Down But Not Out

White enthusiasm for multicultural, anti-racist education has waned, proponents faith in the movement's ability to endure and grow.

Thirty years after making its debut in the nation's schools, multicultural,anti-racist education is being bombarded by a series of challengesthat have weakened its impact and derailed its growth.

The challenges stem in large part from an increasingly conservativepolitical climate coupled with the enduring legacy of white supremacy.They include a serious lack of diversity in the nation's teachingstaff, a drop in funding for multicultural programs, entrenchedschool policies that promote and perpetuate institutional racism,and a standards and testing movement that is pushing schools toadopt narrow views of learning and knowledge.

The result, say teachers and others working in K-12 classrooms,is a general waning in enthusiasm for and commitment to multiculturalprograms.

"Eleven years ago, multiculturalism was a top priority," saysBakari Chavanu, an English teacher at Florin High School in Sacramento,Calif. "Now, with all the emphasis on teaching the basics andmeeting the standards, it's low on people's priorities."

Carl Grant, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,agrees. "The fact is, multicultural education is no longer frontpage news," Grant says.

Ironically, the decreased interest in and support for anti-racist,multicultural education at the K-12 level comes at a time whenthe movement has never been stronger in the halls of academia."At the academic level, multicultural education is alive and well,"says Christine Sleeter, a professor at the Center for CollaborativeEducation and Professional Studies, California State University- Monterey Bay. "But I think the priorities coming from the stateshave shifted. As the nation itself has swung in a conservativedirection, the political climate in the schools has changed, too,from what it was like when the multicultural movement began."

According to Sleeter, one has to look no farther than Californiafor evidence of the attacks on multiculturalism. "It feels asif over the last several years, communities of color here areincreasingly under assault," she says, citing the passage of statewideinitiatives cutting public services for illegal immigrants (laterfound to be unconstitutional), eliminating affirmative action,and curtailing bilingual education.

In addition, educational consultants working at the K-12 levelhave told her that they have seen a "drying up of interest" instaff development programs that focus on anti-racist, multiculturaleducation. Sleeter also cites an increase in what she calls "multiculturalfatigue" at the school level among "whites who have gotten tiredof talking about the issues . . . who just kind of want to focuson something else."

At the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, Sonia Nieto, professorof Language, Literacy and Culture, increasingly finds herselfengaged in conversations with teachers upset by the growing emphasison standards and test scores. "They are frustrated and feel asense of powerlessness over the fact that other things are beingneglected," she says.

MOST PROGRAMS SUPERFICIAL

To be sure, most schools in the U.S. claim to be doing somethingcalled multicultural education. "The problem is, what they'redoing may not be that good," says Priscilla Walton, a researcherat the National Center for Research on Education, Diversity andExcellence at the University of California at Santa Cruz. "Forsome, multicultural education means revolution in the classroom,and for others, fiestas and parties."

In its early days, multicultural education was almost exclusivelydevoted to celebrating and disseminating information about a varietyof cultures. But today, multiculturalism embraces a far broadermission: changing the structure of schools to give students ofall racial groups equal access to social and academic success.In the now widely accepted words of consultant Enid Lee, truemulticultural education goes "beyond heroes and holidays." SaysLee, "The purpose is to challenge stereotypes and include newinfor-mation that transforms the way we look at each other andourselves, and gives us the skills to deal with racism and otherforms of oppression."

Lee prefers the term "anti-racist" education to "multicultural"education because she says the latter so often has been interpretedin a superficial way. Add-on lessons about African-American heroestaught once a year, or a few books in the classroom library writtenby authors of color, for instance, constitute no more than "frills"that are not well integrated into a school's mission. She pointsout that while such an approach to multicultural, anti-racisteducation obviously short-changes students, it also can underminea program's very existence. Says Lee, "The fact is, if somethingis a frill, it's easy to cut when something else comes along."

Lee defines true multicultural, anti-racist education as a "perspectivethat cuts across all subject areas, influencing the way we teachand what we teach about." Such an approach calls on a teacher,for example, to look at all the materials used in a classroomwith a multicultural eye. It also requires schools to addressissues of power and justice by revisiting policies that result,for example, in a disproportionate number of students of colorbeing placed in exceptional education classes or a district'sleast experienced teachers being assigned to its most challengingschools.

Other scholars also distinguish between the varying levels ofmulticulturalism. James A. Banks, a professor at the Universityof Washington in Seattle, and director of its Center for MulticulturalEducation, sees multicultural education as a five-step processthat begins with integrating content representative of a varietyof cultures into the curriculum. But Banks' vision of the movementalso calls for clarifying ways in which knowledge is influencedby culture, incorporating teaching strategies that boost achievementof students from diverse backgrounds, and modifying students'racial attitudes. The best programs, he says, also "empower schoolculture" by examining and modifying policies in order to ensurefairness to all.

