Multiculturalism: Education's Factional Debate
The desire to represent all ethnic groups and to allow all minority voices to be heard within the classroom has not met with equal support across the spectrum of American educators. Advocates of a multicultural approach to education contend that they are obligated to revise syllabi and curriculum according to previously suppressed moral and political dictums. Without knowledge of many different cultures and appreciation of the diversity of values which they represent, multiculturalists contend that there can be no true apprehension of what cultural principles actually are to be valued. In opposition to this stance are those who are openly antagonistic to the didactic presentation of multiculturalism and its attempts to represent the world as a pluralist society. Yet scholars no longer feel comfortable expressing a unified view of the world, even the concept of the Elizabethan world picture as put forth by Tilliard has been abandoned. Contemporary scholarship increasingly has turned toward an investigation which privileges the theme of many worlds within one world. Today's students need a style of education which allows them to be engaged with and decipher as many different cultural worlds as possible.
One of the primary issues of recent educational debate about multiculturalism revolves around the issue of centrality. Educators who advocate a Great Books or canonist approach to the study of literature contend that the roots of Western culture and tradition can be traced to certain central texts. The most radical of the multiculturalists assert that this aging centrist canon needs to be revamped so that leftist thought becomes dominant (Nelson 771). Multicultural revisionists suggest that a new pattern of thought which emphasizes relational structures rather than unquestioned dominance needs to be put into place (Nelson 771).
Proponents of the multicultural appro...