Kalantzis and Cope, A Learning Journey

We started working in the late 1970s the new fields of English as a Second Language and multicultural education in Australia. We felt uncomfortable with the first wave of multicultural initiatives, which we believed to be tokenistic. We encountered a curriculum which remained substantially unchanged, despite the sprinkling of national day festivals and curriculum units which presented a tourist-postcard view of ‘other countries and cultures’. We thought this ‘spaghetti and polka’ approach to diversity amongst learners created as many new problems as it solved old ones. The key, we felt, was a more foundational approach … more…