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Pedagogy, Culture & Society

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Anthropology, sociology and the preparation of teachers for a culturally plural society
Neil Burtonwooda a University of Leeds, United Kingdom

To cite this Article Burtonwood, Neil(2002) 'Anthropology, sociology and the preparation of teachers for a culturally

plural society', Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 10: 3, 367 386 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14681360200200149 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681360200200149

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Pedagogy, Culture and Society, Volume 10, Number 3, 2002

Anthropology, Sociology and the Preparation of Teachers for a Culturally Plural Society
NEIL BURTONWOOD University of Leeds, United Kingdom

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ABSTRACT During 2001 the Teacher Training Agency for England and Wales (TTA) submitted a review of the national curriculum for initial teacher education (TTA, 2001) to public consultation. The review was a response to criticisms that the new standards introduced by the TTA (DfEE, 1998) were insufficiently specific with regard to preparing teachers for work with ethnic minority pupils. The consultation, which provided opportunities to consider how trainees should be prepared for work in multiethnic classrooms, took place at a time when theoreticians were deeply involved in debate about the influence of cultural membership on individual development and growth. The purpose of this article is to review research undertaken in North America and England which relates to this consultation, to highlight significant differences and to consider what researchers on both sides of the Atlantic might learn from each other.

Introduction In this article I will try to show that there is a case to be made for cultural awareness as an aim within the teacher education curriculum. Cultural diversity has failed to achieve significant attention in teacher education in England [1] because of opposition from cultural restorationists on the political Right who see cultural diversity as a threat to their view of national cultural identity, as well as from anti-racists on the Left who view cultural issues as a distraction from a full and proper response to racism. I will argue for cultural awareness having a place in teacher education programmes, not in opposition to, but as a necessary part of anti-racism. It is important, however, to avoid crude and simplistic cultural determinisms which deny individual agency and ignore cultural heterogeneity; in conclusion I will, therefore, point to educational

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implications which go beyond the need to improve the congruence between the home and the school curriculum and pedagogy. While recent research in England indicates that poor relationships between teachers and ethnic minority pupils remain a factor in explaining levels of educational achievement (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996), the move to school-based provision of initial teacher training since 1992 has meant a reduction in the amount of attention given to preparing teachers for work in multiethnic classrooms. This article reviews some North American approaches to teacher education and ethnic diversity, and pays particular attention to the focus on culture and to the use of ethnographic material from cultural anthropology. In contrast the relevant literature in England eschews culture in favour of a sociological emphasis on structures and equal opportunities. I will make a case for combining the insights of both traditions in support of a teacher education curriculum which incorporates cultural awareness in order that all pupils can enjoy equal opportunities. It is important to stress at this early stage that cultural awareness will be recommended here as part of a wider strategy for improving the educational opportunities of minority pupils. Cultural awareness, in other words, is necessary but not sufficient. My argument will be that it is a dimension of teacher education policy often neglected in England. What kind of teacher preparation course is required to provide new teachers with the knowledge and skills to work effectively in the multiethnic classroom? A review of the literature from North America and England reveals quite different answers to this question.[2] Drawing extensively on anthropology, the American literature focuses on culture and the need for cultural continuity between teacher, pupil and curriculum. This is often referred to as culturally relevant teaching. At the very least the teacher is said to need a high level of cultural awareness of the pupils culture; at best, the teacher shares that culture. Sources in England reveal a deep distrust of approaches which feature culture so prominently, preferring instead to focus on social structures, the politics of racism and equal opportunities. The differences of emphasis are those which Banks (1996, p. 49) identified in his survey of sociological approaches to race and ethnicity: ... anthropologists tend to focus on subjective perceptions of identity within the group studied [while] sociologists tend to focus on objective and external group characteristics and on relations between the group and the political context in which it is located. It was Delamont & Atkinson (1980) who first drew attention to these differences of approach and their relative popularity on the two sides of the Atlantic. These authors carried out a detailed review of ethnographic studies of schools and classrooms. In the period up to 1980 they found that American studies were most often based on anthropology and tended to focus on cultural discontinuity between teachers and their

