When reading through May and Steeler’s book on critical multicultural education, it got me thinking of how quick we are in New Zealand to try to classify ourselves as a multicultural society and in some cases multicultural education, when in fact I believe we are a scratching the surface of multi-ethnic society with an expanding bicultural education. Let me explain further
For example according to one article by Tan (2016) “Auckland is one of the world’s most culturally diverse cities with the fourth most foreign-born population, an international study has found, With 39 per cent of its population born overseas, the city is revealed to be more diverse than Sydney, Los Angeles, London and even New York”. However, diversity doesn’t always translate into being multicultural. According to May & Steeler (2010), multiculturalism is something that incorporates ideas, beliefs or people from many different countries and cultural backgrounds. When I look at Auckland for example with its many ethnicities, what I tend to find in my opinion is apart from the yearly token event such as Chinese New Year and Diwali for instance, different cultures are primarily confined to their communities. In my eyes, multiculturism is about embracing those cultures into everyday society, so they become part of who we are. In my view, we are at this stage a multi-ethnic society, where we relate to various races, however, only embracing our New Zealand European and for the most part Maori culture. For our schooling, the same viewpoint can be considered, as we also have this tendency in my view to label our schools as providing multicultural education, when in fact we are only just working towards creating a bicultural education. Just this year the government has finally decided to make New Zealand history compulsory from 2022, however, while the Maori language is still optional and only debates are now surfacing around making it mandatory for 2025 (NZ Herald 2019). So what do we ad teachers and society need to do become a more multicultural diverse? According to Johnston (2016), Cultural learning requires more than just lip-service; this is where the education system needs to step up. “Many teachers appeared to lack knowledge about how to engage with culturally diverse families and use the resources these students and their families can potentially provide to enrich the learning of all students,”
If we look at languages, for example, only a select few get the opportunity to learn multiples languages. Twenty per cent of students in New Zealand secondary schools learn a second language – the lowest participation rate in over 80 years(Johnston, 2016)
In my view, until we provide an opportunity for our children to learn, understand and embrace multiculturism, our society will continue to be ethnically diverse but culturally inferior.
May, S., & Sleeter, C. E. (Eds.). (2010). Critical multiculturalism: Theory and praxis. Routledge.
NZ Herald. (2019, September 11). New Zealand history will be compulsory in all schools by 2022. Retrieved November 5, 2019, from https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12266847.
Johnston, K. (2017, August 24). Superdiversity: Children lead the way as cultures combine. Retrieved November 5, 2019, from https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11531743.
Silly Point 