DISRUPTING COLONIAL BARRIERS TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION FOR INDIGENOUS

AND MULTICULTURAL STUDENTS

Deborah Rockstroh

PATT27: A Play on Sustainability Christchurch, NZ: Dec 2-6, 2013

Humans continue to create binaries, and with them an associated belief that they represent conflicting stories, one of which must prevail at the cost of the other. At a time in history when the price of such conflict is measured in terms of the suffering of very large numbers, and potentially in the extinction of the human species, there may be no more important classroom task than to help students develop and appreciate an alternative perspective: different stories need not be oppositional. It is our task, as educators and world citizens, to help our students and ourselves develop the skills needed to continually create and recreate a human story from which no one feels estranged.

(Dalke and Grobstein 2007, pp. 111) 

Sustainable design, development & discourse

emerged from concerns for equitable distribution of ecological ‘resources’ now and into the future

inherent social and ecological dimensions debates continue about whether these factors can

be reconciled development discourse concurs the failure of

‘technology transfer’ into 3rd world countries yet as this has occurred throughout human

evolution (and is fundamental to Western development), and there have been successful technology transfer stories, perceptions of failure may be attributed to lack of economic growth – a Western cultural construct

Multicultural Education in Design & Technology

challenge of meeting needs of students from diverse backgrounds increasing in classrooms

more population mobility due to advantage and disadvantaged circumstances

concerns about engaging indigenous students worldwide continues

UNESCO Policy Guidelines on Inclusion in Education: first task is to identify barriers, followed by identifying ways to overcome those barriers

Culture and Sustainable Development

Culture: a potential dimension of learning and

development that has received little attention in D&T education literature

typically perceived as a quality inherent to students from diverse cultural backgrounds

Paradox: strength and resilience of western

development due to cultural entanglements failure to recognize the culturedness of all

students

Cultural-historical activity theory in D&T Education

Vygotsky (et.al) tradition of cultural-historical activity theory offers a way of thinking about the cultural dimension

Highlights significance of learning, pedagogy that responds to cultural needs and identity of learners

culture may be conceived as a group of people (e.g. students) who share similar values and practices associated with particular technologies e.g. intercultural differences – classroom culture

drivers are different to business and industry drivers

Culture as a culturally constructed standpoint

a way to understand ‘Others’ failure to understand the self and own culture

attributing stereotyped qualities to all associated with a particular culture failure to recognize identities

perception that Western technologies and scientific knowledge are superior, more advanced less flexible, fewer real opportunities for innovation

romanticizing and utopian views ‘return to nature’, tokenistic, cherry-picking ideas that suit

indigenous relationships to land differs from Western resource based view of land, failure to acknowledge social bonds tied to land failure to recognize long history of mistakes, conflicts and learning disregard for 40 – 60,000 years of ‘intellectual property’

Colonial thinking

Indigenous and critical writers refer to consequences of colonial thinking as barrier to participation

exclusion and marginalization through often unconscious, everyday activities and associated designs and technologies

potential impact on students from diverse backgrounds

Thinking critically

ecofeminism: humans as separate from nature, a dualism of superior-inferior proportions

Eurocentrism and anthropocentrism over eco-centrism

justified domination of ‘One’ over subordinated ‘Other’

academic and political influence on public thinking: anthropology and archaeology co-opted by colonial governments to problematize the ‘Other’

counter to economic and technological progress

Multicultural education: Disrupting the status quo

recognize education as tool of enculturation for a monocultural way of thinking

disrupt the status quo to empower students: attempt to understand different standpoints celebrate (individual) strengths in diversity acknowledge Western based assumptions make culturally constructed assumptions

explicit

Cited in “Handbook of Cross-cultural psychology, Vol. 3”. (1997) Berry, Poortinga & Pandey (Eds).