Preparing for a future of diversity - a conceptual framework for planning and evaluating multicultural educational colleges

Abstract

Higher Education institutions in the Western world need to prepare for a future in which cultural diversity is not a transient phase but a constant reality. They should, therefore, consider introducing Multicultural Education (ME) into their institution, and further develop it. As ME is a widely used yet hazy concept that covers a vast variety of approaches, strategies and programmes, the paper attempts to unveil the complexity of ME's broad conceptual basis. It addresses the ambiguity of the term “multiculturalism”, differentiates between five diversity-managing strategies, analyses a variety of definitions and goals attributed to ME and presents an integrated typology of ME programs. On this basis, it offers colleges a three-tier tool for benchmarking, introducing and designing ME. The tool consists of a diagnostic questionnaire, a table of design choices and an organisational guide for introducing and developing ME as first and second order changes in the college. With the multilayer conceptual framework constructed in it, the paper aims to achieve two purposes. The first is to supply a backbone for informed decisions that colleges have to make while designing their educational policy and practice in culturally diverse contexts. The second purpose is to offer a new research platform for future evaluations of ME as a complex system.