The Americans All National Education Program

Introduction

The public debate over how to renew existing school curriculums and make them more responsive to the challenges of the 21st century has reached epic proportions. The issue of multicultural education is at the heart of that debate.

United States history has been shaped to a large degree by encounters and clashes between various groups whose cultural values, beliefs, and norms differed sharply. Wars, riots, acts of exclusion, and at times legislation, constitutional amendments, and Supreme Court decisions have all been driven by ethnic and cultural conflicts. Demographic shifts and cross-cultural issues continue to color the educational, economic, political, and social canvas of this nation. A national survey by the National Opinion Research Center, an affiliate of the University of Chicago, found that “negative images of members of other racial and ethnic groups are widespread among whites”; the survey results also showed that “most groups have at least some prejudice against all other groups” (Armstrong 1991). The director of the survey concluded that “education is one of the strongest influences toward a person having positive or at least neutral attitudes toward other groups” (Armstrong 1991).

The Debate Over Multicultural Education Programs