The text of the Commission on Multicultural Education of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education was developed as a means of increasing recognition on the part of teachers and educators to the need for promoting cultural awareness. The statement affirms that schools should be oriented toward the cultural enrichment of all children and youth through programs devoted to the preservation and extension of cultural alternatives. Stressing that cultural pluralism is a basic quality of American culture, the statement asserts that inculcating pluralistic respect must be accomplished through (1) the teaching of values supporting such diversity, (2) the encouragement of the qualitative expansion of existing ethnic cultures and their incorporation into the American socioeconomic and political mainstream, (3) support of exploration into alternative and emerging lifestyles, and (4) the encouragement of multiculturalism, multilingualism, and multidialectism. Colleges and universities are posited with a central role in the affirmative development of a culturally pluralistic society. (MJB)