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Why we Need to Teach Kids About Multiculturalism at High School Level

It is becoming increasingly necessary to teach kids about multiculturalism at high school level. At the very least, there is need to ensure that kids receive an introductory course in multiculturalism, by the time they graduate from high school.

We are living in a globalized world, where kids are likely to have to interact with people from other cultures at some points in their lives. If they didn’t get any sort of education in multiculturalism, they may have major difficulties in such interactions. For instance, a kid who is in school today may be working at CVS Health tomorrow. Besides accessing his work schedules through the mycvshr portal, he would have to be interacting with people from all sorts of cultures: given CVS Health’s scope of work. He would then encounter major difficulties dealing with the people from other cultures, if he lacks a basic education in multiculturalism.

Even in the highly unlikely event that the kid doesn’t get to interact with people from other cultures directly/in person, he would still be exposed to different cultures in  various other ways. He would, for instance, occasionally have to watch TV programs, including news based on other cultures. He would be disadvantaged, while internalizing such information, if he happened to lack a basic education in multiculturalism.

Someone may argue that the high school level is too early to introduce kids to multiculturalism. Yes, there is some merit in that argument. But it is worth remembering that there are many people whose education doesn’t go beyond high school level. Therefore, if we shy away from introducing people to multiculturalism at that level, it means that we would end up with a huge population that doesn’t have any understanding of multiculturalism. In fact, once we recognize this reality, we would even be tempted to introduce kids to multiculturalism at elementary school level. But because elementary school kids may be unable to internalize the concept of multiculturalism, high school becomes the appropriate level for such a course.

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Religion and Multiculturalism

Religion has potential to promote or hinder multiculturalism. Before going any further, it is important to appreciate that every religion is based on a certain culture. For instance, Christianity is based on the Jewish (and, some people say, Roman) culture.  Islam, on the other hand, is based on the Arabic culture. Buddhism and Hinduism are primarily based on the Indian culture… Yet we are living in an age where most of these religions have transcended the cultures they were originally based on. Christianity, for instance, has outgrown its Jewish/Roman origins, and most of the people who subscribe to that religion today are people from other cultures. We see the same with Islam, where today, we have huge non-Arab Muslim populations. Even Buddhism, notwithstanding its Indian origins (remember, Gautama Buddha was a Nepalese Indian mystic) today draws most of its followers from China, Thailand and other cultures…

Now for religion to promote multiculturalism, it has to respect the other cultures that it spreads to (that is, other cultures different from the one it is based on). It has to respect all the cultural practices of the people who embrace it, as long as those practices are not contradictory to its core teachings. That is the only way religion will be able to coexist with multiculturalism.

What we tend to see, unfortunately, is a situation where people attempt to use religion as a tool for conquest and subjugation. Therefore, the people from other cultures who embrace a foreign religion are expected to discard their cultural practices. They are expected to discard their cultural practices in favor of those from the culture that the religion they are embracing is based. They are told that their cultures are inferior, and that the culture on which the new religion is based is superior. With this sort of mindset, religion is likely to be a hindrance to multiculturalism.

The topic of religion and multiculturalism is a broad one, and we can’t even pretend to address it exhaustively in a single blog post. For more insights on this sort of topic, the best thing to do would be to purchase a book on the subject of ‘Religion and Multiculturalism’. There are many such books online, and it should be easy for you to purchase one. You can then pay for the book using your debit or credit card. Like if, for instance, you have a Capital One credit card (obtained from getmyoffer.capitalone.com), you can use it to pay for the book on ‘Multiculturalism and Religion’. It is likely to be good value for money, especially if you are a person with scholarly interests in the field of multiculturalism.

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Writing a Thesis for a Doctorate Degree in Multiculturalism

If you have enrolled for a doctorate degree in multicultural studies, you will probably find yourself having to write a thesis at some point. In fact, some doctorate degree programs in multiculturalism revolve entirely around the thesis. All you have to do, in such doctorate programs, is to write, submit and defend a thesis on multiculturalism: then you are awarded the degree. In other programs, you first have to go through some coursework. It is only after going through the coursework, and passing certain exams, that you can embark on the writing of the thesis. Anyway whatever the nature of the program you are enrolled for, it is unlikely that you will be awarded a doctorate degree in multiculturalism without submitting a thesis.

There are 7 key steps in the process of writing a thesis for a doctorate degree in multiculturalism, namely:

Identifying the research topic: this is the topic on which you are to base the thesis. It should ideally be in the multiculturalism sub-specialty that you wish to specialize in.

