MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Multicultural education refers to any form of education or teaching that incorporates the histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds. "The significance of multicultural education is that it gives individuals the opportunity to examine their own social and cultural biases, break down those biases, and change their perspective within their own setting. I have identified five dimensions of multicultural education. They are: content integration, the knowledge construction process, prejudice reduction, an equity pedagogy, and an empowering school culture and social structure. A multicultural classroom is one in which both the students and the teacher are accepting of all races, cultures, and religions. This acceptance is evidenced by the books that are read, the activities that are completed, and the lessons that are taught. An important goal of multicultural education is to help students acquire the knowledge and commitments needed to make reflective decisions and to take personal, social, and civic action to promote democracy and democratic living.The main thing that differs multicultural classrooms from ordinary ones is a language barrier. Coming from different countries and even city districts children can speak the same language but never understand each other. This might be the influence of parents, environment, dialects etc.