Teaching Democracy: Unity and Diversity in Public Life

In Teaching Democracy, Walter Parker makes a unique and thoughtful contribution to the hot debate between proponents of multicultural education and those who favor a cultural literacy approach. Parker conclusively demonstrates that educating for democratic citizenship in a multicultural society includes a fundamental respect for diversity.

This scholarly yet accessible work:

• Bridges the widening gap between multicultural education and civic education.
• Provides powerful teaching strategies that educators can use to draw children creatively and productively into a way of life that protects and nurtures cultural pluralism and racial equity.
• Explains the unity–diversity confusion that is found in popular media as well as in multicultural- and citizenship-education initiatives.
• Defines deliberative discussion and explores its promise as the centerpiece of democratic education in schools, both elementary and secondary.