Multicultural Education Policy Research Articles

Teacher Perceptions of South Asians in Birmingham Schools and Colleges

The views of a range of teachers towards South Asians in schools and colleges in Birmingham are explored in this paper. Based on 23 teachers, often senior in nature, from 11 educational institutions (9 schools [1 independent, 2 selective, 6 comprehensive] and 2 further education colleges), analysis of attitudes is in relation to gender and religion; socialisation and language differences between South Asian groups; and teacher ethnicity and antiracist multicultural education policy. It was broadly found that teachers viewed the education of South Asians based on the modus operandi of the educational institution they represented as well as the way in which differing South Asians based on socio-economic status, ethnicity and gender were thought to act and behave. There are implications for how South Asians are perceived as individuals as well as groups by teachers, as well as how schools can make a real attempt to improve existing home-school relations.

The Politics of Educational Borrowing: Reopening the Case of Achimota in British Ghana

Reflexion theorique sur Achimota, symbole du transfert pedagogique effectue entre les Etats-Unis, l'education industrielle des africains americains et le continent africain. Les auteurs reflechissent a la raison de ce transfert et aussi au mode d'implementation et de realisation du transfert en fonction des contextes economiques, geographiques et historiques.

Policy as the Transformation of Intentions: Making Multicultural Education Policy

This qualitative policy study applies an interactionist framework for policy analysis, especially the concept of intentions, to an examination of the construction of multicultural education policy in a midwestern U.S. school district. Intentions-purposes and goals meant to shape the behavior of actors in the future and at other sites-motivate actors to act in the policy arena, to use policy as a vehicle for realizing their purposes. Initiated in response to a racial conflict in a high school, the policy process entailed the school board's creation of a committee including many African American community members to generate recommendations for improving race relations. During the process, the school board's intentions, and those of many community members, were transformed due to the administration's reinforcement of district conventions and power structures. Race relations became multicultural issues. Community members who misconstrued the process as granting them real policy-making authority were most disappointed with the outcomes.

Race, ethnicity, and multiculturalism: policy and practice

Race, Ethnicity, and Schooling in America, Peter M. Hall Education in a Multicultural Society, Bart Landry Familial Predictors of Educational Attainment: Regional and Racial Variations, Aaron Thompson and Reid Luhman Teachers as Social Scientists: Learning About Culture from Household Research, Luis C. Moll and Norma Gonzalez Consequences of Placing Low-Track Students in High-Track Classes, Hugh Mehan Changing the Discourse in Schools, Eugene Eubanks, Ralph Parish and Dianne Smith Making Multicultural Education Policy, Margaret Placier, Peter M. Hall and Barbara Jo Davis Integration of Restructuring and Multicultural Education as a Policy for Equity and Diversity, Peter M. Hall

Difference, Multicultural Education, Affirmative Action: The Case of California

In November of 1996, the electorate of California voted to abolish “affirmative action”. In this article (… the author) trace(s) the history of the “affirmative action” model in California and its impact on multicultural education policies. (… She) also discuss(es) the possible effects of the abolition of “affirmative action” on the multicultural future of the University of California. (DIPF/Orig.)

多文化教育と学校改革に関する一考察

Since the civil rights and ethnic revival movements of the 1960's, educational programs and practices promoting equal opportunity have emerged and have been developed in response to the needs of various ethnic groups;education related to ethnic issues has come to be called multicultural education.As policymakers have emphasized equality in education, the development of multicultural education as a reform movement promoting equal opportunity for all students-regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, exceptionality, social class, and so on-has been considerable.The purpose of this paper is to examine the basic idea of multicultural education as a reform movement, and to show the present situation of multicultural education policies in relationship to total school reform.My initial focus is on the basic idea that multicultural education is an attempt to reform the total school environment, including textbooks, materials, curriculum, teaching strategies, the composition of school staff and its attitude, the hidden curriculum, school norm.It can be said that a dominant Anglo culture has permeated every area of American schools, has brought about the omission of information and has resulted in culturally-related inequality, so much so that it is necessary now to infuse the total school environment with multicultural perspectives in order to eliminate inequalities. Secondly, emphasis is put on documenting the present situation of multicultural education policies at the state level, focusing on curriculum, instructional materials, teacher education, school culture, and parents-community involvement. This is followed by a description of an actual reform plan in Iowa, which has attempted to refer to multicultural perspectives in every aspect of schooling. Lastly, implications for multicultural issues in Japan, such as the education of Korean and Chinese populations, other foreign students, students returning from overseas are discussed.

