Experienced Teachers' Perspectives on Cultural and Social Class Diversity: Which Differences Matter?

Abstract

This article reports on a pilot study that investigated the beliefs, values, and pedagogies of experienced high school teachers who worked with student populations of non-English speaking and economically disadvantaged immigrants or refugees in Australia. Qualitative research methods, including focus groups and in-depth individual interviews with teachers, produced data that were examined using Critical Discourse Analysis. Close reading of the teachers' comments suggests that there are a number of key discourses that teachers use to make sense of differences among culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged groups of students. Specifically, teachers distinguish between cultural groups on the basis of students' life experiences prior to arrival in Australia; students' collective and individual educational experiences; and the different social class positioning of students within the same ethnic group. In their comments, teachers at times categorised students in generalised and stereotypical ways but also were able to critique and reflect on their personal assumptions. An analysis of the teachers' reflections provides insights into how they made sense of “diversity” and how, as teachers, they try to work productively with ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged students.

Andrea C. Allard is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In her research and teaching, she engages with feminist and poststructuralist theories of identity formation to investigate how gender, ethnicity, “race” and class are constructed in educational milieus.

Ninetta Santoro is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. Her research interests lie in teacher identities, the intersections of ethnicity and social class, and socially-just pedagogies across a range of education contexts.

Notes

¹ This study, “Quality Teaching for Difference: Investigating Teachers' Beliefs and Practices in Culturally Diverse Classrooms,” explored how experienced teachers understand gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class in relation to the students with whom they work. Seven teachers who self-identified as “experienced in working in diverse contexts,” volunteered to be part of this project. The project was funded through a Deakin University, Faculty of Education Quality Learning Research Priority Grant in 2004.

² Pseudonyms have been used for both schools and for all teachers.

³ In Victoria, Australia, the high school is generally organised into Years 7–12 and often referred to as a Secondary College.

⁴ For example, in 2001, in the midst of a federal election, a group of refugees from the Middle East was picked up off the coast of Australia by the Norwegian freighter, “The Tampa,” when the boat they were in began to sink. As a signatory of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, Australia was legally obliged to respond to their request for asylum by investigating and processing their claims. However, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, refused to let them be landed on Australian soil, insisting, “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come” (Gordon, 2001, p. 1). This was one of many instances, post 9/11, wherein refugees and asylum seekers, particularly those from the Middle East were demonised by the federal government and in the popular media. During this time, refugees were continually referred to as “illegal aliens” and were locked up in detention centres, some located deep in the South Australian desert, for years at a time. A significant portion of the Australian electorate approved of this. (See for example, Shanahan & Saunders, 2001).