Discourses of Cultural Diversity in the Science Curriculum: Connections, contradictions, and colonialisms

Abstract

Cultural diversity is a key concept informing the recently introduced New South Wales Stages 4 and 5 (junior high school) science syllabus. In this paper I undertake a genealogical analysis of the discourses of culture and cultural diversity found in the syllabus itself and in the accompanying syllabus support document. The discourses used in the documents can be traced back to federal government documents from the 1970s and 1980s. I attribute the impetus for specifically and extensively addressing issues of culture and cultural diversity to recent changes in the ways in which state government bodies are required to report progress in matters of “ethnic affairs”. I identify a range of contradictions in the discourses, and argue that some of these ways of thinking about culture and cultural diversity are colonial in the sense that they act to contain and constrain diversity. I argue that future versions of the syllabus need to more deftly and appropriately deal with issues of difference. In particular, they need to move beyond culturalist accounts to the provision of a wider range of concepts with which teachers can analyze the social contexts in which they are working.