The Multicultural Classroom: Learning from Australian First Nations Perspectives. Jasmin Peskoller
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СКАЧАТЬ status and effect of the home language in and on the processes of learning a new language. In this sense, an L1 “is referred to as subtractive if it is considered to be detrimental to the learning of a second language” whereas “[a]dditive bilingualism is found where the home language is held in prestige by the community or society” (Brown 2007, 139). In this regard, García (2009, 73) addresses the deliberate encouragement that students abandon their home language in favor of the majority language in monolingual schools, thereby ensuring a subsequent monolingual generation. She identifies the treatment of Indigenous children in schools all over the world as possibly the strongest driver for subtractive bilingualism leading to the vast reduction in the number of Indigenous languages. In addition to subtractive and additive bilingualism, García (2009, 73–74) also differentiates between recursive and dynamic bilingualism in her work. As such, efforts made to revitalize traditional Indigenous languages frequently re-introduce them by assigning them new functions or contexts of use. As speakers move back and forth between different varieties depending on the setting, this form is termed recursive bilingualism. Furthermore, due to globalization and the resulting linguistic complexity in the 21st century, bilingualism and language practices constantly need to adjust to an ever-changing world of multilingual communication, hence reveal highly dynamic features. García illustrates these four types of bilingualism in the following manner (Figure 2):

      García’s conceptualization of dynamic bilingualism is also apparent in the CEFR, which outlines the following:

      [A]s an individual person’s experience of language in its cultural contexts expands […], he or she does not keep these languages and cultures in strictly separated mental compartments, but rather builds up a communicative competence to which all knowledge and experience of language contributes and in which languages interrelate and interact. (Council of Europe 2001, 4)

      Investigating bilingual speakers’ usage of different language varieties, a concept of particular relevance is code-switching. This involves “the alternate use of two languages, that is, the speaker makes a complete shift to another language […] and then reverts back to the base language” (Grosjean 2010, 51–52). The term can be used to refer to changes at word, phrase or sentence level in a conversation (Baker 2011, 107). There are different reasons for bilinguals to activate their distinct language systems in this way. First and foremost, there might be a more suitable expression for a certain idea in one language that “adds a little something that is more precise than trying to find an equivalent element in the base language” (Grosjean 2010, 53). Other motives for code-switching include filling a linguistic requirement, identifying with a group or demonstrating one’s expertise (Grosjean 2010, 54–55).

      According to the CEFR, “[l]anguage is not only a major aspect of culture, but also a means of access to cultural manifestations” (Council of Europe 2001, 6). Hence, the next section defines and discusses the concepts of culture and multiculturalism.

      Since it is “a far-reaching dynamic concept and an elaborate, ever-changing phenomenon” (Wintergerst & McVeigh 2011, 3) an abundance of understandings and definitions of the concept of culture exists. Despite it being one of the most frequently used expressions in the social sciences and humanities, culture is also one of the most underdetermined concepts in everyday language use, connoting different phenomena in different contexts and fields of research (Surkamp 2017, 179). Accordingly, Baker (2015, 46) elucidates that “our definitions of culture will always be partial and open to revision and change.” Despite the complexity of the field, this chapter includes and discusses select efforts at a definition of both culture and multiculturalism and illustrates the understanding of culture underpinning the study.

      To start with, Brown (2007, 132) outlines that “[c]ulture is a way of life. It is the context within which we exist, think, feel, and relate to others.” In contrast, Hollins (2015, 20) regards culture as emerging from people’s experience and acquired understanding “about how to live together as a community, how to interact with the physical environment, and knowledge or beliefs about their relationships or positions within the universe.” Adopting a comparative intercultural perspective, Hofstede and McCrae frame their operating definition of culture as

      [t]he collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one group or category of people from another. This stresses that culture is (a) a collective, not individual, attribute; (b) not directly visible but manifested in behaviors; and (c) common to some but not all people. (Hofstede & McCrae 2004, 58)

      This approach exhibits similarities to the two central meanings of culture identified by Throsby (2001). On the one hand, culture is used to “describe attitudes, beliefs, mores, customs, values and practices which are common to or shared by any group.” This group “may be defined in terms of politics, geography, religion, ethnicity or some other characteristic” (Throsby 2001, 4) ensuring a sense of identity. On the other hand, culture also “has a more functional orientation, denoting certain activities that are undertaken by people, and the products of those activities, which have to do with the intellectual, moral and artistic aspects of human life” (ibid., 4). In relation to these perspectives, Baker and Wright (2017, 426) define culture as “the set of shared meanings, beliefs, attitudes, customs, everyday behavior and social understandings of a particular group, community or society.”

      What can be perceived based on these preliminary elaborations is the great diversity of definitions of the concept of culture, which virtually unanimously appear to involve processes of grouping people together according to seemingly shared features and identifying dimensions that distinguish them from others (Dockery 2010, 318). While such approaches may provide comprehensible outlines of the concept, they have been criticized for adopting a simplified, static, and homogeneous understanding of culture, which, in light of the globally increasing scope of diversity in societies and classrooms, has been deemed inappropriate.

      On the contrary, as “culture is constantly changing and adapting” (Yunkaporta 2020, 61), authors have advocated for the adoption of an understanding of culture as a complex and dynamic entity including a “multiple, fragmented and hybrid nature of identity” (Baker 2015, 111). In this context, Kramsch (2009, 225–226) pleads for a movement towards a late modernist approach, which abandons a focus on nations and borders, and regards culture as a “dynamic process, constructed and reconstructed in various ways by individuals engaged in struggles for symbolic meaning and for the control of identities, subjectivities and interpretations of history.” Based on this understanding, Ladson-Billings (2017, 143) also outlines that

      it is important to emphasize the dynamic and fluid nature of culture that is much more than lists of “central tendencies” or worse, “cultural stereotypes.” From an anthropological perspective, culture encompasses worldview, thought patterns, epistemological stances, ethics, and ways of being along with the tangible and readily identifiable components.

      Thus, Aboriginal scholar Yunkaporta (2020, 242) concludes that it is “the cultural lens that we carry everywhere with us. […] Your culture is not what your hands touch or make—it’s what moves your hands.”

      As with the criticism raised in connection with the concept of culture, the definitions of bi- or multiculturalism reveal similar predicaments due to the simplifying undertone that afflicts many of them. In the Encyclopaedia of Bilingual Education, for instance, the concept of biculturalism is defined as

      the ability to effectively navigate day-to-day life in two different social groups and to do so with the СКАЧАТЬ