Canadian Colleges and the Case for Cultural Inclusivity

As the world becomes more and more a global village it seems an obvious fact that we must all make room for cultural differences and expressions that may feel unfamiliar to the so-called “dominant culture”. Nowhere is this evolution in human interaction more necessary, but also more achievable, then in the cultural mosaic the makes up our great country of Canada. We know that this is made possible by entrenched and codified law, namely the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but are these laws enough to ensure that all people coming from every corner of the earth will feel comfortable and included in the systems and institutions that make up our country?
For example, as teachers we rarely consider whether we encourage inclusivity and cultural diversity in our own classrooms. This is in spite of the reality that more and more of our students are representative of these different cultural groups. We become acclimated to cultural groups gravitating toward each other in class, sitting in defined cultural groups along the back row or clumped in tight-knit group in the middle of the room; and we often consider it normal and appropriate for our teaching to come from a western-centric vantage point without considering the views of our culturally diverse audience. What, if anything, can we do to break down these invisible walls? Methods and approaches to a culturally inclusive pedagogy will be the topic of an upcoming workshop for Mohawk College teachers. Initiated by Diversipro, Mohawk College is hosting this training workshop so that we can all learn to better address the different cultural voices that are making up our classroom populations. If we consider that 50% of our student population will be made up of immigrants, international students and new Canadians from the entire cultural spectrum by 2012, then this new approach takes on a new dimension. Adopting new methods of cultural inclusion within the classroom then becomes not only a matter of pedagogical preference, but an issue that our jobs and livelihoods, and our institutional survival overall will depend on.

February 11th, 2009