Multiculturalism

The term multiculturalism refers to the diversity of ideas, cultural articulations, and practices inherent to culturally pluralistic societies. Multiculturalism has been prominent in the higher education literature since the 1980s, though earlier framings of the term only focused on surface-level components of multiculturalism, reducing the term to multicultural expression, specifically cultural celebrations. By the mid-1990s, literature had begun to offer critical perspectives on the multiculturalism that encompassed a close examination to the politics of power and resistance. In [Page 1067]higher education, multiculturalism emerged as a response to monocultural ideology that centered Eurocentric culture on the premise of assimilation, othering and dismissing the worth and contribution of different groups and cultures.

Clear examples of such resistance include the civil rights and the women’s movements in the United ...