Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society

Most of the literature on citizenship education is silent on questions related to race, ethnicity and social-class stratification. James A. Banks aims to fill this gap. The thousands of immigrants that enter the United States each year, the increasing number of students who speak a first language other than English, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor intensify the challenge of educating students for citizenship in a democratic society. In these 11 essays, written over a 13-year period, Dr Banks describes how schools can both educate students to participate effectively in a society that reflects ethnic and cultural diversity and also promotes national unity and public good. These essays provide a comprehensive blending of the author's work in citizenship education and multicultural education. A founder of multicultural education and a past president of the National Council for the Social Studies, Dr Banks describes how the concepts, paradigms, and aims of multicultural education must become integral parts of the project to educate citizenship and to create democratic schools in free societies.

Argues that an effective citizenship education helps students to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values needed to function effectively within their cultural communities, nation states, regions, and the global community. In this second edition of Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society - which includes three new chapters - Banks argues that an effective citizenship education helps students to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values needed to function effectively within their cultural communities, nation states, regions, and the global community. It also helps students to acquire cosmopolitan perspectives and values needed to attain equality and social justice for people around the world. In the new chapters, Banks draws heavily upon his recent work which focuses on how students in multicultural nations around the world can be educated in ways that will help them to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and values needed to make decisions and to take action to create a more just and humane world.