Effective Multicultural Curriculum Transformation Across Disciplines

Abstract

Resistance to multicultural curriculum transformation has long been assumed to be a function solely of faculty racism, sexism, classism, and so forth, especially in the fields of "advanced" mathematics and "hard" sciences. Although this may account for a percentage of that resistance, it is a small percentage. In fact, most faculty are interested in multiculturally transforming their curriculum. The problem is that few know how to go about doing it. Until recently, few, if any, doctoral programs included coursework on how to teach one's discipline, much less how to teach it from a multicultural perspective. Faculty need opportunities to learn how to develop multiculturally oriented curricula content, pedagogical approaches, and methods of evaluating student learning and teaching effectiveness. Faculty also need opportunities to learn how to build positive relationships with increasingly diverse bodies of students, and how to create more supportive educational environments for that interaction to occur. This article provides faculty with an overview of effective approaches to multicultural curriculum transformation, applicable across disciplines vis-á-vis content, pedagogy, evaluation, relationship building, and environment creation.