Assessing Preservice Teachers’ Concerns and Comforts with Multicultural Education

Currently, racial/ethnic minority students represent a third of the K­12 student enrollment across the United States; by the year 2035, they will represent over 50 percent (American Educational Research Association, Division K Newsletter, 1998). This significant increase in the ethnic diversity of the K­12 population, coupled with persistent disparities in educational attainment among various ethnic/racial groups in the United States, has supported an educational reform movement known as multicultural education (Banks, 1997). This movement’s goal is to redesign schooling in ways that increase educational equity for a range of cultural, ethnic, and economic groups (Banks, 1997, p. 7). Teacher preparation accrediting agencies and professional associations, such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, have joined this movement through the development of guidelines and standards for the infusion of multicultural education in teacher preparation. As of 1986, 27 states had implemented guidelines and requirements for the inclusion of multicultural education or human relations content in teacher education (Martin, 1991)