Chapter Overview

This chapter presents historical developments as they relate to the establishment of multicultural education in the United States. A survey of approaches to multicultural education currently in practice suggests that there are numerous ways in which people approach the topic. Fundamental to effective multicultural education is an understanding of the manner in which people develop their racial and/or ethnic identity and, in particular, intercultural development—how they develop their ability to understand and interact more effectively with people different from themselves. The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) was introduced as one means to understand how people can grow from being ethnocentric to becoming more ethnorelative in their orientation.