ABSTRACT
There have been a number of significant economic, political and social changes associated with globalisation that have impacted on educational curricula and practices. This has meant that the professional role and identity of the teacher has and will continue to respond to new questions of educational purpose and responsibility. Calls for paradigm change, and for teachers to extend their horizons as professionals are noted, if contested, yet they should prompt reflection by each of us as individuals, both in terms of our engagement of learners within diverse classrooms and wider globalised contexts. In this time of change, uncertainty and risk, perhaps the most evident aspect of our professional practice is working with diversity. It is suggested that we need, as professionals, to be more culturally competent and to engage in deeper and more meaningful questioning of our own, and wider, political positions, to avoid ethnocentrism or romanticism of other cultures.
