Historically, American public schools played an important role in assimilating immigrants with different cultures into the mainstream. This process is currently occurring in other parts of the world that are undergoing demographic changes due to immigration. Some of these countries have turned to multicultural education as a tool to respond to…

Parental engagement in education has proven to be important to children's academic success. Research suggests that when parents are involved in their children's schooling, children tend to be motivated learners, have high educational aspirations, get good grades, and experience a sense of school belonging (Cheung & Pomerantz, 2012; Hill et…

The collection of articles presented in this special issue of "Multicultural Education" takes on an enhanced level of topicality and immediacy in light of the crossroads at which both multiculturalism and multicultural education find themselves in both the United States and the West generally. What can be taken from this collection is…

Research suggests that while students in public schools in the U.S. are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, class, and culture, the pool of prospective teachers is made up largely of White, middle-class women. The demographic imperative indicates that this trend will remain stable for the foreseeable future, reinforcing the…

As they begin their teaching careers, many new teachers have never attended school with, or lived in neighborhoods with, people of color. About 84% of the nation's teachers are White (U.S. Department of Education, 2009), and are often from middle-class backgrounds, while only a little more than half of U.S. public school students are White. The…

Society is becoming more and more culturally diverse. Schools are no exception. This poses a unique set of challenges for establishing meaningful home-school relations. Given the fact that the home and the school may represent two different cultures, families and schools may not share the same vision with regard to how children should be educated…

Diversity and multicultural education is fast becoming the norm. Race, gender, ethnicity, ability, language, culture, socioeconomic class, family configurations, interests, or combinations of these produce enormous diversity issues. The refection of this huge sociocultural diversity--children coming from different ethnic backgrounds--has…

Due to changing demographics in the K-12 student population contrasted with the homogeneous population of prospective teachers, the uncertainty about teacher preparedness to meet the needs of diverse student populations remains a controversial educational issue. Teacher educators have continued to question whether preservice teachers presently in…

Preparing European-American preservice teachers for diverse urban school settings pose multiple challenges. Of primary concern are the differences in race, culture, and community between teachers and students. Because new teachers prefer to work where they grew up, most preservice teachers want to teach students who are like themselves in familiar…

With the heightened interest in multiculturalism in higher education, universities and colleges have sought to become multicultural institutions by recruiting faculty with diverse cultural backgrounds. Consequently the faculty of formerly predominantly White colleges throughout the country have become more diverse and it is no longer unusual to…

In the last ten years, many colleges, universities, boards, and agencies have jumped on the diverse faculty/staff hiring bandwagon not only by issuing resolutions, policies, and mandates but also by inventing programs, initiatives, and strategies all intended to increase the number of faculty and staff of color in predominantly White institutions.…

Discusses the development of identity and socially biased attitudes in young children and adolescents. By the time a child is nine years old, biased attitudes tend to stay constant unless there is a life-changing event. The importance of a coherent multicultural curriculum from earliest day care is emphasized. (SLD)

Discusses why a broad and pluralistic conception of culture and cultural group will work to the advantage of multicultural teacher educators, particularly those who make use of some form of ethnic and cultural self-disclosure in their courses. The essay examines ethnic and cultural self-disclosure and provides examples of its use in the author's…

Viewed in the history of American public education, the current debate over multicultural education can be seen as a new word for the old problem of how to respond to the diversity of students. American public education, especially in cities, has rarely been free of this issue. (SLD)

The cultural-pluralism model would permit the development of a positive cultural identity without interfering in universal criteria for access to economic and power structures. This will require fundamental social change in the United States and will also require greater international agreements and equity throughout the world. (SLD)