Cheryl Hoskinson

ED 258
July 3, 2016

Multicultural education paper

Questions:

How does Enid Lee define multicultural education and why does
she use the term "anti-racist" instead of "multicultural"? How does
Gorski describe the goals of Multicultural Education?

What does Enid Lee expect educators to do? What are the
stages of implementation (p.16)? ...These stages are similar to the
ones described the Ed Change article.

What do you personally have to do to meet these challenges,

particularly within the environment where you work, or in which you
hope to work (some of you will write hypothetically)?

Answers:
1) Enid Lee defines multicultural education as anti-racist due to the
fact that she feels that a lot of schools just like at multicultural
education in a superficial light such as the customs, and the dances,
the way the people speak, the clothes that they wear and the food that
they consume. Whereas in Enids mind there is much more to
multicultural education that is more than superficial focusing on what
the expression of culture means, the values, the power relationships
that shape the culture. She also uses the term anti-racist to
concentrate on those things in school and society that prevent some

differences from being valued. It also helps to includes studies on

cultures that are different than the typical European perspective.
According to Gorski, James Bank, a pioneer of multicultural
education, examined school as social systems from a multicultural
perspective. Banks viewed multicultural education as the idea of
educational equality. According to Banks in order to maintain a
multicultural school environment, all aspects of the school had to be
examined and transformed, including policies, teachers attitudes,
instructional materials, assessment methods, counseling and teaching
styles. Multicultural education transformation can be the starting
point of changing inequities in society as a whole. It is also important
to keep in mind that multicultural education is a relatively new
concept, and will continue to evolve as the needs of a constantly
changing society.
2) Enid Lee like Ed Change both feel in order to implement multicultural
education into a school system that it must occur in stages.
The first stage is the surface stage where people change a few
expressions in the school. Like Ed Change mentioned people
must move quickly to change the curriculum of the mainstream
classroom. People who come from a different background than
Eurocentric or male-centric must be given a voice and must be
able to share their culture with the rest of the school.

The second stage is the Heroes and Holidays each culture

should have a unit developed to just describe their particular
culture. Teachers at this stage celebrate differences by
integrating information or resources about famous people and
the cultural artifacts of various groups into the mainstream
curriculum. In this stage there needs to be a clear diversity in
the curriculum, not just extra information. Each unit should be
about two to three weeks long in duration, and look at the
culture as a whole not just a few famous people. Lee puts this
stage as one complete stage, whereas Change uses both the
heroes and holidays along with integration to complete this

particular stage.
The third stage is structural reform: new materials,
perspectives, and voices are woven seamlessly with the current
frameworks of knowledge to provide new levels of
understanding from a more complete and accurate curriculum.
Lee talks about using ethnicity in science, whereas Change
demonstrates that American History should include African
American History, Womens History, Latino History, and all other

previously differentiated fields of knowledge.

The final stage is the multicultural, social action and awareness
in this stage important social issues such as racism, sexism, and
classism are directly addressed in the curriculum. According to
Lee this is when the students actually try and make a change in
3

the community in which they live. For instance, writing letters

to change what types of toys and games are in a particular
3)

store.
I worked in a school where there was not a whole lot of
diversity except for the life learners that I worked with hand in hand.
The culture is beginning to change in the school as special needs
children are being put into inclusive classrooms. The students are
beginning to accept these new students as one of their classmates.
If I were to work in a situation where there was a lot of diversity
in the population of students, I would make sure that everyone was
given a voice and that they would be able to share their culture with
the people around them. They would definitely not be ostracized for
being different. There is so much that we as educators and students
can learn from individuals who have a different background than us
that it is time we listen to what they have to say and that is the only
way that multicultural education will truly make a difference in our
society.