In this time of national curriculum re-thinking, tertiary institutions are positioned to create opportunities amongst pre-service teachers for the cultivation of knowledge, skills and understandings concerning cultural diversity in music education. The demographic profile of the State of Victoria is the most culturally diverse in Australia and the curriculum framework for schools, Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS), mandates multiculturalism as an integral part of the education. The Arts domain offers a range of suggestions as to how school students might develop an awareness of aesthetic and critical aspects of arts works from varied cultural, social, and historical contexts. In preparing pre-service teachers to embrace these ideas and understandings, tertiary educators continue to face a mismatch between curricular expectations and the realities of the school music classroom. In 2005 we began a research project that sought to explore fourth year pre-service music education students' understandings about curriculum constraints and classroom practices in music education. This article focuses on the data collected in 2008 and 2009 from students from Deakin and Monash Universities. The semi-structured interviews were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings revealed a disjuncture between VELS and what our students found during their school placements. This study reports on two themes: perceptions of multiculturalism and the teaching and learning of multicultural music in schools. As tertiary music educators, we endeavor to encourage our student teachers to examine their own experiences and understandings in multicultural music.