Diversity in the Construction of Modes of Collaboration in Multiethnic Classrooms: Continuity and Discontinuity of Cultural Scripts

Abstract

If students from different ethnic groups or cultural backgrounds join together in one classroom and construct a “common” practice, can they still be described as different? Given this “common” classroom practice that they share (which is the result of both classroom traditions of the past and the day-by-day sharing of experiences leading to a common history and tradition as a group), and the reshuffling of the variety brought along given the particular dynamics of this classroom, how is this difference to be perceived or conceptualized? Furthermore, if we are able to describe this variety, how do we describe it in terms of its effect for the construction of knowledge or learning? Do we see variety as a problem or as fruitful input? For instance, do we see this as productive or counterproductive? (Compare the classic discontinuity thesis in which diversity is seen as disadvantageous for the culturally “deviant” groups versus seeing heterogeneity in the classroom, by using the Bakhtinian term social heteroglossia, as a potential that is able to foster learning – e.g., Gutierrez, Rymes, & Larson, 1995, pp. 447, 453.) In this chapter we consider different conceptualizations of (cultural) variety in classrooms from a sociocultural activity theory perspective and related approaches, especially those concepts that answer the question how this variety is related to the differential participation of students in past or present out-of-school contexts.

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