In the study of multicultural education, there are key names, places, concepts, and legal actions which provide a foundation for the field. This reference includes more than 400 entries from a broad range of topics related to multicultural education, which the authors define as education geared toward reducing bias, ensuring equity, and promoting understanding of the self and others. Each item in the encyclopedia has been chosen for its value in illuminating one or more particular concerns in the field. Each entry not only helps to identify and place in an historical perspective a concept, place, person, event, or legal action, but also links that topic to an important aspect of multicultural education.

While the encyclopedia provides coverage of numerous terms from the social sciences and discusses various court decisions and historical events, it also includes entries for notable persons from a wide range of cultural groups. These persons exemplify the achievements and diversity of America’s many cultures and are often discussed within a multicultural curriculum. In addition, the volume provides entries for cultural and ethnic groups. These entries discuss the educational needs and experiences of the group. Thus there are entries for such groups as African-Americans, Anglo-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Jewish-Americans; for organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith; for several Native American people; for persons, such as George Washington Carver, Geronimo, and Jesse Jackson; and for numerous terms and concepts, such as busing, institutional racism, gender equity, quota systems, and reverse discrimination. Entries provide bibliographic information, and the volume concludes with a selected, general bibliography.