Why not Intercultural Education?

Now more than ever teachers and those in teacher training positions are being confronted with the prevalence of multicultural and multilingual classroom environments.Along with this presence,they also face international and national policies which call for effective and successful strategy building for coping with diverse settings.This appeal often manifests with an inability on the teacher’s part to effectively facilitate these multicultural classrooms,as well as an inability on the students’ part to interact and finally contribute to a larger national and global goal of intercultural cooperation.A growing body of research suggests that as those in the field of teaching and teacher education seek to improve classroom techniques,curricula,and teaching practice in the area of diversity they continue to face disparaging and almost disillusioning results.What were traditionally seen as venues in dealing with issues in multiculturalism and diversity through multicultural education have been left unanswered? The purpose of this article thus seeks to explore the pedagogical concept of intercultural education as a way to suggest discourse of dealing with the challenges to diversity in the classroom.