Welcome to our Education Technology website

Welcome to our Education Technology website

My name is Phillip Rekdale and I am a graduate of Griffith University (1996) with majors in Teaching and Human Resource Development. However, my original career was in Electronics Education and Education Technology. I love Indonesia and its people and I hope that together we can help to raise the quality of education in this country.

I have worked in the Electronics Education and Education Technology fields in Australia for over 22 years. Most of my experience has been in universities and other forms of tertiary education including TAFE, as well as 6 years in a school that taught from Primary to Year 12. In Indonesia I have worked for 2 years as a Technology and School Development Consultant for the Ministry of Education, Indonesia, and I have been active in the Indonesian education arena as a consultant on other education projects and also as a Director of Studies at an Australain / Indonesian International Institute. I also own/manage about 150 domain names and about 70 active websites that deal mainly with Indonesian education issues.

Because early in my career I graduated in Education Technology (Audio-Visual Aids) at RMIT (1982), a program of studies that went deeply into both theory and practice of education technology in the role of Leaning & Teaching, I have been fascinated with the issue of how technology can assist learning and teaching in the classroom. Especially those applications that have assisted, as well as those applications that obviously didn't, and why. At this website we will be discussing the topic of Education Technology and the main focus will be to discuss the topic in terms of reality not theory.

In developed countries issues like efficiency and effective utilization of education budgets don't seem to be the important issues that they are here in Indonesia (I am sure many of you are shaking your heads in disagreement). One of the issues that fascinated me while working in Australian universities was that we were always under pressure to keep things like photocopying to a minimum and sometimes had to sign and get an authorizing signature (or code) in order to make photocopies that were integral to a teaching program. However, there often seemed to be plenty of money available to buy technology that was of uncertain value to the teaching programs (usually in the name of research). (Att: Budget Administrators).

In Indonesia it is absolutely crucial that all of our education budget is used effectively to improve the quality of Learning and Teaching Process in the classroom because other support for students outside the classroom is minimal, or non-existent in many schools. Therefore "the truth" about issues like "the value of education technology to the Learning and Teaching Process" is highly critical. Hopefully this site through its forum can help to establish what "the truths" really are.

History of Pendidikan (Education) Network Indonesia

I have been interested in Indonesian education ("pendidikan" in Malay/Indonesian) since my first assignment here in 1983 because my duties in those days included the selection of trainees for education technology positions. From my observations in other institutions and my experiences in my own institution interviewing many relatively highly educated candidates 'it appeared' that there may be three key issues that need addressing regarding aspects of an Indonesian education. (1) An Indonesian education doesn't appear to encourage learners to think individually, be critical, analyze, or to be independent. (2) Middle-level vocational education particularly for technical staff, general staff, secretaries, etc. is clearly inadequate. (3) Almost all forms of education beyond basic education appear to be too expensive for the majority of the population.

I have been using and working with computers since early 1972 however only in recent years I have become interested the Internet because of the greatly improved communication capabilities of the new generations of computers and the range of materials that were beginning to become available on the WWW. Before coming back to Indonesia in 1998 I searched the Internet for Indonesian education resources (in Indonesian) and it was apparent that useful information for teachers and students was practically non-existent. Therefore, before I arrived I already had thoughts of expanding upon the amount of information currently available even though I had no idea what form this should take.

Having just completed two assignments with DEPDIKNAS (National Ministry of Education) as (1) Language Technology Consultant and (2) School Development Consultant it was very clear that there are many Indonesian educators and school principals in the field who really care about education and are interested in improving their professionalism and the quality of education in Indonesia. There are also many exciting self-initiatives taking place in schools that greatly benefit their learners. However, a problem that seriously undermines national development is that educators do not have an effective communication system for disseminating or sharing the information with their colleagues in other schools. Therefore, their experiences, knowledge, and replicable development in these limited number of schools is not being transferred and is not benefiting the thousands of other similar schools as it should. I believed that the first most important step was the creation of a communication network - provide an opportunity for educators and students to share their thoughts, experiences and knowledge!

In 1998 I created a Senior Secondary Education (Sekolah Menengah Umum - http://smun.net) website. It was my first ever serious attempt at a homepage and after extensive searches of the Internet for Indonesian education resources, it became very clear that little useful material or information for schools was currently available on the Internet. There was considerable hype (rhetoric) about the benefits of the Internet for education in Indonesia, however actual useful content was almost non-existent. And, even more importantly, the opportunities for the Indonesian education community to participate and contribute to the development of education (via the Internet) appeared to be zero.

