Position of Multiculturalism in School Education and Higher Education

The present research is designed to examine multiculturalism in school education and its impact on higher education. It is based on the assumption that what is learned in school as far as multiculturalism is concerned does play a role in higher education and that the type of student learning is effective in promoting cultural compatibility or in throwing up obstacles in the way of higher education. The present research, which employed ethnography, involved 40 senior high school students who contributed to the study during the course of one school year. The sampling was purposive and the results of the study suggest that family and social background plays a role in students mocking other cultures, in their development of a sense of superiority and in cultural bigotry. It also indicates that there is limited religious knowledge with regard to human parity and a similar lack of knowledge among students when it comes to prominent cultural works and figures of different ethnicities. These could complicate cultural compatibility. They can also cloud rational attitudes toward cultures and interfere with efforts to prevent cultural monopolism in higher education. These in turn could set the stage for the shrinkage of the national culture as a result of inattention to native cultures, and thus create an identity crisis among Iranians.