Multicultural and diversity education: An examination of curricular integration within California community colleges

The examination of the current status of multicultural education among California community colleges emerged from a perspective that the inclusion of multicultural education has become a major goal of California’s leaders within the past five years. The literature revealed minority students tend to have lower retention rates because they become alienated and disconnected from the campus community, and many students enter college classrooms with stereotypes and negative attitudes towards individuals outside of their racial and ethnic groups. Multicultural education is important because it helps address this issue. Phase I of this study assessed the current status of multicultural education among California community colleges. Phase I of the study revealed that of the 109 California community colleges, 50 colleges had a multicultural graduation requirement in 2005– 2006. Less than half of California’s community colleges had a multicultural graduation requirement. The findings suggest the state may be falling behind in its goal for multicultural education. The findings from the logistic regression for Research Question 3, “Are colleges with more diverse populations more likely to have a multicultural graduation requirement,” indicated no statistical significant relationships existed. Phase II of this study examined the levels of multicultural education integrated into the curriculum based on a model developed from Sleeter and Grant’s typology. The researcher analyzed 120 official course outlines of record selected from 45 of the 50 colleges that had a multicultural graduation requirement in 2005–2006. The researcher discovered that all elements of the course outlines of record were not characterized with the same level of integration in Sleeter and Grant’s typology. She discovered level one, education of the exceptional and culturally different, was not represented in any of the course outlines of record in any of the groups; Level Two, human relations, was primarily demonstrated in the fine arts courses, followed by the humanities courses; Level Three, single-group studies, was primarily demonstrated in the humanities courses followed by the social sciences and the fine arts courses; Level Four, multicultural education, was demonstrated in the social science courses, followed by the humanities courses; Level Five, education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist, was demonstrated in the social science courses