Contributions vs. Transformation Approaches in Multicultural Education

Introduction to Multicultural Education

Multicultural education is a philosophical concept in the field of education founded on the ideals of equality, justice, equity, freedom, and human dignity. The origin of this concept can be traced back to the 1960s during the civil rights era (Burnett, 1995). It was developed to help ensure that educational strategies and practices in the United States reflect the increasing diversity of America's population, including in the classroom setting. Since its inception, multicultural education has continued to grow, as reflected in the development of multicultural curriculum, textbooks, and teaching strategies. As this concept continues to evolve, various approaches have emerged in the modern educational setting. This paper compares and contrasts two such approaches — the contributions approach and the transformation approach — and includes a discussion of their compatibility with a Christian worldview.

Approaches to Multicultural Education

Even though multicultural education has become a major philosophical approach in today's educational setting, there is no universal definition of the concept. According to Gay (1994), multicultural education means different things to different people. This is primarily because the concept is defined based on the cultural attributes of different groups. Moreover, differences in definition are attributable to varying emphases on social problems, focus on people of color, allocation of financial resources, and the characteristics of local schools. Nonetheless, the concept broadly refers to educational strategies and approaches geared toward promoting equity and equality in the classroom regardless of students' ethnic and cultural backgrounds. It represents an attempt to ensure that the field of education reflects the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the American population. As the racial crisis in the United States emerged in the 1960s, the nation's student population changed significantly and generated the need for reforms in schools and educational approaches (Banks, 1995).

Efforts toward integrating multicultural education in the United States have existed since the civil rights era and have included establishing a multicultural curriculum that reflects the diverse learning needs of students from varied ethnic and racial backgrounds. Since the 1960s, educators have focused on integrating school curriculum with multicultural content as part of a shift away from a mainstream-centric and Eurocentric curriculum (Banks & Banks, 2010). Different approaches have been utilized to achieve this integration, including the contributions approach and the transformation approach. The contributions approach is regarded as Level 1, while the transformation approach is the Level 3 framework for integrating multicultural content.

Contributions Approach vs. Transformation Approach

The contributions approach and the transformation approach are two of four approaches for integrating multicultural content into the school curriculum. These approaches share some similarities while also differing significantly in their strategies and outcomes. One similarity is that both focus on generating changes in the educational curriculum. They are based on the idea that curricular change is critical to establishing multicultural education in today's learning environment. While the approaches utilize different strategies, both aim to modify school curriculum. Additionally, both approaches involve incorporating ethnic content when integrating multicultural material, seeking to ensure that the school curriculum reflects the diversity of the student population.

Despite these similarities, there are important differences between the two approaches. The most fundamental difference lies in how ethnic content is added to the mainstream-centric curriculum. The contributions approach entails adding ethnic heroes and heroines and distinct cultural artifacts to the curriculum while leaving the mainstream core curriculum unchanged in terms of its salient characteristics, basic structure, and goals. By contrast, the transformation approach involves changing the fundamental perspectives, structure, and goals of the mainstream curriculum when adding ethnic content. Under this approach, the basic assumptions of the mainstream curriculum are altered to enable students to examine issues, concepts, themes, and problems from multiple viewpoints rather than a single perspective.

A second major difference concerns the prerequisites for implementation. Because the contributions approach does not require changes to the basic structure, goals, or salient attributes of the mainstream curriculum, it demands minimal prerequisites (Banks & Banks, 2010). Teachers need only a basic knowledge of American society and of ethnic heroes and heroines and their contributions to American culture. The transformation approach, by contrast, requires numerous prerequisites. It goes beyond merely adding a list of ethnic contributions, heroes, and groups, instead calling for the infusion of multiple perspectives, content sources, and frames of reference. These requirements are essential to enhancing students' understanding of the development, nature, and complexities of American society.

A third difference concerns the depth of student understanding each approach fosters. The transformation approach enhances students' understanding of ethnic cultures by changing the basic assumptions of the mainstream curriculum. The contributions approach, however, tends to trivialize ethnic cultures by providing students with only a one-time, superficial experience of ethnic heroes or heroines. Unlike the transformation approach, the contributions approach typically fails to help students understand the broader role and impact of an ethnic figure on American society, history, and culture. Furthermore, the contributions approach enables students to view ethnic content from only one perspective, whereas the transformation approach enables students to examine content from a variety of perspectives.

Conclusion

Multicultural education is a significant concept in the modern educational setting because of its focus on promoting equity and equality in the classroom. The concept emerged in the 1960s during the civil rights era to help drive changes in education in light of the shifting characteristics of the student population. One of the essential measures toward realizing multicultural education is integrating multicultural content into the school curriculum. Various approaches have been utilized to accomplish this, including the contributions and transformation approaches. These approaches share similarities in that both aim to modify the curriculum through the incorporation of ethnic content, but they differ significantly in how that content is integrated and the depth of understanding they foster. As multicultural education continues to evolve, an analysis of these approaches suggests that the transformation approach is more compatible with a Christian worldview, while the contributions approach falls short of that standard.

References

Banks, J. A., & Banks, C. A. M. (2010). Approaches to multicultural curriculum reform. In Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (7th ed., chap. 10, pp. 242–264).

Banks, J. A. (1995). Multicultural education and curriculum transformation. The Journal of Negro Education, 64(6), 390–400.

Burnett, G. (1995). Varieties of multicultural education: An introduction. Retrieved from https://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/multicultural.htm

Gay, G. (1994). A synthesis of scholarship in multicultural education. Urban monograph series. Oak Brook, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED378287.pdf

Peariso, J. F. (2010). "No more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens:" Multicultural education and conflict. Christian Perspectives in Education, 3(2), 1–25.