Incorporating multicultural, gender,
Indigenous and disability perspectives into SOSE learning
The incorporation of perspectives that have previously
been marginalised in the SOSE curriculum is an exciting
aspect of new SOSE syllabuses. However, it also involves
teachers in considerable work. The following questions can
guide teachers as they work to include these perspectives in
their SOSE programs:
- What research have I undertaken to incorporate
gender, Indigenous, disability and multicultural
perspectives into this unit or lesson. This is
intellectual, professional work that will take time.
- What steps have I taken to ensure that the resources/
information presented to students do represent authentic
gender, Indigenous, disability and multicultural
perspectives. This is based on the right to self
representation and examines whose voices are heard in the
curriculum. this should involve community consultation.
We also need to remember that students and their families
are "representatives" of particular perspectives as are
teachers. Remember to avoid the one token voice
- Have the values of social justice, democratic
processes, sustainability and peace guided the selection
of perspectives (standpoints) included in this topic/
lesson. (Just who is being advantaged by this inclusion?)
This includes consideration of anti-racist, anti-sexist
teaching
- Have my taken-for-granted assumptions about society
and environment been challenged through the perspectives
being incorporated.
- Have I included different ways of knowing and forms
of knowing as well as different knowledges.
- Have I taken into account that schools construct
perspectives through the ways that they include them.
- Have I recognised that different perspectives arise
from different social positions and people's perspectives
will change as their social positions change and as the
societies in which they are positioned change. Also,
people will have multiple identities/ subjectivities,
leading to different perspectives.
- Have I critically reflected on how my own
perspective, based on my own social position, has shaped
my understanding of this topic and the students' reading
of the topic. (This involves habitual consideration of
personal motivations, assumptions and points of view and
an acceptance of their fallibility.)
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