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pupils. This lack of cultural congruence was always seen by researchers as a problem. Despite working initially from institutional bases in anthropology, work in England tended to draw on sociology rather than anthropology, concentrating on social class and rarely featuring culturally diverse classrooms, at least not where the diversity arose from ethnicity. In 1990 Atkinson & Delamont updated their review by focusing specifically on ethnographic studies of teaching; they confirm their earlier finding that American work tends to be anthropologically oriented with an emphasis on cultural context and cultural differences between teachers and pupils. In England work was still seen to concentrate on social structure and tended to be about white working-class boys (Atkinson & Delamont, 1990). Delamont & Atkinson (1995) are particularly critical of the way that ethnographers in the United Kingdom have failed to investigate the educational experiences of Britains ethnic and linguistic minority groups. While there can be no doubt that they are correct in saying that the two main indigenous minorities, Welsh-speaking and Gaelic-speaking pupils, are virtually absent in the literature, their claim that The immigrant and second generation ethnic and linguistic minorities who are mainly found in urban Britain have been the focus of a small amount of attention from sociological ethnographers (my emphasis, Delamont & Atkinson, 1995, p. 25) does seem to understate what has been done since the 1980s. For example, in their review of research for the Office for Standards in Education for England and Wales (OfSTED), Gillborn & Gipps (1996) are able to draw attention to the particular contribution which ethnographic work is able to make in understanding the educational experiences of ethnic minority pupils. Delamont & Atkinson (1980; 1995) concluded their investigations with a call for a rapprochement between the two traditions of anthropology and sociology so that educationists could benefit from combining the sociological emphasis on equal opportunity within a social structure with the anthropologists interest in culture contact situations. In this article I want to argue that such a rapprochement would benefit curriculum development in teacher education, because English studies to date have given insufficient attention to the need to address the detail of how culture affects pupils learning styles and classroom interaction patterns.[3] Teacher education in England can learn from the way that American studies have described the detail of interaction in the multiethnic classroom. The sociologists concern for equal opportunity does, however, serve as a warning against the kind of educational apartheid that sometimes follows from the case for cultural congruence. An emphasis on equal opportunities reminds us that pupils must be prepared for life in a society where cultural discontinuity is the norm and hybridity is part of everyday cultural experience for many individuals. I will argue that cultural discontinuity is not simply a problem for pupils to face; it is an

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educational opportunity. A properly developmental programme of education will enable pupils to benefit from the potential creativity of cultural discontinuity. An appropriate teacher education course will attempt to provide teachers with the motivation and skill to plan and deliver an education for pupils which is characterised by a commitment to equal opportunities within a culturally diverse society. A programme of this kind will need to attend to both the sociological and the anthropological traditions. Golinick (1992) traces the history of teacher education course development in the USA since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She shows how state and national agencies have sought to ensure the permeation of courses with a dimension which addresses cultural awareness (Golinick, 1992, p. 225): The major impetus for the incorporation of multicultural education in teacher education has been the standards for national accreditation. In England the Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE) was initially responsible for defining competence requirements for the classroom. These requirements did not include the kind of specific reference to cultural diversity advocated in the Swann Report in 1985. The National Curriculum Council (NCC) was more positive about the kind of reforms advocated by Swann and included the following statement in its document The National Curriculum and the Initial Training of Student, Articled and Licensed Teachers: Newly trained teachers will need to ... consider ways in which the National Curriculum can broaden the horizon of all pupils so that they can understand and respect, learn from and contribute to the multicultural society around them (NCC, 1998, p. 7). This kind of commitment was, however, not evident in the new standards of the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), which formed the basis for the introduction of this national curriculum in teacher training. These standards failed to include any specific reference to multicultural education and gave a very one-sided picture of the educational needs of ethnic minority pupils by referring only to pupils who lacked fluency in English and the danger of low teacher expectations (TTA, 1997). Two developments in England suggest the need to address again Swanns recommendation that all initial teacher education courses incorporate material on teaching in a multiethnic society. Since 1997 the Labour government has continued the previous Conservative policy of asserting ever greater control over the teacher education curriculum. Ministers have regularly urged courses which are essentially practical and address the key issue of educational achievement. Without wishing to imply an uncritical acceptance of some kind of theory-practice distinction, it does seem to be the case that British literature on teaching ethnic minority pupils is stronger on general policy recommendations than it is on the immediate practicalities of teaching in the classroom. Two published OfSTED reports on the achievement of ethnic minority pupils (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996; OfSTED, 1999) and the debate around the

