Multicultural Education Essay

5880 Words24 Pages
ABSTRACT Multicultural education is an approach to teaching and learning that is based on democratic values that affirm cultural pluralism within culturally diverse societies in an interdependent world. There are currently two view points or perspectives of multicultural education, namely the assimilation or “melting-pot” perspective and the pluralism or “global” perspective. The assimilation perspective of multicultural education is that microcultures must give up their original culture and identities in order to blend in or become absorbed into the predominant other culture. The global perspective is that microcultures can retain many of their traditions such as language, religion, and social customs while adopting many of the aspects of the predominant of others culture. The global perspective of multicultural education recognizes cultural pluralism as an ideal and healthy state in any productive society and promotes equity and respect among the existing cultural groups. This principle allows the global perspective of multicultural education to extend beyond equity pedagogy as the only way to counteract problems that have been created by the assimilation perspective.With the rapidly increasing interconnections among all nations, particularly now, as we face global issues related to the ecosystem, nuclear weapons, terrorism, human rights, and scarce national resources, institutions of higher education need to embrace the global perspective of multicultural education if we are going to remain models of democratic societies in a pluralistic world and stay academically competitive in relation to the rest of the world.. Indonesia is still in the process of building its national culture. This is not simple process,considering the fact that there are various ethnic groups with its own characteristics and dynamics. Sometimes, the process causes tensions and conflicts.
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