Undertaking the actual research: this may entail undertaking a literature review, to know what other scholars before you have said about the topic. It may also entail holding interviews and visiting various sites. It can be very time consuming. You can decide to be doing it on a part-time basis, while holding down another job. Like if, for instance, you work at American Airlines, you can be visiting the airline’s HR portal (at newjetnet.aa.com), to check the periods of time when you are supposed to be off work. Then you can use those periods to carry out the research for your multicultural studies doctorate. Alternatively, you can opt to undertake the research on a full-time basis, in order to hasten it.

Writing the first draft of the thesis: this should ideally be on the basis of your research findings.

Going through the first draft with your research director: the idea is to have your supervisor suggest the areas where you need to make changes to your thesis. You shouldn’t expect your first draft to be perfect. You may actually find yourself having to change half of it. You may need to revise it several times, before it becomes acceptable.

Writing the final draft of the thesis: you write this after getting (and incorporating) suggestions from your research supervisor.

Submitting the thesis: you are expected to submit the final draft of your thesis to the department that will be awarding you the doctorate.

Defending the thesis: in most programs, you have to defend your thesis before a panel of experts, before actually being awarded the degree.

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The Joys of Teaching Multicultural Studies at College Level

It is now almost two decades from the time when I started teaching multicultural studies at college level. People often ask me why I have chosen to continue teaching multicultural studies for so long. The last time someone posed this question to me, I took some time to reflect on it. And it occurred to me that there is one main reason as to why I have chosen to teach multicultural studies at college level for so long. It is because the job brings certain joys. Those are, in other words, the joys of teaching multicultural studies at college level.

For one, teaching multicultural studies at college levels means that I get to interact with very interesting students. Things like multicultural studies tend to attract a certain caliber of students. These tend to be students who are very interested in the subject, students who are very knowledgeable to start with, and students with amazing levels of curiosity. Actually, the only time I (previously) got a chance to deal with a more interesting group of people is when I was working on a plasma donation project.

Secondly, teaching multicultural studies at college level means that I get to teach my students something that has real-life relevance. You see, multicultural studies is not an abstract subject. It is a subject that has real-life relevance. And there is real joy in teaching students something that has real-life applications, as opposed to something that is totally abstract.

Thirdly, being an instructor in the field of multicultural studies mean that I encounter less competition. For some reason, there seems to be very few experts in this field – meaning that the few of us who have the qualifications to teach multicultural studies at college level don’t have to deal with too much competition. This is unlike other fields, where people often have to deal with stiff competition for faculty positions. Actually, thanks to the fact that there are few instructors in this field, I often find myself being called upon to moonlight as a part-time instructor in other colleges. And that is on top of my tenured position at the main college where I teach.

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Promoting Multiculturalism Through Housing Policies

Housing policies can be used to promote multiculturalism. To the extent that we can get people from different cultural backgrounds to live together, in the same neighborhoods, that would be a huge step forward towards forging genuine multiculturalism. Currently, we have a situation where people from the same cultural backgrounds tend to live in the same neighborhoods. Very few neighborhoods can be said to be genuinely multicultural. You go to a certain neighborhood, and you find that most of the people there are from a certain cultural background. There may be a few people from other cultural backgrounds, but most of the people are from a certain cultural background. And the trend is the same in almost every neighborhood you visit.

A deliberate attempt has to be made, through housing policies, to get people from different cultural backgrounds to live together as neighbors. I think I got this idea (that housing policies can actually be used to promote multiculturalism) from a CVS Learnet tutorial, and I reckon that it makes a lot of sense.

There are several levels at which the housing policies can be used to promote multiculturalism. At the land allocation point, for instance, an effort can be made to ensure that land is allocated to developers from various cultural backgrounds. Chances are that those developers would then rent out or sell the houses they develop to people from their respective cultural backgrounds. And because the land was initially allocated to developers from different cultural backgrounds, the people who end up renting or buying those houses would (most probably) be from similarly different cultural backgrounds. The end result would be that of genuinely mixed neighborhoods.

It is, of course, important to educate people on multiculturalism, to get them to a point where they can be okay with the idea of living close to people from other cultural backgrounds. Currently, we see people with huge prejudices, which make them very uncomfortable whenever they have to interact closely with people from different cultural backgrounds. It is only through multiculturalism education that we can overcome such prejudices.

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Is Genuine Multicultural Awareness Achievable?

