Multicultural Education

Origins and Foundation

The roots of multicultural education began during the civil rights movements of the United States. Multicultural education is viewed by many as a reaction or response taken by African Americans and other people of color who challenged discriminatory practices in public institutions during the 1960s. Being that educational institutions were among the most oppressive, they were specifically targeted. Activists, community leaders, and parents demanded that educational institutions be more consistent with the racial diversity in the country. Problems such as these were addressed by calling for curricular reform and examining hiring practices in the school system.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the women's rights movement began to address issues of education reform as well. Women's rights groups sought to change educational institutions because education was viewed as a contributing factor in institutionalizing sexism. Like groups of ethnic minorities before them, women'srightsgroupsdemandedamoreinclusive curriculum that covered women's histories and experiences. Additionally, they brought to light the discrepancy between the low numbers of female administrators relative to the percentage of female teachers.

Educational institutions and organizations responded to the concerns brought up by developing a host of programs, practices, and policies. However, these attempts to improve multicultural education mostly led to slight change or addition to the traditional curriculum. The lack of change in educational institutions led those who wanted multicultural education to become dissatisfied with the inequities that were still present in the education system.

At the beginning of the 1980s, education activists and researchers led an emergence of a body of scholarship on multicultural education that no longer tolerated schools addressing their concerns by merely adding token programs and special units on famous women or famous people of color.

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