TEACHING AND LEARNING IN MULTICULTURAL SCHOOLS: ANINTEGRATED APPROACH. Elizabeth Coelho. Clevedon, UK: MultilingualMatters, 1998. Pp. xiv + 283. $79.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Abstract

Elizabeth Coelho's Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Schools(TLMS) is a very good book for its kind. Its primary audience is teachers at the primary and secondary level of schools in situations of cultural pluralism, the “multicultural” of the title. Schools are actually rarely multicultural, even if their students represent different cultures in contact, but rather serve as the major instrument of acculturation and assimilation into the dominant ideology. TLMSattempts to counteract this tendency by a valiant attempt of an “account of what is required to teach and learn effectively in multicultural schools” (p. x)! Coelho's ultimate goal is using the schools as agents for change in society, affirming the richness and stimulation to be found in cultural diversity.