An overview of multicultural education in the USA: grandest social experiment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the historical and theoretical foundation of multicultural education in the USA. The discussion begins with a review of how diverse populations (e.g. ethnic, race, language, religious, cultural, class, and other differences) immigrated to the USA resulting in the need for multicultural sensitivities and responsiveness in the educational system. The paper describes how multicultural education has unfolded and discusses a culturally relevant pedagogy framework. The historical and theoretical contexts of multicultural education provide the foundation for determining if educational approaches are used and decisions are made that meet the needs of the diverse student population in the US public schools. Design/methodology/approach Emerging from the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the notion of multicultural education unfolded (Sleeter, 2000) leading to the present day where a plethora of literature exists, well informing teacher education and school districts all over the country (see the reference section for some of the represented literature). In response to a largely Eurocentric point of view and the notion of a “melting pot” mindset, multicultural education is one that unfolds out of a pluralistic perspective. While the intent of the “melting pot” concept was to recognize ethnic and cultural differences in a dynamic that would harmoniously “melt” into a unique blend of what America is, what happened was “[…] the brew turned out to be Anglo-Saxon again […] reinforce[ing] the ethnocentrism of the majority and convince ethnic minorities that their ethnicity and cultural heritage were illegitimate and hence needed to be abandoned” (Pai and Adler, 2001, p. 63). Findings In the final analysis, awareness of historical and theoretical contexts in light of curricular objectives, instructional approaches, and ways students are assessed is critical in order to better make educational decisions that are just and best serve a diverse student population (Duarte and Smith, 2000). Indeed, a principal goal of multicultural education is the fostering of educational equity (Banks, 2006). Originality/value The issue for the classroom teacher, therefore, is not whether there will be multiple complex challenges in encountering differences; rather, the question for the teacher is an understanding of one’s level of awareness of those differences and the contexts that frames those differences. Hence, in the end, the more aware a teacher is about concepts related to multicultural education, the more likely the movement toward educational equity will be cultivated, and the more likely the grandest social experiment in the world will fruitfully advance.