International Handbook of Migration, Minorities and Education, 2012 Understanding Cultural and Social Differences in Processes of Learning

Migrants and minorities are always at risk of being caught in essentialized cultural definitions and being denied the right to express their cultural preferences because they are perceived as threats to social cohesion. Migrants and minorities respond to these difficulties in multiple ways ? as active agents in the pedagogical, political, social, and scientific processes that position them in this or that cultural sphere. On the one hand, they reject ascribed cultural attributes while striving towards integration in a variety of social spheres, e.g. school and workplace, in order to achieve social mobility. On the other hand, they articulate demands for cultural self-determination. This discursive duality is met with suspicion by the majority culture. For societies with high levels of migration or with substantial minority cultures, questions related to the meaning of cultural heterogeneity and the social and cultural limits of learning and communication (e.g. migration education or critical multiculturalism) are very important. It is precisely here where the chances for new beginnings and new trials become of great importance for educational theorizing, which urgently needs to find answers to current questions about individual freedom, community/cultural affiliations, and social and democratic cohesion. Answers to these questions must account for both ?political? and ?learning? perspectives at the macro, mezzo, and micro contextual levels. The contributions of this edited volume enhance the knowledge in the field of migrant/minority education, with a special emphasis on the meaning of culture and social learning for educational processes.

Introduction; Thomas Geisen and Zvi Bekerman.- Part 1: Culture, Difference and Learning.- Introduction – Culture, Difference and Learning; Pat Cox.- Understanding Cultural Differences as Social Limits of Learning: Migration Theory, Culture and Adolescence; Thomas Geisen.- Beyond Limits and Limitations: Reflections on Learning Processes in Contexts of Migration and Young People; Pat Cox.- The Concept of Ethnicity and its Relevance for Biographical Learning; Ursula Apitzsch.- “No place. Nowhere” for migrants’ subjectivity!? Critical reflections on the dominant discourses about integration; Athanasios Marvakis.- Learning to live together – Towards a new integration society; Piñeiro Esteban and Jane Haller.- “And the mixture is all of us – and we`re still mixing”: Opportunities of Managing Diversity in local educational programs; Andreas Thiesen.- Family child-raising and educational strategies among European mixed couple; Sofia Gaspar.- Cradling a Baby, Holding a Pencil: A Gendered Literacy Campaign; Esther Schely-Newman.- Living in different worlds and learning all about it: Migration narratives in perspective; Joanne Cassar.- Early childhood education in multilingual settings; Drorit Lengyel.- Part 2: Education in Multilingual Societies.- Introduction – Education in Multilingual Societies; Lynn M. Aylward.- The State, Official-Language Education and Minorities: Estonian-Language Instruction for Estonia’s Russian-Speakers and the Võro; Kara D. Brown.- The Inuit Qajimajatuqangit Conversation: The Language and Culture of Schooling in the Nunavut Territory of Canada; Lynn M. Aylward.- Ambivalence: Minority parents positioning when facing school choices; Zvi Bekerman and Moshe Tatar.- Social Change and Minority Education: A Sociological and Social Historical View on Minority Education in Croatia; Jadranka Čačić-Kumpes.- Re-Imagining Home In Alberta’s Francophone Communities; Laura A. Thompson.- New school, new system: The experiences of immigrant students in Irish schools; Merike Darmody, Emer Smyth, Delma Byrne and Frances McGinnity.- Beyond Cultural Differences: Understanding and Negotiating the Conflict between Chinese Immigrant Parents and Canadian Teachers; Yan Guo and Bernard Mohan.- Part 3: Heterogeneity and Learning in Schools.- Introduction – Heterogeneity and Learning in Schools; Irina Schmitt.- Dealing with Diversity and Social Heterogeneity: Ambivalences, Challenges and Pitfalls for Pedagogical Activity; Christine Riegel .- A Learning Curve: The Education of Immigrants in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Bremen from the 1960s to the 1980s; Sarah E. Hackett.- School policies, gender-sex-sexuality and ethno-cultural re-production in Sweden, Canada and Germany; Irina Schmitt.- Effects of the Head Start program in the USA as indicators of ethnic inequalities; Claudia Koehler.- Learning Insularity: Social Capital, Social Learning and Staying at Home among European Youth; Christos Govaris and Stavroula Kaldi.- School performance of children of Indian and Cape Verdean immigrants in basic schooling in Portugal; Teresa Seabra.- Migration, Educational Policies & Practices: constructing difference in Buenos Aires and in Madrid; Ana Bravo-Moreno and Jason Beech.- Part 4: Higher Education.- Introduction – Higher Education; Marisol Clark-Ibáñez.- Encountering An-Other: The Culture of Curriculum and Inclusive Pedagogies; Ruth Arber.- Possible selves and goal orientations of East African undergraduate students in the United States; Joash M. Wambua and Cecil Robinson.- A Passport to Education: Undocumented Latino University Students Navigating their Invisible Status; Marisol Clark-Ibáñez, Fredi Garcia-Alverdín and Gricelda Alva.- Part 5: Religion and Learning.- Introduction – Religion and Learning; Eoin Daly.- Integration by Other Means: Hindu schooling in the Netherlands; Michael S. Merry and Geert Driessen.- Negotiating the School Curriculum for the Malay Muslims in Singapore; Charlene Tan and Hairon Salleh .- Migrant children’s precarious religious liberties in education: the salience of demographic and social contingencies under a formally pluralist public philosophy; Eoin Daly.- Educational processes and ethnicity among Hindu migrants in Portugal; Helena Sant’ana.- Part 6: Community, Work and Learning.- Introduction – Community, Work and Learning; Georgina Tsolidis.- Multiculturalism in a deeply divided society: The case of Cyprus; Michalinos Zembylas.- Learning who they ‘really’ are: From stigmatization to opportunities to learn in Greek Romani education; William New and Michael S. Merry.- Learning difference in the Diaspora – Sharing sacred spaces; Georgina Tsolidis.- Deciphering Somali Immigrant Adolescents’ Navigation and Interpretation of Resources Embedded in Social Relationships; Moosung Lee and Na’im Madyun.- Agency and everyday knowledge of Filipina migrants in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Simone Christ.- Ethnicized youth subcultures and “informal learning” in transitions to work; Vitor Sérgio Ferreira and Axel Pohl.-  “I am illiterate. But I am a doctor of Capoeira”: Integration of marginalized youth in Brazil; Karin E. Sauer.- Learning Insularity: Social Capital, Social Learning and Staying at Home among European Youth; David Cairns and Katarzyna Growiec.- Conclusions; Zvi Bekerman and Thomas Geisen.- Author Index.- Subject Index.

