Curriculum and Cultural Diversity

Abstract

In order to better support socially just and equitable schooling for all students, there is a need to unpack some of the nuances associated with the development, implementation, and assessment of curriculum. One way in which to accomplish this goal might be to utilise a cultural diversity lens to better understand and discuss complexities of the curriculum. Making use of a cultural diversity lens for shedding light on the curriculum might be especially important for highlighting strands of equity and inequity in the curriculum. There are various directions that bear detailed examination regarding the curriculum and cultural diversity, including exploration of the curricular inheritance of issues of culture and diversity in the curriculum. Less attention is given to delving into the curriculum with a cultural diversity lens that addresses pragmatic, experiential, and narrative perspectives. Cultural diversity is understood from a Deweyan vantage as shaped within and shaped by interactions between people as situated in given contexts. This perspective on cultural diversity incorporates a focus on curriculum as experiential. It assumes a narrative unfolding of life and education, whereby the curriculum is crafted in specific contexts and between teachers, learners, and other curricular stakeholders as the culmination of stories of life and learning. Cultural diversity in curriculum is then seen here as the norms, values, and expectations that are negotiated within teaching and learning situations and interactions. Adopting a focus on the interplay of cultural diversity with teaching and learning enables exploration of how students and teachers engage in and make sense of the curriculum in explicit and implicit ways from the basis of the cultural layers that they navigate between home and school. Furthermore, Schwab (1973) identified four commonplaces that are involved in all curricular thought and actions. These curriculum commonplaces are: the teacher, the subject matter, the learner, and the milieu. The curriculum commonplaces are each critical considerations in the design and implementation of curriculum. This curriculum framework is used to structure, organise, and clarify considerations of the curriculum through the lens of cultural diversity. This structure is particularly useful for directing attention to all major threads of the curriculum. In this way, attention can also be directed to curriculum silences, struggles, and gaps, as well as the positioning of such silences, struggles, and gaps. Examination of research offers a glimpse into the complexities at the intersection of curriculum and cultural diversity. Knowledge about issues at the intersections of cultural diversity and curriculum in schools gained from existing literature in the field of Curriculum Studies informs the curriculum work of preservice and practicing teachers. Teacher educators who are preparing preservice and practicing teachers to work with students of increasingly diverse social and cultural backgrounds may also draw from this literature. Experiential research addressing complexities at the intersections of cultural diversity and curriculum further contribute to this body of knowledge.