Read About My Experiences
Using the Internet for Education Development
(in Developing Countries)

PORTFOLIOS IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Md. Abdullah-Al-Mamun Patwary, M.Ed. in CIT (Dhaka), M.Ed. in IT (Jogja)

Teaching portfolios are increasingly popular tools for both evaluation and professional development. Portfolios are currently in use in a variety of setting- in university teacher education programs to foster the growth of pre-service teacher, with the national board for Professional Teaching Standards to certify and reward teaching excellence and in school districts to hire and evaluate teachers.

Why have educators turned to teaching portfolios? Proponents contend that portfolios present authentic views of learning and teaching over time, offering a more complete and valid pictures of what teachers know and can do (Wolf, 1996, Educational Leadership). Moreover, they believe that portfolios promote professional development by providing teachers with a structure and process for documenting and reflecting on their practice.

Although portfolios have many attractive features, their use can have significant liabilities as well. Portfolios can be time-consuming to construct, cumbersome to store, and difficult to score. Nonetheless, the potential of portfolios for addressing assessment needs as well as advancing professional learning suggests that administrators should consider a role for teacher portfolios in their school-based evaluation and staff development programs.

WHAT IS A TEACING PORTFOLIO?

In its most basic form, a teaching portfolio is a collection of information about a teacher¡¦s practice. Portfolios can come in different shapes and sizes, but in practice they often take the form of scrapbooks filled with photographs of classroom life, along with affectionate notes from students and parents.

According to Lee Shulman (1992), ¡§A teaching portfolio is the structured documentary history of a carefully selected set of coached or mentored accomplishments, substantiated by samples of student work, and fully realized only through reflective writing, deliberation, and serious conversation.¡¨ Again Sally J. Zepeda (2006) mentioned, ¡§A portfolio is a means for teachers to chronicle and assess their teaching, and the portfolio can be used as a means to extend teacher evaluation.¡¨

The key features of a teaching portfolio are as follows:

"X The portfolio should be structured around sound professional content standards and individual and school goals;

"X The portfolio should contain carefully selected examples of both students and teacher work that illustrate key feature of the teacher¡¦s practice;

"X The contents of the portfolio should be framed by captions and written commentaries that explain and reflect on the contents;

"X The portfolio should be a mentored or coached experience, in which the portfolio is used as a basis for ongoing professional conversations with colleagues and supervisors.

WHAT PURPOSES MIGHT A TEACHING PORTFOLIO SERVE?

There are three main purposes of a teaching portfolio:

"X To address evaluation requirements

"X To advance professional growth

"X To aid in employment searches

Although a carefully conceptualized portfolio can address all of these to some degree, each purpose suggests somewhat different design considerations. For the evaluation portfolio, fairness is a chief concern. Consistency- in portfolio requirements and in the evaluation process- best advances this goal. With the professional development portfolio, however, ownership of the learning process is a major concern. Individual customization of the portfolio best serves this goal. Moreover, for a professional development portfolio, latitude in choice concerning the focus and format of the portfolio is likely to increase learning, because each teacher will adapt the portfolio to his or her specific needs and goals. A portfolio used in employment searches is shaped by still different forces.

Although three types of portfolios are distinguished in terms of their primary purposes, a single portfolio can advance all three goals if the user responsible for conceptualizing the portfolio is clear about his or her purposes as well as thoughtful in designing it.

WHAT MIGHT BE INCLUDDED IN A TEACHING PORTFOLIO?

The contents of teaching portfolios can be as varied as the people who construct them. A portfolio might include samples of student and teacher work. In addition, a portfolio might include a variety of other information, such as letters of commendation form parents, evaluations from supervisors, and even teaching credentials and academic transcripts.

The following items are included in every portfolio, regardless of its primary purpose:

"X A statement of philosophy or teaching goals

"X Samples of teacher work, such as lesson plans and student assessments

"X Samples of student work, such as reading logs and student assignment

"X Captions that briefly explain the work samples

"X Commentaries that reflect on the teaching and learning documents in the portfolio

Captions provide contextual information about each item in the portfolio and (see figure 1.0). In addition to samples of students and teacher work, captions and commentaries on those samples are essential. Commentaries are written accounts that elaborate on and interpret the portfolio contents.

Figure 1.0: Portfolio Caption Form
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title of evidence: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date created: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Educator¡¦s name: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description of context in which evidence was collected: ----------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interpretation: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional comments: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In essence, then, a portfolio should be framed by a sound philosophy that is consistent with professional expectations and school goals, illustrated through samples of students and teacher work, and explained through captions and commentaries. Depending upon the purposes of the portfolio, however, additional information might be warranted.

HOW MIGHT THE PORTFOLIO PROCESS UNFOLD?

The following steps might serve as a guide for teachers in building their portfolio:

"X Prepare a philosophy statement.

"X Set goals for the portfolio in consultation with a supervisor.

"X Collect a variety of student and teacher work samples.

"X Discuss the work samples with colleagues at regular intervals.

