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Multicultural education: How schools teach it and where educators say it falls short

Below, we provide a sampling of academic research that looks at how multicultural education has changed in recent decades and inconsistencies in the way today’s teachers teach it.

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by Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource January 25, 2021

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As American public schools have grown more diverse, educators have introduced multicultural education programs to help kids understand and appreciate the differences among them — differences in terms of race, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual identity and other personal characteristics.

Multicultural education, broadly, is a range of strategies educators use to help students “develop a positive self-concept by providing knowledge about the histories, cultures, and contributions of diverse groups,” according to the nonprofit National Association for Multicultural Education .

These programs, which vary by state and even within individual school districts, “should directly address issues of racism, sexism, classism, linguicism, ableism, ageism, heterosexism, religious intolerance, and xenophobia,” the association explains on its website. One goal of multicultural education is developing the attitudes, knowledge and skills students need to function in different cultures and join a global workforce.

Below, we provide a sampling of academic research that looks at how multicultural education has changed in recent decades and inconsistencies in the way today’s teachers teach it. We also included studies that reveal problems in how U.S. colleges and universities train teachers to do this work.

At the bottom of this page, we added a list of resources to help journalists better understand and contextualize the issue, including federal data on how student and teacher demographics have changed over time and links to organizations with expertise in multicultural education.

It’s important to note there are significant differences between multicultural education and anti-racist education — two types of education discussed with greater frequency in recent years. Unlike multicultural education, anti-racism education focuses on race and race-related issues. Anti-racist teachers “create a curriculum with black students in mind” and “view the success of black students as central to the success of their own teaching,” Pirette McKamey, the first Black principal of Mission High School in San Francisco, writes in The Atlantic .

Many educators and researchers argue that schools serving predominantly white communities benefit tremendously from multicultural education. Sheldon Eakins , a former teacher and school principal who founded the Leading Equity Center, writes about this for the Cult of Pedagogy website:

“It’s not uncommon for White people to say, Oh, I’m just White. I don’t have a culture . We need to teach our White students about what their cultural background is and their ethnic backgrounds so they can understand and think about their language and religions going back to their ancestry. Lessons on their culture may help them start to understand how privilege and White supremacy began.”

At the same time, Eakins and others, including education professor Wayne Au of the University of Washington Bothell, have criticized multicultural education for falling short in preparing youth to confront and dismantle racism.

“Yes, multicultural education is important, but in the face of the hateful violence being visited on so many of our students and communities, it is simply not enough,” Au writes in a paper published in Multicultural Perspectives in 2017.

A brief history of multicultural education

Thirty Years of Scholarship in Multicultural Education Thandeka K. Chapman and Carl A. Grant. Gender & Class Journal , 2010.

This paper offers a broad overview of what multicultural education is in the U.S. and how it changed over three decades. The authors rely on academic research to chronicle the trend, beginning in the 1960s, when scholars argued that the histories and contributions of people of color should be part of the public school curriculum.

Thandeka Chapman , a professor of education studies at the University of California, San Diego, and Carl Grant , a professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explain how multicultural education evolved to include discussions about gender, physical disabilities, age and sexual identity and orientation.

The authors also describe how critics of the trend actually helped it.

“Advocates used these attacks to develop more meaningful and appropriate ways to help teachers and students in classrooms,” Chapman and Grant write. “These criticisms of MCE [multicultural education] have further advanced discussions of equity, equality, and social justice in ways that would not be possible if opponents had remained silent.”

Challenges in teaching multicultural education

Multicultural Education and the Protection of Whiteness Angelina E. Castagno. American Journal of Education , November 2013.

In this yearlong study, the author spotlights problems in the way an urban Utah school district teaches multicultural education. She finds that instead of dismantling “whiteness” — she defines this as “structural arrangements and ideologies of racial dominance within the United States” — multicultural education, as offered in this school district, protects it.

Angelina E. Castagno , an associate professor of educational leadership and foundations at Northern Arizona University, writes that her findings should not be surprising considering the teachers she observed and interviewed “were predominantly White, middle-class individuals who, for the most part, have little reason to disrupt the status quo and the current relations of power.”

“Most educators are well intentioned and want what is best for their students, but whiteness is protected despite (and sometimes through) even the best intentions,” Castagno writes. “Part of the problem is that most educators are not aware of whiteness. But in addition to this lack of awareness, most educators are also invested in the status quo of whiteness.”

She notes the importance of getting a better understanding of how teachers are teaching the topic.

“All teachers, administrators, multicultural education scholars, and teacher/administrator educators need a better understanding and awareness of how multicultural education is understood by teachers in schools across the country,” Castagno writes. “While there is much research highlighting the efforts of some teachers who seem to have embraced more critical forms of multicultural education, these teachers probably do not represent the majority of teachers in most schools.”

Problems in how colleges train teachers

Supporting Critical Multicultural Teacher Educators: Transformative Teaching, Social Justice Education, and Perceptions of Institutional Support Paul C. Gorski and Gillian Parekh. Intercultural Education , 2020.

This study looks at how college instructors teach multicultural education to students in the U.S. and Canada who are studying to become schoolteachers. It finds that college instructors who teach a more conservative version of multicultural education perceive their higher education institution to be more supportive of their work.

The researchers analyze data collected from a survey of 186 people who teach multicultural education to future teachers, conducted in 2015 and 2016. Researchers recruited participants by reaching out to instructors individually and by posting invitations on social media platforms used by instructors. About 90% of survey participants taught at institutions in the U.S.

Instructors answered questions related to the ideological approach they took in their multicultural teacher education courses — whether they took a conservative, liberal and critical approach.

The authors explain that the conservative form of multicultural teacher education, or MTE, “is assimilationist; it prepares teachers to help marginalized students conform to ‘mainstream culture and its attending values, mores, and norms.’” Meanwhile, liberal MTE “prepares teachers to celebrate diversity but, like conservative MTE, fails to prepare them to understand or respond to ways power and inequity are wielded in schools,” write Paul Gorski , founder of the Equity Literacy Institute, and Gillian Parekh , an assistant professor of education at York University. “Critical MTE prepares teachers to participate in the reconstruction of schools by advocating equity, confronting issues of power and privilege, and disrupting oppressive policies and practices.”

Gorski and Parekh find that multicultural teacher education classes “tend to have a conservative or liberal orientation, focused on appreciating diversity or cultural competence, rather than a critical orientation, focused on preparing teachers to address inequity.” That might be because instructors believe their institutions are less supportive of courses that take a critical approach, the researchers write.

“Our results indicate that multicultural teacher educators’ perceptions regarding whether the values they teach in their MTE courses are supported by their institutions is correlated with the criticality with which they design and teach those courses,” Gorski and Parekh write.

Instructors who take a conservative approach “pose no real threat to the injustices MTE ought to disrupt, perceive significantly greater institutional support for the values they teach in their MTE courses,” according to the authors. “Contrarily, those who employ a critical approach perceive significantly less institutional support.”

What We’re Teaching Teachers: An Analysis of Multicultural Teacher Education Coursework Syllabi Paul C. Gorski. Teaching and Teacher Education , 2008.

This study, which Gorski also authored, looks at course syllabi to see how U.S. colleges were teaching multicultural education to future teachers. Even though it is an older study, it offers insights into how colleges approached the issue at the time. The gist of Gorski’s findings: “The analysis revealed that most of the courses were designed to prepare teachers with pragmatic skills and personal awareness, but not to prepare them in accordance with the key principles of multicultural education, such as critical consciousness and a commitment to educational equity.”

Gorski analyzed 45 class syllabi from college courses designed to train teachers in multicultural education. Of them, 30 were undergraduate courses and 15 were graduate courses. Gorski finds that “only twelve syllabi (26.7%) seemed designed to prepare teachers to be what might be called authentic multicultural educators.”

Social Foundations and Multicultural Education Course Requirements in Teacher Preparation Programs in the United States Richard Neumann. Educational Foundations , Summer-Fall 2010.

In this study, Richard Neumann , a professor of education at San Diego State University, looks at whether teacher colleges in the U.S. require students to complete coursework in multicultural education. The key takeaway: At the time, fewer than half of the 302 universities studied required students wanting to become teachers to take a course in multicultural education.

Among programs that train students to work as elementary school teachers, 45% required at least one course in multicultural education. For programs that train secondary school teachers, 45% required students to complete at least one multicultural education course. Neumann learned that a larger percentage of public university programs required a multicultural education course than did programs offered at private universities.

Self-Efficacy and Multicultural Teacher Education in the United States: The Factors That Influence Who Feels Qualified to be a Multicultural Teacher Educator Paul C. Gorski, Shannon N. Davis and Abigail Reiter. Multicultural Perspectives , 2012.

This paper looks at which educators feel most qualified to teach multicultural education to students studying to become teachers. The analysis, based on a survey of 75 college instructors, indicates that Black educators tend to feel less qualified to teach multicultural teacher education courses than their counterparts of other races and ethnicities.

Heterosexual educators felt more qualified to teach multicultural teacher education courses than their LGBTQ counterparts, according to the paper, of which Gorski is the lead author. The other two authors are Shannon N. Davis , director of the PhD program in sociology at George Mason University, and Abigail Reiter , an assistant professor in the sociology and criminal justice department of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

The study also indicates that instructors’ experience working in schools — as elementary, middle or high school teachers — or their work as education activists “had no significant influence on their feelings of being qualified to teach MTE [multicultural teacher education] courses.”

Key resources

• This May 2020 report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows how student demographics have changed over time and are predicted to change by 2029.
• This February 2019 report from NCES finds that in fall 2015, the majority of white public school students were enrolled at schools where minority students comprised 25% or less of the student population.
• This September 2020 report from NCES examines public school teacher demographics. More than three-fourths of teachers working in U.S. public schools — 79% — were white as of 2017-18, the most recent academic year for which the federal government has complete data.
• Here is a list of the country’s top education schools , ranked by U.S. News & World Report .
• Kansas State University’s Tilford Group is a research organization that focuses on multicultural education.
• The National Education Association , one of the nation’s largest teacher unions, offers educators various types of training through its Center for Social Justice .
• The nonprofit National Association for Multicultural Education provides a range of relevant resources. The organization’s president is Lisa Zagumny , who also is the dean and director of doctoral studies at Tennessee Technological University’s College of Education.

