Conference Agenda

Diversity refers to normal human variances in terms of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, dis/ability, religion, indigenous status, nationality, citizenship status, culture, refugee status and so on (Smith, 2011). What people experience in their lives, including the opportunities and challenges, are heavily influenced by their diverse markers or attributions. For example, minoritised ethnic or racial groups or people with dis/ability often experience lower educational and life outcomes compared to majority ethnic or racial groups or people without dis/ability respectively. However, such differential impacts are not due to differences among people, rather how diversity is understood and managed in societies (Bhowmik & Kennedy, 2022).

This symposium will examine how a selected number of societies, including Cameroon, Hong Kong and Scotland understand diversity, what challenges for educators and leaders are reportedly it poses, and how educators and leaders deal with those challenges. Particular focus will be given to diverse groups’ construction and negotiation of identities, belonging, acculturation, religions, experiences of marginalization and discrimination and their linkages to educational outcomes and wellbeing. Adopting an asset-informed approach that assumes diversity as a strength as opposed to deficiency (Waitoller & King Thorius, 2016), the symposium will report policies and practices that are found to be effective in managing classrooms with students from diverse backgrounds. The underlying theories such as labeling issues in dis/ability discourse (Essex and Macaskill, 2020), diversity mindset in inclusive leadership (Knippenberg and Ginkel, 2022), decoloniality (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), and critical race theory in education (Taylor, Gillborn, & Ladson-Billings, 2009) will be highlighted. The symposium will also shed light on educational and parenting practices of minoritised groups so as to better equip educators, leaders, researchers and other stakholders to meaningfully engage with minoritised students and their families.

All four papers will deal with diversity and related responses in their respective contexts. First paper will examine the gaps between policy and practices in relation to Additional Support Needs in Scottish education system. The second paper will look at how inclusive leadership capabilities are being developed in Cameroon by harnessing the power of continuous learning via professional learning community. The third paper will elucidate how critical literacies can be utilized to promote decoloniality by engaging students with diversity, inclusion and power related isssues in a teacher education programme at a Scottish university. The fourth paper will employ a critical race perspective to highlight the shortcomings of language dominating discourse in relation to minoritised students’ education in Hong Kong.

This 90-minute symposium comprises an opening session, four paper presentations, comments by the Discussant and question-answer session with the audience. A Chairperson will open the symposium to welcome the audience and explain the purpose, rationale and structure of the symposium. They will have 5 minutes for the opening session. It will be followed by four paper presentations focusing on three different jurisdictions. Each Paper Presenter will have 15 minutes. The Discussant will then take 15 minutes to highlight and critique some key points of each presented paper as well as their implications for policy, practice and future research. The symposium will close by a question-answer session with the audience for about 10 minutes. The Chair, Paper Presenters and the Discussant are all scholars working in three different parts of the world.

This presentation will consider the disjunction between Scottish education policy’s view of Additional Support Needs as a means of recognising and meeting needs and day-to-day school practice (Scottish Government, 2017). Drawing on examples of practice and key policy statements, it will consider how teachers mediate the tensions between policy and practice. Issues that will be drawn out include the mismatch between policy that is informed by a socio-ecological model of difference and the medicalised model that is used to level resources in school, and the fixed nature of assigned labels in contrast to the changing presentations of ‘disabilities’ through a child’s time in school (Essex and MacAskill, 2020). Responses to diversity in capacity will be analysed in terms of how they impact on a child’s experience of schooling and considers the multiple mechanisms whereby identifying a support need often acts as a key determinant of future failure. Finally, the presentation will set out the new version of the Framework for Inclusion which is intended to help teachers negotiate the gaps between policy in, and practice of, educational inclusion (Scottish Universities Inclusion Group, 2022).

Essex, J. and Macaskill, M. (2020). Modern Foreign Language Education for learners with Additional Support Needs in Scotland, Support for Learning, 35 (4), 440-453. Scottish Government. (2017). Code of Practice for Additional support for learning: statutory guidance. Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-childrens-learning-statutory-guidance-education-additional-support-learning-scotland Scottish Universities Inclusion Group (2022). National Framework for Inclusion (3rd edition) Available at: https://www.gtcs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/National-Framework-3rd-Edition-2022.docx

The growing attention for diversity and inclusive education (Erten and Savage, 2012; Messiou 2017), has witnessed a parallel interest in evidence-informed practices (Nelson and Campbell 2017) that are supported by ongoing professional learning to optimise team-based efforts (collaborations between teachers). Recent development in community-based education is seeking for wider forms of collaborations between student, teachers, school leaders and the wider community (Corson 1998; Knippenberg and Ginkel 2022). This shift from a centralized orientation of education to a more community-based orientation where community member’s knowledge and expertise are needed to inform the school’s core business of learning and teaching creates new opportunities and challenges for school principals, particularly on how they go about incorporating the voices of those who were once unsolicited. Inspired by the need for ongoing professional development for school principals in Cameroon (Lyonga, 2022), this paper draws on data from the Teach Connect LeadUP project, which anchors on the cultivation of professional learning communities (PLC) as a school-wide improvement strategy. Crafted to build leadership capacity, the project begins by exploring how school principals think about leadership, and their capacity in developing inclusive learning cultures using action research strategies to develop their epistemic cognition and capabilities for inclusive leadership. The project relies on the leader’s emic perspectives in creating conducive and inclusive learning environments where every student, staff and member of the school community feels included, empowered and safe to contribute towards achieving the collective goal of the school. I draw on the findings of the first reconnaissance phase of the project, leveraging on the reflections of principals and their understanding of inclusive leadership processes and the knowledge base and competences required for the development of a PLC in a resource-constraint context. Overall, the findings from all the phases of the project will cumulatively inform the design of an inclusive leadership framework that plots the ideological and theoretical considerations foregrounding the development of leadership capacity for inclusive learning system and communities

