ABSTRACT

The Education Reform Act of 1988 is a landmark in the history of English and Welsh education-a landmark quite as significant as the legislation of 1870 and 1944. For the first time a British government took direct responsibility for the school curriculum and its assessment. The multicultural cross-curricular dimension is an accepted entitlement for all pupils in all maintained schools, and multicultural education is defined as the professional responsibility of all teachers. Within many documents it is possible to find an emphasis not only on cultural pluralism but also on equal opportunities, and both these strands are given a clear non-racist perspective. The prescriptions of the subject curricula may in some cases project conservative and traditional understandings of Britain and the world. They are, however, transcended by the requirement that the entire curriculum incorporate multicultural perspectives.