Multicultural Curriculum Transformation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

It can easily be argued that curriculum—the ‘what’ we want students to know—is foundational in the education of any nation’s young people.  Because knowledge is constructed, we also know that it’s contested.  It is highly impacted by the political, social, and cultural context of education.  Curriculum, then, is often at the cross-roads of intensive debates between those who wish to defend the traditional “canon” and those who wish to pursue a transformative curriculum that is rooted in principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion.  The latter asks for a curriculum rooted in the lives of students, reflective of their social and cultural experiences, and responsive to the hopes and visions of families and communities of what it means to be educated. A significant critique of this vision of a critical multicultural curriculum is the disconnection between theoretical and conceptual understandings with actual classroom activity.  Many teachers have not experienced nor been prepared to teach for diversity, equity, and inclusion.  This volume provides a framework for understanding what a transformative multicultural education curriculum entails, connects it to specific content areas, and supports and encourages teachers in enacting that curriculum. This volume is especially critical at a time of often intense debates about what our nation’s students should learn. It offers a much welcomed, hopeful, visionary, and actionable curriculum for any teacher who wishes to pursue schooling for social justice. -- Francisco A. Rios, Western Washington University
Enlightening teachers, families and communities about the intersection of Multicultural Education and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) has become increasingly important in today’s technology driven society. Given the fact that our societies are becoming more diverse culturally and racially, and technological, this volume provides relevant knowledge and current practices involving the successful implementation of multicultural STEM PK-12 curriculum transformations. The authors emphasize practical and theoretical approaches on transforming mainstream and Eurocentric STEM curriculum to multicultural curriculum. This volume provides perspectives that are clearly missing in PK-12 STEM literature.   The timely, innovative and important contributions by the authors answer fundamental questions about what is happening in PK-12 education on transforming STEM content that is more inclusive and representative of multicultural STEM curriculum so that all students benefit, and not just a few. -- Sharon Tettegah, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Many students in our nation’s schools have inadequate grounding in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) compared to global nations. In addition, children of color, low income, females, and ability challenged students fall below other groups within our society. Understanding these shortcomings, this volume does an excellent job in sharing multicultural curricular strategies for STEM P-12 schooling. The resources presented in this volume reflect transformative approaches and flexibility that are also standards-based and teacher friendly. Furthermore, parent involvement is a critical element within the eight organizing tools of this volume and approaches such as, transforming family math night with Latinx middle school parents is one of the delightful highlights.  These approaches provide greater opportunity in the STEM fields for social and cultural integration. Children are more successful in all subject areas when they are able to identify and embrace who they are and where they come from, across a wide spectrum of specific cultural characteristics. -- Karen B. McLean Dade, Western Washington University