Multiculturalism and education in Britain: an internally contested debate

A British discourse on race, cultural diversity, and education began to evolve in the 1960s in response to the growing population of immigrants from the West Indies, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. By the 1980s that discourse had become fractured, with contending educational theories of multicultural and antiracist education. In retrospect, each of these positions can be seen to embody partial truths, but neither is adequate to the complex contemporary situation of Britainʹs racial minorities. The emergence of a Muslim assertiveness, polarized qualification levels, new feminist interventions, and the wide appeal of black youth culture all challenge earlier notions of multiculturalism and anti-racism.