About The Author

Denise-Marie Ordway

What Is Multicultural Education? An Educator’s Guide to Teaching Diverse Students

The United States has always been a multicultural country. As a result, the US education system is made up of students from a variety of backgrounds. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 50.7 million students attended public elementary and secondary schools in 2018, bringing a variety of backgrounds, languages, perspectives, and cultures to the classroom. Since culture and education have an impact on each other, it is important for people of all cultures to value education and for the education system to value all cultures.

Educators can use different teaching methods to promote multicultural education. They can cultivate learning environments that benefit diverse student populations. Even though instruction often relies on the contents of specific curricula, teachers can infuse multicultural education into every element of their instruction, from the projects they assign to the lessons they teach. Teachers in the US education system should be willing to ask what multicultural education is and how they can incorporate it effectively.

What Is Multicultural Education?

Multicultural education values different student cultures and prepares students to thrive in a diverse world. At its core, multicultural education fosters equality, justice, and equity, and it establishes the reality of philosophical ideals in classroom environments. Multicultural education is what schools implement to establish equitable educational opportunities for all their students. It is also an ongoing process of helping students succeed in their academic and personal lives.

Teachers, administrators, and school leaders play an important role in ensuring the incorporation of multicultural education by selecting and managing policies, curricula, and teaching styles. The practice relies on educators who value the histories and experiences of diverse groups of students. Schools and teachers can approach multicultural education in a variety of ways, supporting students as they develop positive perspectives of their own cultures as well as the cultures of their peers. By incorporating culturally responsive pedagogy in curricula and teaching practices, teachers can create an inclusive classroom that values all students.

Four Ways Educators Can Implement Multicultural Education in the Classroom

There are many ways educators can promote social justice and equity in schools, from working to hire a more diverse teacher workforce to mindfully selecting assigned readings that reflect broad cultural diversity. Additionally, teachers promoting equal learning opportunities for students of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds can implement multicultural education in the classroom in the following ways:

Be Aware of Biases

For educators to understand what multicultural education is and implement it in their classrooms, they need to be aware of potential biases. While teachers may be open minded and want to deliver equitable instruction, they may have underlying biases they may not be aware of.

Further, teachers should understand they may be working with students from many backgrounds who may have biases against one another for cultural, racial, ethnic, or religious reasons. To cultivate safe and productive learning environments, teachers should be aware of any bias and work toward dissipating it. Teachers can also challenge the status quo by inspiring students to address social and school-based inequities that create unequal experiences for marginalized people. Students can be taught to recognize inequities in their classroom and community and use the classroom to discuss real problems their students identify.

Value Life Experiences

It’s important for educators to value their students’ experiences. Students bring unique perspectives to the classroom and can share their own stories or those of family members. Allowing students to share these experiences with their classmates can accomplish at least two goals: providing validation for the students who share similar experiences and introducing students to new perspectives. Teachers can also incorporate the history, values, and cultural knowledge of students’ home communities in the classroom instruction. This transformative practice validates students’ identities and communicates the importance of learning about others’ experiences.

Understand Student Learning Styles

Teachers can promote equitable learning by being aware of their students’ various learning styles, which can be influenced by their backgrounds and upbringing. Some students may be visual learners, others tactile learners or auditory learners. To embody what multicultural education is, teachers can vary their methods of instruction to reach all of their students. Teachers should design lessons that allow students to express their thoughts and experiences in their own voices. Teachers can encourage students to learn from one another’s experiences and ask questions that promote understanding.

Assign Multicultural Projects

Teachers can emphasize the importance of different cultural backgrounds represented in their classrooms through lessons and assignments. They can highlight different cultures in their curricula embedding the study of diverse cultures and peoples in their core academic content. All students can engage with this authentic reading, writing, and problem-solving experiences. Students can write about their family histories or interview family members. They can work with each other to learn about new cultures.

Benefits of Implementing Multicultural Education

Teachers who ask themselves “What is multicultural education?” can develop curricula around their students’ cultural backgrounds. Students in multicultural educational environments can learn how to value all cultures, bonding with peers over what makes them similar as well as what makes them unique. If students learn from a young age to be comfortable with differences, they are less likely to develop biases toward people of a different race or ethnicity. Ideally, they may become inclusive adults, free from racial or ethnic biases.

Implementing multicultural education benefits not only individual students but also society as a whole. Multicultural education has long-term benefits for students because those who learn to appreciate and value the cultural diversity of their peers will ideally grow up to be adults who likewise promote equality and justice.

Pursue a Master of Arts in Teaching or Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership

To apply effective teaching practices with diverse student groups, teachers should understand how to create equitable learning environments and multicultural education classrooms. Teachers interested in implementing multicultural education techniques in their classrooms can pursue advanced degrees to understand how laws, policies, and leadership play a role in establishing curricula and coursework that positively impact students. Throughout their coursework, they can train as a classroom teacher through placement in an actual school setting. Teachers interested in honing their skills as multicultural educators can pursue a Master of Education in Education Leadership at American University, choosing from courses including Education Program and Policy Implementation and Educational Leadership and Organizational Change. The American University program prepares teachers to become leaders in education and gain insight into legal education policies and programs. They develop research skills to help organizations enact legal and economic policies.

Educators can also further their academic journeys by earning a Master of Arts in Teaching, choosing from courses such as Effective Teaching for Diverse Students and Theories of Educational Psychology and Human Development. They learn how to develop evidence-based coursework in order to help establish multicultural education classrooms.

Advance Your Career Today

American University’s School of Education prepares graduate students who want to transition to a career as a classroom teacher, students who are teaching assistants, and current teachers who want to earn an advanced degree while teaching. They learn how to create equitable and effective learning environments in which students from diverse backgrounds can flourish. Explore how American University’s Master of Arts in Teaching and Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership degree programs can help you gain insight into what multicultural education is and further your goals as an educator.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies: Importance, Benefits & Tips

EdD vs. PhD in Education: Requirements, Career Outlook, and Salary

Transformational Leadership in Education

Classroom, “Pros & Cons of Multicultural Education”

The Edvocate, “6 Things That Educators Should Know about Multicultural Education”

The National Association for Multicultural Education, “Definitions of Multicultural Education”

National Center for Education Statistics, “Digest of Education Statistics”

National Center for Education Statistics, “English Language Learners in Public Schools”

Studies Weekly, “On Education: Creating a Better Multicultural Curriculum”

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Multicultural Education in Today’s Classrooms

Multicultural education prepares students to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens in an interconnected global society. Schools have a significant role in developing values in their students that affirm cultural differences and promote democratic ideals. By implementing multicultural education practices, teachers can help all students develop a positive self-concept and attain the highest levels of academic achievement. 1

Many people cite the Immigration Act of 1965 as the major policy initiative that opened the way for new waves of immigrants and unleashed concerns about a decaying national community. However, a quick review of history shows that multicultural ideals have been present since the founding of our country. From Moroccan Muslims in Revolutionary South Carolina to Filipino Americans who fought in the War of 1812, multiculturalism has been a persistent reality throughout American history. 2

Though schools have always been filled with learners of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures, diversity in classrooms is increasing faster than ever. In 2019, for the first time, more than half of the US population under age 16 identified as a racial or ethnic minority. 3

Teachers can promote cultural competence, celebrate global perspectives, and create inclusive classrooms and inclusive learning environments by embracing multicultural education. However, multicultural ideals aren't possible without social justice in education. Teachers must also address issues of racism, sexism, ableism, religious intolerance, and other forms of prejudice.

Read on to learn more about the benefits of multicultural education and effective implementation strategies.

Implementing multicultural education

The core of multicultural education is thinking about how your lessons resonate with all of your students. When you understand that your students have a cultural filter that colors how they process information, you can develop strategies to incorporate that perspective into your classroom practices. 4 This approach of incorporating students' cultural identities into your lessons and classroom is often called "culturally responsive teaching." 5

Multicultural education teaching strategy: Know your students

Understanding your students, including their backgrounds and challenges, is the first step in inclusive teaching. Spend the first few class meetings getting to know your students. You can do surveys or interviews and ask questions about your students’ likes, dislikes, interests, and responsibilities outside of school. With older students, you can explore social justice in education by asking about racial incidents they’ve experienced inside and outside of school. 6

Culturally responsive teaching strategy: Examine your biases

No matter how hard you try to be objective, your beliefs, values, and predispositions affect how you relate to your students. Left unexamined, these biases can reinforce stereotypes and negative school environments. Hidden biases can lead to lower classroom expectations for students of color and girls in STEM subjects, as shown in studies published in The Journal of School Psychology and Developmental Psychology . 7,8,9

You can take hidden bias tests to measure your unconscious or automatic biases. Even people who are committed to social justice can have hidden negative stereotypes and prejudices. Uncovering these attitudes is the first step to changing them and building your cross-cultural understanding. You may not be able to avoid automatic prejudice, but it is possible to work to consciously rectify it. 10

Culturally responsive teaching strategy: Celebrate diverse holidays

When you only celebrate mainstream holidays, you show your students that those holidays are the only ones that matter to you. Inclusive holiday planning is a fun, effective way to create a strong community, encourage global perspectives, and show your students you value all of them.

Use a diversity calendar to bring celebrations from different countries and cultures into your classroom. Take time to discuss the holidays with your students, including exploring how different cultures celebrate the same holiday. 11

Culturally responsive teaching strategy: Create an inclusive classroom

A culturally responsive classroom helps all students access rigorous instruction and develop high-level academic skills by connecting their cultures, life experiences, and languages with what they learn in school.

Make your classroom more culturally responsive by: 12

• Building a positive environment: Set the stage by establishing a nurturing environment where students feel welcome, safe, and respected. Greeting students at the door is an easy way to let them know you’re glad to see them.
• Reflecting your students in their learning: Many new curricula are designed to be more inclusive. However, if you have to use one that isn’t, you can adapt it. Bring in books, music, and other learning materials that represent many different cultures.
• Setting high expectations for all students: You should expect all of your students to achieve academic success. Help students set and meet goals through differentiation and scaffolding to close learning gaps.

