The future diversity and difference: Can the national curriculum for English be hospitable?

Why should we make a special effort today to talk about the debate the future of diversity and difference in English language education? One can argue that these issues have been already extensively addressed in numerous publications, policy and curriculum frameworks and educational practices for several decades both in Australia and globally. Indeed, some countries have a longer history of multiculturalism and have arguably established effective ways of teaching to and for difference, while others have just recently started their engagement with diversity in national spaces that have been previously constructed, and conceived of, as homogeneous and monolithic. Yet, no matter how long the history of this engagement is, the question of difference remains persistent in the globalized world, reflecting the ever-increasing tensions between the politics and practices of universalism and particularism, cosmopolitanism and nationalism, cultural-linguistic homogenization and diversification. These tensions, as Held and McGrew (2007) argue, are symptomatic of the current economic and cultural crisis of globalization that has brought to the fore the resurgence of nationalism, protectionism and xenophobia in many parts of the world. Today, these processes are key contextual forces that reshape the very purpose of public schooling, influencing curriculum design, the logic of cultural inclusion and exclusion, modes of assessment, models of learning and pedagogy.