Abstract:
Today, nation-states face with the challenges of globalization engendered by
multiculturalism diverging from the culturally homogeneous model as we know
it. A large number of different nations, ethnic groups and minorities live in the world
resulting in various linguistic, religious and ethnic characteristics of different cultural
identities. This, in turn, requires that cultural diversity of life styles, ethnic groups,
sects increasingly focus on their demands for recognition and representation. Since
education has a role to shape and affect culture, it is important to define educational
policies in multicultural societies to preserve one’s values. In democratically
unstable societies, the risk of defining and imposing one culture on others is always
inevitable. In such cases the members of “dominant culture” have the privilege to
limit or define the way of living, representation or participation of other cultures
in the society. In this article, we try to re- evaluate the concept of multiculturalism
in education in terms of cultural freedom, individual rights and effectiveness of
teaching environments for multi-religious and multi ethnic societies.