The benefits of multicultural education

Multicultural pedagogy incorporates students’ cultural knowledge and experiences to create more equitable learning opportunities. Such culturally responsive teaching can have positive effects on student outcomes. 13

Classroom communities that support students from all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds experience the following benefits:

Equity and inclusion benefit: Increased empathy

Intercultural communication and experiences, such as having students discuss current events from around the world or hosting an international food day, promote cultural awareness and increase student empathy. Learners who understand and appreciate diversity in their peers can employ critical thinking skills and offer empathy with solving problems with others. 14

Equity and inclusion benefit: Reduced achievement Gap

Traditional school constructs perpetuate and maintain achievement gaps among minority students. Equity and inclusion in the classroom reduce achievement gaps by focusing on student achievement and engagement.

Culturally responsive pedagogy increases student achievement and sense of belonging and improves student behavior, according to a review of studies published in The Journal of Education and Learning . One study mentioned that when teachers used real-life examples, photos, and videos that related to students’ cultural heritage, students became more comfortable in school and related to their peers better. 15

Cultural competence benefit: Improved critical thinking skills

According to a study in The Journal of Education and e-Learning Research , students experienced significant gains in social attitudes and critical thinking skills when presented with problems that relate to real-life situations students in the classroom might face.

Students then discussed and problem-solved around a discussion that emphasized human rights, unity, social justice, and democracy. Students could examine and analyze problems and suggest solutions by separating empirical data from unsupported opinions. 16

Understanding cultural diversity in modern classrooms

Today, classrooms across the country and around the world are becoming increasingly diverse, representing a rich tapestry of cultural backgrounds. As educators, we have the responsibility to understand and appreciate this diversity, ensuring that every student feels seen, heard, and valued.

Embracing the power of diverse students

By recognizing and valuing the strengths and contributions of diverse students, schools can cultivate an environment where everyone thrives. Students from diverse backgrounds bring unique perspectives, stories, and experiences to the classroom, enriching the learning experience for all.

Challenging cultural biases and stereotypes

It's essential to continuously reflect on our own cultural beliefs and identify any unintentional biases. By doing so, we can create a classroom environment that promotes cultural understanding and challenges stereotypes, allowing students to share their cultural traditions and histories.

Culturally responsive teaching strategies

Incorporating culturally responsive teaching strategies is more than just a trend; it's a necessity. As our classrooms become more diverse, educators need to adjust their teaching practices to be inclusive of all students.

Diverse literature in the classroom

Introduce diverse literature into the curriculum. Exposing students to stories from different cultures allows them to see the world through various lenses and gain a better understanding of other cultures. This promotes cultural awareness and encourages students to value the rich tapestry of global narratives.

The role of classroom activities

Engaging classroom activities, designed keeping in mind the diverse backgrounds of students, foster a sense of belonging. Activities that cater to different learning styles and incorporate students' cultural backgrounds encourage active participation and deepen understanding.

Collaborating with families, caregivers, and communities

To truly implement multicultural education in schools, educators must extend their efforts beyond the classroom walls.

Engaging family members and caregivers in education

Family members and caregivers, especially from diverse cultures, can be invaluable resources. By involving families and caregivers, we gain insights into students' backgrounds, which can guide teaching strategies and classroom activities. This collaboration promotes a sense of community and helps students see the direct relevance of what they're learning.

Leveraging community resources

From local cultural centers to speakers who represent various ethnic groups, the community is a treasure trove of resources that can enhance multiculturalism in the classroom. These partnerships not only enrich the curriculum but also help students connect their learning to the real world.

Overcoming challenges in multicultural education

Despite its numerous benefits, implementing multicultural education isn't without challenges. Whether it's resistance from certain quarters or the status quo of an established educational system, educators must be proactive in navigating these challenges.

Overcoming resource limitations

While many educators are eager to implement multicultural classroom strategies, they might face constraints such as limited access to relevant resources. Collaboration with colleagues and tapping into digital resources can provide a wider range of materials that reflect diverse perspectives.

In conclusion, as the world becomes more interconnected, the importance of cultural diversity in education cannot be overstated. Schools that embrace this shift and invest in multicultural education are not only preparing students to thrive in a diverse world but are also shaping the leaders of tomorrow.

Charting a path toward a culturally cohesive future

In the evolving tapestry of education, envisioning a future centered around multicultural inclusivity and understanding is paramount. Our classrooms are the crucibles where this transformation begins, molding the next generation.

Cultivating culturally aware global citizens

With a deep appreciation for each student's identity and cultural background, educators have the power to shape culturally aware individuals. Every student’s diverse experiences and perspectives are invaluable. By celebrating these differences and encouraging students to explore other cultures, we not only enrich their academic journey but also pave the way for them to become inclusive adults in a diverse world.

The imperative of celebrating diversity

The richness of our global community is reflected in the diverse range of stories, traditions, and histories present in our classrooms. Encouraging students to challenge and expand their own perspectives and to understand their peers’ diverse experiences is foundational. As educators, our role is to promote multiculturalism, ensuring every student feels seen, valued, and empowered, ready to celebrate diversity and contribute positively to an interconnected world.

Grow your career and positively influence students’ lives

Advance your career in educational leadership by enrolling in the University of Kansas School of Education and Human Sciences. This highly-ranked, completely online program will provide the expertise and skills you need to lead educational organizations and effect change that improves outcomes for students from all backgrounds.

With the most up-to-date curriculum, interactive learning opportunities, and highly qualified faculty, you’ll be equipped to shape the future of education. Contact an admissions outreach advisor today to learn more.

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International Journal of Multicultural Education

About the Journal

International Journal of Multicultural Education (IJME) is a free , peer-reviewed open-access journal for scholars, practitioners, and students of multicultural education. Committed to promoting educational equity for diverse students, cross-cultural understanding, and global justice for marginalized people in all levels of education, including leadership and policies, IJME publishes three types of articles: (1) qualitative research studies that explicitly address multicultural educational issues; (2) conceptual and theoretical articles, typically grounded on in-depth literature review, which advance theories and scholarship of multicultural education; and (3) praxis articles that discuss successful multicultural education practices grounded on sound theories and literature. We encourage submissions resulted from meaningful and ethical collaboration among international scholars and practitioners. Submissions that advance from prescreening will be subject to originality-testing and double-blind peer review.

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• Bilingual research journal "The Bilingual Research Journal is the National Association for Bilingual Education’s premier scholarly, peer-reviewed research publication. Bilingual Research Journal delivers in-depth coverage of education theory and practice, dealing with bilingual education, bilingualism, and language policies in education."
• International journal of multicultural education "International Journal of Multicultural Education (IJME) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal for scholars, practitioners, and students of multicultural education. Committed to promoting educational equity for all, cross-cultural understanding, and global awareness in all levels of education including leadership and policies, IJME publishes (1) reports of empirical research typically in qualitative research orientation (some special issues may publish quantiative studies); (2) literature-based conceptual articles that advance theories and scholarship of multicultural education; and (3) praxis articles that discuss successful multicultural education practices grounded on sound theories."
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• Journal of multicultural counseling and development "Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development (JMCD) is concerned with research, theory, and program applications pertinent to multicultural and ethnic minority interests in all areas of counseling and human development."
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• Multicultural perspectives "Promotes the philosophy of social justices, equity and inclusion. It celebrates cultural and ethnic diversity as a national strength that enriches society."
• Multiple voices for ethnically diverse exceptional learners : a publication of the Division for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Exceptional Learners :Multiple Voices - Disability, Race, and Language Intersections in Special Education is the official, peer-reviewed journal of the Council for Exceptional Children's Division for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Exceptional Learners (DDEL). Multiple Voices is published twice a year and welcomes original research articles, conceptual or theoretical pieces, and book reviews that explores equitable educations for youth at the intersection of disability, race, ethnicity, and language."
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Effects of multicultural education on student engagement in low- and high-concentration classrooms: the mediating role of student relationships

• Original Paper
• Open access
• Published: 17 March 2023
• Volume 26 , pages 951–975, ( 2023 )

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• Ceren S. Abacioglu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9931-1401 1 ,
• Sacha Epskamp 2 ,
• Agneta H. Fischer 1 &
• Monique Volman 3  

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Having positive and meaningful social connections is one of the basic psychological needs of students. The satisfaction of this need is directly related to students’ engagement—a robust predictor of educational achievement. However, schools continue to be sites of interethnic tension and the educational achievement of ethnically-minoritized students still lags behind that of their ethnic majority peers. The goal of the present study was to provide a quantitative account of the current segregated learning environments in terms of multicultural curriculum and instruction, as well as their possible impact on student outcomes that can mitigate these challenges. Drawing upon Self-Determination Theory, we investigated the extent to which the use of multicultural practices can improve students’ engagement and whether this relationship is mediated by students’ peer relationships. With data from 34 upper primary school classroom teachers and their 708 students, our multigroup analysis using structural equation modeling indicated that, in classrooms with a low (compared with high) minoritized student concentration, peer relationships can mediate the positive as well as negative effects of different dimensions of multicultural education on student engagement.

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Introduction

Having positive and meaningful social connections (i.e., relatedness ) is one of the basic psychological needs of students. The satisfaction of this need is directly related to students’ intrinsic motivation and engagement—a strong predictor of positive academic outcomes (see Self-Determination Theory, SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985 ). Present educational institutions, however, are struggling to create learning environments in which all students experience equal levels of opportunities, representation, and belongingness (Huijnk et al., 2016 ). Interethnic tensions between students and their peers and teachers, and structural barriers such as mainstream education that do not relate to minoritized students’ personal experiences and frames of reference (Stevens et al., 2017a , b ), seem to be at the core of this challenge.

These challenges are especially costly for the minoritized students that are more disadvantaged in the societal ethnic hierarchy (Thijssen et al., 2021 ). They indicate feeling less and less at home, experiencing high levels of discrimination and low levels of acceptance, and feeling more pessimistic about having equal representation and opportunities in the Netherlands over the last decade, where the current study was conducted (Huijnk et al., 2016 ). Accordingly, they perform lower on academic indicators such as standardized test scores at the end of primary school and higher drop-out rates compared with their majority group peers (CBS, 2020 ).

One potential way to tackle this challenge is to incorporate into education more multicultural practices that have the potential to benefit all students. These practices are designed to mitigate inequality in education opportunities and improve intergroup relationships (Banks, 1995 ). Despite an increased interest in multicultural classrooms, it is noteworthy that very little is empirically known about the influence of different aspects of multicultural practices on the desired student outcomes. Yet, the growing demand for diversity research indicates a necessity to provide more-detailed accounts of learning environments in how they accommodate the diversity of their students and what this means for students’ social and academic functioning (Alt, 2017 ).

