Abstract:
The rhetoric of the Australian Curriculum presents a putative commitment to the ideals of multiculturalism and cultural pluralism, though the elevation of intercultural understanding as a critical personal capacity or competency signals a discursive shift, a move away from multiculturalism as a guiding concept through which to engage with the increasing diversity of Australia. Within the domain of English curricular area, such commitments face considerable challenge amidst the repeated stirrings of populist nationalism, where immigration, race, culture and, crucially, concepts of social cohesion loom large within social and political agendas, and education and its attendant processes of acculturation and subjectivisation become a battleground.
Although the political and social commitment to multiculturalism remains steady within Australia, challenges remain for a concept whose relevance, implementation and utility face continual challenges in the face of demographic change and increasing challenges to concepts of social cohesion.
Built on the awareness that literary works carry and transfer cultural heritage, biases and the silences from which meanings are derived, this paper asserts the significance of education to furthering social change and argues for the explicit articulation and enaction of multiculturalism within education, regarding it as an operative mechanism for intercultural understanding. Approaching educational policy and praxis through the novel deployment of a humanistic sociological lens, this paper engages the results of a pilot study into text selection practices at three South Australian high schools, focusing on textual options and selection in the English classroom as indicative of broader discourses, speaking to assumptions about the value, utility or efficacy of multiculturalism and intercultural understanding - or the English curriculum to which they are bound. It argues for multiculturalism as a macro-social precondition for the micro-social interactions at the core of intercultural understanding.
Although the political and social commitment to multiculturalism remains steady within Australia, challenges remain for a concept whose relevance, implementation and utility face continual challenges in the face of demographic change and increasing challenges to concepts of social cohesion.
Built on the awareness that literary works carry and transfer cultural heritage, biases and the silences from which meanings are derived, this paper asserts the significance of education to furthering social change and argues for the explicit articulation and enaction of multiculturalism within education, regarding it as an operative mechanism for intercultural understanding. Approaching educational policy and praxis through the novel deployment of a humanistic sociological lens, this paper engages the results of a pilot study into text selection practices at three South Australian high schools, focusing on textual options and selection in the English classroom as indicative of broader discourses, speaking to assumptions about the value, utility or efficacy of multiculturalism and intercultural understanding - or the English curriculum to which they are bound. It argues for multiculturalism as a macro-social precondition for the micro-social interactions at the core of intercultural understanding.