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need to implement the relevant Macpherson recommendations on education (Richardson, 1999) suggest that teacher education programmes in England have still to give detailed and sustained attention to the preparation of teachers for work in multicultural classrooms. A second major development in England has been the shift to school-based provision of teacher education and the increasingly important role of the teacher mentor. Research on mentoring suggests that mentors and their students share a preference for practicallyoriented course material. There is also evidence to show that to date school-based work has failed to give serious attention to teaching in a multiethnic society. For example, one small study of a school-based Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE, i.e. teacher training) course concluded that:
Although some students expressed discontent with the treatment equal opportunities were given in the HEI (Higher Education Institution) based component of the course, schools received the bulk of the criticism for neglecting this area or for only paying it lip service. (Sikes, 1995, p. 38)

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In another study of a school-based secondary course, Booth revealed that only 37 percent of the students felt confident to teach pupils with different cultural backgrounds and only 12 percent of students indicated that this was a topic of discussion with their mentors (Booth, 1993). More recent accounts of preparation for teaching in schools (Jones et al, 1996) and in further education colleges (Garewal, 1999) emphasise the importance of the training of mentors in the field of cultural awareness. Implementation of the dimension of cultural diversity in school mentoring of students will require strategies which impinge directly on students classroom practice. To meet this demand, course developers will need access to the kind of classroom research which is more characteristic of the anthropologically orientated American studies. Before reviewing examples of this North American work and contrasting this with English research, it is important to say something about contemporary debate on cultural membership and its role in individuals lives. Individuals and Cultural Membership We are all multiculturalists now, according to the title of one famous text (Glazer, 1997). But what kind of multiculturalists? North American philosophers concerned with diversity issues have recently been engaged in debates about the impact of cultural membership on individual lives (e.g. Kymlicka, 2001; Waldron, 1995). Multiculturalists referred to by Hollinger (1995) as pluralist focus very much on a determinist view of culture, which leaves the individual little room for creativity and the

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negotiation of cultural meanings. According to this view, we are who we are depending on membership of a particular community of descent; cultural groups tend to be reified, even fossilised. In opposition to this, cosmopolitans resist any such loss of individual creativity, preferring to see individuals free to choose from a range of cultural meanings, whether or not these derive from their own particular community of descent, hence the increasing use of terms such as melange or hybridity to suggest fluidity and permeability in individuals cultural lives. There is not space to develop this debate at length here but it does have a salience for much of what follows.[4] Just as I am seeking to demonstrate the benefits of combining research traditions which focus on classroom studies and national policy initiatives, there is much to be said for reconciling the cosmopolitan concern for creativity with the pluralist focus on the cultural group as a context for that individual creativity. This reconciliation is the approach adopted by some critical multiculturalists in England (e.g. May, 1999) and it is the one which I intend to adopt for the purposes of this article. Anthropology and American Classroom Studies Delamont & Atkinson (1980, p. 140) concluded their initial review of American and British literature on classroom ethnography by saying that, Despite a common approach to the conduct of inquiry there seems to be little in the way of shared interests or theoretical perspectives. The very considerable North American literature on classroom ethnography appeared to have been ignored by British sociologists of education. American studies were predominantly anthropological in orientation and this was evident in the existence of specialist journals on educational anthropology and several special issues of education journals with a focus on anthropology. The material included in these publications is described as ... remarkably homogeneous, characterised by a common style, tone and recurrent concerns (Delamont & Atkinson, 1980, p. 141). This research is often directed to aspects of cultural variation and culture clash in the classroom and the theoretical position taken is usually a relativist one. The implications for teacher education are explicitly recognised, for example, ... anthropological studies celebrating Amish, Cherokee and Ijaw culture are likely to be read and used as texts in teacher training (Delamont & Atkinson, 1980, p. 146). Although Delamont & Atkinson found that American material produced up to 1980 tended to deal with the generalities of culture rather than provide detailed ethnographies of classroom life, this is no longer the case and in this section of the article I will cite some examples of more recent studies available to teacher educators in North America. Rushton (2001) points out that by the year 2010 one-third of American schoolchildren will belong to communities designated as