Drawing upon SDT, the current study examined whether different aspects of multicultural practices can be useful in increasing students’ engagement—an important predictor of positive academic outcomes (Fredricks et al., 2019 ), through its influence on students’ peer relationships and hence relatedness . As Dutch schools are highly segregated along ethnic lines (Huilla et al., 2022 ), we tested the proposed relationships in learning environments that afford different conditions for peer relationships, namely, classrooms with low and high ethnically-minoritized student concentrations.

The learning environment

The Social Identity Approach (Abrams & Hogg, 1990 ; Reicher et al., 2010 ), which includes the Social Identity and Self-Categorization Theories (Tajfel & Turner, 1979 ; Turner et al., 1987 ), contends that children learn about socially-significant group distinctions and define themselves and others in terms of their group memberships from an early age. This act of self-categorization into a group offers familiarity and pertinent cultural information about oneself and one’s group and serves as the starting point for understanding intergroup dynamics. The resulting ‘us’ (the ingroup) and ‘them’ (the outgroup) division is a significant source of influence on children’s attitudes and behavior toward their ingroup and outgroup (Liberman et al., 2017 ; Rhodes & Baron, 2019 ), and can result in prejudices between the majority and minoritized groups so that the ingroup is favored and outgroup members are occasionally disliked and rejected.

The learning environment is one element that can augment or counteract prejudice between groups. Cortés ( 2000 ) calls the sociocultural elements that affect and mould students’ attitudes toward various ethnic and racial groups the ‘societal curriculum’. Indeed, through both a manifest and a hidden curriculum, learning environments frequently promote and uphold the unfavorable stereotypes about ethnic groups that young people learn about in the wider world.

Lesson plans, textbooks, bulletin boards, curriculum guides, and other observable environmental elements make up the manifest curriculum . These can make remarks about the school's beliefs regarding ethnic diversity because the ethnic groups that appear in textbooks and other instructional materials tell students which groups the school thinks are significant or unimportant. The curriculum that all students acquire, but no teacher openly teaches, is known as the hidden curriculum . This curriculum expresses many of the important values of the school regarding cultural diversity through the teacher–student interactions, learning characteristics, language, motivational systems, and culture that are fostered by the school (Banks, 2004a , 2004b ).

In Dutch educational institutions, the curriculum, materials, and instruction tend to be primarily from the perspective of the dominant group, resulting in less relatable educational content and pedagogical practices that do not support ‘alternative’ ways of learning. As a result, minoritized groups’ histories and cultures are usually added as a mere side note to the regular curriculum and mentioning of social biases is kept to a minimum, thereby perpetuating the acceptance of existing inequalities and not providing equitable opportunities for development.

For instance, when Weiner ( 2018 ) looked at the representation of immigrants, multiculturalism, and tolerance in all Dutch primary school history textbooks released between 1980 and 2011, 81.3 percent of the 203 textbooks, workbooks, and activity books in 18 series produced since 1980 completely exclude minoritized cultures and identities. When they are discussed in textbooks, they are separated from the rest of Dutch society and placed in their own distinct sections. They are portrayed as culturally alien outsiders from underdeveloped, impoverished, and violent cultures who create issues for the Dutch community that kindly welcomes them.

These biases, in addition, are often mirrored in interpersonal interactions between students and teachers, and between peers (Thijs & Verkuyten, 2014 ). Weiner ( 2016 ) spent two days a week for three months in a diverse eighth group (equal to the sixth grade in the US) classroom in Amsterdam North, a district chosen for its ethnic and racial variety and relative socioeconomic homogeneity. According to Weiner's ( 2016 ) research, the White teacher reified cultural norms and discourses prevalent in Dutch culture, and positioned Dutch students without a migration background as superior and normative, even when they engaged in disruptive activities while placing students with a migration background in an inferior position in the country's ethnic and racial hierarchy.

Peer relationships and student engagement

Such cultural discontinuity between majority and minoritized students can result in difficulties considering the experiences and perspectives of the non-dominant group members (Dovidio et al., 2017 ) or name-calling from peers and exclusion from peer groups (Huijnk et al., 2016 ; Thijs & Verkuyten, 2014 ). Against this background, children rarely have friendships and casual contact with peers of a different ethnic background in multicultural Dutch classrooms (de Bruijn et al., 2020 ; Fortuin et al., 2014 ).

SDT posits that learning environments that feature conditions that satisfy students’ feelings of relatedness can stimulate greater student engagement—the extent to which a student is actively involved in learning activities (Skinner et al., 2016 ). Lower levels of feelings of relatedness, on the other hand, can inhibit learning motivation and engagement (Fredricks et al., 2019 ), which is manifested in multiple dimensions.

The behavioral dimension of engagement includes students’ efforts in initiating learning activities, and attention, concentration, persistence, and involvement during these activities. The emotional dimension of engagement includes enthusiasm, interest, enjoyment, and satisfaction states during learning activities. The cognitive dimension of engagement includes goal strivings, mastery orientation, self-regulation, and the use of coping strategies preceding and during learning activities. Some studies do not distinguish between cognitive and emotive components. Despite the fact that we frequently distinguish ‘rational thought’ from ‘emotion,’ both factors work together to influence our actions. Thus, some researchers combine the notions into a single term known as ‘cognitive-affective states’ rather than separating them (Baker et al., 2010 ). On a similar account, to the best of our knowledge, the measures that assess students’ engagement in primary-school-aged children do not separate the emotional and cognitive dimensions.

Previous research shows that the satisfaction of basic psychological needs positively influences different dimensions of student engagement to different extents (Dincer et al., 2019 ). These dimensions capture related but independently emerging factors that influence a student's active involvement in school (Salmela‐Aro et al., 2021 ), and they can have varying positive effects on academic outcomes based on the dimension (Lei et al., 2018 ). Therefore, we focused on the emotional and behavioral aspects of engagement separately, but without an isolated cognitive dimension, and consider multicultural education as a tool to improve students’ engagement through its influence on students’ peer relationships, hence relatedness.

• Multicultural education

Concerned with critically examining inequitable structures, providing students with equal opportunities, understanding cultural diversity, and incorporating multiple perspectives into education (Nieto, 2004 ), multicultural education offers a set of practices that are designed to enhance intergroup relations and reach similar educational achievement levels by considering the needs of students from all backgrounds (Klein, 2012 ). Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985 ; Reeve, 2002 ) connects these two outcomes together through the relationship between satisfaction of the basic psychological need for relatedness and student engagement. We, therefore, examine the influence of multicultural education on students’ peer relationships (as a proxy to relatedness) and engagement using the SDT framework.

Banks ( 2004a , 2004b ) provides a detailed conceptualization of multicultural education that includes five distinct but highly interrelated dimensions. We used these dimensions to investigate the relationships between multicultural education, peer relationships, and engagement. In his conceptualization, teachers should employ content integration from a variety of cultures in what they teach, reflecting and representing the diversity of their students through texts, histories, values, beliefs, and varying perspectives from different cultures. Moreover, teachers should increase their students’ awareness of the knowledge construction process and help students to be critical about who the knowledge serves and from whose perspective it was constructed (e.g., cultural references, biases). Next, teachers should aim for prejudice reduction by modifying their students’ attitudes through teaching methods, materials, and dialogue to decrease negative and improve positive intergroup relations by actively counteracting social biases (i.e., prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination). Further, teachers should aim for an empowering school culture and social structure , by examining disproportionality in attendance and achievement between groups in various aspects of school (e.g., to giftedness programs). Lastly, teachers should strive for equity pedagogy (i.e., equity in how they teach, by modifying their teaching to include various teaching and assessment styles to facilitate the learning and academic achievement of all students). This requires avoiding standardized, one-size-fits-all approaches to teaching and learning, relating content to students’ lives, and creating opportunities for them to engage with learning in various forms (e.g., cooperative learning, problem-based learning, role-playing, simulations).

Therefore, multicultural education, through promoting student representation and involvement in the educational curriculum, instruction, and materials, improves students’ abilities to understand and interpret the perspectives, worldviews, frames of references, and values and behaviors that are normative to ethnic and racial groups other than their own (Banks, 2004a , 2004b ). It integrates content from a variety of cultures into instruction and provides opportunities to critically examine content from a variety of perspectives. Thereby, it provides students with an opportunity to express their voices and makes teaching relevant and meaningful for all students (Banks, 2004a , 2004b ).

Such teaching activities are more likely to be engaging for students because they acknowledge students’ experiences and emotions related to a topic (Skinner et al., 2016 ). They tend to include content that deals with issues and problems that relate to students’ worlds, including their norms, values, identities, and struggles (Banks, 2004a , 2004b ; Gay, 2013 ). A recent path analysis study, conducted with 110 ethnically-minoritized middle-school students from the United States, for instance, examined whether culturally-responsive teaching and teacher expectations had positive associations with Latinx students’ academic outcomes (Garcia & Chun, 2016 ). They found that, when teachers try to find out what students find interesting and what they already know, build on that knowledge and use it to exemplify new teaching content (i.e., content integration ) by using various teaching techniques (i.e., equity pedagogy ), and have high expectations of their students, they are more likely to help students to engage in learning and to have more positive beliefs about their achievement outcomes.

Moreover, students infer whose culture and history are worth studying and whose experiences are worth mentioning from the content studied in their classrooms. When the content includes multiple voices and perspectives as to how life can be experienced and understood, it not only makes the content more relevant for more students but also promotes positive ethnic identity and gives ‘permission’ to students to be their authentic selves and to accept each other as they are (Piper, 2019 ).

For instance, in a study conducted with children between the age of 6 and 11 years (Hughes et al., 2007 ), researchers compared pretest and posttest results of prejudiced attitudes towards African Americans in an experimental and in a control group. The experimental group learned about acclaimed African American leaders, together with discussion of examples of their experiences with discrimination (i.e., prejudice reduction ). In contrast, the control group only received biographical information about the leaders without any discussions on racism. Compared with the control group, European American children in the experimental group showed lower degrees of prejudice towards African Americans, and both African American and European American children displayed greater valuing of ‘interracial’ fairness.

