Language Arts in Multicultural Education

A wide variety of factors combine to cause difficulties for schools serving multicultural communities. Therefore, the range of competencies, both professional and personnel, required of personnel serving in such schools is also wide. Student attitudes in such schools often reflect conflicting values toward education, and educational personnel must be prepared to deal with these values, in order to preclude the development of barriers between the students and the schools (Grant, 1992). If students feel that they have little opportunity, regardless of education, to make significant achievements in society, they are not likely to place a high priority on academics. Educational personnel must also be prepared to deal with a variety of degrees of parental support for the educational process in schools serving multicultural communities. Without encouragement from home, most students will not perform well, and without parental support, schools often face frustration.

Language is often a major barrier for students in multicultural communities (Grant, 1992). The problems associated with students who speak little English, or who do not speak English as a primary language away from school must be appreciated and effectively dealt with by educational personnel in schools serving multicultural communities.

Cultural differences in the approach to learning and school are also sources of problems for students in schools that serve multicultur

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ble to respond positively to cultural diversity within a school environment. Within a society, multicultural relations are generally perceived as an interaction between cultural groups which, over the long term, leads to improved understanding and societal harmony. Within the educational community, multicultural relations are all too often a slogan to indicate that a school is socially aware. In far too many instances, the educational approach to multicultural relations is to move in the direction of other cultural groups only to the minimum extent required to maintain some prescribed (but limited) goal. Teaching students in their first languages is not tantamount to subverting the principal language of a society. Rather, such teaching generates equity and provides a basis for multicultural understanding through interdisciplinary teaching. Countries other than the United States incorporate language arts into their own multicultural education programs. Two bilingual education programs are conducted in Spain to address the needs of minority population groups (Grant & Docherty, 1992, pp. 145-166). These bilingual education programs are intended to reinforce cultural identity in the Basque Autonomous Region and Catalonia, and
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Approximate Word count = 1460
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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