Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Education: a mainstream issue?

Abstract

This paper argues that issues related to cultural and linguistic diversity have remained at the margins of educational reform efforts in many countries. This marginalisation is interpreted as a reflection of persistent patterns of coercive relations of power in the wider society. A framework is presented for analysing the educational attainment of culturally and linguistically diverse pupils that highlights the ways in which societal power relations influence the negotiation of identity between educators and students. Within the context of this framework, in societies characterised by unequal power relations among groups, pedagogy is never neutral; in varying degrees, the interactions between educators and pupils always either reinforce coercive relations of power or promote collaborative relations of power. Educational reform efforts that ignore the intersections of power and pedagogy inevitably will tend to reinforce coercive relations of power.