"X Organize and caption the portfolio contents.

"X Write reflective commentaries about the teaching and learning documented in the portfolio.

"X Submit the completed portfolio to a supervisor for review.

"X Receive feedback from the reviewing supervisor.

"X Set new goals in light of the supervisor¡¦s feedback.

HOW SHOULD A TEACHING PORTOFOLIO BE EVALUATED?

Portfolios are exciting as assessment tools because they allow teachers to represent the complexities and individuality of their teaching in great detail. Ensuring that the evaluation process is manageable and fair requires that several elements be put into place in advance, including identification of sound content and performance standards for teachers, specification of the requirements for construction of a portfolio, and design of an efficient evaluation system.

Identification of Content and Performance Standards

The evaluation of a teacher¡¦s portfolio should be based on clear content standards and performance standards. These standards will serve to guide teachers in the construction of their portfolios as well as reviewers in their evaluations. Along with content standards, performance standards need to be established as well. Performance standards address the question, How good is good enough? What level of performance is required for an ¡§outstanding¡¨ designation? Rating can be made at the overall performance level or for each of the content standards.

Feedback to teachers should be detailed and linked to the information in the portfolios, so that teachers have a clear understanding of the specific strengths and weakness in their performance as well as the reasons for their ratings.

Designing the Portfolio

To help that the portfolio construction and review process is manageable, a portfolio should be focused on a few areas of teaching rather than the entire curriculum, and should be slender in size rather that as thick as a metropolitan phone book.

Less is more, not only in terms of breath of coverage but also in amount of information. A carefully selected collection of evidence can be used more productively by both teacher and administrator than can a file cabinet¡¦s worth of materials. Five to ten teacher work samples and a similar number of student work samples might be sufficient, assuming they are carefully selected to illustrate their connection to the content standards and portfolio goals. Add a caption for each piece of information and one or two commentaries of two to three pages in length, and the portfolio evaluator has a wide range of information on which to base decisions and feedback.

Specification and Requirements

To make the portfolio construction and evaluation process more manageable and fair is to specify the requirements for the portfolio in advance, which includes the following elements:

"X Purposes of the portfolio

"X Procedures for constructing the portfolio

"X Timeline for completion and evaluation of the portfolio

"X List of required and /or suggested portfolio contents

"X Description of the evaluation process

"X Evaluation criteria (content and performance standards)

"X Description of the feedback and appeals process

Clearly defined portfolio procedures allow teachers to spend more time reflecting on their instruction and less on trying to figure out how to ¡§play the portfolio game¡¨.

Evaluating the Contents

Administrators examining teacher portfolios follow a systematic review process that includes the following steps:

"» Read the entire portfolio to get a sense of the overall performance.

"» Review the portfolio in light of the content standards and teacher goals.

"» Take notes about significant pieces of information in the portfolio.

"» Assign a rating for the portfolio (if appropriate).

"» Provide feedback to the teacher.

It is important that the reviewer examine the portfolio for each of the content standards. This can best be achieved by reading the entire portfolio first, and then reviewing the portfolio with each standard as a separate lens.

During these cycles through the portfolio, the reviewer should note significant sources of evidence that will be used in the evaluation and as feedback to the teacher. In addition, the reviewer should keep the teacher¡¦s goals for the portfolio in mind. A portfolio, although a thick collection of information, is still only a thin slice of a teacher¡¦s entire performance.

The teacher¡¦s goal for the portfolio, which has been set in consultation with a supervisor, should provide the focus for the evaluation. It is wise for administrators to draw on multiple sources of information beyond the portfolio in evaluating a teacher. Ideally, feedback on a teacher¡¦s portfolio should be presented in both written and oral form. It is important that feedback from the administrator is not the only source of information for the teacher about his or her practice. Regular portfolio-based conversations among teachers should be and integral and ingoing feature of the portfolio process.

More than a collection of paperwork and discrete artifacts, the portfolio involves teachers in

a) developing goals;

b) selecting artifacts that offer rich portrayals of teaching;

c) receiving feedback on the artifacts as they relate to ¡¥live ¡¥ teaching;

d) reflecting on the impact of the artifacts through data collected in class-room observations; and

e) chronicling changes in practice based on accumulating artifacts over time (this is achieved by examining notes or memos on earlier artifacts). (Sally J. Zepeda, 2002)

PUTTING PROTFOLIOS INTO PRACTICE

Kenneth Wolf (2006) proposed a series of steps that administrators might follow in introducing portfolios in their school or institutions, as well as considerations for creating a productive climate for teachers:

i. Define the expectations for teacher performance.

ii. Clarify the purpose of the portfolio.

iii. Identify the products for the portfolio.

iv. Develop guidelines for portfolio construction.

v. Establish procedures for portfolio evaluation.

