Representation of the Ethiopian multicultural society in secondary teacher education curricula

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the multi-ethnic and multicultural characteristics of the diverse Ethiopian society are incorporated into the current secondary teacher education curricula of the country. To that end, both qualitative and quantitative content analyses were used as tools for data collection. The Ethiopian general national secondary teacher education curricula framework and three other specific secondary teacher education curricula were analysed based on Banks' (1993, 2001, 2006) four approaches to the integration of ethnic and multicultural contents into teacher education curricula. The study exhibited an increasing ambition to address issues of multicultural education into the Ethiopian general national secondary teacher education curricula framework. Nevertheless, elements of multi-ethnic and multicultural education are, to a great extent, missing in the specific secondary teacher education curricula. Implications which are assumed to improve fair representation of the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Ethiopian peoples into the entire secondary teacher education curricula are presented in the article.