Professor Parlo Singh

Griffith University​

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Education, Ethnicity and Inequality: Issues and Insights from an Australian Case Study
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This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on educational issues relating to ethnicity and inequality, drawing on data from a recent research study undertaken in a low socio-economic, culturally and linguistically diverse urban community in Australia. Specifically, I explore some of the research issues (theoretical and methodological) in dealing with this topic, as well as the relation between research knowledge and practitioner knowledge.  In the Australian policy context, the topic of ethnicity and educational inequality has been explored by recourse to three  broad categories of theoretical literature. The first category uses terms such as cultural deficit, cultural difference, culture frame of reference, cultural ecology, and cultural styles of learning  to explore and explain educational inequality.  All of these theories attempt to locate the problem of educational inequality within the ‘ethnic’ group, attributing issues of poor educational achievement, either to the different forms of language, interaction patterns, or  values placed by different ethnic groups on formal schooling. The implication is that students from specific, minority ethnic groups find it difficult to actively participate in school and classroom cultures because they lack cultural or linguistic resources to bridge the distance between home/community and school cultures.  A second category of literature draws on semiotic constructs such as ‘gap talk’ and ‘Language Background Other than English’ in the context of global policies of high stakes standardised testing regimes to produce a politics of ‘misrecognition’ which again holds minority ethnic groups accountable for lower educational achievement outcomes. The lack or deficit is placed squarely on the ethnic group rather than on classroom or educational cultures of schooling. By contrast, a third category of literature draws on concepts from postcolonialism and  cultural globalisation to suggest that cultures are actively produced in the routines and rituals of everyday life, and are contested, challenged, and reshaped in ways that reveal both continuity and discontinuity of social practices. Consequently, it is important to not only  focus on the cultures of minority ethnic groups, but also the historical and ongoing contact between dominant and ethnic minority groups, as well as the ways in which cultures of schooling and classrooms position ethnic students in relation to privileged forms of knowledge.

 

The research study reported in this paper, A Smart Education Partnership, aimed to improve the educational achievement levels of students attending schools in culturally and linguistically diverse, low socio-economic communities. The aim of the partnership was to collaboratively identify the problems or issues leading to poor student learning outcomes, and then design, construct, implement and assess multiple iterations of interventions to raise student literacy levels. The project generated  a complex set of data about students’ learning achievement, changing teaching practices, school cultures, leadership styles and project evaluations  using questionnaires, classroom observation schedules, interviews and focus groups, over a three year period. End-of-project interview data were collected from regional administrators and school leaders. In addition, interviews were conducted with five school-based researchers, who worked intensively with classroom teachers and lead literacy teachers across the 12 schools. This work focussed on teacher capacity building, specifically assisting teachers to develop skills in data gathering and analysis and to design pedagogies that would improve students’ learning outcomes.  Focus group interviews are currently being conducted with cohorts of teachers who engaged with the intervention, design-based research partnership project.

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In this paper, I explore the ways in which researchers and practitioners worked together to shift deficit assumptions about the socio-economic contexts and cultural and linguistic attributes of ethnic minority groups to design pedagogies that made a difference in students’ educational achievement over the three years of the partnership project.



Acknowledgement: The study reported in this paper was funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage: LP0990585; Chief and Partner Investigators on the Project included: Glasswell, K; Singh, P., McNaughton, S. and Davis, KL.

 

 

 

Professor Alan R. Sadovnik

Rutgers University



Education, Ethnicity, Race and Social Class and Inequality: A Case Study of Newark, New Jersey and Applications to Urban Education in the United States

 

This paper examines the effects of comprehensive educational reform initiatives in Newark, New Jersey aimed at disrupting the reproduction of educational inequalities based on ethnicity, race and social class. These programs embed school level reforms such as improvements in teacher and principal quality, curricula and pedagogic improvements, and increased learning time, with reforms aimed at outside school factors, including community and family involvement, community and economic development, and improvements in health care.

 

The first part of the paper examines the relationships among ethnicity, race, and social class and educational inequalities, which demonstrate the differences in educational achievement among African Americans in the South, West, and Central Wards, Whites (Portuguese and Brazilian) in the east Ward, and Hispanics in the North Ward. Using GIS mapping of education, health, housing and crime data, these differences are related to the historical effect of the Newark Public Schools, since the beginnings of suburbanization and deindustrialization in the 1950s, of reproducing ethnic, race and social class inequalities.