Introducing the Use of Portfolio

Along with those described above, the following steps should be followed during the introduction of the use of portfolios in a school:
"½ Enlist volunteers.
"½ Start small.
"½ Keep the risk low.
"½ Encourage portfolio-based conversations.
"½ Use multiple measures of evaluation.

CONCLUSION

The use of portfolios in assessing teaching has evolved in practice due to many currents, including the work with pre-service teachers and initial certification, the emergence of the portfolio in the process of applying for national board certification, and as the evolution of more authentic forms of student assessment has taken hold.

All portfolios should contain carefully selected examples of teacher and student work, farmed by commentaries and captions, and brought to life through extended conversations with colleagues and supervisors. A portfolio¡¦s purpose drives many decisions about the specific contents of the portfolio, as well as the process for constructing and evaluating it. Although the purpose for creating portfolios may vary, all portfolios contribute to the same ultimate aim- to advance student learning through the professional development of teachers.

References:

Brinkerhoff, R.O., Brethower, D.M., Hluchyj T., Nowakowski, J.R.(1983). Program Evaluation: A Practitioner¡¦s Guide for Trainers and Educators. Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing.

Charles, R., lester, F., O¡¦Daffer, P. (1994). How to Evaluate programs in Problem Solving. USA, Virginia: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.

Cronbach, l.J. (1983). Designing Evaluations of Educational and Social Programs. Washington: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Harlen, W. (2007). Assessment of Learning. London: SAGE Publications.

Hoy, C., Jardine, C.B., Wood M. (2000). Improving Quality in Education. London: Falmer Press.

Kirkpatrick, D.L. (1996). Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Knapper, C.K. (1980). Evaluating Instructional Technology. London: John Wiley & Sons.

Madus, G.F., Seriven, M.S., Stufflebeam, D.L. (1986). Evaluation Models: Viewpoints on Educational and Human Services Evaluation. USA, Boston: kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing.

Sanders, J.R., Sulins, C.D. (2006). Evaluating School Programs: An Educator¡¦s Guide. (3rd ed.). California: Corwin Press.

Strong, J.H. (edit) (2006). Evaluation Teaching. (2nd ed.). California: Corwin Press.

Stufflebeam, D.L., Shinkfield, A.J. (1985). Systematic Evaluation: A self-instructional Guide to Theory and Practice. USA, Massachusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION: an Initial Thought

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION:
An Initial Thought
Muhammad

Abstract

A multicultural country merupakan sebutan yang sangat cocok untuk Indonesia. Betapa tidak, keragaman agama dan kepercayaan, suku yang terpencar di lebih dari 17.000 pulau, keunikan bahasa daerah yang menempati jumlah terbanyak di dunia (lebih dari 500 bahasa daerah) dan sejumlah keragaman lain adalah potensi dan keunikan yang dimiliki oleh bangsa Indonesia sebagai bangsa yang besar. Akan tetapi keragaman dan keunikan tersebut selama ini tidak mendapatkan tempat dalam proses pembangunan bangsa, terutama dalam dunia pendidikan. Paradigma pembangunan pendidikan kita yang sangat sentralistik telah melupakan keragaman yang sekaligus kekayaan dan potensi yang dimiliki oleh bangsa ini. Perkelahian, kerusahan, permusuhan, munculnya kelompok yang memiliki perasaan bahwa hanya budayanyalah yang lebih baik dari budaya lain adalah buah dari pengabaian keragaman tersebut dalam dunia pendidikan kita. Dalam tulisan yang merupakan sebuah pemikiran awal tentang multicultural education ini, penulis menguraikan berbagai pandangan tentang apa sebenarnya pendidikan multikultural itu, sejarah, tujuan, serta prinsip-prinsip kunci pendidikan multikultural.

Key Words: multicultural education, diversity, plurality, society, social justice, equity.

I. Introduction

Students of many religions, races, cultures and languages, ethnic backgrounds, and economic situations fill today's schools. Gollnick and Chinn (1994) stated that a multicultural society comprises class (structure, stratification and socioeconomic status), ethnicity and race, gender, exceptionality, religion, language, and age. But this diversity should not be a problem, especially when we consider that multicultural education is all about plurality. Many educators believe that multicultural education can help students learn about other people and about cultures different from students' own.

Multicultural education means different things to different people. It also means rich diversity of a society. The rich diversity of today's society is clearly evident in many classrooms today. It is no longer enough to educate some of our children. Schools and learning environments must work for all and must reflect the cultures of the communities they serve.

Multicultural education has as its purpose the development of citizens of a more democratic society through provision of more accurate and comprehensive disciplinary knowledge and through enhancement of students' academic achievement and critical thinking applied to social problems. It seeks to promote the valuing diversity and equal opportunity for all people through understanding of the contributions and perspectives of people of differing race, ethnicity, culture, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and physical abilities and disabilities.

