Interactions in two multicultural classrooms : Mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion

An interdisciplinary team of linguists, psychologists, anthropologists and educationalists video-recorded and studied mathematics lessons in two Dutch secondary education schools with pupils of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. The study minutely analyses verbal and non-verbal communication in these classes to answer the overall question: “How do teachers’ and pupils’ ways of interaction in the multicultural classroom lead to inclusion or exclusion on a cognitive and social level?”. The different chapters in this book reflect different methodological and theoretical perspectives such as Realistic Mathematics Education, Conversation Analysis, Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy. Inclusion and exclusion appear as strongly multifaceted processes involving mastery of the language, social and ethnic backgrounds, cognitive abilities, peer relations, and yes, character, knowledge and dedication of the teacher. This book is of interest not only to researchers of classroom interaction and multilingual and multiethnic schools, but also gives more than a handful of advice for present-day and future teachers and policy-makers. This volume is part of the research project ‘Social Cohesion’ [Sociale Cohesie] of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). This project seeks attention for questions about social cohesion in Dutch society. The research results enable to gain perspectives that are relevant to government policy.