Zvi Bekerman – författare

This volume is a path-breaking contribution to the study of efforts of diaspora, indigenous, and minority groups, broadly defined, to use education (formal and informal) to sustain cultural continuity while grappling with the influences and demands of wider globalizing, nationalizing, or other homogenizing and assimilatory forces. Particular attention is given to groups that use educational elements other than second-language teaching alone in programs to sustain their particular cultural traditions. The focus of the book on cultural sustainability changes the nature of questions posed in multicultural education from those that address the opening of boundaries to issues of preserving boundaries in an open yet sustainable way.

As forced and elective immigration trends are changing the composition of societies and the educational systems within them -- bringing a rich diversity of cultural experience to the teaching/learning process -- diaspora, indigenous, and minority groups are looking more and more for ways to sustain their cultures in the context of wider socio-political influences. This volume is a first opportunity to consider critically multicultural efforts in dialogue with educational options that are culturally particularistic but at the same time tolerant.

Academics will find this an excellent reference book. Practitioners will draw inspiration in learning of others’ efforts to sustain cultures, and will engage in critical reflection on their own work vis-à-vis that of others. Teachers will realize they do not stand alone in their educational efforts and will uncover new strategies and methodologies through which to approach their work.

This volume is a path-breaking contribution to the study of efforts of diaspora, indigenous, and minority groups, broadly defined, to use education (formal and informal) to sustain cultural continuity while grappling with the influences and demands of wider globalizing, nationalizing, or other homogenizing and assimilatory forces. Particular attention is given to groups that use educational elements other than second-language teaching alone in programs to sustain their particular cultural traditions. The focus of the book on cultural sustainability changes the nature of questions posed in multicultural education from those that address the opening of boundaries to issues of preserving boundaries in an open yet sustainable way.

As forced and elective immigration trends are changing the composition of societies and the educational systems within them -- bringing a rich diversity of cultural experience to the teaching/learning process -- diaspora, indigenous, and minority groups are looking more and more for ways to sustain their cultures in the context of wider socio-political influences. This volume is a first opportunity to consider critically multicultural efforts in dialogue with educational options that are culturally particularistic but at the same time tolerant.

Academics will find this an excellent reference book. Practitioners will draw inspiration in learning of others’ efforts to sustain cultures, and will engage in critical reflection on their own work vis-à-vis that of others. Teachers will realize they do not stand alone in their educational efforts and will uncover new strategies and methodologies through which to approach their work.

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.