Criticism of multicultural education has increased in recent years. In a search through the literature, Sleeter located "two critiques published in journals in the 1970s, six in the 1980s, and fifty-one between 1990 and 1992 along" (1999, 266).

In addition to the charge that the multicultural movement is led by a small group of radicals who do not represent the views of their own races and ethnicities, critics claim that multiculturalism threatens the preservation of Western ideals.

Even some who favor multicultural education believe that others are overemphasizing diversity.

Diane Ravitch (1990), an advocate for what she terms "pluralism" with the goal of attaining "a richer common culture," argues that multiculturalism is being replaced with a "particularism" that rejects the belief that a "common culture is possible or desirable."

Others note that focusing on diversity makes learning unfocused and superficial.

Unity comes about from having a unified curriculum. Mortimer J. Adler (1994) proposed that one course of study for all was the better answer and that studying a focused curriculum was more effective.

Noting the impossibility of studying all cultures in depth, Adler wrote in 1984, "What we face is several lifetimes of work to master diverse histories, each remote from that of New England or Texas, between which we ourselves see enough differences to require special effort in the teaching of a unified American history."

James William Noll (199) raises a deeper issue behind the question of whether multicultural education is unifying or diverse: "Is the nation strengthened and its minority populations empowered by the process of assimilation into a culture with primarily Western European origins: Or is the United States—which is an immigrant nation—constantly redefined by the cultural influences that come to its shores?"

In addition to the charge that the multicultural movement is led by a small group of radicals who do not represent the views of their own races and ethnicities, critics claim that multiculturalism threatens the preservation of Western ideals.