One question that keeps on coming up, whenever we discuss matters to do with multiculturalism, is the one as to whether genuine multicultural awareness is achievable. The true position, currently, is that we don’t have genuine multicultural awareness in the world. If we had genuine multicultural awareness in the world, we wouldn’t be having some folks believing that their ways of life are superior to others. We wouldn’t be having hate rallies and the such. Talking of hate rallies, last week, I came across one, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. I was on my way to a Subway branch, to check my SubwayCard balance. The trip ended up aborting, and I had to contend with checking the balance at mysubwaycard.com (which is not what I had initially planned).

So we have to start by appreciating that, currently, we don’t have genuine multicultural awareness. Having appreciated that fact, we can deal with the question as to whether genuine multicultural awareness is actually achievable.

In my view, genuine multicultural awareness is achievable. But to achieve it, we will need a lot of focused effort. Looking at the people who are working towards achieving multicultural awareness, you can’t help getting the feeling that they are not working hard enough. They are trying, but they are not doing it well enough. To achieve genuine multicultural awareness, we need to have consistent media campaigns, combined with other educational programs aimed at the target groups of people. It is not enough to carry out a media campaign once in a while. It has to be a long-term strategy, knowing that the objective here is to change people’s attitudes. And people’s attitudes don’t change overnight.

Ultimately, it may take a generation or two, for genuine multicultural awareness to be achieved. But with the growth in global media, and the general trend towards globalization, there is reason to hope that soon or later, genuine multicultural awareness will be achieved.

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Using Movies to Promote Multiculturalism

Movies are among the tools that can be used to promote multiculturalism. This is a question of using movies  to get people to, firstly, appreciate that they are living in a world where there are other cultures (besides their own) and, secondly, to get the people to develop a healthy respect for those other cultures.

One simple way in which movies can be used to promote multiculturalism is by having people shown movies from other cultures. This way, the people get to see how other cultures work. This way, the people get to understand that, in fact, their culture is not the only one in the world: there are other cultures out there, and those other cultures have their own upsides and downsides. This sort of understanding lays the ground for multicultural awareness and for multicultural respect.

Another way in which movies can be used to promote multiculturalism is through the careful selection of actors: the objective being to end up with multicultural casts. We see this in all sorts of workplace settings nowadays: including in companies like Walmart (whose pay stubs portal is Walmartone.com). And there is no reason as to why it can’t be replicated in movie acting, so as to end up with truly multicultural casts for movies. The end result would be a scenario where the movie viewers get the impression that it is possible for people from different cultures to work together on projects, and have fun while at it. In practice, for that to happen, there would have to be some degree of multicultural awareness and respect for other cultures.

Yet another way in which movies can be used to promote multiculturalism is through the incorporation (in movies) of themes and storylines that create multicultural awareness. The movies in question may be local — perhaps even with all-local casts. But to the extent that the themes and storylines that create multicultural awareness are incorporated, that would really go a long way towards the development of a society that has good multicultural appreciation.

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Promoting Multiculturalism in the Workplace

If you wish to promote multiculturalism in the workplace, the first step you have to take is that of hiring people from a diversity of cultures. This is how you will end up with a multicultural workplace, in the first place. Before you can start talking about promoting multiculturalism in the workplace, you need to have a multicultural workforce first. And, we reiterate, the way to have the multicultural workforce is by hiring people from a diversity of cultures.

When we talk about hiring people from a diversity of cultures, we don’t necessarily mean having an international workforce (though that would be great too). The reality is, however, that we tend to see a diversity of cultures emerging within the same nation, and even within the same locality. Within a given locality, and due to social-economic differences, you may end up with a diversity of cultures or subcultures emerging. And as long as you are not discriminative in your hiring, you are likely to get job applicants from the different cultures or subcultures, whenever you float job adverts. That approach of being non-discriminative while hiring is also likely to have another benefit of making it possible for you to tap into the entire available talent pool, thus ending up with truly great people in your staff. You may therefore end up with employees who come from the same state, indeed from the same county, but who represent a great diversity of cultures.

Having hired people from a diversity of cultures, the next step you need to take is that of creating a workplace culture that encourages mutual respect. Here, you have to take deliberate steps to promote the mutual respect, because there is a tendency by people to feel that their cultures are superior and the other cultures are inferior. You therefore have to inculcate it, as part of your organization’s policy, that the people from the diverse cultures have to respect each other. If, for instance, you have people who come from the ghetto subculture and people who come from the uptown/middle class subculture, you have to tell them directly that they are expected to respect each other, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds, which manifest as ‘subcultures’.