by : Mursid Saleh (Universitas Negeri Semarang).
Introduction
Culture, broadly defined, is the “property” characteristic of a community (Hudson, 1980:73) The property may be something material, such as food, building, or clothing, or immaterial, such as beliefs, traditions, and values systems.
Community itself, is often defined as a group of people with shared culture (Hudson, 1980:25). This group of people normally live in the same or adjacent places, speak the same language, and share the same beliefs, traditions, and value systems.
Hence, when two or more people get together, each bringing their traditional foods, wearing their traditional dress, and even building their traditional houses, there develops a “multicultural” community. When those people live together in quite a long time, they may exchange language, beliefs, and traditions, in which way a new “culture” may be built.
Formation of a new culture
In this global era, when people mobility is high, admission of new people into a community is inevitable. Once new people are admitted, and become new members of a community, all aspects of the community’s life will be affected. The language, for instance, will have to be adapted in order for the newcomers to be able to take good part in communication.
Although it is usually the minority group, in this case the newcomers, who should submit to the majority in terms of rules and conduct, it is nevertheless necessary for the latter to assume such rules and behavior as expected by the minority group. In fact, new rules very often find their quick way to general acceptance. This may be due to the natural tendency of man to like changes.
When two “cultures” live together, one of two possibilities may happen. Either one of the two leads, or the two cultures merge. When the latter happens, a new culture emerges. Such phenomena often take place in transmigration areas, or immigration destination countries.
The creation of a new culture may take a long time, especially when conflicting values are involved. Social values, such as politeness, do not always have commonly accepted practices among different communities. There are, for instance, the so-called speech norms which differ a great deal from community to community. Table manners are another example of the application of conflicting values.
Before the groups of people in a new community come to an agreement regarding how certain values are to be implemented, they live together in a “multicultural” situation. While no one is himself originally multicultural, adjustments should be made if people want to live comfortably in such situations.
Multicultural education
Education is another aspect of life which will be very much affected by the presence of newcomers. It is not just the language of instruction which needs adjustment, but also the methods, media, and, sometimes, even the teaching material (Gorski, 2003).
Adjustment of the language of instruction is easy when there is a “lingua franca” (Hudson, 1980:8) to adopt, namely the language which is understood by both parties involved in the classroom interaction. What needs to be done is just to switch from a language understood by the indigenous students only to another language understood also by the foreign students.
Adjustment in methods involves the use of techniques which will be suitable for all students including the newcomers. When explanation which mostly involve words has been good enough for the local students, it is no longer suitable at the presence of the new students.
More than just the language and methods, the materials of instruction would be subject to change. This especially applies when multicultural education is conducted to achieve certain wider purposes, such as acculturation of new citizens. Such education may even take an entirely different curriculum. As Ladson-Billings (1994) perceives, multicultural education should help students to understand and appreciate cultural differences and similarities, and to recognize the accomplishments of diverse ethnic, racial, and socieconomic groups. Classroom materials, Ladson-Billings suggests further, should portray these diverse groups realistically and from a variety of perspectives.
A program especially designed to educate new citizens will, therefore, take good planning, organization, implementation, and evaluation. In other words, multicultural education of this type should be well-managed to achieve its goal.
Management of multicultural education in monocultural settings
Except in explicitly-named international schools, the number of which is still very limited in Indonesia, multicultural education in this country generally takes place in monocultural settings. The greatest number, if not all, of the students are Indonesian,
the teachers, the administrators, and the whole place and situations surrounding the teaching-learning activities are all Indonesian.
Several principles need to be considered in managing multicultural education as are suggested by Gorski and Covert (1996; 2000):
1. Every student must have an opportunity to achieve to her or his full potential
2. Every student must be prepared to competently participate in an increasingly intercultural society
3. Teachers must be prepared to effectively facilitate learning for every individual student
4. Schools must be active participants in ending oppression of all types
5. Education must become more fully student-centered
6. Educators must take a more active role in reexamining educational practices including testing methods, teaching approaches, school counseling, and instructional materials.
The above principles are derived from management principles for multicultural education in general. Those principles should guide the manager in planning, organizing, implementing as well as evaluating the program. Their application in monocultural settings will need to be adjusted to meet the requirement of the context.
Closure
Unlike what happens in other countries such as Australia and the United States, multicultural education in Indonesia is conducted in relatively monocultural settings. This implies that the instructional methods, learning resources, as well as instructional materials which apply in those countries are not automatically applicable in our country. Even the aim of such program will be considerably different, as Indonesia is not a multicultural country. Managing multicultural education in monocultural settings, therefore, is still fraud with problems wide open for further study.
REFERENCES:
Gorski,P.C. Undated. The is and isn’t of multicultural education. Multicultural
pavilion. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural
Gorski,P.C. Undated. Seven key characteristics of multicultural education curriculum.
Multicultural pavilion. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural
Gorski, P. and B. Covert. 1996; 2000. Defining multicultural education. Multicultural
pavilion. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural
Hudson, R.A. 1980. Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
Ladson-Billings. G. 1994. “Educating for diversity: What we can learn from
multicultural education research”. Educational Leadership, 51(8).
Lewis, B. 2003. Alternative education. Wisconsin: Department of Public Instruction.
Powell, L.M. 2003. Contemporary education in China: an inside view. Yale-New
Haven Teachers Institute.
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