Situating Inquiry

This volume aims to stimulate interest in the under-researched role of silent partners (SPs) in multicultural education. Silent partners include formal and informal places-spaces in schools (e.g. architecture, classroom facilities, libraries, corridors, playgrounds, canteens), objects (e.g. teaching aids, furniture, wall decorations and overall interior design), interactive technologies (use of devices and applications) but also often taken-for-granted and not immediately visible patterns of thought, ideologies and assumptions.

People involved in education all engage and work with a number of SPs that contribute to the delivery of curricula, but also to social life and well-being in and out of schools. The way places-spaces, objects and technologies influence the school community’s experiences of learning, well-being and social justice is rarely observed and problematised in education – hence the adjective ‘silent’ in the term ‘silent partners’.