Anita Bohn and Coauthor Christine Sleeter discuss the negative effects of state standards and assessments on the goals of the multicultural education reform movement, as was revealed during a qualitative study of the conceptualizations and practices of elementary school teachers.
As states mandate student learning standards and attach high-stakes consequences to student achievement on state assessments, schools are increasingly focusing on the subject matter covered on those tests. Teachers and administrators in this study attributed a marked decline in educator concern about multicultural education to the pressures of new state accountability measures that have reduced time for multicultural topics of local interest or relevance. District-mandated instructional materials that cover tested subject matter only superficially cover multiculturalism and allow little time for any depth of understanding to be developed by the students. Multicultural experiences are thus discounted or ignored and may cause minority students to disengage from the learning process.
Research was conducted by Bohn in an urban Midwestern school district over a two-year period. In the initial phase, data were collected from 11 elementary teachers, with participants selected through the processes of theoretical and snowball sampling. Each was initially interviewed at least twice and observed teaching on two more occasions. Data were analyzed using grounded theory to develop categories that were further analyzed for reported influences or experiences that determined beliefs and practices. Teachers' beliefs and practices of multicultural education were compared to existing typologies of multicultural education practices. Emergent questions about the impact of the new state standards on curriculum and on teachers' practices led to a second set of questions and round of interviews and observations. Additional data were collected from the same teachers, plus two district principals and the assistant superintendent of curriculum. Specific attention was paid to ways in which teachers accommodated multicultural education within the constraints of the new state standards and proposed testing and the district's new textbook. Teachers' data were encoded, categorized by commonalities, and compared to their previously determined placements on the continuum of conceptualizations and practices of multicultural education. This study reveals the de-emphasis of multicultural experiences and perspectives in K-6 school content as state assessments pressure schools to cover only the narrow scope of a standardized curriculum correlated to state learning standards. Curriculum becomes dependent on textbooks that superficially include multicultural issues, offering at best suggested literary connections in separately purchased materials.
Teachers and students clearly need ample time to delve into multiculturalism. Teachers from monocultural backgrounds are otherwise unprepared to recognize or meet the learning needs of multicultural children. At the same time, children from diverse backgrounds need to see the connection between their lived experiences and the school curriculum. School improvement efforts aimed at increasing the learning achievement of all children cannot afford to neglect multicultural education if their goal truly is closing the racial achievement gap.
Bohn, A. P., and Sleeter, C. E. (2001). Will multicultural education survive the standards movement? Education Digest, 66(6), 17-24.
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