Methodologies for Researching Cultural Diversity in Education

As teachers, education policymakers and school managers seek to meet the needs of students from cultures and language backgrounds different from the dominant majority's, research needs to reflect the perspectives of the students themselves and of their parents and teachers, while taking account of the broader socio-political context. This book brings together research conducted in Scotland, Australia, Canada, Norway, Italy, Ghana and Pakistan, which addresses the ethical conduct of education research in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. The relationship between researched and researcher is crucial, but it can be problematic when the researchers are from the dominant group and not the groups whose experiences they aspire to understand. These authors highlight the challenges of researching in culturally and ethnically diverse contexts, and describe innovative approaches such a mapping, shadowing and photography that give agency to the children who are being researched, rather than to the researchers. The book is of interest to academics and to classroom teachers researching their own practice, and also to education students and social science researchers working in culturally diverse contexts.