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minority culture. At the same time the teaching profession remains dominated by members of the Anglo cultural community and minority participation in the profession is decreasing. The ethnic background of many teachers will therefore continue to be different from that of the pupils they teach. New teachers have commented on the lack of confidence which can result when they feel ill-prepared to teach pupils from ethnic communities of which they have no direct experience (Barry & Lechner, 1995; Birrell, 1995). In a study of the attitudes of pre-service teachers in a mid-Atlantic state college, Davis (1995) calls for the use of detailed ethnographies as a way of correcting students cultural deficit explanations of ethnic minority underachievement. For Ladson-Billings (1992), ethnographic study is essential if teachers are to be made aware of the extent to which education to date has failed minority pupils because of an underlying Western epistemology that takes no account of minority learning styles, which are often based on the group rather than the individual. Teaching which is culturally congruent is, according to Ladson-Billings, the key to making multicultural education work. Before examining in more detail the way that Ladson-Billings applies these insights to the education of African-American children I will refer briefly to five ethnographic studies of the education of minority culture children in America. These studies will be summarised to demonstrate the nature of the classroom observations, the kinds of pedagogical points that are made and the implications for teacher training and research. Classroom Observations
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Erickson & Mohatt (1982) address cultural differences between Native American and Anglo-American majority culture pupils.[5] They draw on ethnographic data to show that Native American children avoid asserting control in ways that could be seen as limiting the autonomy of others. They do this in order to argue that Native and mainstream patterns of social and linguistic interaction differ in ways which are fundamental to learning. Lipka (1991) bases his case for cultural congruence in teaching and learning on his study from the Bristol Bay region of Alaska of a Yupik teacher implementing what he refers to as Yupik pedagogy, which emphasises cooperation, the use of overlapping speech and co-speaking as well as a cognitive style that is holistic in relating all elements to a whole. Lipka used video to record the detail of classroom interactions, noting especially the absence of lengthy teacher lesson introductions and the employment of modelling rather than direct instruction to encourage particular behaviours and values. In another study Ericks-Brophy & Crago observed similar cultural patterns in Inuit teaching and learning in Northern Quebec. The Inuit style of classroom discourse observed in this study discouraged competitiveness and allowed individuals to remain passive.

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Rules of discourse which respected cooperation and listening were observed by teachers and pupils alike. Peer modelling was used to encourage appropriate social behaviour. Ericks-Brophy & Crago (1994, p. 116) concluded that ... aboriginal children must be made aware of and instructed in accordance with the values and socialisation patterns in operation in their own communities if they are to face their future with confidence and pride in themselves and their culture. Pedagogical Issues For Erickson & Mohatt (1982) it is not the more obvious cultural differences of diet and religion to which the teacher needs to attend, but the implicit culture which underpins everyday interaction. They describe the Native teacher who, because he shares this implicit culture with his pupils, is able to teach the English-American mainstream curriculum in a manner which accommodates Native principles of communicative etiquette. Another teacher, who is of mainstream cultural background, is seen shifting eventually from a style which reflected mainstream culture, for example calling on individuals for answers, to a form of behaviour more congruent with Native styles, such as directing questions to groups of pupils. Lipka (1991, p. 204) is less convinced that teachers of Anglo cultural background will be able to make this accommodation, asserting instead that Common sense and research suggest that indigenous teachers should be teaching indigenous pupils in indigenous communities. Only in this way, he argues, will indigenous pupils avoid the imposition of an Anglo curriculum and pedagogy with its emphasis on competition, formal classroom speech codes and a cognitive style which is analytical, abstract and decontextualised. In Jordans (1985) account of a project designed to demonstrate the value of anthropological insights for preparing educational programmes for Hawaiian children, the term cultural compatibility is used to describe the kind of pedagogy referred to in these studies of Native American education. Ethnographic work in the Hawaiian community revealed the importance of attachment to peers and this led to the design of pedagogy which incorporated peer tutoring. This allowed the children to draw on strategies for learning they had already developed in sibling and companion group settings. This project is presented by Jordan as an example of collaboration between anthropologists and teachers aimed at improving the educational performance of minority culture children. The resulting gains in pupil attainment led to the conclusion that Educational anthropology has a vital role to play in addressing the problem of the underachievement of ethnic and cultural minority children in our schools (Jordan, 1985, p. 119).

