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2. Culture and Multiculturalism4

Since it is “a far-reaching dynamic concept and an elaborate, ever-changing phenomenon” (Wintergerst & McVeigh 2011, 3) an abundance of understandings and definitions of the concept of culture exists. Despite it being one of the most frequently used expressions in the social sciences and humanities, culture is also one of the most underdetermined concepts in everyday language use, connoting different phenomena in different contexts and fields of research (Surkamp 2017, 179). Accordingly, Baker (2015, 46) elucidates that “our definitions of culture will always be partial and open to revision and change.” Despite the complexity of the field, this chapter includes and discusses select efforts at a definition of both culture and multiculturalism and illustrates the understanding of culture underpinning the study.

To start with, Brown (2007, 132) outlines that “[c]ulture is a way of life. It is the context within which we exist, think, feel, and relate to others.” In contrast, Hollins (2015, 20) regards culture as emerging from people’s experience and acquired understanding “about how to live together as a community, how to interact with the physical environment, and knowledge or beliefs about their relationships or positions within the universe.” Adopting a comparative intercultural perspective, Hofstede and McCrae frame their operating definition of culture as

[t]he collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one group or category of people from another. This stresses that culture is (a) a collective, not individual, attribute; (b) not directly visible but manifested in behaviors; and (c) common to some but not all people. (Hofstede & McCrae 2004, 58)

This approach exhibits similarities to the two central meanings of culture identified by Throsby (2001). On the one hand, culture is used to “describe attitudes, beliefs, mores, customs, values and practices which are common to or shared by any group.” This group “may be defined in terms of politics, geography, religion, ethnicity or some other characteristic” (Throsby 2001, 4) ensuring a sense of identity. On the other hand, culture also “has a more functional orientation, denoting certain activities that are undertaken by people, and the products of those activities, which have to do with the intellectual, moral and artistic aspects of human life” (ibid., 4). In relation to these perspectives, Baker and Wright (2017, 426) define culture as “the set of shared meanings, beliefs, attitudes, customs, everyday behavior and social understandings of a particular group, community or society.”

What can be perceived based on these preliminary elaborations is the great diversity of definitions of the concept of culture, which virtually unanimously appear to involve processes of grouping people together according to seemingly shared features and identifying dimensions that distinguish them from others (Dockery 2010, 318). While such approaches may provide comprehensible outlines of the concept, they have been criticized for adopting a simplified, static, and homogeneous understanding of culture, which, in light of the globally increasing scope of diversity in societies and classrooms, has been deemed inappropriate.

On the contrary, as “culture is constantly changing and adapting” (Yunkaporta 2020, 61), authors have advocated for the adoption of an understanding of culture as a complex and dynamic entity including a “multiple, fragmented and hybrid nature of identity” (Baker 2015, 111). In this context, Kramsch (2009, 225–226) pleads for a movement towards a late modernist approach, which abandons a focus on nations and borders, and regards culture as a “dynamic process, constructed and reconstructed in various ways by individuals engaged in struggles for symbolic meaning and for the control of identities, subjectivities and interpretations of history.” Based on this understanding, Ladson-Billings (2017, 143) also outlines that

it is important to emphasize the dynamic and fluid nature of culture that is much more than lists of “central tendencies” or worse, “cultural stereotypes.” From an anthropological perspective, culture encompasses worldview, thought patterns, epistemological stances, ethics, and ways of being along with the tangible and readily identifiable components.

Thus, Aboriginal scholar Yunkaporta (2020, 242) concludes that it is “the cultural lens that we carry everywhere with us. […] Your culture is not what your hands touch or make—it’s what moves your hands.”

