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Abstract
Results of this study show that students want multicultural education that is more sophisticated than the typical “blame-game” and “feel-good” paradigms. They prefer an eclectic instructional approach that has a critical pedagogy piece as its flagship. While six theoretical instructional approaches investigated in this study were accepted by respondents (N=368) as having instructional legitimacy, each met a different need. Two approaches made the most impact. Significant pretest-to-posttest changes in mean score rankings were found for a critical pedagogy style of instruction (t(361)=6.243, p<.0005), as well as an instructional style built upon a belief that the world needs more love and trust (t(361)=-5.732, p<.0005). This research is important because it augments the discourse on multicultural foundations with the introduction of (1) a classification scheme that helps educators better understand why we teach the way we do, and (2) elements that students identify as being important to their lifelong learning process.