A state-of-the-art resource concentrating on the practical applications, philosophical and social policy motivations, and historical development of various approaches to multicultural education in the United States.

In this comprehensive introduction to multicultural education, author Peter Appelbaum reveals that Native American-run schools in the early 19th century produced nearly 100 percent literacy rates—higher among western Oklahoma Cherokees than among whites in nearby Texas or Arkansas. Today, as the country rapidly becomes more racially and ethnically diverse, he discusses how success in diversity education requires that administrators, teachers, and students change the way they look at each other, the curriculum, and the structures and policies that govern schools.

Diversity and Multicultural Education: A Reference Handbook examines the political and educational arguments for and against multicultural education, provides a range of curriculum approaches, describes the dilemmas of assessment, and explores political and legal issues. Also included are a chronology, directories, and bibliographies.

• Bibliography contains print resources covering community building and curriculum such as Venture into Cultures: A Resource Book of Multicultural Materials and Programs, along with nonprint resources such as websites for state standards on culturally responsive schools and online magazines devoted to multicultural education
• Provides a chronology of the evolution of the concept of multicultural and diversity education in the United States from the introduction of the term multiculturalism in the 1970s to the reexamination of the concept as a culturally valued term in the 1990s