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Teacher Training Several of these studies make specific reference to teacher training in cultural competence. Erickson & Mohatt (1982, p. 170) call the attention of teacher educators to their conclusion that it is by discovering the small differences in social relations which make a big difference in the interactional ways children engage the content of the school curriculum [that] anthropologists of education can make practical contributions to the improvement of minority childrens school achievement. It is in order to achieve this kind of cultural continuity that the education of Inuit pupils in Northern Quebec has come under the management of an Inuitcontrolled School Board (Ericks-Brophy & Crago, 1994). This board is also responsible for teacher training. Ericks-Brophy & Crago defend the case for cultural continuity by arguing that indigenous pupils will be able to progress most effectively when teachers are able to incorporate pupils own modes of communicative competence into classroom activities. In order to ensure that traditional patterns of discourse and interaction remain intact in the early years, recruits to teaching do not need to have competence in English or French or have a high-school diploma. It is only above Grade 3 that pupils are taught in either English or French, and then by a Euro-Canadian teacher. Research Implications Of the authors cited above, Lipka is the most explicit in making the case for insider research. His view is that Anglo researchers would be unable to relate the classroom styles he recorded to the underpinning cultural values, which are in turn connected to an environment which calls upon skills in subsistence and survival. McAlpine & Crago (1995), in their study of a newly qualified Anglophone teacher working in a remote indigenous community in Canada, also focus on the difficulty the outsider experiences in reading behavioural cues, but they do record the eventual success of this teacher in learning to work in a more culturally congruent fashion after taking advice from Native members of staff. In the language of anthropology this teacher learned to go native. Summarising this material on the education of minority culture children, we see a clear focus on culture and its relationship to preferred learning styles. The implications for pedagogy and therefore teacher education are stressed by the authors in each of these five case studies. While there is some acknowledgement of the need to prepare pupils for bicultural functioning, this is a minor theme in the work cited. This work is therefore much more pluralist than it is cosmopolitan and the focus on the group at the expense of the individual leads to generalisations about preferred learning styles that are open to challenge. It is also important to note that the empirical studies of cultural minority children in North American classrooms reported above involve 375

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what Kymlicka (2001) refers to as national minorities. These are cultural groups that existed as enduring self-governing communities prior to Anglo settlement in North America. These groups are contrasted by Kymlicka with both American immigrant cultural groups and the AfricanAmerican community. These differences are obviously important and they warn against any simplistic reading of North American case studies for their implications for English classrooms, where the reality is closer to what Kymlicka terms immigrant groups.[6] The African-American community fits neither the national minority nor the immigrant model. Before moving to a consideration of research in England I will therefore return to Ladson-Billings studies of education in the African-American community. In her more recent work, where she returns to her theme of culturally congruent teaching, Ladson-Billings (2000) makes the case for what she calls culture-centred solutions to the underachievement of African-American children. Discussing African-American Immersion Schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Atlanta, Georgia, she recommends a culturally relevant pedagogy that distances itself from Western psychological models of learning, which focus on the individual pupil, in favour of a group-centred approach more consistent with an African celebration of group identity. Ladson-Billings is specific in calling for the use of educational anthropology in providing the ethnographic data necessary to inform teachers about the cultural backgrounds of their pupils. Studies of this kind will, she argues, demonstrate the centrality of mutuality and reciprocity in African epistemology and pedagogy, thus enabling teachers to adapt their approaches in order to improve pupil attainment because, When teachers share cultural solidarity with the students, [those students] become successful in ways consistent with community norms and values (Ladson-Billings, 2000, p. 194). Irvine (2000) is more specific in calling for a pupil-teacher relationship in the Afrocentric school which models community values by being familial in nature, allowing the teacher to operate as a cultural translator for the monocultural African-American pupil.[7] Teacher Education and Ethnic Diversity in England The kind of material described in the previous section was largely ignored by British sociologists of education in the period up to 1980. Delamont & Atkinson (1980, p. 143) concluded that, in very general terms ... ethnography in North America and in Britain is being carried out under the auspices of very different traditions. Reviewing the more recent past, Delamont & Atkinson (1995) argue that although the 1980s and 1990s saw an increase in ethnographic studies of classrooms, these continued to ignore anthropological approaches and rarely took place in classrooms where ethnic minority pupils were to be found. While more recent studies

