Content area
Abstract
School districts and universities are being asked to implement multicultural materials into their curriculum and multicultural practices into their schools. In order to accomplish this effectively, more understanding of the process of becoming a multicultural advocate is needed.
The purpose of this study was to explore, through the perceptions of teachers and administrators in a Midwestern public school district, the process of becoming a multicultural advocate. A grounded theory methodology was used in order to establish a theory of becoming a multicultural advocate. The theory states that the context of environment encapsulates all of the causal conditions (personality, family, relationships, life experience, knowledge, beliefs, personality), intervening conditions (barriers), action/interaction strategies (interventions, assimilation), and consequences (behavior) of the phenomenon of multicultural advocacy. Therefore, before multicultural advocacy can take place, the environment must be made conducive to multicultural advocacy.
Specific actions and strategies were suggested by the informants and an intervention process was proposed. The process highlights the continued participation of the informants in the persistence of identifying key environmental concepts that need to be transformed and in utilizing the informants' leadership to motivate others to move toward becoming multicultural advocates.
