This book is designed to introduce preservice and practicing educators to the major concepts in multicultural education. It is intended for the reader who can devote only limited time to the topic. Chapter 1 discusses multicultural education goals, the debate over the canon of instruction, and approaches to multicultural education. Chapter 2 describes the ways in which multicultural education tries to transform the curriculum so that all students will be prepared to be effective citizens in a pluralistic and democratic society. School reform and intergroup education are discussed in Chapter 3. The knowledge components that teachers need to acquire to function effectively in multicultural classrooms and schools are examined in Chapters 4 and 5. Chapters 6 and 7 highlight and summarize some of the major issues in multicultural education; they close with a discussion of major benchmarks that can be used to determine whether a school is actualizing multicultural education. Appendix A contains a 35-item bibliography on multicultural issues, and Appendix B is the New York City Board of Education multicultural education policy. (Contains 183 references.) (SLD)