profession the academic roots of the current mul discuss schoolknowledge in thisarticle.) tablished ticulturaleducationmovement when it Personal/culturalknowledge consists al associations, such as the American American emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, were of the concepts, explanations,and inter HistoricalAssociation and the Psychological Association. It provides linked by several importantcharacter pretations thatstudentsderive fromper the interpretations that are taught inU. S. istics. Their works were transformative in their homes, fami sonal experiences because they created data, interpreta lies, and community cultures. Cultural colleges and universities. The literary legacy of mainstream aca tions, and perspectives that challenged conflict occurs in the classroom because knowledge demic knowledge includes suchwriters those thatwere established by white, much of thepersonal/cultural groups as Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, and Ar mainstream scholarship. work of the The thatstudentsfromdiverse cultural istotle.Critics of multiculturaleducation, transformativescholars presented posi bring to the classroom is inconsistent with tive images of African Americans school knowledge andwith the teacher's such as Schlesinger, D'Souza, andLeo, and believe that mainstreamacademicknowl refuted stereotypes thatwere pervasive personal and cultural knowledge. For ex edge in thecurriculumisbeing displaced within theestablishedscholarship their of ample, research indicates thatmany Afri by the new knowledge and interpreta time. can American andMexican American stu tions that have been created by scholars dents are more likely to experience aca Although they strove forobjectivity in their works and wanted to be considered demic success incooperative ratherthan working in women's studies and in eth scientific researchers, these transforma in competitive learningenvironments.15 nic studies.However, mainstream aca demic knowledge is not only threatened tive scholarsviewed knowledge and ac Yet the typical school culture is highly fromwithout but also fromwithin. Post tion as tightly linked and became in and children of color may competitive, modem scholars in organizations such as volved in socialactionandadministration experience failure if they do not figure the AmericanHistoricalAssociation, the themselves. Du Bois was active in social out the implicit rules of the school cul American SociologicalAssociation, and protest and for many years was the edi ture. 16 tor of Crisis, an official publication of the The popularknowledge that is institu theAmerican Political ScienceAssocia tion are challenging the dominant posi National Association for theAdvance tionalized by the mass media and other and with ment of Colored People. Woodson co tivist interpretations paradigms forces that shape the popular culture has in theirdisciplines and creating alterna founded the Association for the Study of a strong influence on the values, percep tive explanations and perspectives. Life and Negro (now Afro-American) tions, and behavior of children and young Transformative academic knowledge History, founded and edited the Jour people. The messages and images carried challengesthe facts,concepts,paradigms, nal of Negro History, edited the Negro by the media, which Carlos Cortes calls often reinforce themes, and explanations routinely accept History Bulletin for classroom teachers, the societalcurriculum,17 wrote school and college textbooks on and the stereotypes misconceptions about ed in mainstream academic knowledge. Thosewho pursuetransformative academic Negro history, and founded Negro His racial and ethnic groups that are institu knowledge seek to expand and substan tory Week (nowAfro-American Histo tionalizedwithin the larger society. Of course, some films and other popu tially revise establishedcanons, theories, ryMonth). larmedia forms do make positive contri explanations, and research methods. The Transformative academic knowledge Dances butions to racialunderstanding. transformative research methods and the has experienced a renaissance since the
with Wolves, Glory, and Malcolm X are examples. However, there are many ways to view such films, and both positive and negative examples of popular culture need to become a part of classroom discourse and analysis. Like all human creations, even these positive films are imperfect. informed and sensi The multiculturally tive teacher needs to help students view these films, as well as other media pro ductions, from diverse cultural, ethnic, ory that have been developed inwomen's studies and in ethnic studies since the 1970s constitute, in my view, the most 1970s. Only a few of the most important works can be mentioned here because of in an important space. Martin Bernal, two-volume work, Black Athena, has created new interpretations about the debt that Greece owes to Egypt and Phoeni cia. Before Bernal, Ivan Van Sertima and Cheikh Anta Diop also created novel in terpretations of the debt that Europe owes to Africa. In two books, Indian Givers and Native Roots, Jack Weatherford de

important developmentsin social science

theory and research in the last 20 years. It is important for teachers and students to realize, however, that transformative academic scholarship has a long history in the United States and that the cur

rentethnic studies movement is directly

linked to an earlier ethnic studies move ment that emerged in the late 1800s.18

and gender perspectives.

The concepts, theories, and explana tions that constitute traditional Western in history and in the centric knowledge social and behavioral sciences constitute mainstream academic knowledge. Tradi tional interpretations of U.S. history embodied in such headings as "The Eu ropean Discovery of America" and "The

scribes Native American contributions

that have enriched the world. Ronald Takaki, in several influential books, such as Iron Cages: Race and in 19th-Century America and Culture Strangers from a Different Shore: A His has given us tory of Asian Americans, new ways to think about the ethnic ex perience in America. The literary con

GeorgeWashingtonWilliams published
volume 1 of the first history of African in 1882 and the second vol Americans ume in 1883. Other important works pub lished by African American transforma tive scholars in times past included works by W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter Woodson, Horace Mann Bond, and Charles Wes

WestwardMovement" -are centralcon knowledge. cepts in mainstreamacademic

ley.'19 The works of these early scholars in

tribution to transformativescholarship has also been rich, as shownby Th1e Sig

26

PHI DELTA KAPPAN

nifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism, by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Long Black Song: Es says in Black American Literature and Culture, by Houston Baker, Jr.; and Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contem

Fiction, edited poraryAfrican-American

by Terry McMillan. A number of important works in the tradition that interrelate transformative race and gender have also been published since the 1970s. Important works in this genre include Unequal Sisters: A Multi in U.S. Women's His cultural Reader tory, edited by Carol Ellen DuBois and Vicki Ruiz; Race, Gender, and Work: A Multicultural Economic History of Wom en in the United States, by Teresa Amott and Julie Matthaei; Labor of Love, La bor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present, by Jacqueline Jones; and The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's An thology, edited by Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Mayumi Tsutakawa, andMargarita Don