II. Definitions of Multicultural Education

Definitions of multicultural education vary. Some definitions rely on the cultural characteristics of diverse groups, while others emphasize social problems (particularly those associated with oppression), political power, and the reallocation of economic resources. Some restrict their focus to people of color, while others include all major groups that are different in any way from mainstream of society. Other definitions limit multicultural education to characteristics of local schools, and still others provide directions for school reform in all settings regardless of their characteristics. Bennet (1995) stated that multicultural education is based upon democratic values and beliefs, and seeks to foster cultural pluralism within culturally diverse societies and interdependent world in which the definition includes the dimensions of the movement toward equity, the multicultural approach, the process of becoming multicultural, and the commitment to combat prejudice and discrimination. The goals of these diverse types of multicultural education range from bringing more information about various groups to textbooks, to combating racism, to restructuring the entire school enterprise and reforming society to make schools more culturally fair, accepting, and balanced. For this reason, the field of multicultural education is referred to interchangeably as multicultural education, education that is multicultural and antiracist education.

The following are the most frequently used definitions of multicultural education:

. An idea, an educational reform movement, and a process intended to change the structure of educational institutions so that all students have an equal chance to achieve academic success.

. A philosophy that stresses the importance, legitimacy, and vitality of ethnic and cultural diversity in shaping the lives of individuals, groups, and nations.

. A reform movement that changes all components of the educational enterprise, including its underlying values, procedural rules, curricula, instructional materials, organizational structure, and governance policies to reflect cultural pluralism.

. An ongoing process that requires long term investments of time and effort as well as carefully planned and monitored actions (Banks & Banks, 1993).

. Institutionalizing a philosophy of cultural pluralism within the educational system that is grounded in principles of equality, mutual respect, acceptance and understanding, and moral commitment to social justice (Baptiste, 1979).

. An education free of inherited biases, with freedom to explore other perspectives and cultures, inspired by the goal of making children sensitive to the plurality of the ways of life, different modes of analyzing experiences and ideas, and ways of looking at history found throughout the world (Parekh, 1986, pp. 26-27).

. A humanistic concept based on the strength of diversity, human rights, social justice, and alternative lifestyles for all people, it is necessary for a quality education and includes all efforts to make the full range of cultures available to students; it views a culturally pluralistic society as a positive force and welcomes differences as vehicles for better understanding the global society (ASCD Multicultural Education Commission, in Grant, 1977b, p. 3).

. An approach to teaching and learning based upon democratic values that foster cultural pluralism; in its most comprehensive form, it is a commitment to achieving educational equality, developing curricula that build understanding about ethnic groups, and combating oppressive practices (Bennett, 1990).

. Acquiring knowledge about various groups and organizations that oppose oppression and exploitation by studying the artifacts and ideas that emanate from their efforts (Sizemore, 1981).

. Policies and practices that show respect for cultural diversity through educational philosophy, staffing composition and hierarchy, instructional materials, curricula, and evaluation procedures (Grant, 1977).

. Comprehensive school reform and basic education for all students that challenges all forms of discrimination, permeates instruction and interpersonal relations in the classroom, and advances the democratic principles of social justice (Nieto, 1992).

These various definitions contain several points in common. Advocates agree that the content of multicultural education programs should include ethnic identities, cultural pluralism, unequal distribution of resources and opportunities, and other sociopolitical problems stemming from long histories of oppression. They believe that, at best, multicultural education is a philosophy, a methodology for educational reform, and a set of specific content areas within instructional programs. Multicultural education means learning about, preparing for, and celebrating cultural diversity, or learning to be bicultural. And it requires changes in school programs, policies, and practices.

III. A Brief History of Multicultural Education

As conceptualizations of multicultural education evolve and diversify, it is important to revisit its historical foundation -- the roots from which it sprang. What did the earliest forms of multicultural education look like and what social conditions gave rise to them? What educational traditions and philosophies provided the framework for the development of multicultural education? How has multicultural education changed since its earliest conceptualization? The answers to these questions provide an important contextual grounding for understanding the various models of multicultural education evolving today.

The historical roots of multicultural education lie in the civil rights movements of various historically oppressed groups.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the women's rights movement joined this push for education reform. Women's rights groups challenged inequities in employment and educational opportunities as well as income, identifying education as a primary contributing factor in institutionalized and systemic sexism. Feminist scholars and other women activists, like groups of color before them, insisted on curricula more inclusive of their histories and experiences. They challenged the discrepancy low number of female administrators relative to the percentage of female teachers (Banks, 1989).

