Higher education and its humanist and multicultural role: a case study

• In Event: Translating teacher research to improved practice in the Bogotá, Colombia School District: Reflections on an international advisory experience

Abstract

Objectives
The present paper aims to discuss a case study in which a higher education institution has developed curriculum guidelines and a continuing teacher education course in a multicultural perspective, in partnership with local Brazilian school actors. It discusses potentials and challenges involved in such professional development geared towards cultural awareness, social inclusion and humanism in curriculum production and development. It analyses the ways in which multicultural sensitivities could be taken into account in the process of building curriculum guidelines and sensitizing school actors for their development in a humanist, multicultural, non discriminatory approach.

Theoretical framework
The paper builds on a theoretical multicultural perspective that posits curriculum should raise awareness to persistent inequalities that attain identities on the line of gender, race, sexual orientation and other markers, beyond economic and social disparities (Ball & Tyson, 2011; Banks, 2004; Canen, 2009). A multicultural decolonized curriculum approach has meant to “critically examine the knowledge and its relationship to power, recentering knowledge in the intellectual histories of [marginalized groups]” (Sleeter, 2010, p. 194). Also, such a perspective contends curriculum should arguably be thought of in the contexts of schools, taken as multicultural sites where leaders should strive to build a multicultural collective identity (Canen & Canen, 2005). Those arguments underpinned the philosophical perspective that imbued the present study, as well as the partnership described in it.

Methodology
A case study has been developed in which the methodological approach was a collaborative research (Winn & Ubiles, 2011), where a partnership has been developed among researchers from a Higher Education Institution and public educational actors. Two actions were involved: one, in which an equity oriented curriculum document for primary schooling has been produced; another one, in which a teacher continuing education course has been developed which has provided opportunities for multicultural awareness and antiracist sensibilities. Data sources and evidences have come from document analysis of the curricular guidelines and the tutoring material produced, as well as from the opinions of school actors as expressed in questionnaires and interviews carried out during the field work.

Conclusions
The case study resulted in both the joint construction of the multicultural curriculum guidelines for all the schools in the municipality involved, as well as the sensitizing of school actors towards the need to understand the linkage between pedagogical curricular aspects to humanist, multicultural sensitivities. As a result, it should be noted that not only marginalized identities were prioritized in the rationale for both the construction of the curricular guidelines and the teacher continuing education course, but also a concern towards linking syllabuses and disciplines to a humanist, multicultural, decolonized perspective. The study also showed that actions from higher education institutions in partnership with local school educational actors are complex and need to continually address issues of human relations and the valuing of those actors throughout the process, being multicultural and humanistic educational opportunities in themselves.

Significance of the study for comparative/international education
The relevance of the study to the field of comparative or international education is twofold. On the one hand, it points to potentials and challenges involved in endeavours of higher education institutions to provide curricular development and professional continuing education within the context of partnerships with public educational actors and authorities. Also, by focusing on an experience in the Brazilian context, it provides avenues to identify the interplay between the local and the international contexts in the efforts to generate education which values cultural diversity, social inclusion and humanity. The relevance of such a study comes insofar as it illustrates fruitful possibilities towards an equity oriented pedagogy, in the context of multicultural, highly unequal societies, in Brazil and elsewhere.

Some references
Ball, A. F. & Tyson, C. (2011). Preparing Teachers for Diversity in the Twenty-fist Century. In: In: Ball, A. F. & Tyson, C. (Eds.). Studying Diversity in Teacher Education. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 399 – 416.
Banks, J A. (Ed.) (2004). Diversity and Citizenship Education: global perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Eds, 2004.
Canen, A. (2009). Teacher Education and Competence in an Intercultural Perspective: some reflections in Brazil and the UK. Kölln: Lambert Academic Publishing.
Canen, A. G. & Canen, A. (2005). Organizações Multiculturais. Rio de Janeiro: Ciência Moderna.
Sleeter, C. (2010). Decolonizing Curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 2 (40), 193-204.
Winn, M. T. & Ubiles, J. R. (2011). Worthy Witnessing: collaborative research in urban classrooms. In: Ball, A. F. & Tyson, C. (Eds.). Studying Diversity in Teacher Education. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 295 – 308.

Authors

• Ana Canen, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

• Giseli Pereli de Moura Xavier, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro