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Multiculturalism and Education

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Cultural, Religious and Political Contestations

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Abstract

This chapter examines the contemporary debate between supporters of culture-based education and the social realist argument for a curriculum that takes children away from the immediate world of experience, that is, “culture”. Arguing that the dilemma for a culture-based curriculum—and the multicultural politics of which it is a part—is that it excludes children of minority groups from the disciplinary knowledge which would afford them entry into the world of abstract, objective thought containing the potential for criticism of the very world from which the child comes. The argument also recognises, however, that a child’s experience may be an important pedagogical resource for entry into the world of disciplinary-based curricular knowledge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Elizabeth Rata

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  1. Elizabeth Rata
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Rata .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Alfred Deakin Institute For Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Fethi Mansouri

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Rata, E. (2015). Multiculturalism and Education. In: Mansouri, F. (eds) Cultural, Religious and Political Contestations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16003-0_7

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