PART I: The way in which multiculturalism was built into my class...including a consideration of how content and/or process of the class would need to be adjusted if the racial/ethnic/gender composition of the class were different.

Most of the education received in public schools today is from a mainstream-centric curriculum and approach that emphasizes the perspectives of Anglo-americans and Europeans. Considering the fact that the US is a melting pot of diverse cultures and growing more so, education needs to reflect the multiculturalism of our changing society. According to James Bank’s, a multicultural curriculum would be one that positively includes other ethnic minority groups such as Afro-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans by reflecting their “cultures, experiences, and perspectives” (190) in the curriculum. For Banks’, there are four different approaches to be considered: the contributions approach which focuses on heroes and holidays, the additive approach which adds some content, themes and perspectives without changing the structure, the transformation approach which changes the goals, structures, and perspectives of the curriculum, and the social action approach which requires students to make decisions and take actions for social change.

In my classroom, I tried to incorporate multiculturalism from the beginning due to the fact that 1)my classes were made up of students who were very diverse in terms of ethnicity and class, as well as geographical location within the city, 2)economics was a subject which had the potential for being both very relevant, practical as well as an issue for social change.

How did I integrate multiculturalism into the curriculum? Which approach did I use?
The curriculum based on the class textbook I started with was very mainstream-centric as it portrayed economics from the Western, capitalist perspective with an emphasis on concepts, themes, and perspectives for how our “American” economic system worked and flourished. In terms of concepts, I wanted students to learn the basic concepts of economics (e.g. opportunity cost, trade-offs, scarcity, etc), but I also wanted them to think about the concepts critically. How did it apply to the choices and decisions and opportunities offered to them as students, as individuals, as citizens? How would you evaluate our economic system? When did the market fail and why? Who are the people who benefit or who are the people who are worse off? How much profit is “too much profit”? Though we did not get into a full discussion about how each was personally affected by the workings of our economy, many were able to discuss the aspects of the economy and the system critically and from diverse perspectives.

One multicultural project was one in which students were asked to research three countries (US, Chad, and North Korea) to study differences in the economic, political, and social systems and to evaluate them in terms of social goals achieved (economic freedom, equity, security, growth, and efficiency). Another way I tried to incorporate multiculturalism was through the transformation approach which emphasized decision-making and taking action. There were many opportunities in my class where students would be working in groups to solve an economic/social problem. Students considered who would benefit and who would be worse off and thought about making decisions in a way to improve society. One example was where they worked on opportunity costs and considered how the government should allocate money [e.g. Unlimited Wants/Limited Resources] . In another project, students came up with market/capitalist solutions and command/communist solutions to a problem and compared/evaluated them [in lesson 11]. Because students were already coming from different backgrounds, it was easy for them to come up with and consider different perspectives and bridge gaps. Finally at the end of my teaching experience, we read the children's story "If the World were a Village". Through reading and discussing this story, my students expanded their view of economic issues to a global and multicultural perspective. In our discussion, we talked about such things: who has most of the power and wealth in the world, why is there such great inequality of resources, should we, as the United States citizens, focus on our domestic problems or international problems, what should be our role in the global economy?, what about globalization?, what about overpopulation?, what about the environmental problems? Students were encouraged to think about these issues, especially in a socio-economic aspect, and think about their role in this future global economy.

PART II: a consideration of how content and/or process of the class would need to be adjusted if the racial/ethnic/gender composition of the class were different.

In reading the Banks’ article and considering the multi-cultural composition and knowledge of my students, I have thought about some changes that may make the lesson more appropriate. This is also the content and/or process I would use in the class if the racial/ethnic gender composition of the class was different [e.g. if it was predominately white or upperclass, or all male or all female]

First of all, I would like students to think about economic opportunities in the US (including college admissions and career). Does racial/gender discrimination play a role in recruitment, selection, admission or hiring? Should there be racial quotas? Gender quotas? Depending on the racial/ethnic/gender composition, there may be a bigger focus on particular issues.

I think I would like to rethink the lesson on economic- decision making with regards to the social change approach. I think it is important for students to consider the importance of their economic decisions (eg. Buying things or selling things/stocks/bonds that are socially responsible) or even their political/economic decisions (e.g. certain leaders have different economic policies/plans, different economic bills, taxes, social welfare issues). I want students to become engaged in critical thinking as they think about how and why things work. Practically, students should understand how the economy works as future employees and employers.

I would also like students to have more of a global view of the economy. When learning about capitalism, I would like to introduce different economic systems in different countries. We would study the different cultures, values, and perspectives that affect the economic system of a country. Students would compare the strengths and weaknesses of a traditional, command, and capitalistic economy and learn to evaluate them.

Finally, I want students to become more aware of the social issues that result from economics. Oftentimes, capitalism causes great inequality, a growing gap between the rich and the poor, oppression and extreme poverty in the US and in third world nations. Students first need to be exposed to these current issues affecting our political, economic and social systems from a perspective different from the mainstream stream or the media. Students would be asked to challenge themselves and consider what the alternatives or solutions may be to these issues.

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