The mediating role of a minority ethnic teacher's past experiences as a tool for understanding mathematical learning and teaching : European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Special Interest Group 21: Learning and Teaching in Culturally Diverse Settings: Moving through cultures of learning

This paper will examine how a teacher's past experiences, alongside experiences of the present and future, play a mediating role in understanding home and school mathematics learning and teaching. The sociocultural approach will form the basis for the introduction of two key theoretical concepts which are i) heterochronicity, which looks at the way meaning is generated over time in the overlapping histories of the individual and society and ii) prolepsis, where the notion of future mediates with the past and present. As such, the movement through cultures of learning are temporal and spatial. The analysis will draw on a case study exemplar of a minority ethnic teacher (Pakistani Kashmiri) working in a school which was mostly made up of South Asian pupils (Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi) in the Southeast of England. The findings will shed light on how she interweaves her own experience of growing up in the English school system with herself as a school teacher, herself as a mother and her understandings of the parents in the school. Thus, her own past experiences of mathematics learning are embedded at the level of the individual, the family and the wider community. Perhaps more importantly, this paper will address how her general understandings of the wider community have a powerful influence on her representations of the mathematical

Child language brokers’ representations of parent-child relationships

This paper reports the analysis of qualitative data from a broader study of young people’s representations of conflicting roles in child development. Just over a quarter of the group, bilingual students who spoke a variety of first languages, had had personal experience of child language brokering (CLB). Employing vignette methodology, they were invited to reflect on the implications of an adolescent boy’s language brokering activities for, among other things, his relationships within his family. In this paper we will present brief case studies to illustrate different positions that members of the group adopted in relation to developmental scripts emphasizing independence and interdependence between young people and their parents (Dorner et al. 2008). Through an analysis of individual CLB case studies, we illustrate various ways in which individual young people reported the balancing of the demands of autonomy and connectedness in their analysis of relationships between young people and their parents

Recent research on child language brokering in the United Kingdom

Recent patterns of migration and population change in the UK have led in some places to a need for child language brokering (CLB). Although there is only limited evidence on CLB in the UK, the research that has been published indicates the diversity of the phenomenon and suggests its frequency and significance in the lives of some families. In this paper we review a range of small scale studies from different research centres to illustrate that diversity. The research has highlighted ways in which language brokering often elides into cultural brokering with young children playing a brokering role within as well as outside their families. An important line of enquiry has been research on the CLB process itself, but detailed studies of how children and young people respond to the challenges of translation in different settings remain elusive, as do studies of the impact that the activity has on their interactions with others. A key issue for the children and parents involved is others’ perceptions of and reaction to CLB, including not only the professionals and officials with whom they deal but also their peers at school and elsewhere who are not involved in language brokering. Ultimately CLB is of theoretical interest not only for the light it throws on children’s language learning and acculturation but also for the challenge it presents to traditional notions of child development and family role

Using the vignette methodology as a tool for exploring cultural identity positions : European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Special Interest Group 21: Learning and Teaching in Culturally Diverse Settings: Moving through cultures of learning

In this paper we will examine how the vignette methodology can aid understanding of cultural identity. Vignettes are typically short stories about a fictional character or fictional scenario appropriate to a particular study. The story places the behaviour of the character in a concrete context and allows the researcher to explore participants? positions and perspectives on the issues arising from the situation. We argue that within a framework of cultural development theory and the dialogical self theory (Hermans, 2001) identity positions can be explained in relation to the sociocultural context. To do so we report on part of wider study about representations of children who work. In particular this paper will focus on language brokering which involves translating or interpreting on behalf of family members who do not speak the host language. Language brokering requires the child to engage in both the cultural contexts of the host culture and the home culture and as such, the child must negotiate new cultural identities. Those interviewed were young people aged between 15-18 years, some of whom were brokers and others who were not. When looking at the language broker vignette scenario these young people often positioned the parents, teachers and friends of the language broker in the scenario in particular ways. Through notions of adequacy and inadequacy, visibility and invisibility, theoretical ideas around cultural identity theory and the dialogical self theory can provide an understanding of how the young people moved through different (often conflicting) identity positions

A Matemática na Vida Versus na Escola:: Uma Questão de Cognição Situada ou de Identidades Sociais?

