Finding a way in for interculturality: Analysing History teachers' conceptualisations at the secondary school level

ABSTRACT

‘Intercultural understanding’ (ICU) and its core concept ‘interculturality’, was introduced in the new national curriculum, implemented across Australia from 2013 (Australian Curriculum, ACARA. [2013]. Australian curriculum V.60. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/copyright). This paper draws on a study conducted in Victoria, Australia, which asked: how history teachers conceptualise interculturality for history teaching and learning? The study used two methods to gather data: textual analysis and focus group interviews. This paper only reports on specific findings from the focus group interviews, analysed through a methodology of crystallisation and discourse analysis, framed by four modes of historical thinking; traditional, exemplary, critical and transformative. The paper argues that interculturality is a significant challenge to history education often located in discourses constructed over time which disrupt how things have always been taught. By analysing the teachers’ talk through a lens whereby the construction of language reveals the educational problematic, the research looks for a way in for interculturality into history teaching and learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Interculturality
• crystallisation
• discourse analysis
• history education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The term White Australia policy was widely used to encapsulate a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians and Pacific Islanders from immigrating to Australia.

2 In Australia the History Wars are characterised by the debate over ‘settlement’ or ‘invasion’ which predominantly began with the Howard government’s ‘root and branch’ approach to teaching History. The debate has continued and is alive and well in recent times, making interculturality even more topical for the discipline.

3 This research follows Gee’s (2014) approach to discourse analysis. In the original thesis clarification between ‘D’iscourse (being characteristic of a professional role or entity of a group) and ‘d’iscourse (being spoken text represented by ‘talking all the time’) is made. However, in this paper, and in the interest of efficacy, the role of the participants as professional History teachers is disclosed in the methodology and the discourse, spoken text and flow of discussion between the participants, is referred to as ‘d’iscourse or as the teachers’ talk.

4 This explanation is influenced by a statement by Théophile Thoré, ‘Des tendances de l’art au xix siecle’ [Art trends in the nineteenth century] (1855) referring to the arts of all countries.