As with the criticism raised in connection with the concept of culture, the definitions of bi- or multiculturalism reveal similar predicaments due to the simplifying undertone that afflicts many of them. In the Encyclopaedia of Bilingual Education, for instance, the concept of biculturalism is defined as

the ability to effectively navigate day-to-day life in two different social groups and to do so with the anticipated result of being accepted by the cultural group that is not one’s own. […] [The term] refers to the necessary knowledge, skills, and beliefs that individuals can access to participate within their own and another cultural group. (Smith 2008, 65)

Similarly, Baker and Wright (2017, 431) have recently defined multiculturalism as “[a]dopting the cultural practices associated with more than one cultural or ethnic group.” In this context, Australian linguist Eades (2013) relates the term biculturalism to the previously discussed concept of multilingualism claiming that “[m]any people are bicultural, having the ability to participate in two or more sociocultural groups—just as bilingual people can speak two or more languages, and bidialectal people can speak two or more dialects” (Eades 2013, 13).

In summary, while various definitions of the concept of culture have been suggested, this book regards culture as an open, complex, dynamic, and highly individual construct. Based on this late modernist understanding (Kramsch 2009), the term multicultural is used to describe classroom settings which are characterized by increasingly diverse ways of knowing, being, and doing. In addition, the terms bicultural as well as the plural derivative cultures are occasionally used with the same inclusive reference in order to accentuate the pluralistic, heterogeneous, and dynamic nature of culture and to emphasize the cultural diversity existing within Indigenous Australia.

3. Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Classrooms

Having defined the fundamental terminology related to the field of study, this section discusses perspectives on including learners’ various backgrounds in educational settings and subsequently presents a concise sample of existing approaches to teaching and learning. Lastly, education policies relevant for multicultural settings are outlined.

3.1 Perspectives on Diversity in Education

Fundamentally, Australian educationalist Joseph Lo Bianco (2009, 113) accentuates that “[p]erhaps the strongest indicator of the transformed realities of contemporary education in a globalised world is the depth of cultural, racial and linguistic diversity in schools.” Adding to this, the American pedagogical theorist Ladson-Billings (2017, 145) establishes that “all students have culture” and emphasizes that “their culture is a valuable, indeed necessary, starting point for learning.” On the basis of these clarifications and their significance for educational settings, all classrooms in this global day and age can be regarded as characterized by an increasing diversity, which takes a likewise increasing number of shapes and forms. In connection with diversity in school, dialectologist Yiakoumetti (2012, 1) states the following:

Research clearly demonstrates that incorporating linguistic diversity into education can lead to social, cultural, pedagogical, cognitive and linguistic advancement. In spite of this evidence, many educational contexts around the world are characterized by an unwillingness to commit to change and a stance that argues for exclusive use of a prescribed standard variety in the classroom.

Referring to this criticism, Dooley (2009, 75) insists on the need for educators to consider that, for learners, “[u]nderstanding what the teacher says or what is written in texts used in class is a key to academic engagement. Yet, for students who are learning the medium of instruction as an additional language, understanding is often elusive.” The transition from the spoken to the written word has been identified as an encumbrance for many bilingual students (Windle 2009, 97–98). Apart from linguistic impediments, culture-related obstacles in diverse classroom settings have been identified, lying in the fact that students reveal “a range of abilities and varying degrees of familiarity with the school context in which they find themselves” (Gearon 2009, 210). In other words, students in one classroom might show drastically divergent views on education and might connect different values, expectations, and functions with schooling in general. In summary, Windle (2009, 96) observes that students frequently “tend to devalue their linguistic and cultural resources, rather than seeing them as resources for learning. For many […] students, bilingualism appears to be a burden rather than an advantage in their engagement with school.”

As a consequence, Gearon emphasizes the necessity for teachers, especially in the context of foreign language education, to understand the mechanisms and ramifications of certain factors in connection with teaching and learning, and to adapt their strategies accordingly to support both language learning and intercultural learning (2009, 210). Subsequently, Windle (2009, 106–107) illustrates the following modes of behavior required from instructors in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. First, teachers need to disregard the common misconception that bilingualism is the primary cause of low academic achievement. Additionally, they need to design effective approaches to teaching and learning while striving to comprehend the individual student’s identity and cultural framework. Doing so can help build a solid foundation of mutual understanding and a connection between students and teachers.

