Training teachers in the United Kingdom for a multicultural society‐ the rhetoric and the reality

During the 1970s there were considerable pressures brought to bear on teacher educators in the UK to introduce courses in multiracial and multicultural education. These came from official reports, the DES, even the Inspectorate. Nothing came of them, however, partly because of changes in government, partly because of a lack of any coherent official policy towards multi‐ethnic education. Yet teachers are constantly blamed for being racist, ethnocentric and unsympathetic towards our culturally plural society. This paper seeks to argue that the teachers are less at fault than the teacher educators in training institutions and that unless the latter move towards introducing more courses in multiracial/ cultural education there is little hope of change. Unfortunately, according to an analysis of a survey undertaken of UK teacher training institutions into the teaching of comparative education, including multicultural and development education, remarkably little is done to change ethnocentric attitudes or to prepare students for teaching in multicultural classrooms.