Multicultural education not only has the potential to improve students’ engagement through offering content that is relevant to students’ lives, but it also has the potential to increase student engagement through improved understanding, positive peer relationships, and thus improved feelings of relatedness.

(Un)Equal status environments

It is evident from previous research that the learning environment can help students to become less prejudiced and acquire more democratic attitudes, values, and behaviours—fostering dialogue about issues related to prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination, and creating an appreciation of differences as a resource for social and academic development (Banks, 2004a , 2004b ).

However, decades of research on Intergroup Contact Theory (Allport, 1954 ; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006 ) suggests that instruction must be designed especially for this purpose and must take place in a learning environment that has several identifiable characteristics, including equal status between groups. Similarly, the Social Identity Approach (Abrams & Hogg, 1990 ; Reicher et al., 2010 ) stresses that psychological processes are influenced by the local and larger sociocultural context rather than general ingroup favouritism (Verkuyten, 2022 ).

Thus, depending on the characteristics of the learning environment, one’s group membership can become salient and relevant. Importantly, in situations in which the perceived status of the groups is unequal, which can be influenced both by the ethnic group hierarchies and the ethnic composition of the environment (Olonisakin, 2021 ; Radke et al., 2017 ), disadvantaged groups might try to change the status quo, whereas dominant groups might legitimize inequality in order to defend their position as the dominant group (Pehrson et al., 2017 ). Evidence suggests that disadvantaged groups could attempt to alter unstable status through higher levels of ingroup favouritism in order to make up for perceived disparity and/or to compete for future status and attain equality with the dominant outgroup (Rubin et al., 2014 ). Similarly, in environments where the dominant group members are in the numerical majority, they can develop in-group favoritism if their perceived representativeness of the larger social group is challenged (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999 ; Steffens et al., 2017 ; Wenzel et al., 2007 ) by, for example, bringing out the diversity of perspectives and values. In such environments, dominant group members are more likely to see themselves as highly representative of the larger group (e.g., Dutch people in the Netherlands) compared with environments in which they are likely to see themselves as just another ethnic group among many others and therefore are in the numerical minority (e.g., Dutch people in Europe).

We investigated the role of multicultural education practices on students’ peer relationships and engagement in learning environments that differ in their conduciveness to equal status based on the demographic complexion of the classrooms. In doing so, we examined the role of both the pedagogical elements of the learning environment (i.e., how hidden and manifest curricula are enacted) and the structural elements of the learning environment (i.e., the degree to which the classrooms afford contact between students from different backgrounds) in students’ social and academic functioning. Specifically, in the Netherlands, schools are segregated along ethnic lines. Schools where 70% or more children come from migrant backgrounds, and schools where 70% or more children have no migration history, are accepted as highly concentrated with minoritized and majority group students, respectively (Wielzen & van Dijk-Groeneboer, 2018 ). In the current study, therefore, we defined classrooms with ethnically minoritized student concentration equal to or less than 30% as low-concentration, 30–70% as mixed , and 70% or higher as high-concentration classrooms. To reach comparable sample sizes, we combined the mixed and high -concentration classrooms.

Current study

Our hypothesized model depicted in Fig.  1 is tested low- and high-concentration classrooms. It presents both a direct relationship between multicultural practices and student engagement because we can expect multicultural education to provide education that connects to students’ lives and hence is more relevant and engaging, and an indirect relationship that is mediated by students’ peer relationships (relatedness) as we can expect multicultural education to improve understanding and rapport between members of different groups.

Structural equation models. Note. The solid lines represent the significant relationships that vary in thickness depending on their strength. The standardized regression coefficients of the significant relationships are indicated in the figures. The observed indicators for the latent student variables are omitted from the graph for clarity. * =  p  < .05, ** =  p  < .01

A body of student- and teacher-level control variables also was incorporated into our models. Previous research has shown a normative steady decline in engagement throughout school years, and more so for male students (Wigfield et al., 2015 ). Moreover, multicultural education has been suggested as having positive effects on majority and minoritized students through varying mechanisms (Abacioglu et al., 2019 ). However, we did not investigate these mechanisms in the scope of our study. Therefore, student-level control variables included students, age, gender, and ethnic background.

Moreover, teachers from minoritized backgrounds themselves have been suggested to relate to the cultural discontinuity that students might be experiencing and thus practise multicultural education more frequently (Rychly & Graves, 2012 ) and effectively (Bingham & Okagaki, 2012 ). Similarly, because women have been found to be more sensitive to people’s distress (Christov-Moore et al., 2014 ), female teachers might be more vigilant about challenges that students experience and might be more likely to engage in practices such as prejudice reduction (Banks, 2004a , 2004b ). Additionally, teachers might learn more about different cultures, value differences in backgrounds, and develop more-positive interethnic and intercultural attitudes with increasing years of teaching experience and exposure to different cultures (Dovidio et al., 2017 ). Lastly, there is a distinction made between public and so-called ‘denominational’ schools in the Netherlands. Although both types of schools are publicly funded, the latter teach on the basis of religion, a specific philosophy or vision of education, whereas the former do not, which could affect the degree to which teachers employ multicultural practices. Therefore, we included teachers’ gender, ethnicity, teaching experience, and whether they teach in public or denominational schools as teacher-level control variables in our models.

Participants

Participants were recruited from schools that collaborate with the Primary Teacher Education Program of [removed for peer review]. In total, data were gathered from 34 upper primary school classroom teachers and their 708 students. We removed one student for missing more than 75% of the responses. Footnote 1 The remaining sample included teachers with a mean age of 38.87 ( SD = 11.20), who were predominantly female (64%) and without a migration history (82.7%) based on whether either of their parents had a migration history, or who identified with an ethnic identity other than or in addition to Dutch. Teachers had an average of 12.20 years of teaching experience ( SD = 9.36). Additionally, about half of the teachers were appointed in denominational schools (47.9%).

Participating students’ ages ranged from 7–13 ( M age  = 10.66, SD  = 1.11). About half of the students were female (52.6%). Based on whether either of their parents had a migration history, or whether they identified with an ethnic identity other than or in addition to Dutch, about 45% of students were identified as belonging to a group with a migration history.

Teacher-level measures

Teachers responded to 13 statements on a 5-point Likert-type scale, about their practices in student assessment, curriculum and instruction, classroom management, and cultural enrichment. The items were based on the Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (Siwatu, 2007 ), but were shortened and adapted to measure practices in the classrooms. The scale has been successfully used in previous research (e.g., Abacioglu et al., 2020 ). It is referred to as the Culturally Responsive Teaching Scale (CRTS; α = 0.81) from hereon. An example item from the survey is “I make use of examples that are relatable for students from culturally different backgrounds” (1 = ‘never’, 5 = ‘always’).

Some items were excluded from the original 40-item scale before data collection because of the following reasons: they did not focus on cultural aspects of teaching and instruction (e.g., “I communicate with parents regarding the progress of their child’s education”), they were too subject-specific, or they were too similar to other items. A previous study provided us with data from the full Culturally Responsive Teaching Scale that was adapted to measure teacher practices (Abacioglu et al., 2020 ). We therefore could check with a different sample about whether excluding these items would have a big impact on the reliability of the scale. Cronbach’s alpha for that sample was 0.90 before and 0.88 after the item reduction. Therefore, we felt confident to exclude these items from the scale.

CRTS items corresponded to only three out of five multicultural education dimensions delineated by Banks ( 2004a , 2004b ). We used these categories to formulate the multicultural education variables that we used in our structural equation models Footnote 2 : teachers’ content integration (α = 0.62), prejudice reduction (α = 0.61), and equity pedagogy (α = 0.76).

Demographics

Teachers reported on the proportion of ethnically minoritized students in their classrooms, whether their school is a denominational school, their own age, gender, ethnic background, and years of teaching experience in years.

Student-level measures

• Peer relationships

A revised version of the Well-being in Relation to Fellow Students questionnaire (Peetsma et al., 2001 ) was used to assess students’ peer relations. It previously was used in a large-scale Dutch research mapping school careers of students from primary until the end of secondary school (COOL 5−18 ; Driessen et al., 2009 ). The original scale of 6 items was combined with 4 items from the Social Integration in the Class questionnaire from Van Damme et al., ( 2002 ). Students responded to 10 statements about (not) getting along with their peers in the classroom (1 = ‘not correct at all’, 5 = ‘very correct’). A sample item includes “In my class, I sometimes feel alone” (see Supplementary Materials for the items). Cronbach’s alpha for the combined scale was 0.86.

• Student engagement

Students responded to 12 statements on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = ‘no, that is not true’, 5 = ‘yes, that is true’) about their engagement in the classroom. Items were based on the Engagement Versus Disaffection with Learning Scale (Skinner et al., 2008 ) and have been successfully used in previous research (e.g., Abacioglu et al., 2019b ). Half of the statements measure students’ attention, effort, and persistence in initiating and participating in learning activities, reflecting their Behavioral Engagement (α = 0.77). The other half measure students’ motivated participation during learning activities, reflecting their Emotional Engagement (α = 0.65). Examples of items from the subscales are “I try hard to do well in school” and “I enjoy learning new things in class”, respectively. While the reliability of the Emotional Engagement subscale was below optimal, the construct showed good model fit when tested with confirmatory factor analysis (detailed in Supplementary Materials).

Students reported their age, gender, and ethnic backgrounds. Students were assigned to the ethnically minoritized group if they reported either of their parents as having a migration history or if they identified with an ethnic identity other than or in addition to Dutch; the rest of the students were categorized as the ethnic majority group.

Data analysis

Structural equation modeling (SEM) has the advantage of testing complicated mediation models in a single analysis, simultaneously allowing multiple independent and outcome variables (Gunzler et al., 2013 ). Therefore, we chose to use SEM to investigate our data. We validated our latent constructs, namely, the multicultural education factors that we suggested for the Culturally Responsive Teaching Scale items, and the peer relationships and student engagement factors using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which is detailed in the Supplementary Materials. After CFA, we continued to define our structural model and examined its fit across two groups by looking at measurement invariance and conducting a multigroup analysis. We used the statistical software R (RStudio Version 1.2.1335) package lavaan version 0.6–5 (Rosseel, 2012 ) to specify, estimate, and analyze our models.

