A Multicultural View Is a More Cognitively Complex View

Abstract

This article introduces the Reflective Judgment model of intellectual development (King & Kitchener, 1994), which illustrates how reasoning skills develop in adulthood, and shows how the development of these skills is relevant to multicultural education on college campuses. Many students do not understand the basis for differing points of view on controversial issues and develop their own judgments based on whim or others' opinions rather than on an analysis of the evidence. Instructors may better understand students' justifications for their beliefs in light of the students' different assumptions about knowledge and how it is gained. Suggestions to faculty members for promoting intellectual development are offered in the context of multicultural education.