Multiculturalism--the notion that ethnic and cultural groups in the United States should preserve their identities instead of fusing them in a melting pot--has become a byword in education in Los Angeles and other cities.

But now, educators at the elementary, secondary and university levels are rethinking that idea--and worrying that past efforts to teach multiculturalism may have widened the ethnic divisions they were meant to close.

Fearing that the current approach--which relies largely on ethnic studies courses and the recognition of special holidays and heroes--may have unintentionally isolated students from each other, teachers and academics are gingerly beginning to question the way multiculturalism has been taught.

"I think many people, especially in the post-Rodney King era, are beginning to realize that we can't just study ourselves as separate groups," said Ronald Takaki, ethnic studies professor at UC Berkeley. "We've gone beyond the need to recover identity and roots, and now we're realizing that our paths as members of different groups are crisscrossing each other."

Not that these educators have abandoned multiculturalism as a concept. Nor do they suggest schools are solely to blame for ethnic tensions in society and on campus. But, in growing numbers, they are struggling to better define multiculturalism's goals and ways to teach it.

At present, many courses either focus entirely on one ethnic population or teach a standard history and throw a few ethnic names into the mix. The new approach would teach events as they had happened--as interconnected and inclusive history that changed lives in every ethnic group, and was also changed by all of those groups.

The discussion is so new that it has barely begun to show up in the pages of education journals. But it is gaining speed among teachers, administrators and university professors, many who were surprised to discover that others are voicing the same concerns.

Even students, searching for reasons why violence erupted recently at North Hollywood High School and other campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District, suggested that some youngsters have misunderstood lessons about ethnic pride, developing ethnic chauvinism instead.

"They teach you that you have to identify with your own group," said Karina Escalante, a senior at Cleveland High School in Reseda, where African-American and Latino students clashed last year.