Comprehensive Multicultural Education: Theory and Practice

Christine Bennett aims to help prepare teachers who are informed and caring advocates for students from all cultural, racial, socioeconomic, linguistic, and national backgrounds. Comprehensive Multicultural Education provides a curriculum model with six goals and numerous lesson plans illustrating how each goal can be implemented in the classroom. It emphasizes diversity within and across ethnic groups to help teachers understand students’ cultural and individual differences. Incorporating research from current sociology, history, and ethnogeography, the author makes key issues like immigration accessible for today’s teachers.

New to This Edition

• Revision and expansion of Part II, “Roots of Ethnic Diversity in the United States: The Conflicting Themes of Assimilation and Pluralism,” from two to four chapters.
• New coverage of contemporary immigration issues in schools (Ch. 8 & 9)
• New case study research by ethnogeographers provides representative examples of the immigrant experiences in the heartland, West Coast, and Southwest.
• Additions to the section on American Indians.
• New Chapter 10, “Teaching and Learning in Linguistically Diverse classrooms.”
• Expansion of and greater emphasis on subjects such as the Achievement Gap, Poverty, and the needs of LGBT youth in Chapter 9, and White Privilege, difficulties with the U.S. Census racial categories, Multiracial Identities, and how race and culture are conceptually different in Chapter 2.
• Substantial updates to Resources for Further Study.
• New MyEducationLab site provides online assignments as extensions of text concepts.

What reviewers are saying:

"The examples and cases are students' favorites. The quality of the information presented [in this text] is excellent."

- Henry M. Codjoe, Dalton State College

“I like the emphasis placed on ethnic and national groups covered in Part II. Other texts don't cover this topic to the extent that this text does. I particularly like her treatment of immigration and how it has impacted our nation and our schools."

-Richard Orem, Northern Illinois University

“More areas of diversity were covered than are found in most texts of this nature. Overall, the writing style is great. It is easy to read, has a narrative feel."

-Anita Jones Thomas, Loyola University - Chicago

Written for new teachers, this guide to multicultural education presents interdisciplinary content through primary source material and vignettes of actual teachers and students.

Taking the view that the primary goal of public education in the United States is to foster the intellectual and personal development of all children and youth to their fullest potential, Christine Bennett aims to help prepare teachers who are informed and caring advocates for students from all cultural, racial, socioeconomic, linguistic, and national backgrounds.

Comprehensive Multicultural Education provides a curriculum model with six goals and numerous lesson plans illustrating how each goal can be implemented in the classroom. It emphasizes diversity within and across ethnic groups to help teachers understand interactions between students' cultural and individual differences.

Booknews

Helps practicing and prospective teachers bridge the gap between multicultural concepts and practice in areas such as classroom management, instructional strategies, and curriculum development. Defines multicultural education, and treats assimilation and pluralism among various groups in the US, learning styles, and teaching strategies. Offers numerous guidelines and specific lesson plans for a multicultural curriculum. This third edition contains new material on European Americans, African Americans, and Muslims and Arab Americans. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Christine Iverson Bennett is Professor Emerita in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Indiana University.  She earned her B.A. in sociology at Northwestern University, her M.A. in social studies education at Stanford University, and her Ph.D. in social science education with specializations in ethnic studies at the University of Texas in Austin.  Prior to her doctoral studies she taught high school social studies in San Jose and Los Angeles.  During her thirty-one years at Indiana University, Professor Bennett developed and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in multicultural education; and initiated and directed The Teacher as Decision Maker Program, The Research Institute on Teacher Education, and Project TEAM, a program to recruit and support students from underrepresented minorities. She also served as director of Indiana University’s Exchange Program with Hangzhou University and conducted seminars for faculty at Al-Ain University in the United Arab Emirates and for visiting international scholars at Indiana University. Her research publications focus on the impact of multicultural social studies, classroom climates in desegregated schools, racial inequities in school discipline, racial issues in higher education, and multicultural teacher education.  She can be reached at [email protected].