Summary
Contents
Subject index
The SAGE Handbook of Education for Citizenship and Democracy brings together new work by some of the leading authorities on citizenship education, and is divided into five sections. The first section deals with key ideas about citizenship education including democracy, rights, globalization and equity. Section two contains a wide range of national case studies of citizenship education including African, Asian, Australian, European and North and South American examples. The third section focuses on perspectives about citizenship education with discussions about key areas such as sustainable development, anti-racism, and gender. Section four provides insights into different characterizations of citizenship education with illustrations of democratic schools, peace and conflict education, global education, human rights education etc. The final section provides a series of chapters on the pedagogy of citizenship education with discussions about curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment.
Multicultural Citizenship Education
Multicultural Citizenship Education
Multicultural citizenship education has been theorized as a transformative education reform effort that seeks to help students from diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds experience academic success while developing multicultural civic competence (Freire, 1994). As an educational reform movement, multicultural citizenship education aims to prepare young people with the knowledge and skills necessary for learning, living, and working in a pluralistic democratic society. Education scholars and researchers have written extensively about the benefits of multicultural education for teachers and students. However, it appears that research on students' perspectives of what they learn about and with multicultural content has not kept pace with the philosophical and theoretical progress in the field. Much of the empirical research on multicultural citizenship education tends to focus on teachers, teaching, and teacher preparation. In education research, few studies exist to explain the ways in which students express their views about what they learn from multicultural content or to clarify students' perspectives on the professed benefits of multicultural citizenship education.
In this chapter, I explore the ways in which young people in the US experience multicultural citizenship education in their social studies classes. I begin with a synthesis of research on content, pedagogy, and classroom climate in diverse classrooms. I then use data collected from interviews with students in two social studies teachers' classes to showcase students' perspectives on their experiences with multicultural content, pedagogical practices, and classroom climate. I conclude by discussing the implications for practice focusing on teachers and teacher education, especially the knowledge and dispositions needed to work effectively with students who are diverse in terms of race, class, and culture.
The Role of Multicultural Citizenship Education
The research upon which the study builds comprises three distinct but related bodies of literature: citizenship education, multicultural education, and social studies. Drawing on those three literatures, prior research focusing on curriculum content, culturally relevant pedagogy, and classroom climate will be discussed and findings about students' views from one study will be presented.
Multicultural Citizenship Education in Social Studies
In the US, a primary mission of social studies is to prepare young people for their role as future citizens in a democratic pluralistic society. Multicultural citizenship education refers to a communal task in which students and teachers are challenged to critically examine curriculum content, themselves, and others through different and multiple perspectives (Dilworth, 2004). Broadly defined, multicultural citizenship education is about helping students to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values appropriate to life in an increasingly ethnic diverse global nation-state (Banks, 1997). In this view, multicultural citizenship education redefines traditional notions of citizenship and what it means to be a citizen by moving beyond conventional approaches and definitions such as voting, paying taxes, and obeying the law. Multicultural citizenship education is also concerned with community building through dialogue and deliberation to resolve controversial political issues and social tensions (Marri, 2005). Thus, it seems reasonable to imagine social studies classrooms as ideal sites to advance democratic ideals that are rooted in principles of equality, justice, and liberty. Today, most educators agree that developing multicultural civic competence is integral to education for a diverse citizenry and to the mission of public schools. The preparation of all students for multicultural citizenship includes attention to content for multicultural civic competence and the application of knowledge and skills for ‘associated living’ (Dewey, 1916).
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