Abstract
Multicultural education is a school reform that emerged from the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s with the goals that “students from all social class, gender, racial, language, and cultural groups would have an opportunity to learn” (Banks & Banks, 2001, p. 4). Given this movement, curriculum and instructions, and course offerings for pre-service teachers at the California State University Monterey Bay were redesigned to prepare undergraduate Liberal Studies’ students with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to be able to teach cross-culturally. The goals of Multicultural Education were to ensure that by educating university students, they would in turn educate K-12 students to respect and appreciate people of different ethnicities, cultures, abilities, and social economic status. Armed with a diverse perspective, K-12 students would become literate and socially adept in cross-cultural interactions and possible decrease and or eliminate discrimination, racism, and ethnocentrism. Banks, Sleeter, Grant and many others multicultural educators foresaw that students taught courses in Multicultural Education would be the catalysts for environments that could improve race relations, decrease racial misunderstandings, and become stewards for a pluralistic society.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Learner Diversity and Identities
KEYWORDS
"Multicultural Education", " Course Offering", " Ethnic Studies"
