Cultural minority children's learning within culturally-sensitive classroom teaching

Abstract

The personal aspect of knowledge – the everyday concepts – is located in the life setting of a person. These personal concepts are the foundation for the child's appropriation of subject matter concepts that qualify the child's personal concept so they can function as theoretical concepts. However, subject matter concepts are not universal, they are related to national curriculum traditions. The connection between personal and subject matter concepts is often much weaker for immigrants and refugees coming to a new country than for children with generations of ancestors in a society. One problem for teaching subject matter concepts to cultural minority children is: ‘How can societal relevant knowledge be taught which is sensitive to both cultural and social differences and become functional in culturally different life contexts?’ This question has motivated two teaching experiments with history and social science subjects. The first was an after-school project with Puerto Rican children in New York City and the second was a school project with young Palestinian boys in Aarhus, Denmark. The aim of both projects was to create a form of teaching that was (1) meaningful for the children (2) contributed to their acquisition of skills and knowledge, and (3) created a positive identity and acceptance of their cultural background, as well as the society in which they were living.