Teachers' cultural learning in teacher education

Education systems have struggled with an appropriate response to the diversity that different cultural groups present. This chapter traces the emergence of multiculturalism as a positive value that enables teachers to step outside their own ethnic orientation and recognise the way in which cultural understanding imbues the teaching-learning process. This chapter looks at the importance of developing 'critical cultural reflection' in preservice teacher education. It shows how researchers at the University of Sydney have developed ways of incorporating critical cultural reflection teaching into teacher trainee programs. Trainee teachers working with Polynesian students demonstrate how critical cultural reflection prepares prospective teachers to work in multicultural schools." The classroom is important only as it is understood in its relation to the society and culture of the children who occupy it, and teaching will be effective, only as it is related to society and culture". (Redfield 1973)