Imagine a quilt and the various cultures and individual identities of our students as the individual panels that make up the quilt. Each panel stands on its own, yet, side by side there is a relationship; they play off of one another and create the larger design of the whole tapestry or quilt.

Multiculturalism is about recognizing and appreciating the individual panels, while at the same time seeing the larger whole and how the whole and the parts inter-play or create a kind of dialogue with one another.

Meeting the other Panels

How can we meet the other "panels" and appreciate the entire quilt? This section will give you some tools to see, listen, "enter in", and dialogue with the rest of the quilt.

Some discuss multicultural education as a shift in curriculum, perhaps as simple as adding new and diverse materials and perspectives to be more inclusive of traditionally underrepresented groups. Others talk about classroom climate issues or teaching styles that serve certain groups while presenting barriers for others. Still others focus on institutional and systemic issues such as tracking, standardized testing, or funding discrepancies. Some go farther still, insisting on education change as part of a larger societal transformation in which we more closely explore and criticize the oppressive foundations of society and how education serves to maintain the status quo - foundations such as white supremacy, capitalism, global socioeconomic situations, and exploitation.

Despite a multitude of differing conceptualizations of multicultural education (some of which will be laid out more fully below), several shared ideals provide a basis for its understanding. While some focus on individual students or teachers, and others are much more "macro" in scope, these ideals are all, at their roots, about transformation:

•Every student must have an equal opportunity to achieve to her or his full potential.

•Every student must be prepared to participate competently in an increasingly intercultural society.

Teachers must be prepared to effectively facilitate learning for every individual student, no matter how culturally similar or different from her- or himself.

•Schools must be active participants in ending oppression of all types; first by ending oppression within their own walls, then by producing socially and critically active and aware students.

•Education must become more fully student-centered and inclusive of the voices and experiences of the students.

•Educators, activists, and others must take a more active role in re-examining all educational practices and how they affect the learning of all students: testing methods, teaching approaches, evaluation and assessment, school psychology and counseling, educational materials and textbooks, etc.

(adapted from Defining Multicultural Education by Paul Gorski and Bob Covert 1996, 2000 www.edchange.org)

Continued from Edchange:

Every child comes to school with an ethnic identity whether these identifications are conscious or unconscious. This identification must be recognized and respected by the teacher. It must be the basis for the learning activities in the classroom. This recognition of individual ethnic identities is the beginning point; it is a connector of both the teacher to the student and the students to each other. It is the basic building block in the learning process, which requires knowing where the child is relative to him/herself and the content to be addressed. This ethnic identification is a continual point of focus throughout the education process and is the basis for developing the next level of identification, which is a national identification.

The national identity of the individual requires his/her understanding and commitment to the democratic ideals such as human dignity, justice and equality. Here the focus is on becoming effective members of a democratic society. An individual's strong national identification is essential to his/her development of a global identity.

As our society becomes more and more dependent on other societies, it is critical that the schools address the problems of the world as a whole. The development of the global identification provides the students with the opportunity to see how as a nation we fit into the world society. It allows students to better understand that the actions of a nation must not only be viewed in terms of the implications for that nation, but in terms of its effects on the whole world. Children who have developed both a strong ethnic and national identity can also develop a global identification, which should in turn make them better citizens of the world community.

At this point in time in history, it is important to realize that the identifications discussed above are hierarchial. In other words, the curriculum and the learning needs to proceed by first recognizing the ethnic identity, then the national identity, and finally the global. The development of the latter national and global identities are dependent upon the development of the former ethnic. It is also important to note that the individual identities are not static, but continually evolving, and so it is important for the curriculum to emphasize all three types of identities as learning progresses.

(adapted from Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives , James Banks and Cherry Banks, 1997, 1989.)

(Adapted form the work of Hernandez, Multicultural Education: A teacher's guide to content and process, 1989.)

Goals

(Adpated from: Gordon and Roberts, Report of social studies syllabus review and development committee, 1991)

Required Reading PDF:

The IS and the ISN'T of Multicultural Education

Things I Can Do - adapted from Edchange

This activity has several steps. (Different combinations of these steps will be suitable for different audiences from elementary-school students to teachers.) Here are the steps to follow:

1. Defining "Multicultural" - Start by underlining the prefix "multi" and ask your students what this prefix means. Responses will include "many," "varied or various," "different," etc. Affirm all answers, and then sum them up. This portion should take only a couple of minutes. Next, move on to "cultural." What does this term mean? Encourage students to define "cultural" both in terms of a dictionary-type definition and what it means to them individually.

