WHAT DOES IT MEAN - EXPLORING THE MYTHS OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

This article, based on an ethnographic study in a predominantly White working-class middle school in the South, critically examines why a li terature-based multicultural curriculum failed to get ''students to ta lk about racism.'' According to the author, attempts to implement a mu lticultural curriculum fail not because of unprepared, insincere, or i nsensitive teachers; rather, these efforts fail primarily because of d ominant mainstream beliefs embedded in the institution of schooling an d in the discourse of multiculturalism itself.