“We must learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or perish together as fools.”

                                                                                  --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1965)

“[T]he creation of communities in classrooms may be one of the most difficult and yet the most essential undertakings in the schools of the future.”

                                                                                  --Maxine Greene (2000)

Martin Luther King, Jr. often called attention to our collective failure to work together toward what he called a “beloved community.” For King, the “beloved community” was a community in which people of all races, ethnicities, religions, and genders lived in harmony. Maxine Greene built on the ideas of King and education philosopher John Dewey to argue that schools have the potential to be a space for citizens of all ages to practice democracy, engaging in a “community-in-the-making.” Using these frameworks, we can understand that education has the potential to support students in creating community, practicing democracy, striving toward social justice, and seeing themselves as a part of a larger human family.  This vision will guide the intellectual path of this course and will help facilitate our conversations on education and race, class, politics, ethnicity, disability, culture, sexuality, and gender. Thus, this course is about the relationship between education and community, democracy, diversity, and social justice.

Drawing on literature in education, the humanities, and the social sciences, this course is interdisciplinary and students from all fields of study are welcome. Several questions will guide our discourse: What is multiculturalism and how might education inform our understanding of it? What is the social context of multiculturalism in the U.S.? Who am I in a multicultural society? What challenges do we face at this historical moment regarding multiculturalism and diversity? What is social justice? How can we, as educators, intellectuals, and social justice activists promote diversity and a greater understanding of others in our local community? This course will engage the nexus of multiculturalism, multicultural education, and social justice to respond to these questions.  I look forward to us taking this intellectual journey together.