The Multicultural Classroom: Learning from Australian First Nations Perspectives

2. Culture and Multiculturalism4

Since it is “a far-reaching dynamic concept and an elaborate, ever-changing phenomenon” (Wintergerst & McVeigh 2011, 3) an abundance of understandings and definitions of the concept of culture exists. Despite it being one of the most frequently used expressions in the social sciences and humanities, culture is also one of the most underdetermined concepts in everyday language use, connoting different phenomena in different contexts and fields of research (Surkamp 2017, 179). Accordingly, Baker (2015, 46) elucidates that “our definitions of culture will always be partial and open to revision and change.” Despite the complexity of the field, this chapter includes and discusses select efforts at a definition of both culture and multiculturalism and illustrates the understanding of culture underpinning the study.

To start with, Brown (2007, 132) outlines that “[c]ulture is a way of life. It is the context within which we exist, think, feel, and relate to others.” In contrast, Hollins (2015, 20) regards culture as emerging from people’s experience and acquired understanding “about how to live together as a community, how to interact with the physical environment, and knowledge or beliefs about their relationships or positions within the universe.” Adopting a comparative intercultural perspective, Hofstede and McCrae frame their operating definition of culture as

[t]he collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one group or category of people from another. This stresses that culture is (a) a collective, not individual, attribute; (b) not directly visible but manifested in behaviors; and (c) common to some but not all people. (Hofstede & McCrae 2004, 58)

This approach exhibits similarities to the two central meanings of culture identified by Throsby (2001). On the one hand, culture is used to “describe attitudes, beliefs, mores, customs, values and practices which are common to or shared by any group.” This group “may be defined in terms of politics, geography, religion, ethnicity or some other characteristic” (Throsby 2001, 4) ensuring a sense of identity. On the other hand, culture also “has a more functional orientation, denoting certain activities that are undertaken by people, and the products of those activities, which have to do with the intellectual, moral and artistic aspects of human life” (ibid., 4). In relation to these perspectives, Baker and Wright (2017, 426) define culture as “the set of shared meanings, beliefs, attitudes, customs, everyday behavior and social understandings of a particular group, community or society.”

What can be perceived based on these preliminary elaborations is the great diversity of definitions of the concept of culture, which virtually unanimously appear to involve processes of grouping people together according to seemingly shared features and identifying dimensions that distinguish them from others (Dockery 2010, 318). While such approaches may provide comprehensible outlines of the concept, they have been criticized for adopting a simplified, static, and homogeneous understanding of culture, which, in light of the globally increasing scope of diversity in societies and classrooms, has been deemed inappropriate.

On the contrary, as “culture is constantly changing and adapting” (Yunkaporta 2020, 61), authors have advocated for the adoption of an understanding of culture as a complex and dynamic entity including a “multiple, fragmented and hybrid nature of identity” (Baker 2015, 111). In this context, Kramsch (2009, 225–226) pleads for a movement towards a late modernist approach, which abandons a focus on nations and borders, and regards culture as a “dynamic process, constructed and reconstructed in various ways by individuals engaged in struggles for symbolic meaning and for the control of identities, subjectivities and interpretations of history.” Based on this understanding, Ladson-Billings (2017, 143) also outlines that

it is important to emphasize the dynamic and fluid nature of culture that is much more than lists of “central tendencies” or worse, “cultural stereotypes.” From an anthropological perspective, culture encompasses worldview, thought patterns, epistemological stances, ethics, and ways of being along with the tangible and readily identifiable components.

Thus, Aboriginal scholar Yunkaporta (2020, 242) concludes that it is “the cultural lens that we carry everywhere with us. […] Your culture is not what your hands touch or make—it’s what moves your hands.”

As with the criticism raised in connection with the concept of culture, the definitions of bi- or multiculturalism reveal similar predicaments due to the simplifying undertone that afflicts many of them. In the Encyclopaedia of Bilingual Education, for instance, the concept of biculturalism is defined as

the ability to effectively navigate day-to-day life in two different social groups and to do so with the anticipated result of being accepted by the cultural group that is not one’s own. […] [The term] refers to the necessary knowledge, skills, and beliefs that individuals can access to participate within their own and another cultural group. (Smith 2008, 65)

Similarly, Baker and Wright (2017, 431) have recently defined multiculturalism as “[a]dopting the cultural practices associated with more than one cultural or ethnic group.” In this context, Australian linguist Eades (2013) relates the term biculturalism to the previously discussed concept of multilingualism claiming that “[m]any people are bicultural, having the ability to participate in two or more sociocultural groups—just as bilingual people can speak two or more languages, and bidialectal people can speak two or more dialects” (Eades 2013, 13).

In summary, while various definitions of the concept of culture have been suggested, this book regards culture as an open, complex, dynamic, and highly individual construct. Based on this late modernist understanding (Kramsch 2009), the term multicultural is used to describe classroom settings which are characterized by increasingly diverse ways of knowing, being, and doing. In addition, the terms bicultural as well as the plural derivative cultures are occasionally used with the same inclusive reference in order to accentuate the pluralistic, heterogeneous, and dynamic nature of culture and to emphasize the cultural diversity existing within Indigenous Australia.

3. Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Classrooms

Having defined the fundamental terminology related to the field of study, this section discusses perspectives on including learners’ various backgrounds in educational settings and subsequently presents a concise sample of existing approaches to teaching and learning. Lastly, education policies relevant for multicultural settings are outlined.

3.1 Perspectives on Diversity in Education

Fundamentally, Australian educationalist Joseph Lo Bianco (2009, 113) accentuates that “[p]erhaps the strongest indicator of the transformed realities of contemporary education in a globalised world is the depth of cultural, racial and linguistic diversity in schools.” Adding to this, the American pedagogical theorist Ladson-Billings (2017, 145) establishes that “all students have culture” and emphasizes that “their culture is a valuable, indeed necessary, starting point for learning.” On the basis of these clarifications and their significance for educational settings, all classrooms in this global day and age can be regarded as characterized by an increasing diversity, which takes a likewise increasing number of shapes and forms. In connection with diversity in school, dialectologist Yiakoumetti (2012, 1) states the following:

Research clearly demonstrates that incorporating linguistic diversity into education can lead to social, cultural, pedagogical, cognitive and linguistic advancement. In spite of this evidence, many educational contexts around the world are characterized by an unwillingness to commit to change and a stance that argues for exclusive use of a prescribed standard variety in the classroom.

Referring to this criticism, Dooley (2009, 75) insists on the need for educators to consider that, for learners, “[u]nderstanding what the teacher says or what is written in texts used in class is a key to academic engagement. Yet, for students who are learning the medium of instruction as an additional language, understanding is often elusive.” The transition from the spoken to the written word has been identified as an encumbrance for many bilingual students (Windle 2009, 97–98). Apart from linguistic impediments, culture-related obstacles in diverse classroom settings have been identified, lying in the fact that students reveal “a range of abilities and varying degrees of familiarity with the school context in which they find themselves” (Gearon 2009, 210). In other words, students in one classroom might show drastically divergent views on education and might connect different values, expectations, and functions with schooling in general. In summary, Windle (2009, 96) observes that students frequently “tend to devalue their linguistic and cultural resources, rather than seeing them as resources for learning. For many […] students, bilingualism appears to be a burden rather than an advantage in their engagement with school.”

As a consequence, Gearon emphasizes the necessity for teachers, especially in the context of foreign language education, to understand the mechanisms and ramifications of certain factors in connection with teaching and learning, and to adapt their strategies accordingly to support both language learning and intercultural learning (2009, 210). Subsequently, Windle (2009, 106–107) illustrates the following modes of behavior required from instructors in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. First, teachers need to disregard the common misconception that bilingualism is the primary cause of low academic achievement. Additionally, they need to design effective approaches to teaching and learning while striving to comprehend the individual student’s identity and cultural framework. Doing so can help build a solid foundation of mutual understanding and a connection between students and teachers.

Building on Windle’s (2009) plea, however, Ladson-Billings (2017, 145) has underscored the predominantly defective understanding of teachers’ own backgrounds and identities as an obstacle. Linking this identified shortcoming with the fundamental objectives of education, Watkins et al. (2016, 62) argue the following:

With schools as important sites in which values and understandings around cultural diversity are formed, it is imperative that teachers possess the necessary professional capacities to assist students in making sense of the multicultural society in which they live ensuring a sense of civic belonging and social inclusion that provide the basis for an equitable and fair polity.

Specifically, Ladson-Billings (2017, 145) argues that learners need to develop a multicultural perspective through schooling which entails that students “broaden their cultural repertoires so that they can operate more easily in a world that is globally interconnected.” Therefore, Boon and Lewthwaite (2016, 468) affirm that teaching staff at educational institutions is required to be culturally competent and needs to possess “the knowledge and skills to effectively teach diverse groups of students.”

Specifically investigating contexts in which Standard English is the dominant linguistic variety, Ball and Bernhardt (2012, 209) suggest that “[a] first step that schools […] can take is to acknowledge the validity of children’s particular English dialect. This acknowledgement can promote children’s sense of being capable learners and of belonging in the mainstream school setting.” In conclusion, Partington (2003, 42) states,

School should be a sanctuary from difficulties experienced outside the school and it should be a place where they [students] can be encouraged to succeed and take advantage of opportunities for education and training. For this to happen, however, schools need to change. This change can only occur through more effective education of teachers.

3.2 Implementing Bilingual and Bicultural Approaches

Generally, a variety of definitions and models of bilingual education and a seemingly equally extensive number of ways for classifying and grouping them exist in the field. Fundamentally, Baker (2011) and Grosjean (2010) emphasize the need for a distinction to be made between approaches in which bilingualism is encouraged and those in which a monolingual classroom is targeted (Baker 2011, 207; Grosjean 2010, 230–235). Thus, a distinction can be made between strong and weak forms of bilingual education, which can be differentiated from monolingual forms of education (Baker & Wright 2017, 198ff.); similarly, García (2009, 146–153) makes use of the terms monoglossic and heteroglossic for purposes of differentiation. A further distinction relates to the goals of bilingual education. The three most common types of bilingual education and their respective objectives are listed in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Aims of Bilingual Education Models5

Adding to this concise overview of types of bilingual education models, Table 1 depicts an extract from Baker’s comprehensive typology of bilingual education to exemplify one way of classifying the various existing approaches to, and sub-branches of, bilingual education.

Table 1: A Typology of Bilingual Education6