Multicultural Education

Multicultural education is built on the ideals of freedom, justice, equality, and human dignity as recognized in the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations. When schools teach multiculturalism, they demonstrate to the community that they value and affirm cultural differences. School curriculum should address issues of racism, sexism, classism, and religious intolerance. Multicultural education challenges all forms of discrimination through the promotion of democratic principles for all students. It helps students develop a positive self-concept by providing knowledge about culture and history of diverse groups of people. Schools that value multiculturalism include and embrace families and communities and create an environment that reflects our democratic values.

Every Human Being Has Rights: A Photographic Declaration for Kids. The book is based on The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is published by National Geographic. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a document translated into over 330 languages that calls on all of us to work as hard as we can to guarantee a world of freedom and peace. The book grew out of National Geographic’s involvement with a group of statesmen that advocate global respect for human rights. The group of statesmen, The Elders, collaborated with the ePals online writing project to create the book. Each section of Every Human Has Rights contains a simplified statement of one of the thirty articles of the declaration, an ePals contest winner’s poem, and captioned photographs illustrating the right/freedom associated with the article from the declaration.