Read these definitions of global and multicultural education.

Chapter 3

Theoretical Foundation of Critical Literacies and Global and Multicultural Education

In this chapter, I invite the reader to a more in-depth discussion on critical literacies from global and multicultural perspectives by presenting important theoretical constructs of each field. I first provide a historical and theoretical review of global and multicultural education, followed by the literature review of critical literacies, including relevant definitions. Overall, this chapter serves as the literature review of the three areas. Through this review, I attempt to answer the question on why global and multicultural perspectives matter in the field of critical literacies.

Global Education

The notions of “global” and “multicultural” are different in their theoretical orientation. The former was developed in response to international issues, while the latter was developed in response to national minority struggles in the U.S. This difference of visions and orientations is important as it highlights the difference in scope: global education traditionally is concerned with educational dilemmas that are relevant across nations and continents. It, therefore, covers a broader spectrum of issues such as intercultural relations. Rapid globalization driven by the Internet and human migration highlighted the need for global education and propelled scholarly attention to such matters. Philosophically speaking, global education is based on recognizing core human rights and it pertains to the notion of moral universalism. Namely, it is based on the view that human beings are created equal.

Multicultural Education

Research on multicultural education has flourished around the globe. In particular, in the U.S. historical context, it emerged with the American Civil Rights Movement. Unlike global education, multicultural education focuses more on national issues, specifically learning about cultures within the state. With its original purpose from the early 1960s and 1970s to address racism in schools and societies, early discussions on race and ethnicity focused on African Americans and were spearheaded by African American scholars. This type of ethnic studies has been the first phase in the development of multicultural education as a field. Since then, more multicultural theorists began to analyze the power issues underlying race and inequality, as well as other topics such as social class gaps and economic discrimination.

YOON, Bogum. Critical Literacies. Global and Multicultural Perspectives. New York: Springer, 2016, pp. 26-29. (Adapted).

We could define the idea of global and multicultural literacies respectively as