Sleeter differentiates between what she calls mainstream multiculturalism,which focuses on issues such as building students' self-esteemand learning about other cultures - issues she says "white peopleare more comfortable with" - and critical multiculturalism, whichattempts to examine institutional racism. "If you're trying tobuild a better society, you need to examine not just how peopleas individuals feel about these issues, but also the very structuressociety has set up to maintain social stratification," she says.

Grant of the University of Wisconsin - Madison says the viewsof Lee, Banks, and Sleeter have helped expand multicultural educationtheory. "You now have scholars in this field trying to understandhow schooling in this country has been constructed, and in somecases, arguing that it needs to be reconstructed within the contextof a multicultural education frame," Grant says.

But Grant says most multicultural education programs at the K-12level, even if they attempt to address such issues, remain narrowin their vision, focusing on one specific concern, in isolation."Most folks talk about language, or what girls are doing in math,or if African Americans are being kept out of advanced classes,"he says. "But putting policies in place that pull all of thosepieces together in a holistic way isn't happening."

Banks, Lee, Sleeter and Nieto agree that their ultimate visionof multicultural, anti-racist education as an agent of changeis not evident in most of the nation's classrooms. Banks saysthat although the movement has had a major influence on the nation'sschools, most programs are not operating at a deep level. "Theyfocus on heroes, holidays, Black day, Jewish day, ethnic foods,"he says. "We're still eating our way to salvation."

Sleeter says most multicultural programs at the K-12 level wereframed around issues of cultural difference rather than socialjustice and inequality. "That's because multiculturalism is filteredthrough the eyes and life experiences of teachers, who are mostlymiddle class, white people," she says. "Their level of awarenessof racism and how it works is not very high."

Even Lee, who describes herself as "not entirely pessimistic"about the state of the movement, concedes that substantive programsare still the exception and constitute what she calls "pocketsof promise" around the country.

CONSERVATIVE TIMES

Establishing and maintaining even minimal elements of a multiculturalcurriculum has never been easy. Critics have long assailed themovement, which at its very heart challenges the status quo ofAmerica's white majority, as a divisive attempt to denigrate whiteEuropean culture with coursework they say lacks academic rigorand historical accuracy.

Nieto takes strong issue with such arguments. "I don't know whodetermined that high quality and rigorous education can only bedelivered through a curriculum that espouses one perspective,"she says. "It seems so logical, to me, that a high-quality, criticalcurriculum that really teaches children to think inherently, hasto include many perspectives, and has to ask the big, importantquestions that might lead to conflicting points of view."

Still, the attacks continue. Ron Unz, the Silicon Valley entrepreneurwho in 1998 helped push forward California Proposition 227 mandatingEnglish-only instruction, for example, has broadened his horizon.Unz's new target: the broader "multicultural agenda." He is quoted,for instance, in an August editorial in the Orange County Registerin California, as saying that developments in California "willdestroy the credibility of a lot of these activists who supportthe full multicultural agenda."

According to Michael W. Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculumand Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the Universityof Wisconsin - Madison, such efforts are being fueled by coalitionsof well-organized, well-financed conservative thinkers. "Theyare not fools, don't see themselves as racist, and really wantto improve education," Apple says. "But they are having quitea dangerous impact."

By way of example, Apple notes that the same foundations thathave been deeply involved in promoting and sponsoring school vouchersalso underwrote publication of The Bell Curve, the 1994 book by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein thatclaimed measurable genetic differences in intelligence levelsbetween races. "You begin to see certain themes - students' rightto exit public schools, public schools out of control, teachersunions with too much power, and support for standards and 'real'knowledge, which they say is in jeopardy because public schoolshave become too multicultural."

Lee is not surprised that, given such a backdrop, multiculturaleducation continues to struggle. "Any educational movement thatchallenges the status quo will come across hard times now andthen and find itself in an uneasy relationship with the dominantculture," she says. "And when you consider that we are livingin quite conservative times, it's not surprising that multiculturaleducation, in its transformative sense, is undergoing such a hardtime."

ECLIPSED BY STANDARDS AND TESTING

But these days, it is the educational establishment's love affairwith standards and high-stakes testing that is having the singlegreatest effect on multicultural programs.

Howard Berlak, a teacher, scholar, and activist living in Oakland,Calif., is especially critical. He has described the linking ofcurriculum to standards - and ultimately to high-stakes testing- as nothing less than "a powerful and pervasive way to ensurethe continued hegemony of the dominant culture."

