Identity paradigms in a multicultural teaching and learning context: deconstructing the concepts

underpinning multiculturalism

Vicky ObiedGoldsmiths, University of London

Competition/Co-operation

‘Countries that create a more competitive

environment in which many schools compete for students do not systematically produce better results … The cross-country analysis suggests that systems as a whole do not benefit from higher rates of school competition’ (PISA 2009).

Song to Belong – Nathan JonesHow far can we stray?Not too far or your voice will change.

The assertion that … all belong where they were bornIs the greatest source of suffering on this earth

We should decide ourselves where it is we belong

http://alittlenathan.co.uk/archives/150

Developing a paradigm for intercultural education

• Developing an approach which takes account of the complex ecosystems which shape educational understandings and experiences

• Creating creative spaces of learning: interdisciplinary, real and virtual, school and home/community

• Inclusive and exclusive discourses in relation to languages, cultures and possibilities of dynamic identity construction

• Negotiating conflicting ideologies and identifying intercultural possibilities within and beyond the bounds of official schooling

• Extending a multiliteracy perspective in negotiation with partner schools and teachers

Developing an intercultural perspective

An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language – Barton (2007)

• ‘literacy has a role in maintaining diversity; it can either be seen as the main force of standardization of languages, or it can have an important role in maintaining the range of variation in language’ (32).

• ‘There is a sense in which all the languages of the world represent an ecosystem, all being interdependent upon each other’ (204).

Literacy in context

The multilinguistic and multicultural nature of society … requires us to think in new and different ways about what literacy is, and how it ought to be considered ‘successfully mastered’

(Johnson and Kress, Assessment in Education, 2003: 9)

Creating a dynamic literate environment

The plurality of literacy:

‘ … inclusive of local knowledge and languages; widening access to multimodal literacy; and pursuing multilingual and multicultural policies, especially in education’.

UNESCO, 2004

Who’s prepared to develop intercultural practices?

Are national policies, are schools, is teacher education more oriented towards a monocultural or intercultural approach?

Languages, literacies and learning: from monocultural to

intercultural perspectives - Anderson & Obied, 2011

Within this paradigm learning is seen as a process of co-construction which has negotiation of meaning at its heart and where ‘scaffolding’ strategies play an important role in mapping pathways and developing confidence’ ( 19).

A pedagogy of questioning• Reading the Word and the World – Freire & Macedo (1987)

‘ … to reappropriate their history, culture, and language practices’ (157).

• Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Focus on Communicative Repertoires - Rymes (2010)

‘… students accommodate to school routine and repertoires, but teachers accommodate to students’ repertoires as well’ (538).

Intercultural communication and ideology

It is at the level of discourse that individuals are able to negotiate, make sense of and practise culture; and it is within this process that imaginations about culture are generated and ideology is both experienced and manufactured (Holliday, 2011: 1).

Language, power and pedagogies Language and Education: A Limpopo Lens The challenge for educators is to open up ‘ideological

and implementational space for multilingualism and social justice’ (Hornberger, 2010: 563) and challenge existing relationships between language, power and pedagogies.

Implications for intercultural education

• English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking – Gibbons (2009)

‘… a teacher who sees EL learners as language “deficient” is unlikely to take the trouble to find out what a student knows in his or her first language, or to encourage the kinds of higher-order literacy engagement that are fundamental to school success. Teachers’ “ways of thinking” can therefore have a profound effect on the education outcomes of their students’ (166).

• Professional Development for Staff Working in Multilingual Schools - J. Anderson, C. Hélot, J. McPake and V. Obied, (2010)

Despite growing numbers of students with diverse language histories attending school across Europe, systematic and structured professional education to prepare teachers and educational managers for work in multilingual schools is still relatively rare’ (5)

Changing cultural and linguistic classroom environments

Sustaining linguistic diversity within the global cultural economy:Issues of language rights and linguistic possibilities – Rassool (2004) ‘for these pupils cultural barriers are more permeable and

experiences, aspirations, dreams and desires are negotiated and redefined within the dynamic of everyday life as an integral part of survival’ (212).

A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures – Cazden et al (2000)

The role of pedagogy is viewed as ‘an epistemology of pluralism’ where cross-cultural discourses occur around a range of texts without pupils ‘having to erase or leave behind different subjectivities’ (18).