Multicultural Definitions

Joel Spring

Multicultural education is education taught from multiple cultural frames of reference.

James Banks

Multicultural education is an educational reform movement involving the total school that calls for policies and practices that recognize, accept and affirm human differences and similarities related to gender, race, class, disability, and sexual orientation.

Gollnick & Chinn

Multicultural education is education that incorporates cultural differences and provides equity in the total school environment.

Carl Grant

Multicultural education is a philosophical concept and an educational process … that takes place in schools and informs the curriculum by providing knowledge …

… Simply put, multicultural education prepares people for active participation in a multicultural world… “if one if to participate intellectually and responsibly in the pluralistic society that surrounds him/her, rather than in a sheltered and mythological subculture not truly representative of the nation as a whole, then a culturally aware, culturally relevant, and culturally sensitive -- or multicultural education -- is necessary. (Hughes, 1990)