Evelyn Kalibala, director of multicultural education for the New York City Board of Education and a regional director for the National Association of Multicultural Education, is someone working at the K-12 level who believes that anti-racist,multicultural programs are in jeopardy as a direct result of thestandards and testing movement. Her assessment is particularlytroubling, given New York City's nearly 15-year commitment toa multicultural, anti-racist program that ultimately aims to makesystemic changes in the 1.1 million-student system.

"I can't say we've totally infused multiculturalism throughoutthe curriculum, but we're making progress," Kalibala says. Shepoints to the leadership role of the school system's multiculturaldistrict coordinators, who act as liaisons with outside agenciessuch as the Anti-Defamation League to coordinate professionaldevelopment programs for teachers, as particularly effective.

Yet, despite the progress she sees, Kalibala believes the multiculturalmovement "seems to be sidetracked - falling by the wayside." Thecurrent focus, in the New York City schools, she says, is clearlyon meeting state and local standards that are linked to standardizedtests. And since the standards focus on basic skills, teacherswho might otherwise be teaching lessons on decision-making - aform of empowerment - are being pressured to concentrate insteadon a limited number of strategies geared to passing tests.

Teachers all across the country share Kalibala's frustration."Teachers here are so overwhelmed with the amount of testing andassessments we have to do, that multicultural education has takena back seat," says Jehanne Beaton, a teacher of humanities andEnglish at Folwell Middle School in Minneapolis, MN. What's more,Beaton says teachers are being observed to make sure they areteaching to the standards, and have been told, "If our kids didn'tpass (the tests), we might not keep our jobs."

Dave Zabor, a teacher at Kyrene de la Paloma Elementary Schoolin Chandler, Arizona, says most of the staff development in hisdistrict centers on raising test scores. "What we need is informationon multicultural education and lots of other areas that have todo with student growth," he says. "But it seems nothing gets addressedunless it's tied to the tests. It's deplorable, short-sightedand not good for children."

Banks sees one positive aspect to the standards and testing movementas it pertains to multicultural, anti-racist education. "It assumesall students can learn," he says. "And African American studentsare being expected to achieve at the same high level as everyoneelse."

Kalibala agrees that is a worthy goal. "There should be standards,"she says. "We should have all children achieving at grade levelor above. But it's how we accomplish what we accomplish that'simportant. Somehow we who believe in social justice have to makesure that the curriculum and programs and strategies, used toincrease student achievement and ensure that students are meetingthe standards, are reflective of many perspectives."

Lee believes skillful teachers committed to integrating multiculturalconcepts into the curriculum can do so despite the demands ofstandards and high-stakes testing. Even where multicultural, anti-racisteducation is being eclipsed by standards and testing, she saysshe sees teachers "reshaping what they're mandated into doinginto something meaningful."

"It's a matter of inserting those concepts into test preparation,and you can use almost any content to do that," says Lee, a co-editorof Beyond Heroes and Holidays, A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-racist,Multicultural Education and Staff Development.

By way of example, Lee cites a lesson she observed in which studentsdemonstrated their mastery of capitalization and punctuation rulesby writing poems about their cultural backgrounds. "They thenread their poems to each other, which brought in the use of pitchand intonation, and edited their work based on the responses ofthe listener," Lee says. "All those skills the teacher took fromthe test, but she worked them around significant content in termsof the children's racial, cultural and linguistic identity. Therewas a lot of cultural presence in the classroom that day."

A LEGITIMATE SCHOLARLY FIELD

Grant says that despite the unrelenting criticism of multiculturaleducation and a decrease in its visibility, the movement is aliveand well at the academic, scholarly levels. In fact, he contendsthat the movement no longer generates the kind of attention itonce did, mainly because, "It has become widely accepted as alegitimate educational field."

He is encouraged, for example, by the emergence of a second generationof multicultural scholars, including Sleeter and Nieto, whosework is in great demand at major universities, where he says coursesin multicultural education have become a staple of teacher educationprograms. That's due in part to an accreditation process by theNational Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education that requirescolleges and universities seeking NCATE accreditation to provideevidence of a multicultural component. Specifically, that meanstaking steps to recruit a racially diverse student body and faculty,develop a multicultural curriculum, and provide aspiring teacherswith field experiences in diverse settings.

Beverly Cross, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,notes that there are now several universities offering a PhD inmulticultural education. The field's scholarly legitimacy is alsoevident, she notes, in the 1995 publication of the Handbook ofResearch on Multicultural Education.