Structural equation modeling

Based on the CFA results, we expanded the measurement models by specifying the relationships between the latent variables (i.e., formed the structural model), by creating a non-saturated model, using sum scores for the multicultural education factors (content integration, prejudice reduction, and equity pedagogy) and reflective latent factors for the rest of the variables: student peer relationships, and behavioral and emotional engagement.

We initially planned on using multilevel structural equation modeling to account for the hierarchical nature of our data. To find support for a multilevel approach, we examined the proportion of variance in the student-level variables that was explained by the grouping variable (i.e., teacher). We calculated the ratio of group-level error variance to the total error variance (Intraclass Correlation Coefficients; ICC1) for each item of the latent student-level factors, using the residual data set, which ranged between 0 to 0.006. Given the small values, we decided to use a simpler non-multilevel approach, coupled with bootstrapped standard errors to give us more robust results because of increased power.

At this stage of our analyses, control variables should be included in the structural model as observed variables, and their relationships to our main variables should be defined. We identified the following variables: teachers’ years of teaching, ethnic backgrounds and gender, and whether they are appointed in a denominational school; and students’ ethnic background, age, and gender. Note that student ethnic background could also be considered as a moderator between teacher multicultural education factors, peer relationships, and emotional and behavioral engagement. However, the correlations for ethnic background (using mean scores) indicated no outstanding differences in the strength of the relationships for students with and without a migration history. Therefore, this variable was not considered a moderator.

Including all of these variables in our analyses would lower our power drastically, especially because we wanted to test our model in two independent samples (further detailed below). To overcome this limitation, we used single imputation to deal with missing data (2.2% of the data), using predictive mean matching based on available cases for each variable that is the default method of the mice package (van Buuren & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, 2011 ) in R. Moreover, we used multiple regression analysis to control for our covariates before running the main analysis. This process entails running regression analyses to predict the main variables of interest using control variables and taking the residuals from these predictions to create residual variables. This is a common method that is used to estimate, simplify, and enhance the utility of primary structural model (Asparouhov & Muthén, 2022 ). This allowed higher statistical power because we did not enter the covariates into the structural equation models as separate variables and estimated lower number of parameters. We use the resulting data set from here onwards.

Defining the comparison groups

In line with the accepted categorization of schools in the Netherlands, schools with 70% or more children from migrant backgrounds and schools with 70% or more children with no migration history are considered to be highly concentrated with minoritized and majority group students, respectively (Wielzen & van Dijk-Groeneboer, 2018 ). Therefore, we defined classrooms with ethnically minoritized student concentration equal to or less than 30% as low concentration (46% of the sample), 30–70% as mixed (13.8% of the sample), and 70% or higher as high concentration classrooms (40.2% of the sample). The concentration of classrooms was defined based on students’ reports of their ethnic background. However, because statistical procedures compare two groups at a time, and because the mixed group was comprised of only 13.8% of the sample whereas the other two groups were about three times its size, we merged the mixed and high-concentration classrooms into one group. The analyses should be interpreted because 74.5% of the combined group had an ethnically minoritized student concentration of 70% or higher. The groups that we compare are referred to as Low Concentration and High Concentration groups from here on. Correlation matrices of the Low and High Concentration groups used in SEM can be found in Supplementary Materials.

Measurement invariance

Our specified baseline model is depicted in Fig.  1 to be tested for measurement invariance between the low- and high-concentration groups. We followed the multistep approach during which we gradually introduced constraints to the baseline model for 1) factor loadings, 2) factor loadings and intercepts, and 3) factor loadings, intercepts, and residuals, respectively, to be equal across the two groups. Each model was compared with the previous one to decide on the best-fitting model. The results of model comparisons are shown in Table 1 . A significant χ 2 Diff indicates that the models differ significantly, with smaller AIC, BIC, and χ 2 values indicating a better fit, and a higher df indicates fewer parameters in a model and hence a more parsimonious one . The latent variables were allowed to covary, with the first item of each latent variable being constrained to have a factor loading of 1 for scaling purposes.

Model 1 was significantly different from the baseline model based on the significant χ 2 Diff test statistic , more parsimonious based on the df, and a better fit based on BIC but not AIC. χ 2 Diff between Model 1 and 2 was not significant. However, both AIC and BIC values indicated that Model 2 fits better than Model 1 and is more parsimonious based on the df . Model 3 was significantly different from Model 2 based on the significant χ 2 Diff test statistic , more parsimonious based on the df, and a better fit based on BIC but not on AIC. We chose to further investigate the most constrained model, namely, Model 3, because it featured the lowest BIC, comparable AIC to other models, and was the most parsimonious. Our decision means that we constrained all model parameters to be equal between the low- and high-concentration groups, except for regression coefficients.

Multigroup analysis

The multigroup analysis allows testing whether groups show significant differences in their coefficient estimates. We used this analysis to test our proposition that the relationships between multicultural education, peer relationships, and student engagement can change as a function of classroom composition.

We specified Model 4 to define equal regression coefficients between the two groups, in addition to Model 3 constraining factor loadings, intercepts, and residuals.

The model without regression equality constrains (Model 3) fit the data significantly better than the model with constrains (Model 4) according to the Chi Square Test statistic, χ 2 (11) = 32.823, p  < 0.001, and the AIC value, but not the BIC value. Therefore, there is some evidence to suggest differences between groups. We thus investigated the differing relationships between our main variables.

Descriptive statistics

We used latent variables and sum scores in our structural models. For more comparable statistics, we calculated average mean scores for each variable for descriptive statistics. The results are presented in Table 2 for each concentration group and are reported separately for majority and minoritized students when applicable.

Teachers’ mean Content Integration ( t (19.443) = -0.14, p  > 0.05), mean Prejudice Reduction ( t (31) = -0.09, p  > 0.05), and mean Equity Pedagogy ( t (19.601) = -0.35, p  > 0.05) did not significantly differ between Low and High Concentration groups. The majority group students’ Behavioral Engagement was significantly higher than that of the minoritized students in the High Concentration group, t (256.377) = 2.141, p  < 0.05.

Finally, compared with the Low Concentration group, students in the High Concentration group in general had significantly better Peer Relationships ( t (608) =− 2.224, p  < 0.05), Behavioral Engagement ( t (604.620) = − 2.466, p  < 0.01), and Emotional Engagement ( t (605.833) = − 2.905 p  < 0.01).

Structural equation models

Following the multigroup analysis results that indicated that regression coefficients were not equal across Low and High Concentration classrooms, we examined the structural models for further interpretation in Fig.  1 . Significant relationships are indicated with non-dashed lines. The thicker the lines, the stronger the relationships between the two variables. The standardized regression coefficients of the significant edges are shown in Fig.  1 . For the rest of the parameter values see Supplementary Materials, Table S3.

In both groups, Peer Relationships were significantly related to students’ Engagement. In the Low Concentration group, the relationships were stronger, which is especially the case for Emotional Engagement (but difference in the strength of these individual associations between groups has not been formally tested for significance). Figure  1 illustrates that, for the Low Concentration group, the relationship between Content Integration and Emotional and Behavioral Engagement and between Equity Pedagogy and only Emotional Engagement were mediated by students’ Peer Relationships. The standardized indirect effect of Content Integration on Emotional Engagement (β = -0.20, p  < 0.01) and on Behavioral Engagement (β = -0.15, p  < 0.05) were statistically significant. Additionally, the standardized indirect effect of Equity Pedagogy on Emotional Engagement was significant (β = 0.11, p  < 0.05) and on Behavioral Engagement was marginally significant (β = 0.09, p  = 0.07). In addition, Equity Pedagogy showed a weak but significant relationship with Prejudice Reduction and a strong relationship with Content Integration. Expectedly, Emotional and Behavioral Engagement showed a strong significant positive correlation.

In the High Concentration group, the direct effect of Equity Pedagogy on Emotional Engagement (β = 0.24, p  < 0.05), and the direct effects of Peer Relationships on Emotional (β = 0.23, p  < 0.05) and on Behavioral Engagement (β = 0.27, p  < 0.05) were significant. The results of the fitted model yielded no significant indirect effects in this group, because none of the relationships between the Multicultural Education factors and Peer Relationships reached statistical significance. In addition, all three Multicultural Education factors showed moderate to high positive correlations with each other. Similarly, Emotional and Behavioral Engagement were very strongly correlated.

In the current study, we examined the role of both the pedagogical (i.e., multicultural practices) and structural elements of the learning environment (i.e., minoritized student concentration). Self-Determination Theory postulates that learning contexts that support students’ basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness can positively affect their motivation to learn (for an overview, see Fredricks et al., 2019 ). We argue that multicultural education can especially help to fulfill the needs of relatedness for students, by stimulating meaningful contact (see also ICT), and therefore improve students’ engagement. Previous research findings support the positive effect of multicultural education on student engagement but, to the best of our knowledge, the unique influence of different multicultural education dimensions and the mediating role of students’ relatedness has never been tested.

In classrooms with low minoritized student concentration, we found support for this mediation hypothesis with equity pedagogy having a positive effect and content integration having a negative effect on emotional and behavioral engagement, which was mediated by students’ peer relationships. In the high-concentration classrooms, however, only a direct effect of equity pedagogy on emotional engagement was found.

The low-concentration group

The low minoritized student concentration emphasizes the existing inequalities in society (Leonardelli et al., 2010 ), by also putting minoritized students in the numerical minority. This does not naturally create an equal status for the contact between groups. On the contrary, it creates the basis for the majority group members to perceive themselves as highly prototypical and representative of the larger social group, be it the classroom, school, or the Netherlands. In these unequal status environments, the Social Identity Approach (Abrams & Hogg, 1990 ; Reicher et al., 2010 ) predicts that the members of the dominant group try to keep their status against identity and status ‘threats’, whereas the members of disadvantaged groups show higher ingroup favouritism to make up for the perceived disparity in their status (Olonisakin, 2021 ; Radke et al., 2017 ). Indeed, Steffens et al. ( 2017 ) previously showed that multicultural education can backfire in such unequal contact environments.

In the Low-Concentration learning environments, the positive influence of equity pedagogy and the negative influence of content integration on peer relationships could be attributable to the majority group perceiving multiculturalism to be identity and status threatening, while the minoritized group perceived it as identity supporting and status improving (Deaux et al., 2006 ).

