| Summary: | The increasing immigration rates in Iceland raise the question about the ability of the Icelandic education system to address the needs of its increasingly culturally diverse student population. Studies conducted in compulsory and upper secondary schools indicate that the educational system is struggling. Reasons include education policy which does not reflect a much needed critical multicultural education response (Gollifer & Trân, 2012), a lack of teachers’ education towards culturally responsive pedagogy and multicultural education (Karlsdóttir, 2013), lack of funding for schools to respond to the needs of immigrant students and for appropriate support systems (Ragnarsdóttir, 2015), and a tendency to promote assimilation of the Icelandic culture at the risk of loss of cultural heritage amongst immigrant students (Trân, 2015). In response, this qualitative case study aims to achieve a rich and holistic knowledge of the work with cultural diversity in the International School of Iceland and to get an understanding of what works in terms of effective responses. The purpose of this case study is to develop a set of lessons learned to apply to my own teaching practice. The emphasis of this research is to investigate the implementation of teaching and learning practices, the role of the school’s curriculum and the role of leadership in addressing the needs of its student population. Banks’ (2002) critical multicultural framework, represented by five interrelated dimensions, functions in this study as an analytical framework to inform the thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The findings are based on interviews with five teachers, two leadership team members and two focus groups with five to eight students in each. To support the findings from the interviews and focus groups, I draw on field observations. Through the thematic analysis, I found evidence that Banks’ five dimensions of critical multicultural education are represented in the work of the International School of Iceland. This paper argues ...
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