Population analysts predict that there will be no majority race in the United States by the year 2010. This demographic shift, many educators argue, makes it imperative for today’s students to learn to function in culturally diverse environments. One goal of multicultural education is to foster acceptance of diversity by increasing students’ awareness of the histories and traditions of America’s many racial and ethnic groups.

Supporters of multicultural education often contend that minority perspectives and realities have been excluded from the study of history, literature, and the humanities. Such exclusion leads students to wrongly conclude that civilization is the product of European males and their white descendants. This ignorance of the multiethnic nature of history intensifies intolerance and stifles moral and intellectual development, multiculturalists argue. With the purposeful inclusion of minority and female viewpoints in school curricula...