Other ways: intercultural education in Australian primary schools

The thesis explores the question of how primary schools might work with students to help them get to know and get along with people they perceive to be different from themselves. It describes and analyses how the ways of others are portrayed in recent national curriculum policies, initiatives and school programs and imagines other ways of bringing an intercultural approach to the development and delivery of curriculum for primary schools.

Beginning with the Melbourne Declaration’s statement that the nation values the central role education plays in building a society that is “cohesive and culturally diverse and that values Australia’s Indigenous cultures” (MCEETYA, 2008, p. 4), the thesis examines primary schools’ capacity to fulfil these roles. It finds that though cultural diversity is generally met with good will and intentions in education, it is, nonetheless, given low priority in policy commitments and is treated superficially in most school programs.

The thesis develops an intercultural approach to learning as an integral part of learning to live together (Delors 1996). It starts with what people have in common, but goes to the question of how they might live together peacefully when they do not agree or when they have nothing in common, recognising that working with cultural diversity is at once challenging and rewarding. It develops and illustrates key principles and processes in examplars for interculturally focused classrooms and proposes an agenda for Australian schools based on the goal learning to live together.