ABSTRACT
In recent years school districts throughout the United States have taken vigorous steps to incorporate more information about ethnic groups into the curriculum and to make the school environment more consistent with the pluralistic nature of American society.1 These school reform efforts emerged largely as responses to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and its aftermath. School reform efforts related to ethnicity have been encouraged by many different groups, agencies, and institutions, including private foundations and the federal government. The Bilingual Education Act (Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) and the Ethnic Heritage Act (Title IX of ESEA) are examples of federal policies which encourage schools to implement curricular reforms related to pluralism. Despite the reforms which schools have implemented and the support which they have received a number of crucial questions concerning the relationship between the school and ethnicity have not been satisfactorily clarified or resolved. These questions must be clarified and resolved before we can design effective and justifiable programs related to pluralism in America.
