Abstract:
Implementing recently developed culturally inclusive and anti-racist policies requires a theoretically and empirically based understanding of how culture and race enter into pedagogic relations. With the
so-called immigration debate of the mid-1990s, schools and universities have been constructed as sites of racial conflict. While it is necessary for educators to develop strategies for dealing with overt racial violence and harassment, it is crucial in this context that the construction of race and culture in everyday social relations of schooling is not overlooked. Commonsense assumptions about second language learning, and the characteristics of students of particular cultural groups, are key to understanding this everyday construction of race and culture.
The data analysed in this paper has been drawn from the ARC project, "Constructing Australian Identities through language and literacy education in schools, communities and workplaces" (First Chief Investigator: Parlo Singh). We examine teacher and students accounts of a year 12 English unit and transcripts of the lessons in the unit, documenting the implications for teaching and learning of the assumption that it is necessary to split groups of Asian students up on educational grounds, specifically, to force them to acquire English. Conclusions are drawn about the cultural assumptions and implications of teacher explanations of the pedagogic participation of Asian students.
so-called immigration debate of the mid-1990s, schools and universities have been constructed as sites of racial conflict. While it is necessary for educators to develop strategies for dealing with overt racial violence and harassment, it is crucial in this context that the construction of race and culture in everyday social relations of schooling is not overlooked. Commonsense assumptions about second language learning, and the characteristics of students of particular cultural groups, are key to understanding this everyday construction of race and culture.
The data analysed in this paper has been drawn from the ARC project, "Constructing Australian Identities through language and literacy education in schools, communities and workplaces" (First Chief Investigator: Parlo Singh). We examine teacher and students accounts of a year 12 English unit and transcripts of the lessons in the unit, documenting the implications for teaching and learning of the assumption that it is necessary to split groups of Asian students up on educational grounds, specifically, to force them to acquire English. Conclusions are drawn about the cultural assumptions and implications of teacher explanations of the pedagogic participation of Asian students.