ABSTRACT
In the United States, the field of multicultural education began in the 1960s and in the midst of social protest over civic and economic equality for segments of the population who have consistently faced structural and cultural discrimination based on their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. Multicultural education, as an educational movement, sought accordingly to transform the existing educational structure to provide equal access, representation, and outcome for all students. Since its inception, multicultural education has continued to be surrounded by controversy, criticism, and conflict. It may seem odd, especially in a country known for its ideals of liberty and freedom, that efforts to provide equal education would be met with tensions and attacks. This paradox points to the need to disentangle the various meanings of equality and equal education. In this chapter, we analyze the citation of equality in various U.S. sociohistorical contexts as strategic to the institutionalization of and the resistance to oppressive ideologies. This analysis considers the evolution of dominant ideologies that privilege particular groups of people, and oppress and marginalize others. It also considers how these ideologies have directly and indirectly influenced the education of different populations. In addition, we discuss how different groups and individuals have fought for equal education, as they define it, and use this discussion to center our chronicle of the field of multicultural education in the United States.
