The second Type relates to how students are recognised within the school and the classroom throughout the school years. Many educators shared the view that supporting cultural wellbeing required the creation of classroom conditions in which all students were recognised and valued. They spoke of the need to “value each person” and to “recognise every student’s contributions” and they described a range of rationales for this. For some it was to reduce individuals’ isolation within the classroom group, while others sought to maintain a harmonious classroom climate. There were also educators who wanted to increase students’ recognition of diversity in order to normalise difference in classroom communities.
The idea of recognition as foundational to a harmonious classroom
environment was shared by Kindergarten teacher Chelsea and Prep teacher Lauren, who described the importance of valuing difference. Lauren spoke of taking time to meet with all families in her class so she could better understand her students’
backgrounds and draw upon that understanding to encourage students’ involvement in her class.
Chelsea sought to create opportunities for students to encounter the diversity of the local community in order to help them appreciate that while “we all share many similarities, everybody is also different and difference is valuable”. While a broadly harmonious idea of inclusion evident in Chelsea’s comments appeared to underlie their approaches to recognition in the early years of Prep and Kindergarten, for some educators, particularly those in secondary schools, this Type appeared to take a more critical and challenging orientation.
For Beth and Kirsty, creating spaces for dialogue and expressions of
difference in ways that are respectful and foster belonging appeared to form a valued approach to teaching at the secondary school level. Beth described provoking her students to enquire into their sense of self and their place relative to the wider world through their classroom discussions. She perceived that this type of personal
exploration supported cultural wellbeing because it encouraged her students to surface their own perspectives and locate those perspectives in broader discourses when discussing topics in the English class. Beth commented “I think the individual voice is crucial, but I think if that’s not balanced with ‘well this is me, where do I fit in the place of things?’, then there’s something lacking in terms of wellbeing”. Beth’s perspective accords with Honneth’s (2004) notion of recognition involving people becoming aware of themselves as both particular and full members of social communities, in terms of being a unique individual and also being a member of a common humanity. Through her comments Beth connected cultural wellbeing with this dialectical tension between the recognition of students’ personal views and their relationship to the wider world.
class. Connecting with a shared topic of relevance to the region – a community art project about the future of the town’s declining timber industry, Kirsty initiated class discussions about this topic which has been the source of bitter divisions amongst the local population. This was a sometimes difficult and oppositional process, yet Kirsty perceived a benefit to cultural wellbeing came from opening up the dialogue amongst students to make for more diverse discussions that “might change or start some of this questioning rather than a black and white scenario” (in reference to a polarised
debate) and to open up spaces for less prominent voices. Kirsty made the comment “for me, when I thought about cultural wellbeing it’s that idea of having diversity and belonging. When you belong, you have a reason to be.” This view gave importance to the recognition of diversity and the accompanying sense of belonging as creating conditions for cultural wellbeing.
Honneth (2004) found the wellbeing potential of social groups is directly linked to the provision of conditions of mutual recognition. He described mutual recognition as a precondition of individual self-realisation, echoing the earlier work of Wenger (1998) who argues that the defining characteristic of participation in social exchange is the presence of mutual recognition, without which the individual remains subject to injustice and inequality. In this area, Aboriginal educator and artist
Valerie’s interpretation of cultural wellbeing critiqued contemporary schooling practices which in her view misrecognise Aboriginal people:
It’s like “Don’t worry about what’s out the window, all you have to know is in the computer.” I think the way we do education now is institutionalising children, they become like little marching soldiers – finish your education – don’t look left or right, just straight ahead, to
with the reality of the natural world – it’s all driven by the machine now. (Valerie)
Valerie described there being cultural wellbeing benefits for Aboriginal students experiencing connections with ancestral history and an increased “sense of belonging and engaging” with country. Accordingly, Valerie valued approaches to learning that recognise Aboriginal connections to country, which overcome the confines of the classroom and what she perceived as students’ “alienation from the natural world”. Valerie placed importance on young Aboriginal people recognising their heritage and being able to draw strength from that shared history in their schooling. In her critique of contemporary schooling approaches Valerie echoed Kukutai and Walter’s (2015, p. 325) call for “expanding the recognition space” through recognition of Indigenous geographic and cultural diversity and students’ Aboriginal identities..