Multicultural learning: parent encounters with difference in a Birmingham primary school

Abstract

In the UK, schools are considered vital to the realisation of intercultural cities, to the strengthening of community relations and to the development of new forms of social learning. This paper brings work on the geographies of education and learning together with work on the challenges of living with difference, to examine how the routines and repetitive interactions of everyday school life shape the capacities of parents to live with difference. Utilising research with white British parents at a multicultural primary school in Birmingham, UK, the paper builds on the growing interest in the spaces and theories of urban encounter to extend work that has examined the value of shared school spaces. While attending to the (re)production of social difference and the problematic accounts of anxiety, hierarchy and belonging that fracture the school community, the paper also examines the shared parental commitments and aspirations that underpin the motivations for intercultural dialogue and learning. In so doing, the paper details how existing knowledges and ways of living are called into question and gradually altered through personal work, pragmatic negotiation and the development of practical competencies and calls for much greater emphasis on these small and incremental changes in future work.

Path-dependency in segregation and social networks in the Netherlands

“…Although many childhood friendships do not continue into adulthood (see also Spencer & Pahl, 2006), experience with inter-ethnic interaction may help individuals construct inter-ethnic ties later in life, as they are more familiar and at ease with other cultural backgrounds (cf. Wessendorf, 2013;Wilson, 2014). Children's potential activity spaces are often limited to the residential neighbourhood (cf.…”

“…After all, inter-ethnic contact is not synonymous with inter-ethnic friendship (Musterd & Ostendorf, 2009;Valentine, 2008). Though some individuals tend to 'seek diversity' (see, for instance, Van Eijk, 2010;Wilson, 2014), people also tend to prefer socialising with people who are similar in terms of age, social and ethnic background, social status and ambition, among other factors (Hamm, 2000;Marsden, 1988;McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001;Mollenhorst, 2009), and feel alienated and out of place when they are surrounded by people who are 'different' (Puwar, 2004;Duyvendak, 2011).…”

“I never felt targeted as an Asian … until I went to a gay pub”: Sexual racism and the aesthetic geographies of the bad encounter

“…Researchers have examined encounters across difference in a number of different spatial contexts, including urban public spaces like city streets (Wise, 2005) and public transport (Lobo, 2014a;Wilson, 2011), as well as schools (Hemming, 2011;Wilson, 2014), university campuses (Andersson et al, 2012), places of worship (Ehrkamp and Nagel, 2012), within families , in homes (Schuermans, 2013), and in organized activities and community projects (Matejskova and Leitner, 2011;Mayblin et al, 2016;Wilson, 2013). Further, literatures on spaces of encounter have expanded beyond a focus on encounters across ethnic, racial, and/or cultural difference in diverse urban spaces of migrant settlement to a broader range of differences, including work on cross-class encounters (Lawson and Elwood, 2014), calls for more intersectional approaches to encounter (Valentine and Waite, 2012), and accounts of encounter beyond the dynamics of ''Western'' cities that highlight the necessarily situated character of encounters and their study (Ye, 2016a).…”

The Possibilities of Tolerance: Intercultural Dialogue in a Multicultural Europe

“…As Ettlinger (2012) argues, difference becomes a problem when we lack knowledge of others, which can both prohibit and deter communication. Strategic efforts to embed practices of learning into everyday routines are thus central to creating "spaces of negotiation" (page 222; Wilson, 2013a;2014). It has long been held that in order to construct coalitions or alliances across difference, individuals must first recognise the finitude of their own culture to appreciate other human possibilities (Connolly, 2005a;Young, 2000).…”