The concept of culture is central within the social sciences in general and multicultural education in particular. In this paper, the argument is made that the term ‘culture’ will generate a surplus of meaning by teachers and policy document writers alike. It might be expected that there will be variation in the way the concept of culture is perceived and talked about by teachers and policy writers. The results of an ethnographic study of the concepts of culture from a group of 27 primary school teachers suggest that differences between the two groups are of appearance rather than content.
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