From Avoidance to Competence? How the Identity Project Inspires Teachers to Engage with Ethnicity and Culture with Their Students

Abstract

Multicultural education highlights the need to promote students’ diverse identities, recognizing their ethnic-cultural backgrounds as resources in their teaching. However, most teachers perceive they lack competence and learning material to this end. Research suggests the Identity Project may be an appropriate tool to resolve some of these challenges. We explore both teachers’ and students’ narratives about teaching issues of ethnicity and culture in multicultural classrooms centering on potential changes from before to after teachers delivered the IP. We conducted one focus group interview with seven teachers before they were trained and implemented the IP in their classrooms, and individual interviews with them after they had completed the intervention. Data from three focus groups with 16 students from the same schools, and individual interviews with 16 other students that received the intervention are included to add perspective to the teachers’ narratives. A reflexive thematic analysis resulted in four themes: From avoidance to embracing the diversity topics, from not addressing to affirming student identities, teachers pushing for inclusion (or exclusion), using cultural background as a learning/teaching tool. Our findings imply that the IP can be a tool for multicultural education that enhances teachers’ competence in supporting students’ identity development.