Abstracts - Earli

used by the teacher to defend particular advice regarding schooling. Less experienced migrantparents are less familiar with both the institutional categories and procedures and instead of usingthem strategically, they work around them. These findings indicate that parents’ socialization intoinstitutional discourses is qualitatively different for recent and more established migrants, whichmost likely reflects different stages in the migratory process as related to their experience withschooling.Encountering pupil diversity in the multiethnic classroom: Dialogical perspectives on discoursesof teaching and learningLutine de Wal Pastoor, University of Oslo, NorwayRoger Säljö, Göteborg, SwedenA major educational challenge that many European countries presently face is to deal with thelinguistic and cultural diversity of current classroom populations and to improve the educationalopportunities and achievements of ethnic minority children. Educational research emphasizes thecentral role active participation in classroom discourse plays in developing pupils’ knowledge.One reason why minority pupils’ school achievements often are unsatisfactory may be that theyget too few opportunities to actively participate in meaningful classroom discourse. In this paper,we explore some features of how teachers attempt to adjust classroom discourse to pupil diversityin the multiethnic classroom. How do teachers and pupils with linguistically and culturally diversebackgrounds develop shared understandings? Which opportunities do teachers create for pupils toactively engage in discourse? To what extent do teachers acknowledge and incorporate minoritypupils’ knowledge and prior experiences into their classroom practice? Finally, we address thefollowing questions. To what extent can the observed instructional practices be related toeducational policies in Norway? Which views of learning underlie the teachers’ practices? Howcan these be understood in relation to the national educational context? The paper is based onanalysis of authentic discourse excerpts, using transcribed audio recordings, field notes, interviewsand school documents. The empirical research was carried out in a multiethnic third grade class inNorway. It demonstrates the composite role that language and discourse play in learning. It isargued that various discourse practices, creating different premises for pupil participation, afforddifferent ways of dealing with the pupil diversity encountered. A responsive, dialogic teachingapproach promotes pupils’ motivation and engagement in discourse, and consequently, theirpossibilities for learning. Yet, the teachers in this study still relied on educational practices thatwere basically monolingual and monocultural.“I can tell you all you need to know about diversity in just four words … everyone … is … an …individual”: Teaching understandings of diversity in teacher education programs as acollaborative practice.Annette Woods, Griffith University, AustraliaThe quotation in the paper’s title is a comment by one teacher educator on a colleague’s work toraise consciousness among her students regarding social justice, diversity and productivepedagogical engagement. In this paper I call on Foucault’s notion of grids of specification tounpack how diversity and social justice are articulated within the course documents andassessment tasks of a teacher education program in Australia. The current widespread perceptionof pervasive and problematic student diversity in schools has highlighted the need for teachereducators to articulate understandings of social justice and diversity on the one hand, witheffective pedagogical practices on the other. A common initial strategy in teacher educationprograms is to challenge prospective teachers’ reliance on individualistic deficit explanations and– 271 –