The 1980s saw the emergence of a body of scholarship on multicultural education by progressive education activists and researchers who refused to allow schools to address their concerns by simply adding token programs and special units on famous women or famous people of color. James Banks, one of the pioneers of multicultural education, was among the first multicultural education scholars to examine schools as social systems from a multicultural context. He grounded his conceptualization of multicultural education in the idea of "educational equality." According to Banks (1981), in order to maintain a "multicultural school environment," all aspects of the school had to be examined and transformed, including policies, teachers' attitudes, instructional materials, assessment methods, counseling, and teaching styles.

So as the 1980s flowed into the final decade of the twentieth century, multicultural education scholars refocused the struggle on developing new approaches and models of education and learning built on a foundation of social justice, critical thinking, and equal opportunity. Educators, researchers, and cultural theorists began to further deconstruct traditional models in both the K-12 (SD to SMA) and higher education arenas from a multicultural framework.

Today, literally dozens of models and frameworks for multicultural education exist. While theory and scholarship has moved from small curricular revisions to approaches that call for full transformations of self, schools, and society, many implementations of multicultural education still begin with curricular additions of diverse sources. But with a fuller understanding of the roots of the movement, we are better equipped to follow the transformative path laid by many educators, activists, and scholars. And it is important to remember that multicultural education is a relatively new concept that will continue to change to meet the needs of a constantly changing society.

IV. Major Goals of Multicultural Education

The expected outcomes of multicultural education are embedded in its definitions, justification, and assumptions; and they exhibit some clearly discernible patterns. While specific goals and related objectives are quite numerous, and vary according to contextual factors such as school settings, audiences, timing, purposes, and perspectives, they fall into seven general clusters. They cover all three domains of learning (cognitive, affective, and action) and incorporate both the intrinsic (ends) and instrumental (means) values of multicultural education. These goal clusters are ethnic and cultural literacy, personal development, attitude and values clarification, multicultural social competence, basic skills proficiency, educational equity and excellence, and empowerment for societal reform. Each one is discussed briefly below.

4.1. Developing Ethnic and Cultural Literacy

One of the primary and persistent reasons for the movement to include cultural pluralism in school programs is to correct what advocates call "sins of omission and commission." First, we must provide students with information about the history and contributions of ethnic groups who traditionally have been excluded from instructional materials and curricula; and second, we must replace the distorted and biased images of those groups that were included in the curricula with more accurate and significant information. These goals continue to be major concerns of multicultural education, because many students still know too little about the history, heritage, culture, languages, and contributions of groups of diverse society in their own country.

Thus, a major goal of multicultural education is to learn about the historical backgrounds, languages, cultural characteristics, contributions, critical events, significant individuals, and social, political, and economic conditions of various majority and minority ethnic groups. This information should be comprehensive, analytical, and comparative, and should include similarities and differences within and among groups.

This goal is appropriate for both majority students and for those who are members of various ethnic minority groups. A mistake frequently made by educators is to assume either that members of ethnic minority groups already know their culture and history or that this kind of knowledge is relevant only to them. Multicultural education argues to the contrary. Membership in an ethnic group does not guarantee self-knowledge or exclusive ownership of knowledge about that group. Acquiring knowledge about the history, life, and culture of ethnic groups is appropriate for all students because they need to learn more, with greater accuracy, about their own cultural heritages and those of others. Furthermore, knowledge about ethnic pluralism is a necessary foundation for respecting, appreciating, valuing, and celebrating diversity, both nationally and internationally.

4.2. Personal Development

The psychological underpinnings of multicultural education explain its emphasis on developing greater self-understanding, positive self-concepts, and pride in one's ethnic identity. Emphasizing these areas is part of multicultural education's goal of contributing to the personal development of students, which contends that a better sense of self contributes to the overall intellectual, academic, and social achievement of students. Students who feel good about themselves are likely to be more open and receptive to interaction with others and to respect their cultures and identities. This argument is further justified by claims made about the reciprocal relationship between self-concept, academic achievement, ethnicity, culture, and individual identity.

Many students have internalized the negative and distorted conceptions of their own and other ethnic groups, a process that has been promoted in larger society. Students from groups of color may be convinced that their heritages have little of value to offer, while those from dominant groups may have inflated notions about their significance. Developing a better understanding of their own and other ethic groups and cultural experiences can correct these distortions. Multicultural education also helps educators to fulfill the goals of maximizing human potential, meeting individual needs, and teaching the whole child by enhancing feelings of personal worth, confidence, and competence. It creates a psychosocial state of readiness in individuals and learning environments, which has a positive effect upon academic efforts and task mastery.

