All too often children experience curriculum and teaching as disconnected and irrelevant to their reality. Although it is widely accepted that good teaching takes as its starting point that children and adults in any classroom are the most valuable resources, they are often overlooked and underutilised in teaching and learning processes. The work outlined in this paper explores ways of using personal narratives with the aim of achieving the highest level of learner engagement and relevance.

Linking classroom work to wider issues of globalisation leads into considerations of the role curricula may have in the development of intercultural communities. Differences between multicultural and intercultural societies are discussed along with the argument that the education system is one of the main pillars in the process of developing the principles of intercultural engagement.

Providing structured classroom opportunities for children, and adults, to share narratives of themselves not only facilitates intercultural learning but also ‘holds an affirmative mirror’ to children’s backgrounds (Cummins, 2001). Adults are included in this process because they act as models for children, but their inclusion is also an important step in creating a collaborative classroom where adults, as much as children, provide an insight into their own identity. In the process of sharing their own narratives with peers and teachers, children gain insights in diversity of cultures and experiences in a very personal way.

At the European level a project has been developed that spans across different generations and emphasises the importance of individual experiences. Although the London project presented in this paper has no direct links with this bigger initiative at the European level, there are many common features. The European Memories Initiative

(www.europeanmemories.eu) makes a case for developing an understanding of history which is not only about accumulating pieces of information, but having a personal insight into emotions and thinking of individuals caught up in the processes of upheaval and change. The examples of children’s work from London classrooms, which are based on historical events that every European pupil will learn about at some point in their education, illustrates well the strengths of autobiographical approaches as advocated by the European Memories: “making historical events come alive and understanding them from the inside” (www.europeanmemories.eu).

The educators in the field of intercultural education have identified two sets of tools which intercultural education needs to provide young people with: ‘the capacity to recognise inequality, injustice, racism, stereo­types and   prejudices; and knowledge and abilities which will help them to challenge and to try to change these mechanisms whenever they have to face them in society’ (European Council, 1995). Although this classification provides the clarity of focus for intercultural education, it may be vulnerable to criticism that it spells out only counteracting negativities which surround diversity. However, the journey to becoming a citizen aware of and actively opposing types of inequalities entails many instances of teaching which use diversity as a resource for learning. This is the type of intercultural teaching that the project presented in this paper has aimed to develop.

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