- Planning instruction
elementary school (Seitz, 2006; Wurm, 2005). Something akin to emergent curriculum is quite possible, in
principle, even with older students. In Chapter 8, for example, we described a high school program in which
students began with problems and experiences that were personally relevant, and discussed the problems with
classmates to formulate research problems which they then studied more formally and systematically (Hawkins,
2006). In essence this strategy created an emergent curriculum analogous to the ones described above for young
children. What the high school students studied was not predetermined, but emerged from their own expressed
interests.
Multicultural and anti-bias education
A culture is an all-encompassing set of values, beliefs, practices and customs of a group or community—its total
way of life. Cultures may be shared widely, even by much if not all of an entire nation, or they may be shared by
relatively few, such as a small community within a large city. Sometimes the term culture is even applied to the way
of life of an individual family or of a specialized group in society; some might argue, for example, that there is a
culture of schooling shared by teachers, though not necessarily by all students.
Because culture by definition touches on all aspects of living, it is likely to affect students’ perspectives about
school, their ways of learning and their motivations to learn. The differences go beyond obvious differences in
holidays, language, or food preferences. In some cultures, for example, individuals keep good eye contact with
someone to whom they are speaking, and expect the same from others. In other cultures, such behavior is
considered intrusive or overly aggressive, and avoiding eye contact while speaking is considered more respectful. Or
another example: in some cultures it is expected that individuals will be punctual (or on time), whereas in others
punctuality is considered overly compulsive, and a more casual approach to time is the norm. Students regularly
bring differences like these to school, where they combine with expectations from teachers and other school staff,
and contribute indirectly to differences in achievement and satisfaction among students.
To be fully effective, therefore, instructional planning has to take into account the diversity in students’ cultural
backgrounds, whether the differences are observable or subtle. Planning also has to work deliberately to reduce the
social biases and prejudices that sometimes develop about cultural differences. Multicultural education and
anti-bias education are two terms referring to these purposes. Their meanings often overlap significantly,
depending on the context or on who is using the terms. Generally, though, the first term—multicultural education—
has somewhat more to do with understanding the differences among cultures. The latter term—anti-bias education
—has more to do with overcoming social prejudices and biases resulting from cultural differences. For convenience
in this chapter, we will use the single term multicultural education to refer to both understanding differences and
overcoming prejudices.
Fully effective multicultural education has several features. The most obvious and familiar one is content
integration: the curriculum uses examples and information from different cultures to illustrate various concepts
or ideas already contained in the curriculum (Vavrus, 2002). In studying holidays, for example, an elementary-
school teacher includes activities and information about Kwanzaa as well as Christmas, Hanukkah, or other
holidays happening at about the same time. In studying the US Civil War, another example, a middle-years teacher
includes material written from the perspective of African-American slaves and Southern landowners. In teaching
language arts, students learn basic vocabulary of any non-English languages spoken by some members of the class.