‘Infused with multicultural education’: Teaching preparedness for the contemporary secondary school classroom

Abstract

There is a growing need to rethink ways to teach both Black and White pupils in multicultural and diverse societies. This paper reports on a study that examined the impact that preparing multicultural resources had on student teachers’ perceived preparedness to represent the diversity of UK secondary school pupils. It explores the creation of teaching materials reflecting the contributions of the African diaspora undertaken by student secondary school teachers at a university in the East Midlands, UK. Consideration of the effect of this on the students’ attitudes was collected via an online survey (n=30) and the findings from this analysed thematically. Findings reflect that, given ‘permission’ and through developing an understanding of their own agency, the students – all of whom identified as ‘White’ – were enthusiastic about developing resources that challenge the marginalisation of Black people in their subjects. The findings implied a need for organisations to support students to find creative ways of teaching in diverse communities and the paper explores how understandings and respectful representations of race need to infuse every aspect of contemporary curricula.