Embracing and Celebrating Multicultural Education for Peace Building in Nigeria

Abstract

Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, such as schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities or nations. In a political context, multiculturalism is the advocacy of extending equitable status to distinct ethnic and religious groups without promoting any specific value as central. Multicultural education will teach people from different cultural backgrounds to accommodate one another for peaceful co-existence. Peace building which has been described as “sowing of peace” is a process of restoring normal relationship between people. Multicultural teaching will therefore give way to easy interaction between different ethnic groups with different cultural background in Nigeria. This paper examined the concept of multicultural education and peace building, discussed effective multicultural teaching in the Nigerian school system and described how to embrace and celebrate multiculturalism for peace building in the society. It recommended that multicultural education should be introduced in the Nigerian school system in order to enhance cultural integration.