Corson., D. (1998). Community-based Education for Indigenous Cultures, Language Culture and Curriculum, 11(3), 238-249 Erten., O. and Savage., R., S. (2012). Moving forward in inclusive education research, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 16(2), 221-233 Knippenberg., V. D. and Ginkel., V., P., W. (2022). A Diversity Mindset Perspective on Inclusive Leadership, Group and Organisation Management, 47(4), 779-797 Lyonga., N.A.N. (2022). Principals’ Leadership Needs for Effective Management of Secondary Schools in Meme and Fako Divisions of Cameroon. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership 18(1), 35-48 Messiou., K. (2017). Research in the field of inclusive education: time for a rethink?, International Journal of inclusive Education, 21(2), 146-159 Nelson., J. and Campbell., C. (2017). Evidence-informed practice in education: meanings and applications, Educational Research, 59(2), 127-135

In my exploration of critical literacies as a means to create the conditions for decolonial possibility with student teachers, I draw on the concepts of safe, brave, and contested spaces (Atiya et al., 2013). The discursive construction of these spaces across a professional graduate diploma in English education reveals how the student teachers and I consistently have to “name, critique, and challenge” (Johnson, 2022, p. 90) the entangled discourses of power that make the colonial matrix (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), whilst also ensuring that these spaces are humanizing and contextually responsive to diversity. In this presentation, I offer insights into the design and management of these spaces across one teacher education programme as well as examples of the contested responses that have taken place as student teachers engage with issues of diversity, inclusion, and power.

Atiya, S., Davis, S. W., Green, K., Howley, E., Pollack, S., Roswell, B. S., Turenne, E., Werts, T. & Wilson, L. (2013). From safe space to brave space: Strategies for the anti-oppression classroom. In S. W. Davis & B. S. Roswell (Eds.) Turning teaching inside out: A pedagogy of transformation for community-based education. Palgrave Macmillan. P. 105-112. Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University Press. Johnson, L. L. (2022). Critical race English education: New visions, new possibilities. Routledge.

The policy discourse in Hong Kong concerning minoritised students’ education and well-being are heavily dominated by Chinese language issue where minoritised students are mostly seen from a deficit perspective. For example, minoritised students are officially referred as non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students indicating their lack of Chinese language skills. The policy makers may leverage from this labeling to limit their policy efforts only to Chinees language support, however, such a labeling itself constitutes the racialization of minoritized groups (Bhowmik & Gube, 2022). Despite the policy discourse highlighting language as the main barrier to successful educational outcomes, empirical research suggests that many other interrelated factors also contribute (Bhowmik & Kennedy, 2016). This paper will highlight the ways in which adoption of critical race theory (CRT) (Gillborn & Ladson-Billings, 2010; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Taylor, Gillborn, & Ladson-Billings, 2009) and related methodology (López, 2003; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) have helped to widen our understanding beyond language deficiency model. Such an undertaking uncovers an array of factors that racialize minoritised students of South Asian heritages and contribute to their unfavorable educational outcomes in a society characterized by 92% Chinese majority. Among others, teachers’ low expectations, segregating school system, unfavorable school policy, negative stereotypes, differential treatments and behaviors, and lack of cultural understanding are in effect. The paper will elucidate how these factors operate to racialize minoritised students and create a systemic barrier that inhibits their successful transition to post-secondary education and beyond. It will highlight the bold policy measures needed to alter the situation and ensure that diversity is truly valued and celebrated in this Asia’s world city. The paper will also discuss the issues and challenges of situating and doing CRT in a context that privileges Chinese and oppresses South Asians.

Bhowmik, M., & Gube, J. (2022). Anti-racist values and intercultural skills. In K. J. Kennedy, M. Pavlova, & J. C.-K. Lee (Eds.), Soft skills and hard values: Meeting education's 21st century challenges (pp. 133-148). London & New York: Routledge (Taylor and Francis). Bhowmik, M. K., & Kennedy, K.J. (2016). 'Out of-School' Ethnic Minority Young People in Hong Kong. Singapore: Springer. Gillborn, D., & Ladson-Billings, G. (2010). Critical race theory. In P. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (Vol. 6, pp. 341-347). Oxford, UK: Elsevier. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97 (1), 47–68. López, G. R. (2003). The (racially neutral) politics of education: A critical race theory perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39 (1), 68–94. doi: 10.1177/0013161X02239761 . Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8 (1), 23–44. Taylor, E., Gillborn, D. & Ladson-Billings, G. (Eds.). (2009). Foundations of critical race theory in Education. New York: Routledge.