9 Another definition of multiculturalism also comes from Caleb Rosado in his
essay, Toward a Definition of Multiculturalism, in 1997 who stated that multiculturalism is a system of belief and behaviors that recognizes and respects the
presences of all diverse groups in an organization or society, acknowledges and values their socio cultural-differences and encourages and enables their continued
contribution within an inclusive cultural context with empowers all within the organization or society.
B. Multicultural Education
1. Definition of multicultural education
From the definition, the word pluralism is commonly used to talk about race, ethnicity and culture. According to Ramsey, Williams, Vold, 2003 the word race is
popular to refer to biological and genetic traits that distinguish one among populations that have originated from different regions. Moreover, the word ethnicity refers to
“primarily sociological and anthropological characteristic, such as custom religious practices, language usage of a group of people with a shared ancestry or origin”
Quintana, 1998. Same with race, ethnicity may imply a degree of social isolation from the mainstream. The easiest example is African Americans who are
marginalized and excluded from the dominant group. Then, the last word is culture that can be defined into many factors, such as national origin, gender, religion, sexual
orientation, generation, abilities or disabilities, and leisure activity. When multiculturalism happens, it will be followed with increasing of the
problem, issues and challenges. The problems exist because the arrival of the new cultural groups in their society may not be accepted by certain culture. So, they are
needed to adopt strategies such as multicultural and intercultural education to respond
10 to this. The multicultural education movement first emerged in America in the 1960s
and 1970s as a respond toward ethnic revitalization movements and that slowly entered the periphery of the mainstream curriculum and education institution though
with the limited success Banks, 1979. Multicultural education defined by Lynch 1986 is the education which is
appropriate to democratic cultural pluralism. Therefore, the definition from James Lynch is not the fixed meaning of multicultural education, because there are lot
definitions that defining the meaning of multicultural education. In most general sense, multicultural education is an approach to teaching the
values of diversity into the classroom – it can be diversity in contents, methods, perspectives, educators, students and cultures. It is based on the definition that
[m]ulticultural education means different things to the different people Geneva Gay, , 1994
However, Montecions and Rios 1999 explain that multicultural education not only rely on the cultural characteristic of diverse group, but also emphasizes on social
problem particularly those associate with oppression, political power and the reallocation of economic resources. Furthermore, some restrict their focus to people
of color, while others include all major groups that are different in anyway from mainstreams American. Others definitions limit multicultural education to
characteristic of local schools, and still other provide direction from school reform in all settings regardless of their characteristic.
From the explanation above, we can conclude that multicultural education is a progressive approach for transforming education that holistically critiques and
responds to discriminatory policies and practices in education. It challenges and
