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One key aspect of European curriculum reforms is to empower students with the skills needed to engage actively in the pluralistic and multicultural global society of the 21st century. This study aims to examine the extent of multicultural education within the national core curricula of three European countries: Hungary, Finland and Ireland, focusing on its role in fostering social acceptance through education.

A qualitative research applying discourse analysis was conducted to identify key multiculturalism concepts within the curricula. The analysis concentrated on understanding how multiculturalism is portrayed through various perspectives, emphasizing situational meanings and frameworks. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of the findings was carried out.

The research found that all three curricula contain the concept of multicultural education, although the extent of emphasis varies. The Hungarian National Core Curriculum (NCC) primarily emphasizes national values and sporadically addresses multicultural issues, often from a local perspective. In contrast, the Irish NCC is tolerance-oriented, stressing not only the understanding of different cultures but also the importance of accepting them. The Finnish NCC reflects a global perspective and emphasizes respect for different cultures and minority groups, with a pluralistic approach.

This study enhances our understanding of the discourse of multiculturalism within the curricula of three European countries, emphasizing both their similarities and differences. Additionally, it underscores the crucial role that curricula can play in effectively implementing multicultural education.

Higher education and student affairs professionals have a very important, active role in the lives of their students. The issues college students face are complex and higher education professionals must be properly trained to be able to address them (Franklin-Craft, 2010). Projections that by 2030 most college students in the United States will be non-White increase the responsibility of those working in higher education to truly understand the developmental issues of a diverse student body (Karkouti, 2015; Rankin & Reason, 2005; Torres, Howard-Hamilton, & Cooper, 2003).

This chapter highlights findings of a study that examined the multicultural competence of graduate students in a higher education program. Employing a snowball sampling method, completed surveys were received from 28 master and doctoral students out of 45 surveys distributed (response rate = 62%). Responses on the Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs – Preliminary 2 Scale (MCSA-P2) were also examined by race, gender, and other pertinent variables. The findings from this research indicate the need for infusing diversity into the curriculum and requiring diversity courses to increase the cultural competence of graduate students in higher education programs. The findings also support the need and call for additional research and analyses to be conducted on multicultural competence of higher education/student affairs professionals. Implications for graduate programs in higher education and reflexivity of the researcher conclude the chapter.

Purpose – This narrative inquiry explores one teacher educator's curriculum making process (Connelly & Clandinin, 1992) to elicit teacher candidates' emotional and analytic engagement with multicultural education.

Approach – Three semesters of fieldnotes, from one teacher educator's planning and execution of a blended learning format multicultural teacher education course, with face-to-face classes and asynchronous instruction through technology, document her struggles to create a blended learning curriculum model that explicitly addresses ways to impact teacher candidates' dispositions toward multicultural issues.

Findings – The inquiry raises hopeful questions about the possibilities of using stories and technology in a multicultural teacher education blended learning delivery setting. Additionally, the inquiry highlights fruitful tensions involved in making space for the stories of teacher candidates from both nondominant and dominant culture to become part of the curriculum of the class.

Research implications – Narrative inquiry's application as an empirical research method in the field of multicultural education is demonstrated. Highlighted particularly is the capacity in narrative inquiry methods to document places of tension and inclusion in multicultural teacher education.

Value – Awareness of the potential of storied ways of approaching diversity and the benefits of negotiating the tensions involved are of value to teacher educators exploring curriculum making in a blended learning format. Blended learning is reconceptualized beyond the blending of face-to-face and technologically mediated class sessions to include a notion of blending planned and lived curriculum and public and private learning opportunities.

This study aims to examine the effect of critical multicultural education on the multicultural attitudes of preservice teachers in a teacher education program.

The study sample consisted of 76 preservice teachers enrolled in a teacher preparation program. This study used a pretest–posttest quasi-experimental research design with pretest-posttest. The multicultural content integration was implemented in an experimental group for one semester, and data were collected using the teacher multicultural attitude survey.

Analyses indicated that preservice teachers who were exposed to the critical multicultural education program showed significantly greater progress in their multicultural attitudes compared with teachers in the control group. The results of this study indicate that the integrating critical multicultural education content into teacher education program has a positive effect on fostering preservice teachers’ multicultural attitudes.

Teacher education program planners should integrate multicultural content, materials and activities into teaching methods courses to promote change in preservice teachers’ multicultural attitudes.

This study contributes to the multicultural studies on teacher education.

This study explores how a group of middle school social studies teachers at a school, whose student population is primarily affluent and white, include multicultural content in their curriculum. Interviews and observations along with an analysis of the textbooks, state standards, and the school’s scope and sequence were the main sources of data collection. Three common themes arose in this study in relation to the incorporation of multicultural content into the social studies curriculum: (a) There is a discrepancy between teachers’ perceptions and practices; (b) the teachers’ background in multicultural education is limited, and (c) though there is some inclusion of multicultural content, it is not put into practice in any substantial way because it is not seen as applicable to their school environment.

