The Census Bureau has predicted that by the year 2100, the minority will become the majority, with non-Hispanic whites comprising only 40% of the U.S population. This ever-increasing diversity in today’s classrooms is prompting teachers to incorporate a multicultural approach to lesson planning. It’s vital that teachers offer a rich and varied, multicultural curriculum to accommodate the culturally diverse, 21st century classroom. Here are the four approaches to bringing culture into the classroom:
The Contributions Approach
In instructional perspectives, the contributions approach is a common and easy way for teachers to incorporate cultural diversity into their curriculum. With the contributions approach, the teacher introduces how someone or something contributed to another variable. For example, on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, the teacher would conduct a discussion or small activity about how the civil rights leader contributed to racial equality in the United States.
With the contributions approach, the teacher will include multicultural activities based on a person or event, so this approach works well with all grade levels, but is the most beneficial approach when teaching elementary students. For those who are doing student teaching, as I am, the contributions approach is the most accessible because student teachers cannot transform the entire curriculum.
The Additive Approach
With the additive approach, teachers add multicultural diversity to their existing curriculum. For instance, an English teacher may add an international novel to the class reading list or a history teacher may include a discussion on how major world events affected various ethnic groups. This instructional approach delves deeper into diversity than the contributions approach, while maintaining the format of the existing curriculum. This approach is appropriate for all grade levels and is especially beneficial for middle and high school students.
The Transformative Approach
With this instructional approach, the teacher transforms his or her curriculum to include a varied and culturally diverse curriculum. Unlike the contributions and additive approaches, the transformative approach weaves diversity throughout the entire curriculum over time. When using this approach, the teacher will organize an entirely multicultural curriculum. As a student teacher, I have seen several seasoned teachers utilize the transformative approach with their curriculum planning. In any content area, the transformative approach will consider diversity daily and will offer a rich and varied curriculum with multiculturalism at its core.
The Decision-Making/Social Action Approach
With the decision-making/social action approach, teachers inspire their students to social action. This could include community service projects, petitions, and school functions and events. This instructional approach works well when combined with the other approaches and encourages students to be the change the want to see in the world.
I have seen that the decision-making/social action approach is the best-received approach because students really want to make a difference in this world but lack the guidance and know-how to make changes themselves.
Sources:
greatschools.org
Banks, J.A. (1999). An Introduction to Multicultural Education (2nd edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.