Donna M. Gollnick, senior vice president of the Washington, D.C.-basedNCATE, says deans of schools of education once saw little reasonto integrate diversity into their teacher education programs."But there is no longer any question that this is important, orany argument that this needs to be done," Gollnick says. "Today,most of those with whom I work see the demographics in the country,and at least articulate the fact that they need to prepare theirstudents to work with students who may be different from themselves."

Grant points, too, to the proliferation of national conferenceson multicultural education and the establishment and growth ofthe National Association of Multicultural Education as indicatorsthat the movement has come of age. Jill Greenberg, executive directorof NAME, says the group was founded in 1990 to "move multiculturaleducation in from the margins." Up until then, according to Greenberg,there had been no one group "focusing on these issues as its primaryconcern." NAME acts as a clearinghouse for information, materialsand activism around the issue. The group publishes a newsletterand journal, Multicultural Perspectives, and runs national andregional conferences. Three years ago, NAME began forming statechapters; today there are chapters in place or in the planningstages in roughly 25 states. "That's a good sign of the healthand interest in multicultural education," Greenberg says.

Grant and others say that ultimately it is the scholarly researcharound multicultural education that will continue to fuel themovement's progress. Lee says that research has proven that multicultural,anti-racist education is not just a frill, but rather, good education.Scholars take heart from the fact that the results of such researchis in greater demand than ever. Banks noted that in 1973, fewpublishers were interested in his book, Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies. "They said, 'Oh, that won't sell. There's no market for it,no courses.'" The text is now in its sixth edition, and accordingto Banks, "Publishers are knocking on my door, and every otherexpert's door, asking us to write on this issue."

POISED FOR GROWTH

Banks also points to changing demographics nationwide as an enginethat will drive the development of multicultural, anti-racisteducation in the near future. Given the fact that 48 percent ofthe nation's school-age population is projected to be non-whiteby 2020 (compared with 35 percent in 1985), Banks says the needfor multicultural programs is destined to grow. "The reality is,teachers are much more likely to teach multiculturally if thegroup in front of them is diverse," he says.

On a related issue, Nieto predicts that as more teachers of colorenter the nation's classrooms, multicultural education will becomemore substantive. "As the nature of the decision-makers changes,so do the decisions," she says.

Grant believes it is significant that multicultural educationhas endured and evolved over the last 30 years without the massiveinfusions of funding, particularly federal funding, that havesupported other educational concepts. "This has come out of thepassion and the wisdom of the people in the area who believe itis needed," he says. That passion, he says, is likely to helpthe movement in the future.

There are signs that the multicultural movement may be on theverge of a comeback. Nieto is encouraged by an increasing awarenessamong teachers and principals that most of what passes for multiculturaleducation is, indeed, too superficial. "I hear more and more peopletalking about the fact that celebrating Heritage Week and holdingdiversity dinners is not enough," Nieto says. "And while realizationalone doesn't guarantee that multicultural education will improvein depth, it's encouraging."

Lee is convinced that changing demographics, racial tension, andthe gap in achievement levels between whites and students of colorall underscore the need for multicultural, anti-racist education."People will respond by reshaping what they're mandated into doinginto something meaningful," she predicts.

In some places, that is already happening. Deborah Menkart isdirector of the Network of Educators on the Americas, an activisteducational organization that works with teachers and parentsin the Washington, D.C. Public Schools and nationally. She saysmaterials that help teachers design multicultural, anti-racistlessons are in great demand, and that the distribution of suchmaterials through the network is on the increase.

Menkart says 15,000 copies of Beyond Heroes and Holidays, published by the network in 1998, have been adopted for usein about 250 college courses and a growing number of school districts."People are certainly looking for something that takes what theoristshave been talking about and using it on the practical level,"she says.

Banks, meanwhile, urges teachers struggling to broaden multicultural,anti-racist programs at the school level to stay the course, andnot become distracted or discouraged by critics. "We're in thisfor the long haul and have to keep our eye on the prize," he says.He recommends that teachers keep abreast of the newest researchin the field. "Reading is a form of action," he says.

Banks takes heart from individual teachers who are using multicultural,anti-racist practices in their classrooms every day. "They areimplementing it in thoughtful ways and in ways consistent withtheory and practice," he says. "These are teachers who for personalreasons, spiritual reasons, have a personal commitment to thismovement, which I see as another way of taking a civil rightsstance."

Sleeter advises teachers to look more deeply at the multiculturallessons they are teaching, and try, for example, to link celebrationsof holidays to issues of social justice. She also urges teachersto spend time in their communities listening to what people aretalking about. "You'll be empowering voices that have been historicallyexcluded, and that's an important piece of multicultural education,"she says.

Priscilla Pardini is a Milwaukee-based journalist who has writtenextensively about education.

Fall 2000