The growing diversity of our society requires transformation of ideological perspectives and changes in social, cultural, and institutional relations in order to legitimize diversity as a societal strength. Dominant ideologies and classroom practices have functioned to serve only one segment of American society. Attention must be directed toward determining the social environments and relations that best fulfill all students' needs, and it must also be focused on achieving a broader contextual understanding of the role played by education in a postindustrial, late capitalist society. The contributors to Part 1 of this collection offer the position that all of society will suffer if an understanding of difference is not promoted actively. They then explore the sociopolitical factors that impede social transformations. Essays in Part 2 provide a conceptual framework as a basis for understanding multicultural education, critical pedagogy, and politics difference as forms of political and historical agency. Papers in Part 3 assert that multiculturalism will succeed as a medium of cultural critique to stimulate transformative social change because its primary pedagogical aim is to produce critical self-awareness. References follow each chapter. (SLD)