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by Foster (1990), Gillborn (1990; 1995), Mac an Ghaill (1988), Wright (1992), Mirza (1992) and Connolly (1995) suggest that there is no longer the dearth of ethnographic studies of multicultural classrooms reported by Delamont & Atkinson, there is as yet little evidence of this material finding a place in teacher education programmes or in discussion about what should be the nature of teacher education. In this section I will review some recent literature on teacher education and ethnic diversity in England and I will show that it continues the pattern described by Delamont & Atkinson in focusing on social structures rather than culture. The literature can be broadly divided into two parts. The first is concerned with the recruitment of ethnic minority teachers and their experiences of the teacher education process. While ethnic minority students were represented in higher education in the United Kingdom in increasing numbers in the 1990s (Times Higher Education Supplement, 1993), the situation in teacher education has continued to suggest a pattern very similar to that in the USA. Due to an under-representation of ethnic minority teachers, minority pupils are most likely to be taught by teachers from the majority community. For this reason, researchers have been particularly interested in the experiences of those ethnic minority students who do enter teacher education. An investigation of the 1993 Higher Education Funding Council project to improve the recruitment of ethnic minority students to teacher education courses revealed that difficulties underpinning recruitment fell into three categories (Mathieson, 1995). First there were the general concerns about pay, discipline and working conditions felt by candidates from all groups, then there was an apparent failure to provide ethnic minority students with appropriate information about teaching, and finally and most seriously, there was the impact on potential candidates of their own experience of racism within education. Mathiesons report concluded that higher education institutions and schools needed to think very carefully about the particular concerns of ethnic minority teacher trainees while on placement in partner schools. Mathiesons report was by no means the first to draw attention to these issues. Much of the British material on teacher education and ethnic diversity has concentrated on the negative experiences of minority students undergoing teacher education courses. These have included problems with white parents (Moolia, 1991), limited opportunities for multicultural placements (Edgecombe, 1991), stereotypical perceptions of minority teachers (Grosvenor, 1990), reported feelings of discomfort in placement schools (Jones et al, 1997) and lack of any serious preparation on how to deal with racism when in school (Siraj-Blatchford, 1991; Crozier & Menter, 1993; Givens et al, 1999). Blair & Maylor (1993, p. 59) found that for black women students undertaking initial teacher education at a college in the south of England there were ... overwhelming concerns about racism. In similar vein Osler (1994) reports that racism was a

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theme running throughout the accounts provided by her sample of male and female black students on a PGCE course in the West Midlands of England. These students were divided in their opinions about how well their course addressed ethnic diversity, but they did express concern about the attitudes of their white colleagues on the course. The attitudes of white students became the second major area of research on teacher education and ethnic diversity in the United Kingdom; that is, how do white students feel about teaching in multiethnic classrooms and how confident are they about the preparation they receive for this work? In an early investigation Cohen (1989) reported that first-year teacher education students were not hostile to multiculturalism but were very ill-informed about minority cultures and had very little experience of contact with members of minority groups, the problem being one of ignorance rather than hostility. More recently Klein (1994) has related student attitudes to what she refers to as a market-orientated and individualistic society. With societys concern for self-interest over the social good, Klein (1994, p. 176) states that There is little reason to expect that issues of equality will be of general concern to todays student teachers. In fact there is some evidence to suggest that todays students do share a concern for equality issues. In a survey of science, English and social studies students, Bousted et al (1994) report that equal opportunities was regarded by students as a key issue and one which they wanted their schools to address by showing how policies could be put into practice. In another account of student views about their preparation for teaching through the PGCE route, Sikes (1995) found a similar interest in equal opportunity issues, even if student awareness at an early stage of the course proved to be limited. What Sikes did find was that there was a reluctance in school to deal with these issues. In particular, it seems that subject mentors are least likely to perceive equal opportunities as part of their mentoring responsibility. The coverage that did take place was handled by general professional mentors and was less connected with classroom subject teaching. This underlines the way that preparation for teaching in multiethnic classrooms in England is seen more as a matter of general teacher awareness and attitude than an aspect of pedagogic skill and specific cultural knowledge. It is also worth noting that the British material on equal opportunities tends to deal with ethnicity, special educational needs and gender as one issue. While it is not difficult to see some merit in this approach, this may be another explanation for the relative neglect of culture in student preparation. So far I have identified two areas of interest in the literature on teacher education and ethnic diversity in England. These are the experiences of ethnic minority students undertaking training and the attitudes of white students to work in multiethnic settings. Rarely does this material address questions of pedagogy in the multiethnic classroom. There seems to be little interest in the implications for teacher training of

