Multicultural education is a persistent topic of discussion throughout the country, and a conference will be held Saturday at Iowa State in order to address specific aspects of this broad issue.

The Iowa chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education (IA-NAME) has organized the event, which is open to the public and will take place in the atrium of Kildee Hall, beginning at 8 a.m.

The conference is entitled “Critical Multicultural Education in Iowa: Moving Beyond Fun, Food, and Festivals,” and presenters will focus on the education system’s need to address racism and social justice issues.

“Most people, I think, think of multicultural education as what I would call an add-on,” said Carlie Tartakov, professor emeritus of curriculum and instruction and president of IA-NAME.

“By having celebrations or having food fests or taco night and so on, I think that [most people] think that is what multicultural education is about,” Tartakov said. “At the center of the multicultural education that I follow are anti-racism and anti-bias issues.”

Tartakov said the conference will address issues across the age spectrum, from elementary school needs to those at the college or university level, with fourteen concurrent break-out sessions and a keynote speech.

Specific session topics include providing educational services to Latino children and their parents, the needs of Korean families and using music as a doorway to the cultures of the world.

Tartakov and other members founded IA-NAME, the Iowa chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education, approximately two years ago, while the national organization has existed for seventeen years.

The Iowa chapter’s members have held forums on multicultural issues, but the upcoming conference will be the first for IA-NAME.

“One of the aims is to get people to network throughout the state,” Tartakov said.

When asked if she thought Iowa State did an adequate job of addressing social justice issues, rather than merely addressing the festive aspects of other cultures, Tartakov said there are programs and people who do “take a critical look” at the important issues.

However, she said, across the age spectrum, people often focus more on the celebratory aspects of multicultural education.

This unbalanced approach may occur, Tartakov said, more often at the K-12 level, but it does happen even at the university level, including at Iowa State.

The goal of the upcoming conference, however, is not to criticize the school system, but rather to provide a good model for addressing these important issues, Tartakov said.

Vernon Hall, graduate student in curriculum and instruction, is a board member of IA-NAME, and his research interests include multicultural education and special education.

“People who are interested in diversity and interested in justice – and a decent education – should come to the conference,” Hall said.

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Posted 5/18/07 @ 4:47 PM CST