4.3. Attitudes and Value Clarification

Multicultural education promotes the core values that stem from the principles of human dignity, justice, equality, freedom, self-determination, and democracy. The intent is to teach youths to respect and embrace ethnic pluralism, to realize that cultural differences are not synonymous with deficiencies or inferiorities, and to recognize that diversity is an integral part of the human condition. Clarifying ethnic attitudes and values is designed to help students understand that some conflict of values is unavoidable in ethnically and racially pluralistic societies; that conflict does not have to be corrosive and divisive, when managed well it can be a catalyst for social progress; that there is strength in ethnic and cultural pluralism; that ethnic allegiance and national loyalty are not irreconcilable; and that cooperation and coalition among ethnic groups are not dependent upon having identical beliefs, values, and behaviors. Analyzing and clarifying ethnic attitudes and values are key steps in the process of unleashing the creative potential of individuals for self-renewal and of society for continuous growth and development.

4.4. Multicultural Social Competence

It is imperative that students learn how to interact with and understand people who are ethnically, racially, and culturally different from themselves. Our world is becoming increasingly more diverse, compact, and interdependent. Yet, for most students, the formative years of their lives are spent in ethnically and culturally isolated or encapsulated enclaves. This existence does not adequately prepare them to function effectively in ethnically different environments and multicultural settings. Attempts at cross cultural interactions are often stymied by negative attitudes, values, and expectations; cultural blunders; and by trying to impose rules of social etiquette from one cultural system onto another. The results are often heightened interracial and interethnic group frustrations, anxiety, fears, failures, and hostilities.

Multicultural education can ease these tensions by teaching skills in cross cultural communication, interpersonal relations, perspective taking, contextual analysis, understanding alternative points of view and frames of reference, and analyzing how cultural conditions affect values, attitudes, beliefs, preferences, expectations, and behaviors. It also can help students learn how to understand cultural differences without making hasty and arbitrary value judgments about their intrinsic worth. Attaining these goals can be expedited by providing wide varieties of opportunities for students to practice their cultural competence and to interact with different ethnic peoples, experiences, and situations.

4.5. Basic Skill Proficiency

A major goal of multicultural education is to facilitate the teaching and learning of basic literacy skills of ethnically different students. Multicultural education can improve mastery of reading, writing, and mathematical skills; subject matter content; and intellectual process skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and conflict resolution by providing content and techniques that are more meaningful to the lives and frames of reference of ethnically different students. Using ethnic materials, experiences, and examples as the contexts for teaching, practicing, and demonstrating mastery of academic and subject matter skills increases the appeal of the tools of instruction, heightens the practical relevance of the skills to be learned, and improves students' time on task. This combination of conditions leads to greater focused efforts, task persistence, skill mastery, and academic achievement.

Another aspect of multicultural education that contributes directly to the attainment of higher levels of basic skills achievement is matching teaching and learning styles. Disjuncture in how different students learn in their cultural communities and how they are expected to learn in school cause much time and attention to be devoted to resolving these conflicts instead of concentrating on academic tasks. Teaching students as they are accustomed to learning minimizes these conflicts and channels more energy and effort directly into the academic tasks to be accomplished. Thus, culturally contextualized teaching for making the educational process more effective for ethnically diverse students is a fundamental principle of multicultural education.

The kinds of social climates that exist in classrooms also affect students' performances on academic tasks. This influence is particularly true for ethnic groups that consider social relationships and informal settings imperative to the learning process. When teachers respond to these needs by including ethnic symbols, images, and information in the classroom decorations, curriculum content, and interpersonal interactions, ethnic students feel validated, at ease, and have greater affiliation with the school. These feelings of personal affirmation and comfort create the backdrop of personal connectedness that is essential to students' taking ownership in learning, which, in turn, leads to more sustained attention, effort, time on task, and improved task mastery and academic achievement.

4.6. Educational Equity and Excellence

This goal of multicultural equity is closely related to the goal of basic skill mastery, but is much broader and more philosophical.

In order to determine what constitutes comparability of learning opportunities, educators must thoroughly understand how culture shapes learning styles, teaching behaviors, and educational decisions. They must then develop a variety of means to accomplish common learning outcomes that reflect the preferences and styles of a wide variety of groups and individuals. By giving all students more choices about how they will learn, choices that are compatible with their cultural styles, none will be unduly advantaged or disadvantaged at the procedural levels of learning. These choices will lead to closer parallelism (e.g., equity) in opportunities to learn and more comparability in students' achieving the maximum of their own intellectual capabilities (e.g., excellence).

Other aspects of this goal include teaching accurate information about society; developing a sense of social consciousness, moral courage, and commitment to equality; and acquiring skills in political activism for reforming society to make it more humane, sympathetic toward cultural pluralism, morally just, and egalitarian. Therefore, the multicultural goal of achieving educational equity and excellence encompasses cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills, as well as the principles of democracy (Banks, 1992).

