Pendidikan Multikultural: Upaya Membangun Keberagamaan Inklusif di Sekolah

Abstract

Indonesia, with its diverse social, cultural and geographical variety, is one of the biggest multicultural societies in the world. This diversity –when misused- can cause many problems such as corruption, collusion, nepotism, poverty, violence, damage to environment, separatism, and human right violation. Vis-à-vis this, multicultural education suggests that diversity of ethnicity, culture, language, religion, society, gender, intellectual acumen and age can in fact be used to create inclusive pluralism through sufficient strategy and efficient concept of education. In practical terms, what is required from a teacher in this whole concept of education is not only to be able to teach his/her subject matter, but also to implant the multicultural and inclusive values such as democracy, humanism, and pluralism. In the end, what this approach can achieve is to produce the out-put that has not only the academic skill in his/her specialization, but also the ability to adopt and apply the norms of pluralism which will lead him/her to be more tolerant and understanding toward diversity and differences.