Includes bibliographical references (pages 214-221) and index.

Teaching Black history with a focus on decision making -- Inquiry: a history teaching tool -- Varieties of history: Negro, Black, White -- Remembering Brown: silence, loss, rage, and hope -- Black youth in predominantly white suburbs -- Teaching for ethnic literacy: a comparative approach -- Ethnic studies as a process of curriculum reform -- Decision-making: the heart of the social studies -- The social studies, ethnic diversity, and social change -- Imperatives in ethnic minority education -- Pluralism, ideology, and curriculum reform -- Multicultural education: development, dimensions and challenges -- Approaches to multicultural curriculum reform -- The canon debate, knowledge construction, and multicultural education -- Multiethnic education across cultures: United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, France, and Great Britain -- Multicultural education and its critics: Britain and the United States -- Multicultural citizenship education -- Democracy, diversity, and social justice: educating citizens in a global age.

Considered the father of multicultural education in the US and known throughout the world as one of the field's most important founders, theorists, and researchers, James A. Banks has here collected twenty-one of his most important and best works from across the span of his career. Drawing out the major themes that have shaped the field of multicultural education as well as outlining the development of Banks' own career, these articles, chapter and papers focus on eight key issues: black Studies and the teaching of history; research and research issues; teaching ethnic studies; teaching social studies for decision-making and citizen action; multiethnic education and school reform; multicultural education and knowledge construction; the global dimensions of multicultural education; democracy, diversity, and citizenship education. The last part of the book consists of a selected bibliography of all Banks' publications over his forty year career, as a source of further reading on each of these pivotal ideas.