Multicultural education in the United States emerged from the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s as an attempt to address the incongruence between the institutional culture of schools reflected in dominant western European values, on the one hand, and cultures of students from other backgrounds, on the other. Multicultural art programs promote cultural pluralism, cultural diversity, and social equity for all students. How people representing different cultural values (Chinese immigrants, Native American, etc.) have contributed to national visual culture is key content in multicultural art programs. Goals for multicultural art education include: celebration of diversity, emphasis on respect for a variety of life styles and human rights, and equal distribution of power among members of all groups. Cultural values often become a main emphasis. Many multicultural art programs include popular culture, folk art, outsider art, and vernacular art as they relate to the study of the history of western art.

Some multicultural art programs advocate a social action position, stressing the significance of contemporary problems-such as racism, sexism, and inequity-as much as the visual dimension of art. Often teachers encourage conflict resolution and social reform agendas and expect students to take political action in their schools, communities, and in society as a whole. Garber describes an example of Mexican and European American multicultural art education in her article in Studies in Art Education, in which she explains several confusions about cultural diversity, including how cultures other than the dominant culture often are exoticized. She advocates a direct, in-depth approach and personal contact with members of the "other" culture, in order to make learning relevant to the students in a particular school community.

Recently in the United States, we see an emphasis on creating art programs that are responsive to local needs of students, families, and communities. This educational emphasis has been referred to as a community-based orientation to art education. Community-based art programs encourage students to be active participants in their own learning, and encourage parents and community members to be active partners in this process. Students, parents, artists, and community members attempt to understand the impact of art in their own communities, as well as how this art relates to art created in other communities and cultures around the world.

Project ARTS (Arts for Rural Teachers and Students), for example, was designed to serve the needs of students of Appalachian backgrounds in southern Indiana; Native American and Hispanic communities in northern New Mexico; and Gullah descendants in southeastern South Carolina. (The project is described in Clark and Zimmerman's recent Arts Education article.) Each of the seven participating schools organized its curricula thematically around the history, ethnic background, culture, and arts of their local communities. The programs included the arts of other cultures, which were compared and contrasted with local arts traditions in these rural communities. Teachers, students, and community members in each cooperating school built their art curricula around the theme of "greater understanding of the local community."

Global education as a curriculum approach in U.S. schools developed during the period after World War II and has since undergone many phases. Global education programs emphasize commonalties shared by all peoples, and at the same time encourage understanding and appreciating the differences within a variety of cultures and subcultures. Global education can be viewed as an approach to the study of culture that focuses on international concerns and those related to the students' own local communities. For students to become citizens in a global age, in this approach, they learn to appreciate human diversity, the complexity of international systems, and the impact of these factors on their own communities. Because art can be considered a visual manifestation of culture that crosses national boundaries, many art educators are involved in teaching from a global perspective.

Global education focuses on political, economic, technological, and human rights concepts, and how they are interconnected and interrelated. Topics typically involve peace issues and environmental concerns. An example of this approach is explained in Irwin, Rogers, and Wan's article, "Reclamation, Reconciliation, and Reconstruction: Art Practices of Contemporary Aboriginal Artists from Canada, Australia, and Taiwan." To explain the cultural backgrounds of aboriginal artists, the authors describe the destruction of certain indigenous cultures by colonialist forces, to help students and teachers understand the art and actions of the six contemporary aboriginal artists they feature, whose life histories deeply influence their art. The model guides teachers and students to examine their own biographies and how their backgrounds influence their own art making.

An emergent, contemporary approach to art education that combines aspects of multicultural, community-based, and global education is known as intercultural art education. In the United States, the term "intercultural" was first applied to educational attempts to ease the transition of immigrants, primarily European, into American society in the early decades of the 20th century. By the 1960s and 1970s, intercultural education had evolved into the study and teaching of cross-cultural communication skills, often through activities designed to enhance cultural relativism. Because it attempted to address problems of prejudice in American society, intercultural education foreshadowed the multicultural approaches that soon followed.

Intercultural education approaches also have connections to community-based approaches. This can be seen in the Latin American context, where post-colonial indigenous populations in countries such as Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador struggle to include their languages and tradition, along with the nationally mandated curriculum, in formal education. In this sense, intercultural education responds to local community needs to determine the content of students' education in order to preserve unique cultural identities and values, while at the same time preparing them to participate in national discourse. Art teachers from Nepal, to Ghana, to Australia, to New Mexico have developed art programs around local materials, participation of local artists and artisans, traditional techniques and visual resources, and vocational and real-life needs.

In a European context, intercultural education often is equated with multicultural education, but has a more international agenda necessitated by the close proximity of countries and languages. Global issues (e.g., natural resources, technology, immigration, climate change, conflict) are the main concerns for an intercultural approach. Intercultural art education calls attention to forces that shape visual culture around the world-for example, how economics and increasing cross-cultural contact are influencing change.

In an intercultural approach to art education, examples of local visual culture are treated as equally worthy of study as art from any other culture, particularly when global forces that have shaped their production are addressed. Art teachers in the United States often have blended multicultural, community-based, and global approaches to art education. Interculturality not only offers a blended approach, but also provides a lens for making sense of the many cultural and international concerns facing art teachers in the 21st century.

Melanie Davenport is Assistant Professor of Art Education at Columbus State University, Georgia.

Enid Zimmerman is Professor and Coordinator of Art Education and Gifted and Talented Education at Indiana University, Bloomington

Clark, G., & Zimmerman, E. "Greater Understanding of the Local Community: A Community-based Art Education Program for Rural Schools." Art Education, 53(2), 2000.

Davenport, M. "Culture and Education: Polishing the Lenses." Art Education, 41(4), 2000.

Garber, E. "Teaching Art in the Context of Culture: A Study of the Borderlands." Studies in Art Education, 36(4), 1995.

Irwin, R., Rogers, T., & Wan, Y-Y. "Reclamation, Reconciliation, and Reconstruction: Art Practices of Contemporary Aboriginal Artists from Canada, Australia, and Taiwan." Journal of Multi-cultural and Cross-cultural Research in Art Education, 16(1), 1998.

The above are all NAEA publications. Visit: www.naea.com.

To sample multicultural approaches in Canada, browse Saskatchawan's arts curriculum, which integrates aboriginal and other cultures, at: www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/artsed.