This paper aims to identify and investigate barriers to multicultural education in Iran.

This research is a qualitative research that was done using the phenomenological method. Participants included all experts and key informants in the field of multicultural education in the country who were selected as a statistical sample in different stages of the research using purposeful sampling. The semi-structured interview was used to collect information. Two ways, including member checking and external auditing, were used to validate the information. The thematic analysis method (theme analysis), which is based on open and core coding, was used to analyze the data.

The interview data revealed that barriers are generally identified in both structural and executive parts. The structural part had two main obstacles, political and scientific-professional, and the executive part had two technical and socio-cultural barriers. Also, barriers to multicultural education in curriculum design are the ideological education system, lack of a clear framework for multicultural education, etc. Furthermore, barriers to multicultural education in the curriculum implementation are hidden curriculum, the inability of teachers to implement multicultural education, etc. Finally, barriers to multicultural education in curriculum evaluation are misconception of evaluation and limited evaluation methods.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first one that presents the experts' viewpoints and experiences on the barriers to multicultural education in Iran.

Research examining multicultural competence among higher education professionals responsible for leadership education demonstrated significant correlations with racial identity and multicultural education and experiences. The Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs-Preliminary 2 (MCSA-P2) scale was used to measure multicultural competence. Variances in multicultural competence scores were significant in relation to racial identity and select multicultural education and experience measures, above and beyond controlled for demographic variables.

The aim of this study is to examine the pedagogy courses of teacher education programs implemented in two universities in Turkey and the USA in terms of multicultural education. The teaching practices in the pedagogy courses of teacher education programs in the USA might have multicultural education principles, and they could be models for teacher educators in Turkey. In addition, this study can contribute to the cross-cultural studies on teacher education between the USA and Turkey.

Ten teacher educators participated in the study; all of them had experience in teaching pedagogy courses in the early childhood teacher education program. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The open-ended questions were related to objectives, content, teaching methods and activities. Assessment procedures and methods were also asked from the participants to evaluate their teaching experiences in terms of multicultural education. Thematic analysis was used to examine data of the study.

The results of the study revealed that there were differences between the objectives, content, teaching process and assessment methods of the courses in the teacher education programs in Turkey and the USA in terms of multicultural education. The results of this study revealed that the objectives, content, teaching process and assessment methods planned and implemented by teacher educators in the USA are more multicultural and multiethnic when compared with their counterparts in Turkey.

This study can contribute to the cross-cultural studies on teacher education between the USA and Turkey.

This paper aims to attend to the issues that remain veiled and excluded in the name of multiculture.

This paper problematizes South Korean multicultural education policies through Bourdieu’s concept of capital as a theoretical frame.

First, the paper discusses that material wealth is unequally distributed to most of the multicultural families, resulting in their lack of economic capital. Second, it notes that students from multicultural families are deprived of cultural capital, as they are racialized in Korean society. As a strategy used to distinguish and exclude a so-called different minority from the unnamed majority, race enables the possession of cultural capital. Third, insufficient social capital identified with resources emerging from social networks positions students from multicultural families as a perpetual minority. As the accumulation of various forms of capital secures power and privilege (Bourdieu, 1986), multicultural education in its current state would continuously reproduce the existing power dynamics where students from multicultural families are subordinate.

Given this, policies for multicultural education in South Korea should cover a wide range of issues, including race, class and network and be redesigned to resolve realistic problems that have been hidden under the name of celebration of culture.

The Korean multicultural education policy has not been analyzed through Bourdieu’s concept of capital. Using a different theoretical viewpoint would be valuable to figure out the problems underlying the policy.

The research examined factors of academic studies as perceived by Jewish and Arab students in Israel, and changes in their implementation of activities in a multicultural context in the field of education, comparing between undergraduates studying for a BA in education and graduate students for MA in education and attending a course titled “Multiculturalism in the Global Era”.

The findings are derived from a questionnaire distributed to Arab and Jewish students (N = 434), studying together in the Faculty of Education of one academic college in Israel. In total, 251 of them were graduate students, and 183 who were undergraduates.

It was found that insofar as the students from either programme acquired knowledge and tools regarding multiculturalism, they reported (1) more positive attitudes regarding the “Other” group and regarding multiculturalism, (2) implementation of a larger number of activities relating to multiculturalism in the field of education, (3) Arab students performed more activities in multicultural contexts and (4) older students performed a larger number of activities in multicultural contexts. The research findings also indicated a direct relation between participation in the course and activities conducted in the field of education. In addition, students' acquiring of knowledge on multiculturalism mediated the relation between participation in the course and implementation of multicultural activities in the field of education.

The research stresses the importance of higher education institutions in promoting knowledge and practice of multiculturalism in Israeli society.