DEFINING CULTURE IN A MULTICULTURAL ENVIRONMENT - AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF HERITAGE HIGH-SCHOOL

The primary goal of this article is to examine how multicultural education can alter the learning environment of a school and thereby influence student relations, attitudes, and behaviors. The study generated three primary findings. (1) By creating an engaging and close-knit learning environment, activities that recognize and celebrate cultural diversity can increase motivation, effort, and school identification in minority students. (2) Despite good intentions to lessen divisions among groups, multicultural education may provide terrain for intergroup conflict, particularly among different minority groups. (3) The ways in which culture itself is discussed and understood can have a significant impact on student relations, attitudes, and behaviors. These findings inform current theories concerning learning environments, minority student achievement, and intergroup relations. Most important, educational theory and practice must pay greater attention to the relationship between ''minority'' groups rather than focus exclusively on the interaction between the traditionally dominant and subordinate groups.