2. Drawing Out the Dimensions of "cultural" - Tell the students you would like them to explore the understanding of "cultural" more deeply. Ask them to suggest all dimensions of culture they can think of, encouraging them to reflect on their own culture and the dimensions of that culture with which they identify. There are several effective ways of accomplishing this task. You can either have students call out these aspects of culture when they think of them (perhaps even using a student volunteer to list them under "MULTICULTURAL." You might also decide to simply go around the room, person by person, asking for suggestions.

There are literally endless dimensions to culture, and this will be reflected in the answers. It is likely that an influx of answers will come right away, but then the rate of response will slow down considerably. This often happens after some of the more surface-level cultural aspects are suggested such as music, food, etc. Prod the students to think a little more deeply about how they define their culture. Allow for some short silences, or suggest some deeper dimensions, including faith, religion, values, language, family structure, and others.

It will be important to get as many suggestions for this list as possible. Be sure to note that this part of the activity could go on indefinitely, highlighting the complexity of "culture." Also, point out how intertwined some of the dimensions are, illustrating how simplistic it is to make a judgment about somebody based on one cultural dimension of the person. This step should take 10-15 minutes.

3. What's Missing? In our experience, 4 out of 5 times this activity is used, several interesting cultural dimensions are not mentioned by participants. Ironically, these are the very dimensions that are most often associated with multicultural education: race, gender, sexual orientation, social class. If your class or workshop does not suggest one or more of these items, point this out only after the list has been generated and ask the participants why they didn't think of these dimensions. It is often the case that when participants are suggesting items for the list from their own experience, and thus through how they define themselves, identifiers such as race, gender, etc. do not come directly to their minds. But, if they are suggesting items for the list based on how OTHERS define them, or how they define OTHERS, these items immediately come to mind.

4. Categorizing List Items - The next step is to divide the items into categories, which will make the final step of the exercise much easier. Indicate this intention to the group, and mention that you will be using Nitza Hidalgo's "three levels of culture." (The citation for this model is: Hidalgo, N. (1993). Multicultural teacher introspection. In Perry, T., and Fraser, J. (Eds.), Freedom's plow: Teaching in the multicultural classroom. New York: Routledge.)

Hidalgo's 3 levels include:

a. The Concrete - This is the most visible and tangible level of culture, and includes the most surface-level dimensions such as clothes, music, food, games, etc. These aspects of culture are often those that provide the focus for multicultural "festivals" or "celebrations."

b. The Behavioral - This level of culture clarifies how we define our social roles, the language(s) we speak, and our approaches to nonverbal communication. The Behavioral level REFLECTS our values. Aspects to be listed in this category include language, gender roles, family structure, political affiliation, and other items that situate us organizationally in society.

c. The Symbolic - This level of culture includes our values and beliefs. It can be abstract, but it is most often the key to how individuals define themselves. It includes value systems, customs, spirituality, religion, worldview, beliefs, mores, etc.

Write short definitions for these levels on the board or sheet of paper you used to record the dimensions of culture. Review each of the categories for a couple of minutes. Give the participants an opportunity to consider how they define themselves within these categories. Ask them to look over the categories and the items on the board for a few seconds. As a group, categorize all items into these categories. There may be some disagreement about where a certain item falls, so allow the same item to be listed under two categories.

5. Consistency in Conceptualization - After you have categorized, the next step is to facilitate a discussion about relatedness, importance, and the consistency of how individuals define themselves and others.

Starting with "the Concrete," proceed down the list of Hidalgo's categories, asking participants to raise their hands if they consider the items listed under that category to be the most important dimensions in how they define their own culture. Count the responses to each, and list them next to the category name on the board or paper. Be very clear that they are indicating what they consider to be important items for defining themselves, not the ways in which other people define them. Then, do the same for the other two categories (Behavioral and Symbolic).

Now, ask each student to write down the name of the category (Concrete, Behavioral or Symbolic) they feel closest to in terms of their own self-definition. Sometimes, one or two students will choose "the Concrete" or "the Behavioral," but in virtually every case, a vast majority of the participants will choose "the Symbolic." As you discuss each category, ask those who chose it to describe why they did so, and encourage those who did not choose it to explain why. Because most people will choose "the Symbolic," be sure to challenge them on why that is more important than the other levels.