 

The second part of the paper examines a number of reforms aimed at reducing educational inequalities, most of which are part of an ongoing neo-liberal reform movement in the U.S. These reforms include the rapid expansion of charter schools, the closing of low-performing schools, the breakup of large comprehensive high schools into smaller schools within schools, and the use of student test scores for Value Added Models of teacher evaluation. In addition, it looks at a number of other reforms, including the Global Village Zone, based on the Broader Bolder Approach developed by Pedro Noguera and Helen Ladd, which was a comprehensive model, before it ended in 2012, in five K-8 schools and Central High School, located in one of the poorest and racially segregated wards of the city and Extended Learning Time, which includes a longer and better school day and/or after school and summer programs.

 

The paper concludes with an analysis of the limits and possibilities of these reforms to substantially decrease educational inequalities in Newark and with applications for urban education in the United States, more generally.



Dr Kui-pui Chan

Delia Memorial School (Glee Path)



Ethnic minority – the savior of schools?

 

Many secondary schools face critical enrolment situation because of the drastic drop in birth rate more than a decade ago, it is expected that 5000 less secondary school places are needed each year. Many schools look on ethnic minorities as saviors so as to avoid school closure.

 

 

More than 13 years of experience working for ethnic minority in Hong Kong, Dr Chan Kui Pui transformed a Chinese medium secondary school to one of the first “designated”(1) schools now admitting more than 800 students of South Asian ethnicities. He also became the principal of a “closing”(2) primary school and currently having 500 ethnic minorities. At the moment Dr Chan introduces a new education model to immerse Chinese and ethnic minorities in a secondary school of mostly new immigrants from Mainland China. In this article, Dr Chan shares his stories and experience of making ethnic minority a savior of schools.

 

(1) In 2006, the Education Bureau (EDB) invited 15 schools to become “designated schools” and provided these schools with additional resources and focused support to enhance the learning and teaching of NCS students.

 

(2) In 2007, Education Bureau announced 13 primary schools had to be closed down owing to insufficient enrolment. 

 



Associate Professor Ming-tak Hue 

The Hong Kong Institute of Education



From Policy to Practice:  Challenges of ethnic minority education and the promotion of culturally responsive classroom in Hong Kong secondary schools 

 

An important feature of Hong Kong’ education reform over the past decade has been the articulation of the “no loser principle”. It was meant to signal that all students are valuable and will benefit from both basic and senior secondary education. Yet barriers remain for the 2.9% of students under age 15 who can be classified as ethnic minorities. The educational needs of these students also remained invisible in the school system until the 2008 Racial Discrimination Ordinance and the implementation of inclusive education policy in 2002 (Education Bureau 2010, 2011). The paper examines the policy context in which provisions for ethnic minority students have been made in Hong Kong schools and also classroom practices that operationalize these policies on a daily basis. It then reports the findings of an interview study into 32 teachers’ views of the cross-cultural experience of ethnic minority students, their influence on the performance of these students and how the diverse learning needs of these students are being addressed. This study shows that teachers struggle to conceptualize a new rationale for responding to cultural diversity. They develop a sense of inter-cultural sensitivity, promote cultural responsiveness to diversity, and strengthen the home-school connection. Finally, a framework for the creation of culturally responsive classrooms, based upon the teachers’ new rationale of cultural responsiveness, is proposed.

 

Ms Fermi Wong

Hong Kong Unison



​Ethnic minority education in Hong Kong: Why improving Chinese language education is an important social justice issue

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“Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other rights.” Hong Kong Unison started out as an NGO that provides social services and support to ethnic minority residents in Hong Kong, but quickly realized that ethnic minorities’ generally low Chinese abilities pose crippling barriers in their access to services, rights and opportunities. Fermi will discuss how Hong Kong Unison came to focus its campaign work on education, specifically Chinese language education. The stories of ethnic minority youngsters’ lives beyond graduation also continue to guide and shape Hong Kong Unison’s advocacy direction. A large proportion of the ethnic minority students in Hong Kong study in the public school system, and Chinese and Cantonese have become increasingly important in the Hong Kong society. Changes need to be made on the policy level in order to effectively help ethnic minority students acquire sufficient Chinese language skills and give them a better chance at equal opportunities.



#The organising committee reserves the right to change speakers due to unforeseen circumstances.