Content integration requires explicit acknowledgment of different cultures and their characteristics and contributions. This can directly challenge the majority group members’ perceived prototypicality of their group for the larger social category, in environments where they are likely to perceive themselves as being highly prototypical. This has been shown to increase negative attitudes toward the outgroup (Steffens et al., 2017 ). Supporting their findings, we also found that content integration negatively influences peer relationships directly and student engagement indirectly. While prejudice reduction practices might have been able to prevent this, our results indicated that teachers who engaged in content integration did not necessarily engage in prejudice reduction (see Fig.  1 or Table B1 for correlations between factors).

Equity pedagogy, on the other hand, is a subtler way of facilitating equal status in contacting parties that can be employed without activating group differences. It disrupts existing structures that perpetuate inequality by expecting all students to learn according to the way in which the instruction is delivered and instead requires tapping into students’ strengths and using tailoring teaching approaches to teach in the way students learn (Banks, 1995 ). Therefore, it adds to the conditions under which multicultural education can increase positive attitudes and hence can improve peer relationships—most importantly, under which students experience equal status (Allport, 1954 ; Dovidio et al., 2017 ).

However, we can expect a larger negative effect size of content integration on peer relationships compared with the positive effect of equity pedagogy by looking at the path coefficients. Based on these effects, we would have expected the majority group members’ reported peer relationships to be more positive compared with the minoritized group students if content integration ignited ingroup favoritism only in the majority group. Yet, the majority and minoritized students reported having similar average peer relationship qualities (see Table 2 ). This could signal that the ingroup favoritism in the minoritized groups, predicted by the Social Identity Approach (Abrams & Hogg, 1990 ; Reicher et al., 2010 ), is activated by content integration.

Higher ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination are consistently found in numerically smaller groups (Leonardelli et al., 2010 ), which is suggested to reflect the greater salience and distinctiveness associated with their small group size (Bettencourt et al., 1999 ). In this case, our minoritized group is both in the numerical minority and placed lower in the ethnic societal hierarchy, making them a disadvantaged but distinctive group. In line with this view, such distinctive groups have been shown to be more satisfied with their ingroup compared to non-distinctive groups. This is because a distinctive group is a source of positively valued social identity because it provides sufficient inclusiveness within the ingroup and sufficient differentiation compared with the outgroup, fulfilling both the need to belong and the need to be unique (see Optimal Distinctiveness Theory Brewer, 1991 ; Leonardelli et al., 2010 ). Thus, activating the distinctiveness of groups and providing further validation for the minoritized group through content integration might have led to heightened ingroup favoritism not only in the majority group but also in the minoritized group.

The high-concentration group

Contrary to the low-concentration group, in the high-concentration group, multicultural education factors did not have a significant effect on peer relationships. Nevertheless, students in this group reported having better relationships and higher engagement compared with students in the low-concentration group. These findings might stem from more balanced intergroup interactions because of the demographic landscape of these classrooms. Therefore, we might no longer see the significant negative effect of content integration on peer relationships: Majority group students no longer might perceive their group as highly prototypical of the larger social category of classroom or school because they are in the numerical minority and are thus just another ethnic group within their classrooms. Similarly, the minoritized students might no longer experience an optimal distinctiveness from the outgroup because they are no longer in the numerical minority. In turn, peer relationships in this group are not as strongly related to student engagement, especially emotional engagement, as they were in the low-concentration group. This could signal that, when relationships are less harmonious, they can become a more central factor in students’ educational lives and how much they enjoy it.

Interestingly, the reported quality of peer relationships was higher for the majority group students compared with the minoritized group students in this group. Although this difference was not significant, it might provide some support for the explanation based on the Optimal Distinctiveness Theory that we proposed above for the low-concentration group. Because the majority group members are mostly in the numerical minority in the high-concentration classrooms, they could experience more ingroup favoritism compared with the minoritized students who are now in the numerical majority. Yet, this might be to a lesser extent for the majority group members in the high-concentration group than for the minoritized students in the low-concentration group, because majority group members are still in numerical majority outside their classrooms and schools.

Moreover, because the contact status is likely to be more equal in this group because of minoritized students being in the numerical majority, the positive effect of equity on peer relationships might not be too salient. Yet, equity pedagogy was still directly related to students’ emotional engagement. When learning environments support students’ functioning equitably, regardless of their backgrounds, students seem to enjoy and show more enthusiasm for learning. This, in turn, is highly related to behavioral engagement, indicating that children who enjoy learning also put more effort into it. However, also in this group, the majority group members reported having, on average, significantly higher behavioral engagement compared with their minoritized counterparts. This is in line with previous research that points to the effects of factors such as low teacher expectations (Gershenson et al., 2016 ) or more challenging social environments in and out of school (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2019 ) for the minoritized students, which we did not cover within the scope of this study.

Lastly, in the high-concentration group, teachers who engaged in one aspect of multicultural education seem to have engaged also in others. In line with previous research that revealed that multicultural education is more prevalent in high-concentration classrooms (Agirdag et al., 2016 ), teachers in this group, on average, also engaged more in multicultural education than teachers in the low-concentration group (see Table 2 ). Attention to multicultural education in these classrooms might simply be a natural outcome of the classroom demographics.

Both groups

In both concentration groups, our results supported the propositions of SDT in that peer relationships were positively related to both emotional and behavioral student engagement. However, multicultural education factors would have been anticipated also to have direct effects on student engagement because of their possible influence on other basic psychological needs than relatedness, namely, autonomy and competence . Previous research showed that teachers’ own attitudes can moderate the effect of multicultural practices on student engagement so that only teachers who lead by example themselves and practise what they preach are thought to have a positive effect on students (Abacioglu et al., 2019 ). This could explain the lack of significant relationships in our case. Content integration and prejudice reduction necessitate that teachers explicitly talk about issues around diversity and engage in dialogue that can expose their own stance on these topics, which might not seem authentic to students in certain cases such as employing these practices because of school policy without necessarily having important insights into the realities of their students (Kreber, 2010 ).

Limitations and future research

Our results signal varying effects of multicultural education on peer relationships and engagement, based on the demographic complexion of the learning environment most probably, with different social identity processes in the majority and minoritized students being activated. However, in order to further validate the interpretation of our results, important variables such as ingroup identification and satisfaction, as well as classroom diversity (i.e., how many different groups there are) and ingroup size should be considered in relation to peer relationships (Leonardelli et al., 2010 ). Moreover, the status of the outgroup and its relationship to the ingroup has been suggested as being relevant for such research (Steffens et al., 2017 ). Different ethnic and cultural groups in the Netherlands have different migration histories and occupy different hierarchical positions within society, with minoritized groups from former colonies on the top and the groups with history of migration from Turkey at the bottom (Thijssen et al., 2021 ). The degree to which students benefit from multicultural practices can vary depending on their position in the societal hierarchy. Future researchers are encouraged to examine whether applications of these practices to classrooms with different ethnic profiles in different neighborhoods, and with increasing/decreasing diversity as the share of one ethnic group grows, warrant alternative solutions.

Moreover, how multicultural education affects peer relationships might depend not only on how responsive students are to multiculturalism, but also on teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills through which they implement multicultural practices (Gay, 2018 ). For instance, the most popular ways in which content integration is implemented are through a ‘contributions approach’ or an ‘additive approach’. These entail either insertion of isolated facts about or special units on minoritized groups to the curriculum, without the meaningful transformation of the curriculum that requires viewing information from different perspectives (i.e., ‘transformation approach’), reinforcing the notion that minoritized groups are not integral parts of the mainstream (Banks, 2016 ).

Additionally, it is important to gain deeper insights into the mechanisms underlying the effect of multicultural education on student engagement through peer relationships. Firstly, we cannot be certain that the improved peer relationships in our study were attributable to improved intergroup relationships. Yet, we know from extant research into Dutch schools that, even in culturally diverse schools, friendship networks tend to be segregated along ethnic lines (Baerveldt et al., 2007 ; Fortuin et al., 2014 ; Vermeij et al., 2009 ). In the literature, this has been explained by the homophily principle —individuals’ preferences are associated with similar others because this facilitates mutual understanding and liking (Leszczensky & Pink, 2015 ; Smith et al., 2014 )—which is a powerful predictor of relationship frequency, stability, and quality (Lessard et al., 2019 ). Therefore, it is likely that the positive relationships observed with multicultural education practices and peer relationships are attributable to advances in intergroup relationships that go above and beyond the same-ethnic friendships that tend to form more seamlessly. Secondly, our sample size was not big enough to compare mixed-concentration classrooms (30–70% minoritized student concentration) to classrooms with low and high minoritized student concentrations. We urge future researchers to conduct more-detailed investigations of the suggested psychological processes behind our results in classrooms that are not only segregated but also offer more contact opportunities between different ethnic groups.

If multiculturalism backfires for the majority group members in learning environments in which minoritized individuals might need it the most, how can we prevent resistance to multicultural practices? Previous research that revealed negative effects of activating the diversity of the larger social category on the majority group members tested this against the effects of activating the unity of the larger category (Ehrke & Steffens, 2015 ; Steffens et al., 2017 ; Waldzus et al., 2003 , 2005 ). These two conditions, however, do not need to compete with each other. A focus on shared values such as democracy, equality, and human integrity (Mattei & Broeks, 2018 ) together with multicultural practices can be an essential for both appreciating cultural differences and achieving greater social cohesion. It would be fruitful to investigate the combined effect of these practices on peer relationships and motivation. Moreover, the above-mentioned research focused on the effect of mere priming messages that reflected unity or diversity. The effects of educational practice for an extended period, however, can yield different results that need to be better unwrapped by using a longitudinal design.

Scholars have extensively discussed multicultural theories and their importance for motivational processes and school success (e.g., Au, 1980 ; Banks, 1995 ; Gay, 2000; Hollins, 1996 ; Ladson-Billings, 1995 ; Nieto, 1996 ; Sleeter, 1991 ). Yet, to the best of our knowledge, the present study was the first to provide a detailed and quantitative account of the current segregated learning environments in the Netherlands in terms of multicultural curriculum and instruction, as well as their possible impact on the desired student outcomes that are reported in similar studies, which are mostly qualitative in nature and are conducted with preservice teachers using hypothetical scenarios (Agirdag et al., 2016 ).

