About the Special Report

Multiculturalism? "We did that back in the '80s," seems to bethe attitude of many educational leaders these days. The birthdayof Martin Luther King Jr. was included in the holiday pantheon,new textbooks were purchased, the most offensive materials discarded,ethnically-themed assemblies added, staff in-services held. Beenthere, done that.

This waning interest is in part the product of relentless haranguingby the right. The Lynne Cheneys and Rush Limbaughs slam multiculturaleducation as divisive, Balkanizing, politically correct, ethniccheerleading. These criticisms coincide with a broader offensiveagainst people of color and people who are poor: the repeal ofaffirmative action, skyrocketing incarceration rates - especiallyof Black men, families kicked off welfare with no other supportsin place, and jingoistic anti-immigrant initiatives.

And the proliferation of high stakes standardized testing hasbegun to strangle the life out of anything in school that can'tpromise to increase students' scores. Who has time for multiculturaleducation when there are multiple choice tests to prepare for?Indeed, the push to subordinate teaching to state standards andtests is explicitly regarded by some as a means to eliminate multiculturaleducation.

A FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

What is multicultural education? At its best, multiculturalismis an ongoing process of questioning, revising, and strugglingto create greater equity in every nook and cranny of school life- whether in curriculum materials, school staffing policies, disciplineprocedures, teaching strategies, or course offerings. And it ispart of a broader movement to create a more equitable society.It is a fight against racism and other forms of oppression, includingthose based on class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, physicalability, or national origin and language. It is a fight for economicand social justice.

But this is not to say that multiculturalism is polemical or politicallypartisan in a narrow sense. In curriculum, for example, academicrigor is impossible without a multicultural standpoint. Supposeone is teaching about the American Revolution. Traditional - non-multicultural- curricular ap-proaches to the revolution focus on the actionsof Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and other "great men." Butin 1776, the majority of people in the 13 colonies were women,African Americans, or Native Americans. They pursued their dreamsin ways that profoundly impacted the revolution. For instance,when enslaved African Americans in the South discovered that therhetoric of freedom excluded them, they fled in droves, dramaticallyinfluencing the course of the war, leading to what some scholarshave called "the largest slave insurrection in American history."There is no way to make sense of events following the Declarationof Independence - or any other historical era - without a multiculturalperspective.

Such a perspective is not simply about explaining society, itis about changing it. Multiculturalism interrogates the worldfrom a critical and activist standpoint: Who benefits and whosuffers from any particular arrangement? How can we make it morejust? At a superficial level, multicultural education celebratesdiversity. More deeply, it equips educators, students, and parentsto recognize and critique how some differences lead to deficitand others to privilege. And it compels us to seek alternatives.

In the classroom, multiculturalism means examining teaching materialsfor bias and omission, but also requires that we ask hard questionsof ourselves and our classrooms. Are all our students fairly served?Does our choice of lessons favor some students over others? Whosecultures are represented on the classroom's walls? Do our expectationsof students differ based on race, ethnicity, nationality, class,or gender?

WHITE PRIVILEGE

For white educators, pursuing a rigorous multiculturalism is especiallyimportant - and difficult. In society, those on top have the greatestdifficulty recognizing their own dominance. Things seem fine tothe comfortable. So those who are white need to assume the responsibilityof questioning how white privilege plays out in every aspect oftheir educational lives. As anti-racist educator Enid Lee pointsout in Rethinking Our Classrooms, "Oftentimes, whatever is white is treated as normal. So whenteachers choose literature that they say will deal with a universaltheme or story, like childhood, all the people in the storiesare of European origin; it's basically white culture and civilization.That culture is different from others, but it doesn't get namedas different. It gets named as normal."

For white educators, a multicultural perspective means examininghow racism has affected all aspects of one's identity and experiences.It also means dialoging with educators and parents of color andother oppressed groups in order to understand how school is notexperienced the same by everyone.

Lest we be discouraged by the requirements of multiculturalism,we should remind ourselves that multiculturalism is not merelyan individual self-improvement project. Building a multicultural,anti-racist, pro-justice school culture is fundamentally a collectiveenterprise. It means working together. It means building partnershipsbetween schools, curriculum departments, unions, parent groups,and social justice organizations. It means establishing ongoinginservice education for new and veteran teachers. It means thatwe demand the time and money necessary to rethink and reorientschool life. Multiculturalism requires more than good intentions;it needs support.

It also requires room to grow. So it's essential to organize againstthose aspects of school "reform," like high-stakes standardizedtesting, that threaten to suffocate multicultural initiatives.

Schools may have retreated from an earlier enthusiasm for multiculturalism,but there are signs of hope. In a relatively short period, multiculturalscholarship has become a powerful intellectual force on collegecampuses. Teacher education programs are increasing numbers ofindividuals exposed to issues of how race and culture play outin school contexts. And there have never been more high-qualitymulticultural teaching resources available to educators. Evendemographic projections offer hope. As multicultural scholar JamesBanks notes later in this special report, by 2020 it's estimated that the nation's schools will have 48% studentsof color. Although positive change will not automatically resultfrom such population shifts, Banks suggests that schools may bemore open to multicultural approaches if America's student bodyis more diverse.

We want our schools to be multicultural, anti-racist and pro-justicebecause we want the larger society to manifest those same values.Rethinking Schools has always advocated that, to the greatest extent possible, schoolsand classrooms should work toward and exemplify the kind of societywe hope to live in. We urge readers to renew your commitment tomulticultural, anti-racist education as part of a broader strugglefor a better world.

Fall 2000