An ethnographic action research project: national curriculum, historical learning and a culturally diverse Melbourne primary school

ABSTRACT

This paper uses ethnographic action research to explore how the objectives of the Australian Curriculum Intercultural Understanding can be achieved in a culturally diverse Year 5/6 (ages 10–12) primary school class in Melbourne. It examines whether a history unit on migration, that uses a structured historical inquiry approach, encourages culturally diverse students to develop a more critical and reflexive understanding of multiculturalism. Using Banks’ multicultural framework and Bath’s approach to ethnographic action research, I argue that the oral history component of a Year 5/6 history unit supported students to develop their Intercultural Understanding. I suggest that ethnographic action research is an effective approach for investigating the implementation of new teaching initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Multicultural education
• primary school
• history teaching
• history education
• ethnographic action research
• familiarisation

Acknowledgements

I thank my supervisors Kate Darian-Smith, Stuart Macintyre and Tony Taylor, as well as my colleague Mary Tomsic for their thoughtful feedback on various versions of this paper. In 2018, I presented a draft at the Oxford Ethnography and Education Conference. Comments and feedback have been invaluable for the final version of this paper and I am grateful to all involved in the conference. Finally, I thank the students and staff at Red Gum Primary School for their time and continual enthusiasm for the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Claire Deery http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1320-5596

Notes

1. Maria Grever uses the term ‘non-native’ to describe students whose parents were not born in the country of residence. The term ‘native’ describes students whose grandparents and parents were born in the country in which they live.