New Robes for an Old Order: Multicultural Education, Peace Education, Cooperative Learning and Progressive Education

Abstract

This paper examines three recent educational movements from a philosophical and historical perspective in order to identify and analyze the related philosophical underpinnings. Those approaches examined include multicultural education, peace education and cooperative learning. The origins and basic features of each educational movement are described briefly. Analysis is primarily concerned with goals and objectives and an examination of points common to the three approaches. The theoretical concern is that the underlying philosophical bases of these movements is not readily discernible due to the lack of the proponents of each approach to make these c lea r. The authors contend that the fundamental premise of these movements is remarkably like that of the Progressivist educational focus of this century. Two implications flow from this, namely that all "new" ideas need to be carefully examined for their relation to ongoing (or past) practice, and educators need to be more concerned about explicating premises when postulating new approaches.