Multicultural Art and Visual Cultural Education in a Changing World

he school reform movement termed multiculturalism requires us tothink deeply about our roles as elementary, secondary, and arts teachers. Since prehistoric times, allpeoples have had informaland, at times, formal teachers who have helped the younger generation to understand and create meanings of and for life.We may have lost sight ofthis essential teaching mission. oflife's meaning, and we may have become bogged down in the teaching of school subjects or disciplines in a way that they are no longer connected to the students' lives in contemporary institutionaleducation. For this reason, it is important to understand culture and cultural diversity because culture provides beliefs.values. and the patterns that give meaning and structure to life.It enables individuals within the multiple social groups of which they are a part to function effectivelyin their socialand cultural environments. which are constantly changing. Education is part of cultural experience; therefore, it cannot be reduced to disciplinaryparameters but should include issues of power, history, and self-identity (Bromley& Apple,1998; Dewey, 1916; Freedman, 1995; Friere, 1978; Neperud, 1995). We understand multicultural education/art and visual culture' education as school reform, which are processes and not products. It is necessary for us, as teachers, to continually consider and question how this school reform movement can best affectour current classroom practices (Ballengee--Morris& Stuhr, 1998). We are not of the mind that multicultural school reform has an answer or a model that can be learned once and for alland put in place in a prescribed manner in a static curriculum. Rather, teachers and students should learn to look at ArtandVisua l Cultural Education in aChangingWorld