In this article, the author maintains that urban public schools' multicultural curriculum either bridges or fragments students' racial and ethnic differences. The author also argues that racial and ethnic student conflict intensifies when school officials attempt to design their multicultural curriculum around the themes of citizenship and community in a way that makes student differences transparent and masks existing economic inequality. The author concludes that if teachers are to respond effectively to the educational needs of multicultural student populations, they will first have to re-examine what the ideas of community and citizenship mean and can mean in multicultural urban schools, then develop a curriculum that treats cultural democracy, social justice, and economic justice as prime components of their pedagogy.
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