Abstract:
This study explores how culture is reflected in the practice of two New Zealand primary school teachers in their visual arts lessons, and how these practices may or may not align with a critical multicultural approach to education. The data that formed the basis for this study were collected using a semi-structured interview and three one-hour long classroom observations with each teacher, over a five-week period.
The study explores, via case study analysis, how the cultural locations and understandings of each teacher influence how they respond to, reflect, and incorporate culture into their lessons, and how these teachers’ practices do and do not align with ideas of critical multiculturalism. The findings of this study conclude that the teachers’ personal cultural locations, and their ability to identify them, influence how they treat culture within their classroom. Likewise, the teachers’ understandings about culture, and their beliefs about children, also affect the reflection of culture, as well as the use of critical conversations about culture in the classroom. Neither teacher appeared to fully engaged with a critical multicultural approach to teaching. However, one teacher was more closely aligned with critical multicultural practice than the other whose pedagogy could be described as a form of liberal multiculturalism.