Narratives of the Intercultural Teacher: How teachers make meaning of an Intercultural Capabilities curriculum

© 2019 David Richard BrowningUNESCO (2019) argues that in the current, turbulent and globalised landscape, intercultural dialogue has become more crucial than ever to promote and disseminate values, attitudes and behaviours among school students that are conducive to improved co-operation and dialogue among diverse peoples. In 2018, Victorian teachers were tasked for the first time with reporting on Intercultural Capability (ICC) within the curriculum, with many having little to no formal training in ICC curriculum or pedagogy. This study investigated how three teachers and early ICC innovators made meaning of the curriculum when teaching a middle year’s (7 – 10) secondary unit at schools in differing geographical locations in the state of Victoria. A narrative inquiry approach was engaged to analyse teachers’ interpretation of the ICC curriculum, the pedagogical decisions they made in the midst of teaching their respective units, and the perceived challenges they confronted in the intercultural (IC) classroom. Working with narrative data drawn from two semi-structured interviews with each teacher, undertaken before and after the teaching of a curriculum unit, I adopted the sequential planning theories of Clandinin and Connelly (1990) as an initial framework. This was supplemented with Aoki’s (2005) Deleuzian-inspired ‘curriculum-as-lived’ frame, to build an account of events and relational episodes in the IC classroom, and their impact on understandings of what it means to be an IC teacher. A strong theme in the teacher narratives was the development of professional and personal self-knowledge through a process of teachers reflecting upon their own cultural background and considering this as part of classroom activities with students. In addition, both the cultural composition of the classroom and associated views and values held by students impacted on how the teachers’ pedagogical approach evolved. The thesis contributed fresh perspectives on how the challenges of a new curriculum area are negotiated by teachers, including the processes involved in building their own professional knowledge as well as contextually appropriate pedagogical practices. It revealed a need for the provision of clearer and more detailed guidance to support IC pedagogy, specifically in reference to addressing the ethically dynamic and often contested nature of ICC curriculum in classrooms. Further, the issue of how teachers create safe spaces in which to challenge opinions brings into question the extent to which a teacher should or can insert their own beliefs into the classroom. Overall, this study of the teaching of the ICC curriculum revealed the need for a flexible, patient and reflexive approach in order to address the unpredictable ethical and pedagogical challenges that can emerge in the intercultural classroom