Building on Windle’s (2009) plea, however, Ladson-Billings (2017, 145) has underscored the predominantly defective understanding of teachers’ own backgrounds and identities as an obstacle. Linking this identified shortcoming with the fundamental objectives of education, Watkins et al. (2016, 62) argue the following:

With schools as important sites in which values and understandings around cultural diversity are formed, it is imperative that teachers possess the necessary professional capacities to assist students in making sense of the multicultural society in which they live ensuring a sense of civic belonging and social inclusion that provide the basis for an equitable and fair polity.

Specifically, Ladson-Billings (2017, 145) argues that learners need to develop a multicultural perspective through schooling which entails that students “broaden their cultural repertoires so that they can operate more easily in a world that is globally interconnected.” Therefore, Boon and Lewthwaite (2016, 468) affirm that teaching staff at educational institutions is required to be culturally competent and needs to possess “the knowledge and skills to effectively teach diverse groups of students.”

Specifically investigating contexts in which Standard English is the dominant linguistic variety, Ball and Bernhardt (2012, 209) suggest that “[a] first step that schools […] can take is to acknowledge the validity of children’s particular English dialect. This acknowledgement can promote children’s sense of being capable learners and of belonging in the mainstream school setting.” In conclusion, Partington (2003, 42) states,

School should be a sanctuary from difficulties experienced outside the school and it should be a place where they [students] can be encouraged to succeed and take advantage of opportunities for education and training. For this to happen, however, schools need to change. This change can only occur through more effective education of teachers.

3.2 Implementing Bilingual and Bicultural Approaches

Generally, a variety of definitions and models of bilingual education and a seemingly equally extensive number of ways for classifying and grouping them exist in the field. Fundamentally, Baker (2011) and Grosjean (2010) emphasize the need for a distinction to be made between approaches in which bilingualism is encouraged and those in which a monolingual classroom is targeted (Baker 2011, 207; Grosjean 2010, 230–235). Thus, a distinction can be made between strong and weak forms of bilingual education, which can be differentiated from monolingual forms of education (Baker & Wright 2017, 198ff.); similarly, García (2009, 146–153) makes use of the terms monoglossic and heteroglossic for purposes of differentiation. A further distinction relates to the goals of bilingual education. The three most common types of bilingual education and their respective objectives are listed in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Aims of Bilingual Education Models5

Adding to this concise overview of types of bilingual education models, Table 1 depicts an extract from Baker’s comprehensive typology of bilingual education to exemplify one way of classifying the various existing approaches to, and sub-branches of, bilingual education.

Table 1: A Typology of Bilingual Education6

While weak forms of bilingual education include the risk of fostering a subtractive form of bilingualism (see Figure 2), strong forms, on the contrary, encourage additive bilingualism. Connecting the concepts of language and culture, Baker (2011, 249) states that “bilingual education ideally develops a broader enculturation, a more sensitive view of different creeds and cultures” and it “will usually deepen an engagement with the cultures associated with the languages, fostering a sympathetic understanding of differences”.

Two approaches that are classified as strong forms of bilingual education in the typology presented in Table 1, immersion education and two-way education, will now be investigated more deeply. In addition, the two-way concept is explored further in connection with contemporary Australian educational discourse in Chapter IV.4.1.

3.2.1 Two-Way Education

Linguist François Grosjean (2010, 239) describes a two-way program as a form of bilingual education “that promotes bilingualism and biliteracy, as well as a very real understanding of the people and cultures involved.” Both languages are actively implemented in class and used throughout schooling with students who usually come from one of two main language groups (Grosjean 2010, 239).

In the context of the United States, Baker (2011) outlines that this strong form of bilingual education is typically applied when an almost equal number of minority and majority language speakers exists in one classroom. Baker exemplifies this with a group of learners in which one half speaks Spanish as their home language while the other half speaks English as their L1. Generally, ensuring a language balance in both status and number of speakers in order to prevent one language variety from becoming dominant is paramount in two-way schools (Baker 2011, 222–223).

The major goal of such types of schooling is to foster bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism for all students. In order to achieve this aim, several practices are employed such as assigning both languages equal status, implementing a bilingual school ethos, and making use of bilingual staff members and language minority parents as teacher aides (Baker 2011, 225–226).

