Supporting ethnically diverse students to 'be themselves': Culturally inclusive practices of visual arts teachers in New Zealand

Abstract

New Zealand, a small nation in the South Pacific, is one of the highest migrant-receiving countries in the world. Paralleling the 2013 New Zealand Census statistics for the adult population, visual arts teachers in its largest city, Auckland, are predominantly European. In contrast, the youthful population under 20 years now comes from ethnically diverse groups. This article reports on research, conducted in ten Auckland secondary schools in 2015, which investigated the effects of this contrasting demographic on visual arts programs. A significant finding was that European visual arts teachers are using culturally inclusive approaches to support their ethnically differing 15-to-18 year old students to ‘be themselves’. Conveyed through the teachers’ ‘voices’, the students’ art works speak of the multiple ways in which they express their ethnic identities through the ‘visual’.