The Global and the Multicultural: Opportunities, Challenges, and Suggestions for Teacher Education

Most teacher education programs today include at least a minimal component of multicultural education. Higher educational institutions are also engaging more broadly in global education in a variety of forms. Though there is significant overlap in the aims of these two fields, they are often not used in complementary ways, or may even be seen as competing fields of study. This article outlines ways in which global perspectives can inform several multicultural concepts used in teacher education. It then explicates the challenges and limitations to this approach, which are not trivial. Finally, it suggests a number of ways in which teacher education programs and institutions can minimize the challenges of a global approach to multicultural education, while simultaneously moving toward institutionally transformative goals of multicultural education.