Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference

8. Diversity, Transformative Citizenship Education, and School Reform

8 DIVERSITY,TRANSFORMATIVE CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION,AND SCHOOL REFORM James A. Banks T he increasing recognition and legitimacy of diversity within the United States and around the world require educators to rethink citizenship and citizenship education. Historically within the United States, as well as within other nations, the major goal of citizenship education has been to develop national patriotism (Castles 2004; Westheimer 2007). However, approaches to developing national patriotism failed to help students develop critical thinking skills; alienated them from their homes and community cultures and languages; and failed to help them develop cosmopolitan attitudes, values, and behaviors that are needed to function effectively in today’s global world society. There are limitations to traditional or mainstream approaches to citizenship education, making a transformative approach to citizenship education essential. Schools can be reformed to implement a transformative approach to citizenship education, which enables students to acquire the knowledge , attitudes, and skills needed to become thoughtful and active citizens in a global and interdependent world community. Diversity: Challenges and Opportunities The rich and growing racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity in American schools and in schools around the world present both challenges and opportunities to nation-states and to educators (Banks 2004a; Luchtenberg 2004). American classrooms are experiencing the largest influx of immigrant students since the beginning of the twentieth century. About one million immigrants make the United States their home each year (Martin and Midgley 1999). Almost four million legal immigrants settled in the United States between 2000 and 2004, and only 15 percent came from nations in Europe. Most (64 percent) came from Mexico and from nations in 227 Asia, Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2004). A large but undetermined number of undocumented immigrants also enter the United States each year. The New York Times estimated that 12 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States in 2007 (“Immigration Sabotage,” June 4, 2007, A22). In the thirty-year period between 1973 and 2004, the percentage of students of color inAmerican public schools increased from 22 to 43 percent. If current trends continue, students of color might equal or exceed the percentage of white students in American public schools within one or two decades. An article in The NewYork Times on August 27, 2006, reported that ethnic-minority students already exceed the number of white students in six states: California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Texas (“In Schools Across U.S., the Melting Pot Overflows,” A7, 16). Linguistic diversity is also increasing in American schools. In 2000, 18 percent of the total United States population ages five and older spoke a language other than English at home (Shin and Bruno 2003). English-language learners are the fastest growing population in American public schools (Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco 2001). Religious diversity is also growing in American schools as well as in schools around the world. Islam is now the fastest growing religion in the United States as well as in several European nations, such as France and the United Kingdom (Cesari 2004). The influence of an increasingly ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse population in American schools, colleges , and universities is and will continue to be enormous. Schools in the United States and around the world face complex educational issues when trying to respond to the problems wrought by increasing diversity and international migration in ways consistent with their democratic ideologies and declarations. There is a wide gap between the democratic ideals in Western nations such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the Untied States, and the daily educational experiences of minority groups in schools. Ethnic-minority students in the United States as well as in Western European nations such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands often experience discrimination and marginalization in school and the society writ large because of their cultural, linguistic, and religious differences (Banks 2004a; Luchtenberg 2004). The rich diversity of American schools presents problems to which educators must respond in order to help all students acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to become effective citizens in the national civic community . The academic-achievement gap between ethnic-minority and majority -group students is one of the most complex and intractable problems faced by American schools and schools around the world; it defies facile analyses and responses (Banks and Banks 2004; Luchtenberg 2004). In her American Educational Research Association (AERA) address, Gloria Ladson-Billings (2006) uses “education debt” when referring to this...