MULTICULTURALISM - A REDEFINITION OF CITIZENSHIP AND COMMUNITY

In this article, the author maintains that urban public schools' multi cultural curriculum either bridges or fragments students' racial and e thnic differences. The author also argues that racial and ethnic stude nt conflict intensifies when school officials attempt to design their multicultural curriculum around the themes of citizenship and communit y in a way that makes student differences transparent and masks existi ng economic inequality. The author concludes that if teachers are to r espond effectively to the educational needs of multicultural student p opulations, they will first have to re-examine what the ideas of commu nity and citizenship mean and call mean in multicultural urban schools , then develop a curriculum that treats cultural democracy, social jus tice, and economic justice as prime components of their pedagogy.