We realized all children need to be multiculturally literate in this world. One of Kuumba's objectives, she said, is to enroll a higher percentage of students from different backgrounds. It also represents women, the disabled and persons of different sexual orientations. The concept of a multicultural education isn't new. It started during the 1960s civil rights movement.
Multiculturalism is an academic discipline.
Donaldson has done research in anti-racist education. Over the last two years, she conducted an anti-racist education study which surveyed 500 elementary teachers in the West, Northeast, South and Midwest. Seventy percent of teachers said racism does exist, but they didn't see it in an institutional setting. Preliminary research Alternative schools are springing up all over the country, but Donaldson said she has not found one that is extensively multicultural in its student body and instruction. One school Donaldson and Tartakov are studying as part of their preliminary research is the Che-Lumumba School in Amherst, Mass., which was founded in 1967.