After encouraging the participants to convince you that "the Symbolic" is the most important category, refer them back to the lists. Several questions will lead to interesting conversations: When you meet somebody, which of those items (under any of the categories) do you use to understand them culturally? Is your attempt to understand others culturally consistent with how you want to be viewed and understood? What forces in our society might contribute to our simplification of the culture of others, even though we don't want to be defined simplistically ourselves?

6. Alternative Consistency in Conceptualization for Groups of Educators. After recording how many participants define themselves most closely with the three categories, and facilitating the "why" discussion described above, turn to a conversation about education. Which of these categories do you, as an educator, focus on when you are trying to teach multiculturally? (This question will provide an "aha" moment for a lot of participants. Allow a few moments for that to happen.) How has education generally tried to be "multicultural"? What are the aspects or dimensions of culture that we focus on in our classrooms when trying to be "multicultural"? Is this consistent with how we know people want to be defined?

This is especially powerful if you know that a certain school is stuck in the "additive" or "heroes and holidays" stage of multicultural development. Many schools have a multicultural festival or fair, and refer to that as "multicultural education."

7. Wrapping Up. To wrap up this exercise, you can lead a discussion on how the participants might try to make their conceptualizations more consistent. Point out that this exercise is not meant to indict anyone, but rather to highlight how forces ranging from the media to our own education can sometimes move us backward when we think we are experiencing progress in self and social development. The conversations that happen as a result of this activity can last 10 minutes or over an hour, depending on what questions you ask and what direction you take.

As with the rest of these activities, it is vital in both the short run and the long run to validate the views of the participants. If they prefer to define themselves at the Concrete or the Behavioral level, do not challenge them directly about that. (This may happen with some younger participant groups.) This activity can make some participants feel vulnerable, and it is important not to intensify that to the point that they are no longer participating.

This activity has been especially valuable and successful with groups of pre-service or active teachers because it helps to clarify multicultural education. Remember, there are a multitude of books on multicultural education out there that still present it as an additive approach or multicultural festival. This activity challenges educators to rethink such a simplification and their own "multicultural" teaching practices.

This activity also provides an excellent opportunity to weave in the idea of the link between teaching well and multicultural teaching practices. The various steps bring out the diversity of cultural dimensions, just within the room of folks you are working with. This illustrates how the most important multicultural education resources are students themselves. Instead of trying to define what is culturally important to them through special celebrations or additive techniques, it is our responsibility to draw them into the conversation, allow them to define themselves, and use that as a starting point in the development of multicultural education.

(adapted from Understanding the Depth and Breadth of "Multicultural" www.edchange.org)

Remember: Please provide a 4-5 paragraph journal response of your participation in this exercise.

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Assignment 2: Multicultural Exercise

Purpose

The depth and breadth of "Multicultural" is designed to engage students in a process of defining "culture" and examining its complexity. Often, especially in a class about multiculturalism or diversity, "culture" becomes synonymous with "race" or "ethnicity." This activity reveals the limitations of such a conceptualization and challenges the assumptions that are often made by educators about what students identify as the important strands of the "cultural" in "multicultural."

Preparation

Preparation for this activity is very simple. You need only a chalkboard or large sheet of paper. At top, center, write "MULTICULTURAL." Make sure your students or workshop participants are positioned such that they can all see the chalkboard or paper.

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Assignment 3: Multicultural Exploration

Choose one element of multiculturalism, and design a two-week unit around it. Who is your audience? Students? Colleagues?

EXAMPLE LESSONS:

Comprehensive list of websites on culture (including lesson plans) - from Teachers Without Borders

Classroom Inclusion and Learning

Participants share their own experiences as students, exploring different ways people are made to feel included in, or excluded from, the learning process. The existence of different learning needs and the necessity for a wide range of teaching styles emerge.

Student Fishbowl

A student fishbowl gives pre-service and in-service educators an opportunity to hear the experiences, ideas, and critiques of current students while giving the students an opportunity to be active in the dialogue on multicultural education and education transformation.

Multicultural Awareness Quiz

Critical thinking about all media and information is an essential aspect of multicultural learning. Test your understanding and your students' or participants' understanding of race, gender, and socioeconomic class with this activity, leading seamlessly into a dialogue on stereotypes, misinformation and prejudices, and how they inform teaching and learning.

Facilitating the Difficult Dialogue: Role Plays

Teachers are often hesitant to introduce topics like racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism in the classroom because their training has not prepared them to handle the issues and exchanges that may result. This activity provides participants an opportunity to share stories of when discussions about these topics took an unexpected turn, and to generate ideas about how to address these circumstances in the future.

