Multicultural Education In The United States

Education in the United States promises equal opportunity to every student. However, does equal opportunity truly grant every person with the resources and access he or she needs in order to succeed in a standardized education system? With incredibly different ethnic groups coming together in one system, how can a general education adapt to a multicultural curriculum in order to promote appreciation for cultural diversity? Thurgood Marshall once stated that “the United States has been called the melting pot of the world, but it seems that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.” While international students travel to developed countries to attain a better education, the change of culture and country causes students to either …show more content…
These ideals are the perfect foundation in building a greater nation. However, there is a fine line between diversity and unity. In a general sense, the opposing view would view multicultural education as a threat to the nation instead. With all the different languages and cultures, this will certainly cause groups to divide into sub-groups, causing the country to be broken part. However, would America be better off as a mass-culture homogeneity? Globally, a nation who isolates itself from any changes and diversity makes it impossible to grow further as a unified nation. With a “growing ethnic, cultural, racial, language and religious diversity through the world,” as a nation, change is necessary to cross cultural borders in order to expose ourselves in the global community as a global citizen. Pai and Alder describes the value of multicultural education (1997) as “appreciating different cultures, which should be viewed as pools of collective experiences, knowledge, wisdom and the vision of other people can make our own lives