James A. Banks

James A. Banks is a founder and architect of the field of multicultural education, and he is often called the “father of multicultural education” in the research literature. He is the founding director of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington, which is now the Banks Center for Educational Justice. Banks has made major conceptual, theoretical, and empirical contributions to the teaching of ethnic studies, to citizenship education and diversity, to knowledge construction, and to multicultural education. He has published more than 100 articles and has written or edited more than 20 books that have been highly influential nationally and internationally. In 1997-98 he served as president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and in 1982 he was president of the National Council for the Social Studies. His current research focuses on diversity and civic education in nations around the world.