Multicultural Education
A multicultural classroom refers a class that students with different cultural backgrounds. Today 13,5 percent of the Norwegian population are immigrants (698 500 people) and 2,9 percent with their parents being immigrants (149 600) (Statistisk Sentralbyrå, 2016).Most likely are the wave immigration not slowing down anytime soon. Given the nation`s change in demographics, issues of diversity must occupy center stage in what is currently being discussed, written, and taught in education. How should the school system meet these new premises? As educators, we are at school to make sure the children learn. Learn the skills, and knowledge to succeed in life and society. To have the opportunities for lifelong learning. Multicultural education is based on the fundamental belief that all people must be accorded respect, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, religion, physical ability, or mental ability. Multicultural education seeks to affirm individual differences and human diversity through an elimination of prejudice, biases, and stereotypes based on socio-demographic variables. James (Banks & Banks, 2012) refers to this classroom as a level three classroom that practices a transformative approach. As (Banks & Banks, 2012) explains transformative approach,
“The structure of the curriculum is changed to enable students to view concepts, issues, events, and themes from the perspectives of diverse ethnic and cultural groups. The Transformation approach changes the basic assumptions of the curriculum and enables students to view concepts, issues, themes, and problems from several ethnic perspectives and points of view (Taylor & Cranton, 2012, p.25) ”.
To create such an environment, (Banks & Banks, 2012) has designed a five- dimension model that intends to create an awareness among educators of what multicultural education really means. The first dimension is content integration. The dimension refers to the necessity of incorporate multiculturalism in the curriculum. The second dimension is knowledge construction. This dimension entails investigation, discussion and exploring assumptions. By practicing this dimension the educators aims to influence the students reference frame. Reference frame – the structure of assumptions and expectations through which we filter sense impression. It involves cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions. It shapes and delimits our expectations, and purposes. In other words, the reference frame is how we interpret experiences. Dimension three is equity pedagogy, which argues that the teacher should use a variety of strategies to enable students of diverse culture background to achieve. The fourth dimension is prejudice reduction. The term is self-explanatory and addresses the importance of the teacher being a role model and must always aim to reduce prejudice. The last dimension is empowering school system and social structures. Here (Banks & Banks, 2012) wants the educators to look at the total school culture to see how to make it more equitable.
Interestingly, I was witnessing some of these dimensions during my visit to the International school of Tromsø. Instead of teaching each subject separately, the teacher taught different themes. The idea is to teach interdisciplinary and integrate knowledge, attitude, skills, concept and action. When I was present, the students were working on the theme, Living things have certain requirements in order to grow and stay healthy. The focus was upon architecture. The student’s task was to sketch a house that could withstand a nature catastrophe. This was clearly an opportunity for the students to talk about their culture and show the other kids in the class. Besides training their math skills, I believe this task is great for also creating discussion and critical thinking.
Usage of English in Norway
(Jenkins, 2009) writes about four ways of categorizing English Users. A native language (ENL), a second language (ESL), a foreign language (EFL), and lingua franca (ELF). The categories intend to explain the usage of the language within the country. In Norway, English is categorized as a foreign language in Norway. According to (Jenkins, 2009), the category of foreign language means the language is not essential to take part in the society. In other words, English does not serve any purposes in Norway. This categorization of English usage in Norway is arguably flawed.
From my point of view, English is a lingua franca in Norway. (Jenkins, 2009) somewhat support this view when he writes that Scandinavian countries use English more for a country internal purpose, rather than a foreign or international language purpose (Jenkins, 2009). Due to English being one of the core subjects in school, I would argue that most Norwegians would speak English in the near future. One of the schools main purposes is to teach the students the skills to lifelong learning. In correlation with globalization, knowledge and technology are constantly increasing, whoever wants to gain access, needs know English. For instance, most academic resources at a university level are in English. Secondly, most of the social media are English of origin. Thirdly, if you wish to follow the American media's coverage of the US election you need to know English. These examples illustrate how we continuously are exposed to information. If you are going to have any chance of filtrating and being an independently critically thinker, you must know English.
Norway is increasingly becoming multicultural. This is due to the wave of immigrants and refugees. A wave that is likely to continue into the future. The wave of new citizens changes the premises for everyday communications. At the workplace, school, shops, cinemas, social media, etc. In other words, we need English to communicate with fellow citizens. It also important to take into account, how the increasing usage of English affect the Norwegian language. The Norwegian language loan lots of words from the English vocabulary and sometimes we make our own version of the word.
On the other hand, it is not an absolute necessity to know English. There are many professions, which do not demand English skills. Even though you have weaker skills in English, you can still do perfectly well in today’s society. Nevertheless, if you, want to want to take full advantages of the opportunities that arise, then you need to have certain basic skills in English.
Resources:
* Jenkins, J. (2009) World Englishes: A Resource book for students. 2nd edition. London: Routledge.
* Taylor, E. W., & Cranton, P. (2012). The Handbook of Transformative Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint.
* Banks, J. A., & Banks, C. M. (2012). Multicultural Education; Issues and Perspectives. Wiley.
* Statistisk Sentralbyrå. (2016, 03 14). ssb.no. Retrieved from Nøkkeltall for innvandring og innvandrere: https://www.ssb.no/innvandring-og-innvandrere/nokkeltall
Nice summary of 5 dimensions of multicultural education by Banks and Banks, but your discussion is too theoretically oriented. It would have been nice if you also provided some practical examples of activities or ideas you can do to enhance positive attitudes towards cultural/linguistic diversity in the classroom. I completely agree with you that English is now gradually being used as a lingua franca, and your arguments for the current status of English in Norway are valid. However, you fail to answer the last question regarding what implications this current status of English have for teaching English. Your point about Norwegian being influenced by English words is also irrelevant for the current discussion, or you haven't made it really clear about how this point is relevant for the topic. You need to pay more attention to various grammatical features (subject-verb concord, prepositional uses, adjective-adverb distinction, missing verbs, etc.)
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