Stages of Multicultural Curriculum Transformation

Stages of Multicultural Curriculum Transformation

This article discussed the various levels of multicultural educational reform schools may be at. This page is part of a website entitled, "Multicultural Education"There were five stages listed by Paul Gorski, the author for the website, that ranged from "Curriculum of the Mainstream" to "Multicultural, Social Action, and Justice," as well as listing the strengths and/or weaknesses of the various stages. 

Curriculum in the Mainstream consisted of instruction based solely on Euro- and male-centric textbooks. Stage two, or "Heroes and Holidays," is the name given to educational systems wherein the only steps taken towards multicultural education are regarding certain heroes within non-dominant cultures, as well as occasionally acknowledging and briefly educating about non-dominant cultures' holidays. The third stage, or "Integration," refers to educational systems that supplement the Heroes and Holidays stage with some information regarding some non-dominant groups. This may include featuring some literature that is written by women and/or people of color.

The next stage, or "Structural Reform,"describes when new materials and curriculum are developed to integrate various voices and cultures throughout all curriculum. The only advance made upon this stage in the last stage - "Multicultural, Social Action, and Justice" - is that within this final and ideal stage, students and educators are now questioning and discussing various social issues, such as sexism, racism, classism, ageism, ableism, etc. I found this break-down of the spectrum of multicultural reforms very helpful in seeing the end goal, as well as some of the means to that end.

Gorski referred to James Banks, who discussed how schools being at less progressive stages of multicultural can affect and perpetuate systemic and problematic thinking when he said that it, "reinforces their false sense of superiority, gives them a misleading conception of their relationship with other racial and ethnic groups, and denies them the opportunity to benefit from the knowledge, perspectives, and frames of reference that can be gained from studying and experiencing other cultures and groups," (195). Nieto wrote of a similar concept within our text on page 49 when she wrote, "White students too receive only a partial education, which helps to legitimate their cultural blindness. Seeing only themselves, they may believe that they are the norm and thus most important and everyone else is secondary and less important."

Taking all of this information into account, this article could prompt more schools to take a more proactive and progressive role within multicultural educational reform. It is easy to make progress and become content, but when keeping in mind the end goal it would undoubtedly be markedly easier to maintain motivation to improve. This article also serves as a good reminder that there are consequences to a lack of multicultural reform - from the level of comfort to the level of social awareness of your students. 

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/curriculum/steps.html