The Versatility of Multicultural Education and its Challenges

Abstract

Multiculturalism as a worldwide phenomenon is constantly evolving with complexities in world economies. Expanding world trade and globalization of industry, finance, and many professions are creating a world in which cross-cultural interactions occur more frequently than at any time in the past. As well, increasing specialization within many professions has led to a widely dispersed audience for targeted education and training. Professionals wishing to stay current or students wanting to develop specialized skills that match the needs of a rapidly changing world demand access to proper educational opportunities, even if this requires international travel or distance learning approaches, hence the need for multicultural education. Multicultural education poses a serious challenge to educators because of the different categories of students present in the classroom with diverse values and orientations. The diversity of ethnicities and cultures in a classroom makes the teaching learning process a herculean task for teachers and as such, teacher training programmes must be redirected to address these challenges. Equally, citizenship education must be transformed in the 21st century because of the deepening racial, ethnic, cultural, language and religious diversity in nation-states around the world so that students in a diverse democratic society will be able to maintain attachments to their cultural communities as well as participate effectively in the shared national culture. Some of the ways by which the challenges of multicultural education can be reduced is the need for teachers to create a bond with the students they are dealing with, stimulation of collaborative learning, development of reflective thinking and encouraging historical research among the students. Recommendations are also made for further research.