Diverse Picturebooks for Diverse Children: The Others in Singapore Teachers’ Discourse and Pedagogy

This study investigates how teachers construct the Others in their use of diverse picturebooks for diverse children. Data from open-ended learning prompts and focus group discussions with in-service teachers in Singapore reveal their conflicted discourse and practice in relation to using diverse picturebooks in the classroom to promote inclusive education. On the one hand, the teachers navigate their way around an “awareness of Others” but, on the other hand, they also express discomfort toward an expanded definition of “multiculturalism” and “diversity” in a relatively tightly controlled educational context. This paper aims to bring to the surface the multifaceted nature of teachers' newly found openness to broader and more inclusive notions of Others, which is conflicted but also actively compartmentalizes different discourses in order to make inclusive classroom practice possible.