Exiting research continues to emphasise the importance of diversity in the curriculum for students of colour (Chetty, 2014; Harris and Reynolds, 2014), but also for the benefit of all students in developing a critical understanding of history, political and social life (Diversi and Moreira, 2013). Diversity in the school curriculum is noted not just for the benefits of self-actualisation and agency of minoritized ethnic students, but to also challenge stereotypes, foster more critical perspectives and redistribute power (Bishop, 1990; Borowski, 2012). However, traditional multicultural approaches to diversity in the curriculum can fall back on an understanding that connects diversity as something principally connected to ‘visible’ minorities and the performative celebration of ‘others’, as opposed to a deeper pursuit of developing critical knowledge and anti-racist practice (Troyna, 1987, Maylor, 2010). Such approaches to ‘diversity’ in curriculum practice, may reinscribe stereotypes and perceptions of cultural ‘difference’ in which minorities are presented as ‘fixed’ or group entities (Amanti, 2005). While the celebrating may be well-intentioned and at least recognise the cultural diversity of students, often these forms of practice become the default, as they do not threaten whiteness (Warmington, 2020). The effect of this, leads to the reproduction of white supremacy, which compromises more transformative modes of learning and teaching (Lander, 2014). Instead, a sharper lens needs to be held-up to knowledge and pedagogical practices that are valued in the mainstream school curriculums.

In light of these issues, the aim of my research was to explore what spaces exist in the curriculum for interventions that can incorporate and draw on different sources of knowledge for curricular use (Bernal, 2002; Zipin, 2013). Through this, I hoped to move beyond multicultural recognition and identify how we can redistribute and challenge what we currently value as ‘academic’ knowledge in the curriculum. Furthermore, a key interest guiding this paper, is in understanding how critical social theory on the curriculum can be translated, and applied in schools whilst being responsive to the performative constraints schools and teachers experience.

My paper is theoretically guided by a dialogue between Critical Race Theory and Critical Pedagogy (Freire, 1996; Gillborn, 2006). Their role in this research is to consider and oppose institutionalised systems of inequality that manifest in curricula structures and pedagogic relations. I draw on two in-depth case studies from a Year 4 (aged 8-9) and Year 8 (aged 12-13) class in a primary and secondary school in Northern England. I used multiple qualitative methods to gather data in each case study school, which included questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations, in addition to participatory curriculum development work with teachers. The curriculum development work meant collaborating with teachers to re-design the content, teaching, and assessment of one unit of the Humanities curriculum and engaging students as researchers. The co-production of curricula was particularly important to this research, as the provision of curriculum resources alone has shown that it does not guarantee its uptake or purposeful/critical use (Bracey, 2016; Harris and Clarke, 2011). The curriculum development work drew on the concept of Community Cultural Wealth (CCW). Rooted in a critical race perspective, CCW involves ‘a commitment to conduct research, teach and develop schools that serve a larger purpose of struggling toward social and racial justice’ (Yosso, 2005, p.82).

The case study data I present in this paper offers some insight into how small spaces of resistance can be co-created in the classroom, within the confines of the statutory school curriculum, that can facilitate a greater plurality of knowledge. I reflect on the social justice benefits of knowledge that may typically be less valued and or labelled as ‘everyday’ or ‘social’ knowledge. All students including those perceived as less ‘academic’ or ‘capable’ as independent learners, were more likely to be interested in and engaged with a curriculum that drew on pedagogical approaches that sought to mobilise their social knowledge for curricular use. I argue social knowledge has the potential to disrupt the Eurocentric, dull curriculum students typically experience by producing counter-knowledge or stories that reflect students social and historical realities, but also stretch the imagination as to what ‘academic’, allegedly ‘powerful knowledge’ subjects such as History and Geography can be and not just what the national curriculum says it is (Cowie et al., 2011). For some students in my research, this was learning a darker truth about colonialism, for others it was feeling as though spaces and places connected to them and their family histories had external validity in the context of an ‘official’ classroom environment (Apple, 2014). By recognising students as holders of, and producers of academic knowledge, I conclude that small sites of resistance do exist within the formal curriculum system, that could foster more equitable and transformative ways of being, relating and knowing, that move beyond the performative consumption of ‘diversity’.

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