Building a Community of Shalom: What the Bible Says about Multicultural Education

Multicultural education is a highly controversial topic in which it has been the center of contentions and conflicts as it has evolved for the last couple of decades. Several concerns and problems existed in the field of multicultural education will be addressed in this article. In addition, a new framework of multicultural education, called the shalom model, which is drawn from the Bible is presented, along with the characteristics of the model. The goal of multicultural education, according to this model, is to build a community of shalom, an image that is clearly described in Isaiah 11:6. In order to accomplish this goal, the model suggests that all people need to be equipped with the truth that all people are the image bearers of God. This concept is expanded into four implementation interventions when relating to others: biblical perspective; cultural competence; contextualized pedagogy; and intentional praxis. Finally, regarding the application issue of this model, some points of the implementation strategies are addressed in this article