Chapter 6: Multicultural Education, Critical Race Theory, and Teacher Education

In this chapter, we draw from our experiences as teacher educators by suggesting that U.S. education reform requires transformative change within teacher education. From our perspective, in a democratic society, transformative change includes addressing the principles of multicultural education and critical race theory to improve teacher quality. There are three questions that frame our discussion: How do we develop an educated citizenry? What is the role of multicultural education in developing an educated citizenry? At what points do the ideas of democracy, educated citizenry, and multicultural education intersect? We select race as an identifier within the most recent U.S. presidential election and aftermath as a starting point for our discussion. Then, we discuss the implications for the use of multicultural education and critical race theory within education in general and teacher education specifically. Finally, we rearticulate the goals of teacher education in a democratic society.