About the Project

What do we do?

Faced with a wide range of teaching contexts in the classroom, the reality of new teachers is more often characterized by diversity rather than uniformity. Therefore, it is crucial for teachers to recognize the importance of inclusive and equitable learning environments and develop the competencies for responding to the diversities manifested in the classroom.

Established as the Faculty of Education and Human Development initiative at The Education University of Hong Kong, Diversity through Understanding Equity in Teaching (also known as DUET) is launched to enable teachers to see diversity as integral to their teaching. We aim to equip teachers with a stronger sense of cultural awareness, the skills and knowledge for supporting an inclusive classroom, and an understanding of the need to create one.

Such understanding cannot stem from a comprehensive curriculum alone. The reality of diversity should also be exhibited in the learning experience of future teachers. By engaging with both curriculum and pedagogy, not only do promote the value of cultural inclusion but also aim at improving the existing teacher education.

We hope to develop a more systematic understanding of the cultural diversity in Hong Kong schools and broader society. In collaborating with schools, NGOs, and private enterprises, we view our initiative as a partnership and dialogue with the community, where stakeholders are invited to provide support on creating more inclusive classrooms, and making an impact in the education landscape of Hong Kong.

Overview

The varied ethnic concentration of schools has presented new teachers an unprecedented challenge, in which inclusion issues related to cultural diversity are largely left unaddressed. The Hong Kong government has a stated commitment to the talent development of “more capable ethnic minority individuals”. This commitment is most evident in its effort to promote the integration of ethnic minorities by bolstering schools’ resources to provide and develop Chinese as a second language curriculum. Yet, this focus on language alone is insufficient if the government is to “strive to ensure that people from different ethnic groups enjoy equal access to job opportunities as others, both in the public and private sectors”. The purpose of this project, therefore, is to ensure that all teachers recognize the importance of creating inclusive and equitable classrooms. Since the knowledge and skills should have been equipped in teacher education, we aim at assisting them to become active creators of, and carers for, inclusive and equitable classrooms.

Aims

This project aims to:

    1. engage community resources such as NGOs, government bodies and professional associations to collect ideas and advice on the development of standards for inclusive and equitable classrooms;

    2. use these standards to audit core and optional studies in teacher education and assess the extent to which they will enable students to meet the standards;

    3. review current teaching strategies used by academic/teaching staff to assess the extent to which they contribute to an understanding of the standards, including their classroom implementation;

    4. make recommendations for change in curriculum and pedagogy in a teacher education curriculum; and

    5. provide professional development opportunities for FEHD’s academic and teaching staff to assist them understand the value of inclusive and equitable curriculum and teaching

Approach

Cultural contact must be deliberate to promote shifts in attitude towards diversity. The development of cultural competency standards is regarded as processes and outcomes of our dialogues and collaboration with the communities. These communities include schools, civil societies and private enterprises. The approach of this project is illustrated in Figure 1:

The project, including the competency standards, will guide the development of strategies that will assist pre-service teachers to demonstrate inclusive and equitable values in culturally diverse classrooms. The outcome of this project will also develop our capacity to advance research in curriculum and pedagogy relating to cultural diversity.

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