Culture, change and conflict: educational experiences of young people in multiethnic settings

Abstract

The research looks how young people from different cultural backgrounds in multiethnic schools can be encouraged to remain interested in education. Lessons learnt in one challenging school can be applied to other schools in similar circumstances. How young people experience schooling affects the ways in which they and their peers react to future opportunities both educationally and socially. Multiethnic classrooms in urban settings provide a naturally occurring microcosm of society, where power relationships are rehearsed and enacted depending both on the school's culture and the cultural understandings which young people bring with them. This paper looks at the ways in which young people experienced empowerment and disempowerment in an urban multiethnic school. The paper focuses on instances which are perceived as unjust and unsound by the young people themselves, where in their opinion the school's rules, actions and judgements left young people disenchanted and disengaged. Children's right to an education sits uncomfortably against some teachers' tendencies of labelling young people because of ethnicity, religion, social class or gender. Social justice requires critical thinking. intercultural dialogues can provide some of the answers.Children's right to an education sits uncomfortably against some teachers' tendency of labelling young people because of their ethnicity, religion, social class or gender. The qualitative data collected was investigated using an interpretive paradigm and grounded theory. Social justice and intercultural education demand that these ideas are debated with reference to school