4.7. Personal Empowerment for Social Reform

The ultimate goal of multicultural education is to begin a process of change in schools that will ultimately extend to society. This goal will be accomplished by cultivating in students attitudes, values, habits, and skills so that they can become social change agents who are committed to reforming society in order to eradicate ethnic and racial disparities in opportunities and are willing to act upon this commitment. To do so, they need to improve their knowledge of ethnic issues as well as develop decision making abilities, social action skills, leadership capabilities, a sense of political efficacy, and a moral commitment to human dignity and equality. That is, they not only need to understand and appreciate why ethnicity and cultural pluralism, but also how to translate this knowledge into decisions and actions related to key sociopolitical issues, events, concerns, and situations.

This goal and related skill development are designed to make society more genuinely egalitarian and more accepting of cultural pluralism. They also are intended to ensure that ethnic and cultural groups that traditionally have been victimized and excluded will become full fledged participants at all levels of society, with all of the attendant rights, privileges, and responsibilities. Multicultural education contributes directly to developing skills for democratic citizenship in the global village. This function of multiculturalism is what Banks meant by his proposal to use a social action approach to multicultural education, which teaches students how to become social critics, political activists, change agents, and competent leaders in a culturally pluralistic and ethnically diverse society and world. It is also similar to Grant's conception of multicultural education for social reconstruction. This approach focuses on oppression and social structure inequalities, with the intention of creating a society that better empowers and serves the needs and interests of all groups of people. It builds personal empowerment in students by establishing relevance between school learning and social living, providing practice in applying knowledge and taking action to direct their own lives, and demonstrating the power of knowledge, collaborative efforts, and political action in effecting social change.

V. Key Principles of Multicultural Education

Multicultural education is based on some commonly asserted principles. The frequency and consistency with which these principles are declared across time and advocates are other strong indications of the consensus that exists about some essential, baseline features of multicultural education and a convincing counterargument to claims that the field lacks conceptual clarity.

A principle is a basic or essential quality that determines the intrinsic nature of something. Multicultural education includes several characteristics or traits that, as a composite, distinguish its inherent nature and quality from other educational innovations. Parekh (1986) sets the overall tone of multicultural education in his judgment that multicultural education is good education for all children. To endorse multicultural education is not to imply that the entire education system should be destroyed or that the Anglo centric cultural dominance existing in schooling should merely be replaced with the dominance of other ethnic cultures; neither is it to deny the need for a common national culture. Rather, it simply says that the education system needs to be improved by becoming less culturally monolithic, rigid, biased, hegemonic, and ethnocentric. The prevailing norm in educational decision making and operating procedures should be cultural pluralism and heterogeneity, instead of cultural hegemony or homogeneity.

The general principles of multicultural education are supported by several more specific ones. Multiculturalists describe the most salient "personality traits" of multicultural education as follows:

. A personally empowering, socially transformative, and pedagogically humanistic process

. Correcting and rehabilitating some of the mistakes that schools have made in educating culturally different children, especially those of color and poverty

. A search for scholarly honesty and truth by giving due recognition to the contributions of diverse groups and cultures to the collective accomplishments of humankind

. Fundamentally an affective and humanistic enterprise that aims to achieve greater understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures and peoples

. Both content and process, structure and substance, action and reflection, knowledge and values, philosophy and methodology, an educational means and an end

. For all students in all grades, subjects, and school settings

. A means of achieving parity in educational opportunities for diverse students

. A process of systematic and systemic change that is developmental, progressive, and ongoing

. A confluence of diverse cultural heritages, experiences, perspectives, and contributions

. Has inherent merit for its own sake, as well as instrumental value for facilitating other educational goals

. A bridge for making meaningful connections between the abstractions of schooling and the actual life experiences of ethnically and culturally different students.

. A vehicle for and conduit of relevance, equity, excellence, and personal meaningfulness in education for culturally diverse students.

. An acceptance and celebration of diversity as a normal fact of human life and schooling.

VI. CLOSING

Multicultural education seems to be an important part to be discussed nowadays since we are now living in a global a society. People coming from certain places and different cultures can now easily interact with those who live in other places and cultures. This means that we have to understand other's cultures to be a part of the global society. Multicultural education enables our students to live and adjust with different cultures and understand other people.

Multicultural education means a reform movement that changes all components of the educational enterprise, including its underlying values, procedural rules, curricula, instructional materials, organizational structure, and governance policies to reflect cultural pluralism. This means that the content of multicultural education programs should include ethnic identities, cultural pluralism, unequal distribution of resources and opportunities, and other sociopolitical problems stemming from long histories of oppression.

Therefore, multicultural education sets for some important goals. The goals are developing ethnic and cultural literacy, personal development, attitude and values clarification, multicultural social competence, basic skills proficiency, educational equity and excellence, and empowerment for societal reform.

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