Nationalism, Internationalization, and the Dilemma of Educational Reform in Japan

L'A. etudie, a partir d'observations personnelles et d'interviews realisees entre 1989 et 1992, le courant d'internationalisation, d'ou de reforme, de l'enseignement au Japon. Le mouvement s'empetre dans une lutte politique et ideologique a propos des objectifs, du contenu et du controle de l'enseignement. L'issue de cette bataille sera determinante pour connaitre la position retenue au sein du systeme educatif quant aux changements necessaires a l'internationalisation

Children, ‘race’ and racism: The limitations of research and policy

Following their small-scale study of race relations in five local education authorities in 1984, Her Majesty's Inspectorate concluded that 'little is actually known about race relations in schools'. On the face of it this bold assertion seemed both outrageous and empirically dubious. Three years later, however, Michael Marland argued along similar lines. In an effort to specify a research agenda following the Swann report he characterised existing studies 'on the detailed texture of school life from the point of view of ethnicity' as comprising little more than the 'picturesquely anecdotal'. These summary dismissals of research studies stretching back over almost 30 years are, however, at variance with the reaction of many policymakers at national and local level. After all, it is not difficult to discern the influence of empirical explorations of race relations in schools on the nature and orientation of multicultural (and antiracist) education policies and related initiatives. The principal co-ordinates of policies aimed at enhancing the status of cultural diversity in schools and combatting racism in education derive, to a greater or lesser extent, from research into children's racialised attitudes towards their own and other ethnic groups; the salience of ethnicity in the structure of school-based friendship groups; and the form and incidence of racist harassment by pupils and teachers. Of course, as Thomas Boston reminds us, 'flawed theory creates flawed policy' and in some of my previous writings I have been highly critical of many national, local (and school-based) policies on multiculturalism and the tenets on which they have been founded.''''. In this article I want to develop this critique. However, the concern here is less with the policies, per se, more with the studies which have helped to mould their form, and the methodological orthodoxy from which they have emerged. Without wishing to pre-empt the argument entirely it is pertinent to note here that this appraisal of the research, (much of which assumes

State Governments and Multicultural Education Policy

State Governments and Multicultural Education Policy

Match or Mismatch: Teachers' Conceptions of Culture and Multicultural Education Policy

The concept of culture is central within the social sciences in general and multicultural education in particular. In this paper, the argument is made that the term ‘culture’ will generate a surplus of meaning by teachers and policy document writers alike. It might be expected that there will be variation in the way the concept of culture is perceived and talked about by teachers and policy writers. The results of an ethnographic study of the concepts of culture from a group of 27 primary school teachers suggest that differences between the two groups are of appearance rather than content.

Teacher Attitudes to Multicultural Curriculum Development

This study reports teacher attitudes towards multicultural curricula developments in a sample of New South Wales state primary schools and the assimilation orientation of the respondents prior to the publication and dissemination of the state Multicultural Education Policy document. In general, teachers were favourably disposed to non-English-speaking minority children maintaining their ethnic identity, particularly through the use of their ethnic language. However they were negatively disposed to schools being actively involved in teaching ethnic languages, and to schools extending multicultural curricula. Teachers of English as a second language were more favourably disposed to the propositions than either of the other two groups (administration and class teachers). Class teachers were less favourably inclined to community language teaching and to the development of multicultural curricula. The second part of the study measured the assimilation orientation of teachers on a three-point scale: angloconformism, interactionism and pluralism. The most popular alternative was interactionism, with pluralism being an unpopular choice. The argument is presented that little attitudinal change has occurred since the implementation of the Multicultural Education Policy.

The Great Divide: policies and practices in multicultural education

Abstract Educational researchers interested in race‐related matters tend to be united in their conviction that the non‐institutionalisation of multicultural education derives entirely from the ('unwitting') racist attitudes of teachers. Whilst not ignoring teacher attitudes as an explanatory concept in ‘this context I argue in this article that the disparity between LEA multicultural education policies, on the one hand, and school practices on the other should be relocated in a broader analytical framework. The argument proposed hinges on a conception of multicultural education as a ‘progressive’ educational innovation and suggests that many of the processes which conventionally link policies to practices have been routinely overlooked in the current literature on ‘race’. Although this is a provisional article I hope, at the very least, that I have provided evidence to prompt a conjectural case for the argument that the negative racial attitudes of teachers are not the only factors which have the potentia...

Multicultural Education and Education Policy: The British Experience

Two questions provide the focus for this paper: (1) Does England have a policy in regard to education, and, if so, what is it? (2) If it does have a policy, how and when did this policy get formulated? It will soon be clear that multicultural is being used here to mean black-white, since that is the way the problem has emerged in England. In fact, is the term frequently used in England. Terms, of course, vary from one country to another, so what in the United States is called multicultural, in England starts out as the immigrant problem, quickly becomes the colored immigrant problem, and now frequently in England is referred to as the of blacks, meaning not only West Indians but also immigrants from India and Pakistan. In the 1970s education for a multiracial society, education for a multiethnic society, pluralism, and multicultural sometimes all appeared together in a single paragraph in articles and books published in England. The time period under consideration is roughly 1950-80, though one might use 1948, when a few hundred immigrants from Jamaica entered England. As the flow of immigrants speeded up, there was growing concern about England's being overwhelmed by immigrants--colored immigrants, that is. In 1955 some 27,000 West Indians entered England, and in 1961 the yearly figure was over 66,000. From India came 5,800 in 1955 and 23,000 in 1961. Similarly, in 1961 25,000 came into England from Pakistan.' The national government responded with a law which cut back immigration drastically. In this and subsequent laws a policy clearly was in force which by implication said that England could only tolerate a limited number of people with cultures different from that of white Britons.