Multicultural Education, Definitions and Curriculum Standards

For many educators, standards and accountability leave little space for multicultural education. For others who link multicultural education with equalizing access to an academically challenging curriculum, setting clear standards for all students minimizes the degree to which race and class structure inequitable access, even though standards-based accountability tends to homogenize curriculum. This entry examines different meanings of standards and multicultural education as these concepts relate.

Standards

Today's standards movement began in the early 1980s, when governors urged states to construct disciplinary content standards. By the 1990s, most states were designing or beginning to implement testing systems based on content standards. In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act mandated that states receiving federal funding implement accountability systems that use standards to assess student learning and to align ...

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