In Banks & Banks’ Multicultural education: issues and perspectives (2003), the argument is advanced that efforts to combine multicultural content with curriculum takes one of four approaches. The approaches Banks cites are:
Level 1: The contributions approach
Level 2: The additive approach
Level 3: The transformation approach
Level 4: The Social action approach
The Questions:
After becoming comfortable with Banks’ terminology and definition of the approaches, I want you to perform the following intellectual exercises in approx. 3 pages—
1-Analyze the four levels in terms of your own experience. In other words, what level does your school district, building and classroom appear to function on? Is there variance? What proof do you see of a specific setting functioning (e.g. your building) at a certain level (e.g. level 4)?
2-Critique Banks’ levels of integration of multicultural content. Or, what does Banks want to accomplish? Are Banks’ ideas sound policy? Why or why not? At what level is the integration of multicultural content most desirable, if at all?
3-What institutional encouragement or barriers exist to integrating multiculturalism in public education? Specifically, given the focus of policy in the nation, the states, your district or your building, is the integration of multicultural content in education likely to become more or less important?
4-What is the argument presented in the excerpt from Arthur Schlesinger’s Disuniting America? How would Schlesinger view Banks’ levels of integration?
5-Explain the connection between the philosophical concepts of Modernism/Postmodernism and Multiculturalism.
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