3.2.2 Immersion Education

Another possibility for actively acknowledging various linguistic and cultural backgrounds in educational settings is immersion education, which qualifies as a strong form of bilingual education (Baker 2011, 222) (see Table 1). Various scholars have demanded that educational approaches only qualify as immersion education if at least 50% of class time is spent on subject-specific education using a language other than students’ L1 for instruction (Surkamp 2017, 134; Tedick, Christian & Fortune 2011, 2).

Generally, Brown (2007) outlines that immersion education is predominantly adopted in additive bilingual contexts in which learners normally share the same home language and show close levels of proficiency in the target language. Frequently, the teachers in immersion education know or even share the students’ linguistic or cultural background (Brown 2007, 141). In this regard, García (2009, 149) emphasizes that “[d]espite the immersion of the child in the other language for education, the child’s home language is honoured, respected, used throughout the school, and taught right after the immersion period.”

Differentiating between programs, Tedick, Christian, and Fortune (2011) name foreign language immersion, bilingual immersion, and Indigenous language immersion as the three major types of immersion education. These as well as their respective characteristics are consolidated in Table 2:

Table 2: Types of Immersion Education7

Building on this three-fold typology, Baker (2011) suggests a further differentiation be made according to the learners’ commencing age and the total amount of immersion time. Table 3 illustrates Baker’s approach:

Table 3: Decisive Factors in Immersion Education8

In reference to both Table 2 and Table 3, Surkamp (2017, 134) notes that education systems in multicultural contexts favor two-way immersion programs in which teachers and learners from two language groups work together.

3.3 Education Policies

Building on several of the previously addressed challenges and realities concerning teaching and learning in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms, different education policies will now be investigated regarding their respective effects on minority language speakers, specifically looking at their situation in schools.9

In regards to teaching and learning in multicultural classrooms in a global age, Hornberger (2009, 197) observes that “[e]thnolinguistic diversity and inequality, intercultural communication and contact, and global political and economic interdependence are more than ever acknowledged realities of today’s world, and all of them put pressures on our educational systems.” Fundamentally, Serra et al. (2018, 33) establish that “the culture of an education system reproduces the culture of a society’s dominant classes—in other words, schools are microcosms of societal power structures.” Contrasting policy statements and legal documents from designated multilingual and multicultural countries across the globe, it is possible to detect greatly differing levels of importance attributed to them and varying degrees of readiness to implement educational approaches in multicultural classrooms. Hence, Churchill’s observation from the 1980s is undoubtedly still valid today:

[P]olicy making about the education of minorities must cope with an overriding fact: almost every jurisdiction in the industrialized world is failing adequately to meet the educational needs of a significant number of members of linguistic and cultural minorities. (Churchill 1986, 8)

Adding to this and to Yiakoumetti’s observation in section 3.1., Trudgill (2000, 126) states that the “teaching of minority languages […] is obviously of benefit to minority-group children, not only in the learning of reading and writing but in other subjects as well.” According to Trudgill, doing so would have “an effect of recognizing the child’s social and cultural identity and integrity and encourages the development and growth of minority cultures” (ibid., 126). In this sense, Pike (2015, 159–160) identifies the following necessity:

As majorities can so easily pay scant regard to the wishes of minorities in a democracy, it is vital to educate members of the majority about the perspectives of minorities. […] A focus on understanding and appreciating the differences between the cultural background of minority ethnic groups and the majority should not be eschewed.

Moreover, in connection with modern language education policies and globalization, García, Flores, and Woodley (2012, 72) argue the following:

As language diversity becomes more complex as a result of globalisation, […] language education policies throughout the world have often become more intolerant of language differences. Thus, more students are increasingly taught in the dominant language of the state without harnessing the linguistic resources they bring.

Also connecting the dimensions of globalization, minority language groups, and education policies, Grosjean (2010, 231) clarifies that

in areas of the world with minority groups that come from immigration, rare is the country that has a deliberate education policy of allowing minority children to acquire and retain both their home, immigrant language and the majority language, and hence a policy of fostering bilingualism.