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the need to acknowledge cultural differences in learning styles. In fact it is possible to detect actual opposition to course provision which deals with cultural differences. Siraj-Blatchford (1993, p. 41) has this to say about the incorporation of diversity issues in courses in the United Kingdom: Unfortunately this was usually limited to the recognition of a need to know and understand ethnic minority cultures (my emphasis). SirajBlatchford reflects the anti-racist rejection of multiculturalism in calling for an emphasis on equality and power structures rather than cultural factors. Davies (1994, p. 114) advocates an emphasis on the social responsibilities of teachers rather than technicist and psychologistic concern with skills and competences. To readers in North America, this separation between teacher attitudes and values and the pedagogic skills needed to ensure the achievement of minority pupils in the classroom will seem strange. Readers of a collection entitled Race, Gender and the Education of Teachers (Siraj-Blatchford, 1993) will find no reference to the kinds of classroom pedagogic issues reported in the North American literature. The most recent teacher education materials to address ethnic diversity and the classroom are those prepared by the Teacher Training Agency and circulated in 2000 (TTA, n.d.). Described as resource material for teacher trainers, this pack contains no detailed material on cultural backgrounds, limiting itself to brief references to inclusion of minority pupils. Where it is mentioned at all, inclusion appears to be more about content of lessons than pedagogy. While culture is seen as an influence on behaviour, it is not discussed in terms of learning and therefore there is no sustained account of pedagogy or link to materials which might be used to develop pedagogical thinking. It would appear that the two traditions of classroom ethnography, anthropologically orientated cultural contact studies in America and sociologically orientated material focusing on equal opportunities in England, remain a feature of the literature on teacher education and the multiethnic classroom. Delamont & Atkinson called for a rapprochement of these two traditions, seeing this as benefiting education on both sides of the Atlantic. I have tried to indicate in this section that it is unhelpful to separate the issue of equal opportunity from that of cultural difference. Students in England, like their colleagues in America, are calling for a teacher education curriculum which provides practical guidance on teaching in the multiethnic classroom. In England the response has been to stress equal opportunities in the hope that everything else will follow. With the New Right attacking multiculturalism in teacher education as a threat to national identity and anti-racists unprepared to give attention to what they refer to as culturalism, there is little likelihood that students will get what they seek. There is therefore a case to be made for research which looks at interaction in the English multiethnic classroom in the same way that American researchers have done. I have cited some

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evidence that this kind of work is beginning to be available. The results will be of value in teacher education. I have already indicated that the pedagogic recommendation resulting from classroom ethnography has often involved some kind of argument for cultural congruence. Usually this has meant congruence between home and school in terms of curriculum and pedagogy; sometimes it has extended to an argument for congruence in personnel, in other words minority culture teachers for minority culture pupils. I will conclude by arguing that the English emphasis on equal opportunities provides an important counter to the relativism which so often accompanies the anthropological concern with culture. Conclusion In 1974 the anthropologist Edmund Leach gave a public lecture at the University of Birmingham on the theme of the relationship between education and culture. Leach challenged the prevailing anthropological consensus in his assessment of the proper relationship between the school and the home. That consensus spoke of the need for cultural congruence between home and school, but according to Leach, education had to be more than that. If the culture of the school reflects exactly that of the home, there will, he said, be a tendency towards conformity. On the other hand, if these cultures are too different there will be psychological breakdown. Arguing for some contrast between the cultures of home and school so that pupils can be educated for what would be referred to today as hybridity, Leach (1975, p. 96) concluded that ... the significant innovator is nearly always, in my experience, very close to being a mixed up kid. Here then is an anthropologist who does have something to say about education in England. His lecture echoes the work of one English educationist whose work was noted by Delamont & Atkinson as being exceptional in its application of anthropological findings; I refer to Frank Musgrove and in particular his series of papers reporting his experience of teaching in East Africa in the 1950s (for a summary, see Musgrove, 1982). Neither Musgrove nor his Ugandan pupils were much taken with the official colonial policy of cultural congruence, which was that schooling should reflect tribal culture. These pupils saw this as a denial to them of access to the cultural mainstream and therefore to power. Musgrove argued that it is the unfamiliar to which the school should attend. Following Malinowskis description of culture contact as a third cultural reality, and anticipating what has come to be referred to by critical multiculturalists (May, 1999) as the cosmopolitan alternative, Musgrove (1952, p. 176) envisaged advance coming from the creative juxtaposition of dissimilar bodies of knowledge and intellectual traditions.