PDF files below:

Classroom Inclusion and Learning

Student Fishbowl

Multicultural Awareness Quiz

Facilitating the Difficult Dialogue: Role Plays

Additional Resources:

Bibliography for multicultural education (PDF below)

Language-related sites (online only)

Bibliography for Multicultural Education

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Assignment 4: Teacher Reflection

In Course 3, we explored Problem-Based Learning. (You may wish to review that information.)

Please test the following lesson plan, either in your class, in an after-school program, or on the weekends. The instructions here are quite sophisticated. Please make the appropriate decisions regarding the capacity of your students to handle the work. With modification, this activity can be adapted for young people 8 years old and up. This activity requires 30-60 minutes.

(adapted from Paul Gorski's Collaborative Problem-Solving: Case Studies, www.mhhe.com)

Purpose

The purpose of this activity is to engage teachers in a process of collaborative, problem-based learning around multicultural issues through the use of case studies. Participants will develop an understanding and appreciation for the necessity to include a variety of voices and perspectives to successfully address issues that arise around race, gender, culture, sexual orientation, or any other identity dimension. They will also begin to better understand the collaborative process and how they tend to participate in it. This activity can also be a useful springboard into conversations about specific issues drawn from the cases or case studies.

Preparation

The first step in preparing for this activity is finding one or more cases or case studies about specific instances of cultural conflict in schools. These cases can come from news reports, film clips, or any other media that details the specifics of a particular incident or series of incidents in a school setting. Another excellent source for cases is a collection of the personal experiences of your students. Consider having each student bring a short write-up of a cultural conflict they experienced or witnessed at a school, especially if it was not resolved successfully. Whatever source you choose, make sure every participant has read, watched, or otherwise become familiar with the case.

Keys to Success

Before beginning the process of working through the activity, review - in detail - the steps with participants. Also, you might wish to consider the following:

Steps

1. Problem Identification

Identify or name the situation and relevant related issues. What is the conflict? What is the source of the conflict?

2. Perspectives

Create a list of every person, group, and institution affected by the incident. How is each of these people and institutions affected by the situation? Be sure to include possible victims, victimizers, members of the community, and anyone else who is touched by the incident directly or indirectly. It may be necessary to make some assumptions for this step, intensifying the importance of incorporating as many voices and perspectives as possible into the process of compiling the information.

3. Challenges and Opportunities

With the varied perspectives in mind, what will be the individual and institutional challenges and constraints to addressing the situation? What will be the challenges based on the individuals directly involved, and what institutional constraints must inform an approach for addressing the situation? What are the educational opportunities presented by the incident, both for the people directly involved and everyone else?

4. Strategies

Brainstorm approaches for addressing the situation, attempting to maximize the extent to which the negative outcomes of the situation are addressed while simultaneously maximizing the extent to which you take advantage of educational opportunities. Keep in mind the varied perspectives and the fact that any solution will affect everyone differently. This is not the step at which to challenge and critique each other's ideas. Record every idea, no matter how unreasonable it may sound to individuals in the group.

5. Solutions

Focus your strategies into a formal plan of action. Keep in mind the varied perspectives as well as the challenges and opportunities. Be sure to come up with at least two or three specific responses, whether they focus on the individual conflict or the underlying issues at an institutional level.

6. Expected Outcomes

Name the outcomes you foresee as a result of the solutions you identified. Revisit the perspectives step to ensure a standard of equity and fairness.

(This model was created in 2000 and revised in 2001 by Paul Gorski)

As stated above, this can also be a useful activity for easing into dialogue about specific issues such as race, gender, class, or sexual orientation. You might also consider combining it with a story-telling activity so that the stories of the people in the class become the cases.

The processing of this activity can include an additional dimension of depth if you break participants into small groups, asking each group to go through the entire process. After doing so, each group can share their work, and a conversation about the different results can emerge. This can also lead to a discussion about how people participated in the small groups. Did somebody try to take the lead? Was anyone's voice silenced? What did people in the group do to ensure that everyone's voice was heard? If working in smaller groups, you can also refer to Course 2 (Module 1) on "How it Works" to set up the structure for cooperative learning groups right from the start.

