Multicultural Education and the Treatment of Others in Schoolbooks

Abstract

This paper deals with issues that have to do with multicultural education in Macedonia and the challenges of its organization under conditions of democracy and complicated interethnic relations. Macedonia, as a multiethnic and multi-religious country, after the year 1991 tried to enrich the education of young generations with the new paradigms of the democratic society. One of those features is diversity, respectfulness of differences and inclusion of others in different processes. However, the question still remains unanswered: Should multicultural aspects remain only as a theoretical approach or should they become practice in our schools? Is it possible to have a real multicultural education in an increasing ethno-nationalist environment? Another issue in this paper is that the current majority-minority relations in our country tend to present multiculturalism as a trend in which minorities should learn, act and play by the rules of the majority. How much can be learnt about different cultures, ways of living, customs, traditions, cuisine, music and the culture in general from the schoolbooks used in the Macedonian society? The main clash is currently going on between the Macedonian community which is a majority and the Albanian community which is in fact the largest minority group in Macedonia, with 35% of the total number of pupils in primary schools. This kind of clash is often presented in books by insulting and offending the latter community. A multicultural society is supposed to be a society where diversities prevail in the positive context. The concept of multiculturalism in an academic environment represents the mosaic in which different linguistic, cultural, religious, racial and ethnic communities’ cohabitate next to one another. This is also accepted as a public policy in education as well as an educational philosophy and a way of living. With the help of statistical data we will try to analyze the actual reality and the future of the multicultural education in Macedonia.