Multicultural Education: Its Effects on Students' Racial and Gender Role Attitudes

  • Multicultural curriculum includes the perspectives and experiences of diverse people who are part of US society and promote a pluralistic, democratic society.
  • The chapter reviews literature on the effects of using teaching methods, curricula, and reinforcement techniques to modify racial and sex-role attitudes of students.
  • The review finds that curriculum interventions can help students develop more positive racial attitudes, but the effects are not likely to be consistent.
  • Inconsistency results from the use of different measures to test attitude change, variation in the duration of intervention, and variation in the social contexts of the studies.
  • The literature suggests that curriculum interventions can help students to develop less stereotypical gender role attitudes.
  • The results are inconsistent due to varied social settings, interventions, student ages, teacher attitudes and behavior, and duration of interventions.
  • Studies have found that students’ perceptions of gender appropriate occupations can be modified.