Reflection

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Assignment 5: Collaborative Approach to Addressing Conflict in Schools

Strategies for Choosing and Using Activities and Exercises for Intergroup Learning

You're developing a diversity workshop or facilitating an intergroup dialogue and looking for ways to engage your participants. This document lays out eight strategies for effectively selecting and incorporating activities and exercises into your programming efforts.

A Guide to Setting Ground Rules

Ground rules or community norms can help your program or class run more smoothly. This guide describes commonly used ground rules and strategies for naming and enforcing them.

Building Comfort

Getting Started: Respect Exercise

Introduces the first crucial step in discussing multicultural issues: building a community of respect. Participants discuss how they perceive respect, building the foundation of later activities.

Knowing the Community: Ethnicity Exercise

Continues community building. Participants introduce themselves by sharing information on their ethnicity and background, highlighting the similarity and diversity among members of the group.

Name Stories

Works toward bringing the stories of individuals to the fore in the multicultural experience. Participants write and share stories about their names and nicknames, what they mean, why they were given them, and how they relate to them.

Sharing Ourselves:Who I Am Poems

Begins active introspective process while continuing to provide opportunities for individuals to make connections with each other. Participants write short poems, starting each line with "I am...," encouraging them to describe in their own words who they are and what's important to their identity.

PDF files below:

Strategies for Choosing and Using Activities and Exercises for Intergroup Learning

A Guide to Setting Ground Rules

Getting Started: Respect Exercise

Knowing the Community: Ethnicity Exercise

Name Stories

Sharing Ourselves:Who I Am Poem

Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination

Introduces concepts of prejudice and discrimination through self-reflection. Participants share stories regarding their experiences with prejudice or discrimination, as either victim or perpetrator.

Exploring Definitions

Considers language as a vital aspect of multicultural education and awareness. Participants discuss how they define words such as prejudice, discrimination, racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Issues of power and institutional discrimination emerge.

Boy/Girl Pieces

Continues self-reflective processes as participants write and share short pieces about how their gender identities were affected through childhood messages about what it meant to be a boy or a girl. This activity maintains a focus on talking about issues from one's own experience instead of their perceptions of the experiences of "those people." (Adaptible for race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, religion, and other identifiers.)

Circles of My Multicultural Self

The Circles activity engages participants in a process of identifying what they consider to be the most important dimensions of their own identity, while developing a deeper understanding of stereotypes as participants share stories about when they were proud to be part of a particular group and when it was especially hurtful to be associated with a particular group.

PDF Files:

Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination

Exploring Definitions

Boy/Girl Pieces

Circles of My Multicultural Self

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Assignment 6: Reflection on Concepts

Please answer the following questions:

What is an archetype?

An archetype is a mythic figure or image (either real, imagined, or historic) that can serve as a guide for you and your students in thinking about multiculturalism. For example, a teacher might introduce students to the life and work of Leonardo Da Vinci, a fifteenth-century Italian scientist, inventor, and artist. When he pondered a question or idea, Da Vinci rarely looked at it from a single perspective. In his notebooks, you see sketches of the same flower or a bird's wing drawn from several different points of view.

Da Vinci was an observer. Da Vinci was a recorder. Da Vinci asked questions. Da Vinci was curious. Da Vinci was a multi-dimensional learner in looking at things from several points of view.

This ability to look at things from multiple perspectives can serve as a guide when looking at and learning to appreciate and celebrate cultures. An image works just as well. For example, a quilt has distinctive panels (cultural identity), while at the same time those panels exist side-by side to make up an entire quilt (humanity).

Teachers and students can decide who or what will be the guiding mythic figure or image for exploring multiculturalism - either in advance or during the course of study as it arises naturally.

TALK AT THE TWB LEARNING CAFE:

What mythic figure or image (either real, imagined, or historic) might serve as a guide for you and your students in their learning and thinking about cultural identity, dialogue, and multiculturalism? Read what others have said. Add your thoughts. Join your global colleagues in conversation at the TWB Learning Cafe.

HOW TO GET TO THE NEXT MODULE:

Usually, you just click "Next" to go to the next page. When you finish a section, however, (as you're about to do when you finish reading these two paragraphs), you need to click on the "Outline" button, which is on the bottom, right-hand side of the page. Look underneath the blue bar and click on the word "Outline."

When you click on "Outline," a screen will come up that will show you the outline for Course 4. Look for the next section to read and click on the first topic in that next section. For example, when you get to the outline now, look under the next section called "To Know as We are Known" and look for the first topic in black lettering called "Overview." Click on "Overview."