In order to receive a better idea of what education policies might or might not undertake in regards to the educational needs of their linguistic and cultural minorities, Churchill’s (1986) framework provides an overview of the “six principal policy responses to the educational and language needs of minority groups within the OECD” (May 2012, 18).10 These are presented in ascending order according to their degree of incorporation and recognition of minority languages in Table 4.

Table 4: Stages of Education Policies for Language Minority Groups11

Stage one policies strongly advocate a fast transition to the target language and claim that the use of minority languages is the reason for the educational disadvantage and failure of minority groups. Initial minority aspirations include efforts for the recognition of the existence and specific needs of linguistically and culturally diverse people. At stage two, family and social backgrounds are identified as the main cause for educational detriments for minorities. Thus, programs and projects are enforced to help minority groups adjust to the majority language and culture. Stage three policies recognize that disadvantages for minority groups in education grow from the lack of recognition, acceptance, and a positive attitude towards their languages and cultures. Level four acknowledges that the minority language needs to be supported at least temporarily to facilitate learning and thus incorporates it in the first years of schooling. From this type of transitional bilingualism, minority aspirations might aim at extending minority language programs. At stage five, termed the private use language maintenance, minority groups obtain the right to practice their home language and culture in their private lives. A common policy response at this level includes maintenance bilingualism programs in schools, i.e. ongoing schooling in the minority language. Minority aspirations at this stage focus on the improvement of quality and the incorporation of the minority culture in education. Finally, the minority language is granted official status and autonomy at the language equality stage. The latter encompasses an allocation of language programs in several public institutions over which minority groups obtain full control and which they organize and is thus termed the multilingual co-existence phase (May 2012, 19–31).

Linking education policies with multilingual education and First Nations perspectives, Hornberger (2009, 197) expresses a “deep conviction that multilingual education constitutes a wide and welcoming educational doorway toward peaceful coexistence of peoples and especially restoration and empowerment of those who have been historically oppressed.” Thus, proceeding from an Indigenous perspective, Hornberger proposes ten certainties about multilingual education policy and practice which are relevant for any classroom at a global age (Hornberger 2009, 197):

 National multilingual language education policy opens up ideological and implementational spaces for multilingual education.

 Local actors may open up—or close down—agentive spaces for multilingual education as they implement, interpret and perhaps resist policy initiatives.

 Ecological language policies take into account the power relations among languages and promote multilingual uses in all societal domains.

 Models of multilingual education instantiate linguistic and sociocultural histories and goals in each context.

 Language status planning and language corpus planning go hand in hand.

 Communicative modalities encompass more than written and spoken language.

 Classroom practices can foster transfer of language and literacy development alongside receptive-productive, oral-written and L1-L2 dimensions, and across modalities.

 Multilingual education activates voices for reclaiming the local.

 Multilingual education affords choices for reaffirming our own.

 Multilingual education opens spaces for revitalizing the Indigenous.

With these certainties and the revealed potential of multilingual education for Indigenous voices and perspectives in mind, the next chapter focuses on languages and cultures in Australia.

1 Modified from Edmondson & House 2011, 8.

2 This book makes use of the terms multilingualism and multilingual to refer to the totality of an individual’s or society’s linguistic resources. Bilingualism and bilingual is used with the same inclusive reference.

3 Data and Images retrieved from García 2009, 72–74.

4 Within the scope of this book, an exhaustive presentation of the concept of culture cannot be given. Therefore, an overview of select discussions in the field, and the definition of culture underpinning this research study, is provided.

5 Data retrieved from Baker 2011, 207.

6 Modified from Baker & Wright 2017, 199.

7 Data retrieved from Tedick, Christian & Fortune 2011, 2.

8 Data retrieved from Baker 2011, 239.

9 A specific analysis of education policies relevant for Indigenous Australian learners can be found in IV.5.

10 OECD is an acronym for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international organization which was founded in 1961.

11 Modified from Churchill 1986, 157.