An investigation of three primary teachers and their principal’s work with cultural and linguistic diversity in their school: responses and reflections.

The main purpose of this research was to investigate how educators are working with cultural and linguistic diversity (CALD) in a Melbourne primary school setting in which the school has a high degree of CALD. In Australia’s case, the continually increasing CALD make-up of the nation is being reflected in Australia’s education policy, which affirms its commitment to establishing an environment where diversity is valued through its ‘principles of diversity’. A key concern of the investigation was to discover how educator practices were informed by education policy on CALD. While, education policy and the Australian curriculum seeks to promote learning environments that are fair and offer scope for educators to personalise learning in order to cater to the diverse needs of their students, much of the literature reviewed suggests that educators both in Australia and overseas, are not prepared to respond to CALD effectively. As an interpretive study, this research concentrated on gaining insight into the personal experiences of the research participants. This case study generated data primarily through individual semi-structured interviews and further data generated through the examination of school documents to assist in increasing reliability and validity of research material. An interactive model of data analysis was undertaken, which involved the reduction of data, the data of display and drawing and verifying conclusions from the data. The findings of this study certainly suggest that the school under investigation has both a positive school culture and culturally competent educators and that the pedagogical practices and non-traditional learning spaces at the school advances both the positive nature of the school culture and the cultural competence of its educators and therefore increases their capacity to work with CALD.