The Educational Canon: Curriculum in a Multicultural Nation

The educational canon is used to teach students in both premedial and higher education, but may not be relevant in the new technological world.

Societal changes over history often help determine curriculum in higher education. A major component of instruction under discussion over the last several decades is the issue of the canon, and how a pluralistic society may affect curriculum used to teach within higher education (Banks, 1991). The educational canon is a guide that educators follow to teach the core of a subject. In literature, it is often a specific set of books, usually made up of fifty classic works that focus on the liberal arts, which provide students with the knowledge requirements necessary to form literary concepts.

Canons in education are typical in almost every subject including history, mathematics and the sciences; however, the literary canon is an area where there is an especially heated debate among educators (Laist, 2009). One of the central issues of these discussions is the lack of emphasis on multicultural inclusion in the frequently studied books. Some educationalists and essay writer service asking whether traditional studies that have been the central focus for a century or more are still relevant in the increasingly multicultural society.

The evolution of history from the European standpoint has contributed to the marginalization of contributing cultures. As humanity moves into the twenty-first century, educators are forced to reinterpret history and rewrite…