Pedagogies of Working with Diversity: Doing, Knowing, Being, Belonging, Becoming

Abstract

Hollie (2011) maintains that pedagogy is the most frequently overlooked facet of culturally responsive teaching. This chapter puts forward a promising pedagogy for working with diverse learners, particularly those from ethnic minorities. It opens by providing a brief background to the New Zealand context in which my research has been conducted, before moving on to identifying key UNESCO principles relating to cultural and linguistic diversity, and examining key tensions and challenges that impact on the development of relevant pedagogies for diversity in different international contexts. Relevant pedagogies identified in the international literature are then summarized. Next, examples from case study data on teachers in New Zealand schools are presented. These data highlight four key aspects of a promising pedagogy: knowing, doing, being, and belonging. Consideration of how these aspects influence the pedagogical objective of becoming suggests that, while generating relevant practices (doing) is more effective in combination with theoretical input (knowing), this is insufficient without concurrently engendering a sense of being with and belonging in diverse communities of learners. The final model for a promising pedagogy is therefore more than just a simple, linear process, but the components doing, knowing, being, and belonging are viewed as part of a dynamic, interactive, and cyclical model.

Citation

Haworth, P. (2015), "Pedagogies of Working with Diversity: Doing, Knowing, Being, Belonging, Becoming", International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part B) (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 22B), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 115-135. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720150000025004