Equitable, inclusive, and place-connected pedagogies: Superdiversity, critical multiculturalism, place-based education
Angel Chan, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Arts and Education, visiting scholar at IPKL.
About the seminar
In this presentation, I will share my theoretical, research and pedagogical interests and connect them to the bicultural-legislated yet superdiverse context of Aotearoa New Zealand, a country I call home. New Zealand is a superdiverse ‘settler society’, originally settled by the Indigenous Māori and since 1840 colonised by Britain. Te Tiriti o Waitangi|The Treaty of Waitangi signed between Māori and the Crown, is the nation’s founding document and shapes institutional policies and practices. Due to its immigration policy in the last few decades, New Zealand has a large population of diverse immigrants with over 200 ethnicities. Yet, Pākehā (people of European ancestry) remains the dominant cultural group. Within early childhood care and education (ECCE) in New Zealand, Pākehā children now make up less than 50% of enrolments. Many children in New Zealand grow up learning more than one language and culture, and they have more than one identity.
My background as an immigrant from Hong Kong in New Zealand for almost 30 years has significantly shaped my research and teaching. I gravitate towards cultural and sociological theories, which have pedagogical implications for teachers in New Zealand and countries with a high population of immigrants. In this presentation, I will use key theoretical perspectives of Steven Vertovec’s (2007, 2019) superdiversity approach, critical multiculturalism (May, 1999; Rhedding-Jones, 2010), and David Gruenewald’s (2003, 2008) place-based education framework to discuss their implications, highlighting issues of heterogeneity, intersecting identities and inequalities, and inclusion and exclusion experienced by immigrant families and their children. I will also apply these ideas to pedagogical recommendations that focus on supporting diverse immigrants and children to build multiple senses of belonging and connections to places and on co-creating with families and communities an equitable, just, caring and inclusive world for children.
Angel Chan has taught in diverse settings in Hong Kong and New Zealand, from early childhood education to primary, secondary, and tertiary. She is the Director of the Master of Education (Early Childhood) program and Co-Director of the Centre for Global Childhoods at the University of Auckland. Her teaching and research aim to promote social justice and cohesion by supporting teachers in developing equitable and inclusive pedagogy to work with diverse families.