Zvi Bekerman, teaches anthropology of education at the School of Education and the Melton Center, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 2003 to 2007 he was a Research Fellow at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University. His main interests are in the study of cultural, ethnic and national identity, including identity processes and negotiation during intercultural encounters and in formal/informal learning contexts. Since 1999 he has been conducting, with the support of the Ford, Spencer and Bernard Van Leer Foundations, a long term ethnographic research project on the integrated/bilingual Palestinian-Jewish schools in Israel. He has also recently become involved in the study of identity construction and development in educational computer-mediated environments. In brief, his interests lie in human learning processes, their development and practice, both in formal/informal and real/virtual environments; processes which, from the socio-historical perspectives within which he has been raised and from which he continues to learn, comprise a large portion of human activity. He has published numerous papers in these fields of study and is the editor (with Seonaigh MacPherson) of the refereed journal Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education: An International Journal (Taylor & Francis, 2007). His recently published books include (edited with Nicholas Burbules and Diana Keller Silverman) Learning in Places: The Informal Education Reader (Peter Lang, 2006); (with Claire McGlynn) Addressing Ethnic Conflict through Peace Education: International Perspectives (Palgrave McMillan, 2007); (with Ezra Kopelowitz) Cultural Education-Cultural Sustainability: Minority, Diaspora, Indigenous and Ethno-Religious Groups in Multicultural Societies (Routledge Education – LEA, 2008) and (with Diana Silberman-Keller, Henry A. Giroux, and Nicholas Burbules) Mirror Images: Popular Culture and Education (Peter La

First international effort which challenges the discourse of culture in minority/migrant educational policy and practice

An important contribution to critical educational theory which focuses on ‘the social’ and ‘the in-between’.

Over 40 theoretical and empirical studies which cover more than 20 locations in Europe, America, Australia and Asia.

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras