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The resistance towards multicultural education in public schools: Religious and political dimensions
Abstract
As Americans struggle to define themselves with or without a hyphen, a debate rages in political and academic arenas. Is multicultural education necessary as part of the core curriculum in public institutions? Although this is an intensively discussed issue in many forums, no empirical studies have yet been done to determine the predictors of public support for the program. Using data from the Nebraska Annual Social Indicator Survey, this study examines several aspects of the public response; (1) Predictors of resistance to multicultural education in Nebraska Schools; (2) The effect of political conservative factors on the response to Multicultural Education and (3) The role of religious fundamentalism in the response to multicultural education. The major focus is to disentangle the effects of religiosity or religious behavior from the effects of fundamentalist religious beliefs. The primary method for testing direct and indirect effects is to examine attitudes towards multicultural education among adult residents of Nebraska. The first stage of the analysis tests the effects of political conservatism, religiosity, religious fundamentalism, political conservatism, nativism, particularism, overall attitudes towards diversity, age, education, income, race, gender and rural/urban residence on attitudes towards multicultural education. In the second stage of the analysis, the effects of religiosity, religious fundamentalism, political conservatism, age, education, gender, race, income and rural/urban residence on nativism, particularism and overall attitudes to diversity are tested. The results indicate that political conservatism, religiosity, nativism, overall attitudes to diversity, income and gender all have significant positive effects on attitudes towards Multicultural Education. With regard to the intervening effects of attitudes towards particularism, nativism and diversity, in all cases, religious fundamentalism was found to have a significant effect, in some cases canceling the effect of political conservatism. While there is no significant direct effect of religious fundamentalism on the resistance to Multicultural Education, there are strong significant effects of religious fundamentalism on Particularism, Nativism and Overall Attitudes to Diversity.
Subject Area
Minority & ethnic groups|Sociology|Religion|Educational psychology|Bilingual education|Multicultural education|Political science
Recommended Citation
Persaud, Chandrouti Rita, "The resistance towards multicultural education in public schools: Religious and political dimensions" (1997). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9734634.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9734634