Multicultural Education: Historical Development, Dimensions, and Practice

Worldwide immigration and quests for rights by minority groups have caused social scientists and educators to raise serious questions about liberal assimilationist conceptions of citizenship that historically have dominated citizenship education in nation-states. The author of this article challenges liberal assimilationist conceptions of citizenship and citizenship education. He argues that citizenship education should be reformed so that it reflects the home cultures and languages of students from diverse groups, and he contends that group rights can help individuals to attain structural equality. In the final part of the article, he discusses the implications of his analysis for transforming citizenship education.

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Diversity, Group Identity, and Citizenship Education in a Global Age

Can illustrations aid learning of text material? These authors review the results of 55 experiments comparing learning from illustrated text with learning from text alone. They go on to look at research in closely related fields (involving, for example, nonrepresentational pictures, graphic organizers, learner-produced drawings) and conclude by offering guidelines for practice.

Effects of text illustrations: A review of research

Fiction literature has largely been ignored by psychology researchers because its only function seems to be entertainment, with no connection to empirical validity. We argue that literary narratives have a more important purpose. They offer models or simulations of the social world via abstraction, simplification, and compression. Narrative fiction also creates a deep and immersive simulative experience of social interactions for readers. This simulation facilitates the communication and understanding of social information and makes it more compelling, achieving a form of learning through experience. Engaging in the simulative experiences of fiction literature can facilitate the understanding of others who are different from ourselves and can augment our capacity for empathy and social inference.

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The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience

This article analyzes the role that empathy can play in improving intergroup relations. Three types of empathy are defined: cognitive empathy and twotypes of emotional empathy, reactive and parallel. Research indicating that empathy causes prosocial behavior is reviewed, along with studies indicating that training can be used to increase levels of empathic skills. Intergroup relations programs that employ empathy are also reviewed. Studies of the effects of empathizing with outgroup members on prejudice are discussed, andseveral processes by which empathy may mediate changes in prejudice are presented (e.g., reducing perceived dissimilarity and anxiety concerning the outgroup) and cognitive dissonance. The ways in which empathy can be introduced into intergroup relations programs are discussed, along with a series of recommendations for its implementation.

The role of empathy in improving intergroup relations.

Investigated the effect of curriculum materials which portray Negroes in a way which is contradictory to prevailing prejudices and stereotypes upon the attitudes toward Negroes of white 2nd-grade school children in a Midwestern city. A pretest-posttest design controlling for the teacher, the classro

Changes in attitudes toward Negroes of white elementary school students after use of multiethnic readers.

Several pictures portraying varied mixed racial groups of children in either a middle-class suburban setting or a lower-class intercity setting were used as part of a 1-mo. long curriculum unit. Wh...

Use of Pictures of Multiethnic Interaction to Change Attitudes of White Elementary School Students toward Blacks

First grade intervention for reading achievement of high risk children

Ron Colarusso is an associate professor and coordinator of the special education/early childhood program at Georgia State University. He received his EdD degree at Temple University in special education. Gayle Mathis is a learning disabilities teacher in Fulton County Public Schools, Georgia. She received her MEd in special education/early childhood at Georgia State University. Dena Shessel received her MEd in special

Alternative Learning Experiences for High-Risk, First-Grade Students

Student achievement is clearly linked to motivation. These writ ers urge educators to identify motivating factors and to develop strategies to help underachievers increase their learning readi ness.

John H. Litcher

Papers

Changes in attitudes toward Negroes of white elementary school students after use of multiethnic readers.

Use of Pictures of Multiethnic Interaction to Change Attitudes of White Elementary School Students toward Blacks

First grade intervention for reading achievement of high risk children

Alternative Learning Experiences for High-Risk, First-Grade Students

What Motivates Students To Learn: Identifying the Key Factors