Topic outline
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Education Futures has embedded into its strategic plan for the Unit to foster and enact Culturally Responsive Pedagogies (CRP) in addition to the Enabling Pedagogical approaches that complement one another. Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney, Emeritus Professor Robert Hattam and Dr Anne Morrison (2020) have provided a CRP framework that can be enacted in our teaching across all levels of education.
Rigney, Hattam & Morrsion (2020) use the term culturally responsive pedagogy here as a key word that invokes a series of debates and practices for educators who are responding to the demands of super-diverse classrooms, or who are committed to improve learning for Indigenous students. They use the term culturally responsive pedagogy to refer to those pedagogies that actively value, and mobilise as resources, the cultural repertoires and intelligences that students bring to the learning relationship.
Rationale for CRP: Responding to super-diverse classrooms
This extract from the website of the Federal Department of Immigration and Border Protection typifies a powerful and commonly accepted narrative about cultural diversity that circulates in the Australian public space.
Since the department [of Immigration] was established on 13 July 1945, seven million people have been granted a visa for permanent migration. As a result, Australia is among the world’s most culturally diverse nations. About 45 per cent of all Australians were born overseas, or have at least one parent who was born overseas. Australia has derived substantial economic benefits from the skilled migration and temporary entry programs during the past 65 years. Skilled migrants are filling positions that remain in chronic shortage despite the effects of the global economic crisis. International students and visitors to Australia contribute to our foreign exchange revenue. Social benefits have been reaped through the high levels of community harmony and cohesion which draw Australia’s diverse society together—Australians are regarded internationally as a friendly, respectful and welcoming people. (Department of Immigration and Border Protection, 2014)
This narrative asserts that we are an increasingly culturally diverse country, there is good evidence that cultural diversity does contribute significantly to our economy and society, and we make claims about high levels of community harmony and cohesion. Put simply, Australia can be considered a hopeful global exemplar for building an economically successful and socially cohesive nation that is culturally diverse.
Watch this video for a discussion with Professor Rigney and Emeritus Professor Robert Hattam about the development of CRP.
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