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More recently Kindler (1993) and Tsolidas (2001) have described this third cultural reality in the context of education in Canada and the Solomon Islands respectively. Kindler expresses concern with the multiculturalist tendency to see pupils as tied to cultural origins and argues instead for a more flexible view of culture and individual identity.[8] This perspective, shared by Tsolidas, restores individual agency to identity formation and recognises the permeability of cultural boundaries. In this view the role of the educator is to make available to pupils a range of cultural experiences from which they will create and recreate the multicultural society which is their future. I started by arguing that teacher education in England has paid insufficient attention to anthropological findings which would enable those preparing teacher education courses to include elements closer to what students actually require, that is, advice on appropriate pedagogic approaches for multiethnic classrooms. I noted the marked differences between North American approaches, which place culture at the centre of these considerations, and approaches in England, which are somewhat disdainful of culture, seeking instead to emphasise inequalities in the social structure. Teacher education in England is the subject of a great deal of debate, not least the part which teachers can play in improving the educational achievement of pupils. The North American material cited in this article provides evidence of the value of including ethnographic studies in the teacher education curriculum so that trainees can address the specific needs and preferred learning styles of their pupils. I have also tried to show that the anthropological tradition or pluralist multiculturalism can lead to a cultural relativism which reifies culture and through its determinism ties individuals to cultures. This does not reflect the nature of culture and identity in modern societies and an emphasis on equal opportunities is a useful reminder of the need to prepare pupils for a society characterised by cultural hybridity and change. It is more in keeping with the cosmopolitan version of multiculturalism to think, not in terms of cultural groups perhaps, but more in terms of culture-building groups. Such a view avoids cultural essentialism, restores individual agency and reminds us of the permeability of cultural boundaries. What teachers need to do is to achieve some kind of balance between the claims for cultural congruence between home and school and the value of discontinuity that Leach, Musgrove, Kindier and Tsolidas have described. If teachers are to be equipped for this approach then teacher educators will need to be open to both the traditions described in this article.

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Correspondence Dr Neil Burtonwood, School of Education, University of Leeds, Bretton Hall Campus, West Bretton, Wakefield WF4 4LG, United Kingdom (n.burtonwood@education.leeds.ac.uk). Notes
[1] I will focus on the requirements for initial teacher education and the school national curriculum in England rather than addressing the wider issues in other parts of the United Kingdom. Occasionally reference will be made to British sources where the authorship, content or application suggests this is a more appropriate designation. [2] While I propose to explore North American and English literature for contrasts which might be instructive, it is important to recognise that there are important historical differences between the demographic patterns in these geographical areas. Kymlicka (2001) provides an interesting account of these differences, especially in terms of educational implications. [3] An exception to this trend is the work of Sewell (1997), who does seek to include cultural considerations into his account of the educational underachievement of African-Caribbean boys. [4] For fuller versions of my arguments about the dangers of cultural reification in pluralist multiculturalism see Burtonwood (1995; 1996a; 1996b; 1998).
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[5] Comparisons between minority culture groups and the dominant Anglo group (what Kymlicka would refer to as the societal culture in North America) should not be taken to suggest cultural homogeneity in either the minority or majority groups. [6] Caution is needed here, because although ethnic minority groups of Caribbean and South Asian background settled in England are, in Kymlickas terminology, immigrant communities, this kind of terminology would be resisted here as failing to reflect the length of residency and the settled nature of the communities concerned. For criticisms of the way Kymlicka (1995) contrasts the situation of national minorities and immigrant groups see Parekh (2000). [7] In an earlier article I have responded in more detail to the implication of cultural homogeneity which features in Afrocentric philosophy; see Burtonwood (1995). [8] For a fuller account of the implications of Kindlers work for the cosmopolitan version of multiculturalism see Burtonwood (1995).

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