Multiculturalism and Curriculum: Role of Education in Chal-lenging Societal Division in Nigeria

Primarily, education is for the achievement of continuity in a society, but the globalization, technological and ecological change has touched and changed all aspects of human life (Zahabioun et al., 2012). In as much as education is used to identify the features and impacts of changes in human life, it is seen as a vehicle for enfranchising and drawing individuals and groups into full members of society (Tomlinson, 1989). Struggle for individuals’ and groups’ identity, recognition, inclusion and equality have been creating un-ending crises all over the world. Education has remained the actual instrument for challenging societal division and segregation. Although, there is neither genetic foundation for division of human ethnicity nor was there a difference in intelligence between different group of people identified historically by race (UNESCO, 1950; US Department of Energy, 2013; Vaavrus, 2015), but studies have shown that there have been segregation and inequality in education and society at large across race, colour, culture, religion and gender (Maio, 2001; Gándara and Aldana, 2014; Banks, 2015; Dowd and Bensimon, 2015). This study discusses and examines the role of education in challenging societal division. Multicultural and critical multicultural education were found to adopt an acceptable learning environment in other to increase academic opportunities of underrepresented groups in the educational system thereby reducing discrimination and prejudice against the marginalized groups. In Nigeria, like other countries of the world, citizenship education is a form of critical multicultural education taught in schools to educate individuals about citizenship from childhood.