This book provides a balance between the principles and practice of multicultural education in the K-12 classroom, presenting multicultural education as a learner-centered pedagogy. It projects foundational principles and practices that make multicultural education relevant and appealing, while eliminating ideas and practices that produce negative reactions and outcomes. It utilizes historical data to make the case for equity pedagogy, going further than other books on this topic to provide practical steps and approaches to implementing multicultural education. The person and cultural identity of the teacher is addressed in-depth. The person and nature of the learner and the learning process are addressed as foundational ideas behind equity pedagogy. Such multicultural education topics as gender equity, universal access, religious pluralism, and bilingualism (or multilingualism) are all addressed with much detail. This book provides pre-service and in-service teachers with the theoretical and practical support they need to provide equal and meaningful education to all the students in their classrooms. Contents include: (1) Humans as Cultural Beings: Foundations for Multicultural Education; (2) Engaging the American Cultural Mosaic; (3) Engaging the Crises of Cross-Cultural Encounters; (4) Educational Inequalities in American Schools; (5) Historical Foundations of Multicultural Education in the United States; (6) Title One Categorical Fund: A Federal Government Attempt at Educational Equity; (7) American Multilingualism and the Challenge of the English Language Learner in the American Educational System; (8) Religious Diversity and the Public School Systems; (9) Gender and Women's Rights in American Educational History; (10) The Learner and the Educational Process; (11) Exceptionality and Learner-Centered Pedagogies for the Regular Education Classroom; and (12) Standards-based Planning and Teaching in a Multicultural Classroom.