This paper aims to discuss how children experience the relationship between their home and school mathematics.An empirical study is presented in order to illustrate: (a) the need to move beyond the current "situated cognition" explanations;(b) an alternative explanation of that relationship in terms of "construction of social identities". The study was conductedamong school-children growing up in a farming community in the Northeast of Brazil, where home mathematics differsmarkedly from school mathematics.RESUMO - Este artigo objetiva discutir como crianças experienciam a relação entre a matemática da vida diária e a da escola. Um estudo empírico é apresentado visando ilustrar: (a) a necessidade de ir além das correntes explicações em termos de "cognição situada"; (b) uma explicação alternativa dessa relação em termos de "construção de identidades sociais". O estudo foi conduzido entre alunos de uma comunidade canavieira no Nordeste do Brasil, na qual a matemática da vida diária era diferente da matemática da escola

Working Children

In this chapter we discuss children’s engagement in work and how normative understandings of childhood as a time for play, formal schooling and socialisation play out in debates about, and experiences of, child workers. Ideas about children’s development, taken up in national and international policy frame debate about working children, distinguishing between work and school, with the view that work is very much at the limits, or margins, of normative childhood. Debates about whether children should work, or not, draw upon particular ideas about childhood, as distinct from adulthood and as a period of vulnerability that requires adult protection, or at least supervision (see Crafter et al. 2009; Burman, 2008). From this perspective child workers are constructed as in need of protection. We discuss how children’s engagement in work is constructed, in particular the distinction made in much of the literature, and in policy and practice, between labour and work, childhood and adulthood, and between the global north and south. The chapter focuses on how dominant constructions of the developing child (drawn largely from the global north) make particular assumptions about the kind of work children should, if at all, be engaging in. The chapter also interrogates the assumption that ‘work’ is paid activity that takes place outside the home through a discussion of children who are young carers to family members. The symbolic, and actual, limits of childhood are played out in public debate and legislation internationally about the role of work, including care work, in children’s lives

Using the vignette methodology as a tool for exploring cultural identity positions

In this paper we will examine how the vignette methodology can aid understanding of cultural identity. Vignettes are typically short stories about a fictional character or fictional scenario appropriate to a particular study. The story places the behaviour of the character in a concrete context and allows the researcher to explore participants? positions and perspectives on the issues arising from the situation. We argue that within a framework of cultural development theory and the dialogical self theory (Hermans, 2001) identity positions can be explained in relation to the sociocultural context. To do so we report on part of wider study about representations of children who work. In particular this paper will focus on language brokering which involves translating or interpreting on behalf of family members who do not speak the host language. Language brokering requires the child to engage in both the cultural contexts of the host culture and the home culture and as such, the child must negotiate new cultural identities. Those interviewed were young people aged between 15-18 years, some of whom were brokers and others who were not. When looking at the language broker vignette scenario these young people often positioned the parents, teachers and friends of the language broker in the scenario in particular ways. Through notions of adequacy and inadequacy, visibility and invisibility, theoretical ideas around cultural identity theory and the dialogical self theory can provide an understanding of how the young people moved through different (often conflicting) identity positions

How do peer networks support people with personal budgets? : A review of the research evidence from the UK

This literature review was conducted to describe the range of organisations and informal groups providing peer support to personal budget users in the UK between the launch of direct payments in 1997 and 2016. Forty-five research reports included relevant evidence. This has been aggregated to show how peer networks supported individual users, as well as to describe their wider role in policy development and implementation. Despite their diversity, the support they provided often had common characteristics. Peer networks fostered collaboration, enhanced communication, built confidence amongst people who were entitled to a personal budget, and applied specialist knowledge that was often derived from the lived experience of network members. None of these characteristic was exclusive to peer networks. However, they may have been more deeply culturally embedded here than in other settings, which perhaps accounts for the positive experiences of support reported in the research literature

Young peoples’ reflections on what teachers think about family obligations that conflict with school: A focus on the non-normative roles of young caring and language brokering

In “Western” contexts school attendance is central for an ‘ideal’ childhood. However, many young people engage with home roles that conflict with school expectations. This paper explores perceptions of that process in relation two home activities - language brokering and young caring. We interviewed 46 young people and asked them to reflect on what the teacher would think when a child had to miss school to help a family member. This paper discusses the young people’s overall need to keep their out-of-school lives private from their teachers