Multicultural education and its politics

Abstract

This article is an account of how multicultural education is experienced within the US society and its national school curriculum. The author has had an opportunity to partly witness this situation, when he was selected as one of the South African Educators who participated in the June-July 1999 South African Transformation Institute (SETI) at the Indiana University in US. Multicultural education, as a transformative concept or movement as others view it, is very vital to prepare members of the society and learners in the schools to develop intercultural skills. On the other hand, it is also not an appreciated concept in the minds of those who do not identify with transformative concepts/movements like it. In this article the author, by reflecting on the US experience, attempted to communicate this message through the literature survey, and by reporting about the workshop activities that he took part in regarding the concept of multicultural education. In the end, implications of these accounts on US, South Africa and in general are pondered upon.