Previous studies of learning environments have shown that factors such as perceived relationships with peers and teachers during academic-related activities, in addition to academic experiences, have a significant influence on student satisfaction, self-efficacy motivation for learning, and academic accomplishment (Lin et al., 2019 ). Our results corroborated these earlier findings in two different learning environments, namely, low- and high-concentration classrooms. Our findings indicate that some multicultural practices can improve, while other practices can impede, student engagement through peer relationships, depending on the characteristics of the learning environment. This can be of particular importance to the minoritized groups who perceive educational attainment as a means to social mobility (Alt, 2017 ). Therefore, improving the quality of peer relationships can be one way to mitigate the lower educational standing of the minoritized students within the Dutch education system compared with their ethnic majority peers (OECD, 2014 ; Thijs et al., 2014 ).

Our results are a good reminder that, while the representation of minoritized perspectives and lives is important, challenging the structures that perpetuate inequality (through equity pedagogy) can make the most difference by creating equal opportunities for individuals to thrive. It is crucial to increase the effectiveness of internal and external support services and resources for teachers to improve their beliefs in the need for a multicultural approach (Monsen et al., 2014 ), and to strengthen their confidence in their ability to create learning environments that match the diverse needs of all of their students.

Declarations

Current Themes of Research

The corresponding author, Ceren Abacioglu’s main research interests include multicultural ideologies and multicultural education, psychological underpinnings of interethnic relationships that take place in schools, motivational outcomes in relation to educational pedagogies and group processes.

Sacha Epskamp works in the field of psychometrics, with a special focus on Structural Equation Modeling, Multivariate Statistics, and Network Modeling. His research centers around the development and application of Network Modeling to psychological research.

Agneta Fischer’s general theme of research is the influence of social context on emotion, emotion recognition and emotion regulation, focusing mostly on interpersonal emotion recognition; hate, contempt, revenge, humiliation; and role of negative emotions in the development of populism.

Monique Volman’s main areas of research include learning environments for meaningful learning, diversity, and the use of ICT in education, issues which she approaches from a socio-cultural theoretical perspective.

Most Relevant Publications

Ceren Abacioglu

Abacioglu, C. S. , Volman, M., & Fischer, A. (2020). Teacher multicultural attitudes and perspective taking abilities as factors in culturally responsive teaching. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90 (3), 736–752.

Abacioglu, C. S. , Volman, M., & Fischer, A. (2019). Teacher interventions to student misbehaviours: The role of ethnicity, emotional intelligence, and multicultural attitudes. Current Psychology (published online), 1–13 .

Abacioglu, C. S. , Zee, M., Hanna, F., Soeterik, I. M., Fischer, A., & Volman, M. (2019). Practice what you preach: The moderating role of teacher attitudes on the relationship between prejudice reduction and student engagement. Teaching and Teacher Education, 86 , 102887.

Abacioglu, C. S. , Isvoranu, A., Verkuyten, M., Thijs, J, & Epskamp, S. (2019). Exploring multicultural classroom dynamics: A network analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 74 , 90–105.

Sacha Epskamp

Abacioglu, C. S., Isvoranu, A., Verkuyten, M., Thijs, J, & Epskamp, S. (2019). Exploring multicultural classroom dynamics: A network analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 74 , 90–105.

Epskamp, S. (2015). semPlot: Unified visualizations of Structural Equation Models. Structural Equation Modeling. Structural Equation Modeling 22 (3), 474–483. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10705511.2014.937847

Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science 349 (6251), aac4716. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716

Agneta Fischer

Abacioglu, C. S., Volman, M., & Fischer, A. (2020). Teacher multicultural attitudes and perspective taking abilities as factors in culturally responsive teaching. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90 (3), 736–752.

Abacioglu, C. S., Volman, M., & Fischer, A. (2019). Teacher interventions to student misbehaviours: The role of ethnicity, emotional intelligence, and multicultural attitudes. Current Psychology (published online), 1–13 .

Abacioglu, C. S., Zee, M., Hanna, F., Soeterik, I. M., Fischer, A., & Volman, M. (2019). Practice what you preach: The moderating role of teacher attitudes on the relationship between prejudice reduction and student engagement. Teaching and Teacher Education, 86 , 102887.

Kommattam, P., Jonas, K. J., & Fischer, A. H. (2019). Perceived to feel less: Intensity bias in interethnic emotion perception.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology ,  84 , [103809]. 

Monique Volman

Sincer, I., Volman, M ., van der Veen, I., & Severiens, S. (2021). The relationship between ethnic school composition, school diversity climate and students’ competences in dealing with differences.  Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies ,  47 (9), 2039–2064.

Sincer, I., Severiens, S., & Volman, M. (2019). Teaching diversity in citizenship education: Context-related teacher understandings and practices.  Teaching and Teacher Education , 78 , 183–192.

All the procedures described in the Data Analysis section were performed using the remaining teacher and student data.

Also see Supplementary Materials for an exploratory factor analysis for the items. These factor analysis results were not considered when forming the multicultural education variables, because the analysis results suggested inadequate sampling for reliable results.

Abacioglu, C. S., Isvoranu, A.-M., Verkuyten, M., Thijs, J., & Epskamp, S. (2019a). Exploring multicultural classroom dynamics: A network analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 74 , 90–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2019.02.003

Abacioglu, C. S., Zee, M., Hanna, F., Soeterik, I. M., Fischer, A. H., & Volman, M. (2019b). Practice what you preach: The moderating role of teacher attitudes on the relationship between prejudice reduction and student engagement. Teaching and Teacher Education, 86 , 102887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.102887

Abacioglu, C. S., Volman, M., & Fischer, A. H. (2020). Teachers’ multicultural attitudes and perspective taking abilities as factors in culturally responsive teaching. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90 , 736–752. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12328

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Agirdag, O., Merry, M. S., & Van Houtte, M. (2016). Teachers’ understanding of multicultural education and the correlates of multicultural content integration in Flanders. Education and Urban Society, 48 (6), 556–582. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124514536610

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We would like to express our special thanks to Marjolein Zee, Fadie Hanna, Inti M. Soeterik, and Judith Bekebrede for enabling data collection for our study.

The authors do not have any financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. This work was supported by the Yield Graduate Programme grant [project number 022.006.013] obtained from the Nederlands Organisation for Scientific Research (De Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek; NWO).

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Abacioglu, C.S., Epskamp, S., Fischer, A.H. et al. Effects of multicultural education on student engagement in low- and high-concentration classrooms: the mediating role of student relationships. Learning Environ Res 26 , 951–975 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-023-09462-0

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What We Can Learn from Multicultural Education Research

Beliefs about students matter, content and materials matter, instructional approaches matter, educational settings matter, teacher education matters, does the race and ethnicity of teachers matter.

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Pamplin Multicultural Diversity Council empowers future business leaders at annual conference and competition

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Students interact with corporate partners at the 2024 Pamplin Multicultural Diversity Council Diversity Case Competition and Conference. Photo by A’me Dalton for Virginia Tech.

The Pamplin Multicultural Diversity Council (PMDC) Diversity Case Competition and Conference brought together students, professionals, and corporate partners for a day of education, networking, and competition. Presented by the Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging , the annual event served as a platform to connect students with professionals. Attendees had the opportunity to compete in a real-world business diversity case, as well as engage in professional workshops presented by corporate partner representatives.

This year's event, sponsored by industry leaders from Capital One, CGI, CoStar Group, Deloitte, EY, Johnson Brothers, KBR, KPMG, Morgan Stanley, and PwC, featured a series of workshops and breakout sessions aimed at empowering students and fostering diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace with more than 100 students in attendance.

“Diversity encompasses various dimensions: identity, experience, and thought,” said Michelle Seref , assistant dean of outreach and student engagement for Pamplin College of Business. “We often discuss identity diversity, encompassing factors such as gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, age, economic status, cultural background, and even regional affiliations. Both identity and experiential diversity contribute to a diversity of thought, influencing our approach to problem-solving, teamwork, and decision making. Bringing awareness of these diverse dimensions to the workplace is essential.”

Seref encouraged attendees to unite in the shared understanding of the significance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.  

“While self-reflection is a crucial initial step, active engagement with others is equally vital,” she continued. “Fear, not hate, is the opposite of love. When fear impedes us, we become closed-off and hesitant to embrace diversity and collaboration. Yet, when we open our hearts and minds without fear, we foster an environment of inclusion and collaboration, achieving far more collectively. I urge you all to continue embodying inclusivity and belonging, not only in your academic pursuits and projects but also as you embark on your professional journeys.”

The diversity case competition focused on issues related to recruitment, hiring practices, retention, and work culture. Team EmpowerHER claimed the first-place title and the grand prize of $2,000. Redeem Team secured second place and earned $1,500 in prize money. Team Inclusive Innovators took home third place and a $750 prize.

Three of the event’s corporate partners held professional workshops that students could attend. EY hosted a breakout session titled “Leveraging Digital Media in Your Career,” which provided valuable insights into navigating the digital landscape for professional growth. KBR facilitated a workshop titled, “Belong. Connect. Grow.,” which focused on the importance of inclusivity and connection in career development. Morgan Stanley hosted a session titled, “Owning Your Brand: An Authentic Approach to Career Growth,” which offered personal branding and career advancement strategies. In addition to the workshops, students in attendance were offered complimentary headshots to enhance their professional profiles.

The event also welcomed back to campus Nikhil Raheja, a 2022 graduate in business information technology and cyber management analytics. Raheja previously participated in the annual conference and case competition during his senior year, achieving third place in the case competition as a solo team. This year marked a significant milestone for Raheja as he transitioned to corporate sponsor, representing EY and serving as a case competition judge.

“As someone who once grappled with imposter syndrome during my senior year while participating in the Pamplin Multicultural Diversity Council Diversity Case Competition, it's incredibly empowering to return now as a cybersecurity consultant for EY and serve as a judge,” said Raheja.

His path from competitor to corporate sponsor highlights the enduring impact and value of the PMDC Diversity Case Competition and Conference in fostering the growth and development of future business leaders.

“This journey has taught me that self-doubt can often be a barrier to realizing our full potential,” he said. “However, I've come to understand that the more experiences we embrace, the more knowledge we gain, and the more we can grow in ways that only support and uplift us. Embrace every opportunity, challenge imposter syndrome head-on, and trust in your abilities to succeed.”

Written by A’me Dalton 

Marc Kaplan

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