A rising tide of studies with statistical descriptions has flooded the multicultural literature in the past two decades. One wave of study strongly calls for the restructuring of teacher preparation programmes to address the increasing cultural and ethnic diversity of public school student populations (Hodgkinson, 1996).
A staggering number of studies also indicate the discrepancy in drop-out and academic failure rates between students from the dominant and the dominated cultures (Clark, 1989; Jacob and Jordan, 1987; Yates, 1987) Another group of studies highlight the fact that cultural mismatch between teachers and ethnically diverse students contributes to the differences in school success (Au & Mason, 1981; Erickson, 1987, Ogbu, 1987).
All these studies invariably call for restructuring the teacher preparation programmes that prospective teachers have including skills, attitudes and knowledge to meet the challenges of culturally diverse school environments.
Studies based on the cultural differences concept make the assumption that academic achievement of students from culturally diverse backgrounds will improve if schools and teachers make an attempt to ensure that classroom instruction is conducted in a manner responsive to the student's home culture. Modification of classroom instruction to respond positively to home culture of students is known in research literature as culturally compatible (Jordan, 1987) culturally congruent (Au & Kawakami 1994), culturally responsive (Erikson, 1987) and culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1990).
Teacher preparation programmes in foreign countries have responded to cultural differences, studies and demographic imperatives in various ways. For example, inclusion of multicultural education courses and provision of certain direct cross-cultural student teaching experiences are intended to help develop prospective teachers with skills attitudes and knowledge to function effectively in schools.
Yet, the current conceptualisation and implementation of multicultural teacher education is predicated on questionable assumptions and premises. For example, multicultural education as a separate course is assumed to be sufficient to address a plethora of diversity issues. On the more optimistic plane, it assumes that a single dose of multicultural education is effective to prepare the teaching force to narrow the academic achievement and drop-out gaps between students from dominant and dominated cultures.
Today's foremost challenge in education is to create learning environments that sustain the cultural integrity of every child while enhancing their educational success (Wlodkowski and Ginsberg, 1995). Being closest to learners, classroom teachers are in an enviable position to provide teaming experiences that will ensure cultural integrity and academic success for all children (Vassallo, 2006). At the classroom level, culturally responsive teaching essentially involves using students' cultural experiences and background as a medium for helping them learn important: academic skills or reasoning, writing, and computing.
For example, different versions or Cinderella fairy tales found in such cultural traditions as Vietnam, the Philippines, Africa, and the Middle East can be used as a springboard to a multitude of classroom activities aimed at studying the differences and similarities of characters, themes, values and perspectives.
Children can subsequently write their own Cinderella story as a culminating experience. Inclusion of children's literature from different cultural traditions provides learning opportunities for many children to affirm their cultural wealth experiences and help enrich the learning of all children. More importantly, this type of activity can help children reduce and challenge prejudicial and stereotypical attitudes they may bring in the classrooms.
A constructive approach in this direction is then needed to identify crucial issues that we, as educators, think are important for preparing teachers, for cultural diversity. The interactive and context-driven nature of teaching requires educators to take into account the students' social-cultural environments in which their schooling occurs. There is then a crucial need to prepare teachers with cultural knowledge and competencies to adapt curriculum and instruction for culturally responsive classroom practices as a way to enhance the learning of all students in culturally diverse schools.
In her book The Right To Learn, Linda Darling Hammond (1997) describes a skillful pedagogue as one who knows his or her audience. She emphasises the importance of teachers who understand the "...differences that may arise from culture, language, family, community, gender, prior schooling, and the other factors that shape people's experiences." (p. 295) It is this understanding that helps teachers to incorporate diverse cultural experiences into the classroom.
Delgado-Gaitan (1991) agrees by writing that schools need to explore non-conventional activities that validate diverse social cultural families. By so doing, teachers can shape lessons that will enhance the learning opportunities for diverse students.
Much of the research shows that academic achievement of students from culturally diverse backgrounds will improve if schools and teachers ensure that classroom instruction is inclusive of the students' home culture. For example, Banks (as cited in Taylor and Whittaker, 2003) has recognised four strategies to help assimilate ethnic content into elementary and secondary curriculum: "teaching about contributions of diverse groups, adding content about diverse groups to the curriculum, transforming the curriculum, and social action." (p. 30).
When teachers use the contribution approach, they celebrate the cultural diversity within the classroom by focusing on the ethnic heroes, holidays and foods that help define a cultural group. Adding content, for example, new lessons focusing on ethnically diverse cultures adds to the curriculum and leaves its basic structure unchanged.
At the transformation level, the curriculum itself changes because the structure of the curriculum becomes more inclusive of concepts, issues, events, and themes from ethnically diverse points of view. Finally, the action plan allows students to make decisions on personal, social and civic issues outside of the classroom and challenges them to find solutions (Taylor and Whittaker, 2003).
In their book Rethinking School Reform: Views From The Classroom, Christensen and Karp (2003) stresses that all good pedagogy should be rooted in the students' needs and experiences; in other words students should be encouraged to explore how their home-ethnic background connects to society. Because of the ever-growing cultural diversity of the classroom, the authors emphasise the need to have curricula inclusive of everyone in society and to examine critically their histories and interconnections. For instance teachers need to celebrate diversity as well as help students understand why some differences translate into power while others become a source of discrimination and prejudice.
Traditional pedagogy also leaves little room for students creativity. Cristensen and Karp (2003) encourage greater student involvement through plays, simulations or experiments that encourage students to work cooperatively. Those teachers who are open to incorporating cultural differences in classroom instruction are in an ideal position to help raise the level of academic achievement for culturally diverse learners. However, it would be unfair to expect teachers to perform miracles. The ability to meet this challenge for diverse students depends upon the way the teachers are prepared, as well as their commitment to their responsibility as moral stalwarts.
The population of students in Malta is becoming more diverse yet, our schools continue to maintain the traditional approach to school curriculum and pedagogy. The cultural and racial diversity of the student population is not the problem; it is the pedagogical approach of educators. Maintaining the status quo ensures lower rates of academic achievement for culturally diverse learners.
The foremost challenge in education today is to create learning environments that maintain and embrace the cultural integrity of all students and raise academic achievements.
The method of addressing the problem described in this paper is to have a more culturally responsive pedagogy. For an educational leader, the major challenge is to identify effective ways to challenge the perceptions of teachers so that they are willing to deviate from their long-term traditional beliefs with respect to pedagogy, culture and learning.
For both academic and moral reasons, schools should embrace and celebrate cultural diversity within the classroom and close the unacceptable achievement gap. Incorporating diverse students' cultural experiences into the curriculum and getting teachers to buy-in to a new pedagogical approach to be positive steps toward effective change and increasing learning opportunities.
Mr Vassallo is an MSc graduate (with distinction) from the University of Leicester, and is a member of the British Educational Leaders Managers and Administrators Society. He also holds degrees in Psychology and Inclusive Education from the University of Malta. He is a teacher and a multicultural theorist.