An equity pedagogy exists when teach ers use techniques and teaching methods that facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse racial and eth nic groups and from all social classes. Using teaching techniques that cater to the learning and cultural styles of diverse groups and using the techniques of co operative learning are some of the ways that teachers have found effective with students from diverse racial, ethnic, and language groups.21 An empowering school culture and so cial structure will require the restructur ing of the culture and organization of the school so that students from diverse ra cial, ethnic, and social-class groups will educational equality and a experience

Seventies are noteworthy and should be acknowledged. Those who have shaped themovement during the intervening dec ades have been able to obtain wide agree ment on the goals of and approaches to

multicultural education.Most multicul

turalists agree that the major goal of multicultural education is to restructure schools so that all students will acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills need ed to function in an ethnically and racial ly diverse nation and world. As is the case with other interdisciplinary areas of study, debates within the field continue. These debates are consistent with the phi losophy of a field that values democracy and diversity. They are also a source of

strength.
Multicultural education is being imple in the nation's schools, mented widely The large and universities. colleges, school number of national conferences, district workshops, and teacher education education are courses in multicultural evidence of its success and perceived im the process of inte portance. Although gration of content is slow and often con tentious, multicultural content is increas ingly becoming a part of core courses in schools and colleges. Textbook publish ers are also integrating ethnic and cultural content into their books, and the pace of such integration is increasing. Despite its impressive successes, how ever, multicultural education faces seri ous challenges as we move toward the next century. One of the most serious of

sense of empowerment.This dimension

of multicultural education involves con the school as the unit of ceptualizing change and making structural changes

Adopting within the schoolenvironment.

assessment techniques that are fair to all groups, doing away with tracking, and creating the belief among the staff mem bers that all students can learn are impor tant goals for schools that wish to create a school culture and social structure that are empowering and enhancing for a di

nelly.
THE OTHER DIMENSIONS The "prejudice reduction" dimension of education focuses on the multicultural of children's racial atti characteristics tudes and on strategies that can be used to help students develop more positive ra cial and ethnic attitudes. Since the 1960s, social scientists have learned a great deal about how racial attitudes in children de velop and about ways inwhich educators can design interventions to help children acquire more positive feelings toward other racial groups. I have reviewed that research in two recent publications and refer Kappan readers to them for a com prehensive discussion of this topic.20 This research tells us that by age 4 African American, white, and Mexican American children are aware of racial differences and show racial preferences favoring whites. Students can be helped to develop more positive racial attitudes if realistic images of ethnic and racial groups are included in teaching materi als in a consistent, natural, and integrat ed fashion. Involving students in vicari ous experiences and in cooperative learn ing activities with students of other ra cial groups will also help them to devel op more positive racial attitudes and be

verse studentbody.
MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE The achievements of multicultural edu cation since the late Sixties and early

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27

thesechallenges is thehighly organized,

Western tradi well-financed attack by the tionalists who fear thatmulticultural edu in ways cation will transform America will result in their own disempower that ment. Ironically, the successes thatmul ticultural education has experienced dur ing the last decade have played a major role in provoking the attacks. The debate over the canon and the

in Linda Darling-Hammond, ed., Review vol. 19 (Washington, search in Education, American Educational Research Association, pp. 3-49.

of Re D.C: 1993),

11. Sandra Harding, Whose Science, Whose Knowl edge? Thinking from Women's Lives (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991); Lorraine Code, What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Con Cornell struction (Ithaca, N.Y.: of Knowledge Press, 1991); and Patricia Hill Collins, University Conscious Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, ness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: 1990). Routledge, 12. Collins, p. 11. 13. Elizabeth K. Minnich,

"The Societal Curriculum: 17. Carlos E. Cort?s, in James for Multiethnic Education," Implications in the '80s: Multiethnic A. Banks, ed., Education Education (Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1981), pp. 24-32. 18. James A. Banks, "African American Scholar Education," ship and the Evolution of Multicultural Summer Journal of Negro Education, 1992, pp. 273-86. that lists these and other more 19. A bibliography recent works of transformative at the end of this article. 20. James Effects on tudes," in search on (New idem, Racial tion," search York: scholarship appears

well-orchestrated attackon multicultur

al education reflect an identity crisis in

American society. The American iden

tity is being reshaped, as groups on the

margins of society begin to participate

and to demand that in the mainstream be reflected in a transformed their visions In the future, the sharing of America. power and the transformation of identity required to achieve lasting racial peace in America may be valued rather than feared, for only in this way will we achieve national salvation.

Transforming Knowledge Press, 1990). Temple University (Philadelphia: 14. James A. Banks, "The Canon Debate, Knowl and Multicultural Education," edge Construction, Educational Researcher, June/July 1993, pp. 4-14. 15. Robert E. Slavin, Cooperative (New Learning York: Longman, 1983). Pow "The Silenced Dialogue: 16. Lisa D. Delpit, er and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Chil dren," Harvard Educational Review, vol. 58, 1988, pp. 280-98.

Its A. Banks, "Multicultural Education: Students' Racial and Gender Role Atti James P. Shaver, ed., Handbook of Re Social Studies Teaching and Learning and York: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 459-69; "Multicultural Education for Young Children: and Their Modifica and Ethnic Attitudes in Bernard Spodek, ed., Handbook of Re on the Education (New of Young Children Macmillan, 1993), pp. 236-50.

21. Barbara J. R. Shade, ed., Culture, Style, and 111.: Charles C the Educative Process (Springfield, IS Thomas, 1989).

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