The militarisation of English schools: Troops to Teaching and the implications for Initial Teacher Education and race equality

This article considers the implications of the Troops to Teaching (TtT) programme, to be introduced in England in autumn 2013, for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and race equality. TtT will fast-track ex-armed service members to teach in schools, without necessarily the requirement of a university degree. Employing theories of white supremacy, and Althusser’s (1971 Althusser, Louis. 1971. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, edited by, Althusser Louis, New York: Monthly Review Press. Accessed September 10. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm [Google Scholar]) concept of Ideological and Repressive State Apparatus, I argue that this initiative both stems from, and contributes to, a system of social privilege and oppression in education. Despite appearing to be aimed at all young people, the planned TtT initiative is actually aimed at poor and racially subordinated youth. This is likely to further entrench polarisation in a system which already provides two tier educational provision: TtT will be a programme for the inner-city disadvantaged, whilst wealthier, whiter schools will mostly continue to get highly qualified teachers. Moreover, TtT contributes to a wider devaluing of current ITE; ITE itself is rendered virtually irrelevant, as it seems TtT teachers will not be subject specialists, rather will be expected to provide military-style discipline, the skills for which they will be expected to bring with them. More sinister, I argue that TtT is part of the wider militarisation of education. This military-industrial-education complex seeks to contain and police young people who are marginalised along lines of race and class, and contributes to a wider move to increase ideological support for foreign wars - both aims ultimately in the service of neoliberal objectives which will feed social inequalities.     

Divergent pathways: the road to higher education for second-generation Turks in Austria

The article aims to explore immigrant educational pathways in relation to access to higher education (HE) in the Austrian context. Specifically focusing on Turkish youth, the author presents case studies of students who successfully entered HE in spite of their disadvantaged social, ethnic and geographic background. By further enhancing Ball’s distinction (Ball, Reay, and David 2002) between embedded and contingent choosers, the article provides an in-depth understanding of the cultural and structural context in which these students’ educational choices are played out. Finally, reaching out for Turner’s (1960 Turner, R. H. 1960. “Sponsored and Contest Mobility and the School System.” American Sociological Review 25 (6): 855–867.10.2307/2089982[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) notion of sponsored mobility, the article reflects on how the process of early selection reduces the opportunities for immigrant youth to access seemingly open and free HE.     

The road to ‘Yerussalem’ – Asterai and the Hebrew literature of Beta Israel

The immigration of the Beta Israel community from Ethiopia to Israel during the 1980s and the 1990s posed a challenge to Israeli society in relation to its ability to know, understand, and absorb a Jewish community with differing religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. For the Beta Israel, immigrating to Israel created a rift between their dream of returning to Jerusalem, a dream that would only be fulfilled after a journey of suffering, and its realization – in which they became an inferior and excluded minority within Israel. This article discusses Hebrew Ethiopian-Israeli literature, focusing on the major narrative of homecoming – the Journey to Yerussalem. This literature, which is relatively new and small, brings the voice of two generations – those who immigrated to Israel as adults, and the younger generation who were small children during the journey. Presenting various texts, and focusing on Asterai by Omri Tegamlak Avera (2008a Avera, O. T. (2008a). Asterai. Tel Aviv: Yediot. [Google Scholar]) I shall show how Ethiopian-Israeli literature constituted itself as a journey literature, contrasting the old generation with the younger generation's identity formation as it appears in the representation of this journey narrative, constructing a more complex, ambivalent approach to the concepts of immigration and absorption, homeland and diaspora.     

‘Everyday otherness’ – intercultural refugee encounters and everyday multiculturalism in a South Australian rural town

In this paper, I investigate the lived experience of multiculturalism often referred to as ‘everyday multiculturalism’. I suggest that the concept of ‘everyday otherness’ offers further insight in understanding the intercultural dynamics of diverse communities and explore the ways in which individuals and communities have negotiated intercultural encounters and ‘otherness’ in a regional Australian community. The research is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a South Australian regional town and draws on an analysis of 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews with long-term residents and recent humanitarian migrants – those who are from Afghan Hazara refugees/asylum seeker backgrounds. Following on from Amanda Wise’s (2009 Wise, A. 2009. “Everyday Multiculturalism: Transversal Crossings and Working Class Cosmopolitans.” In Everyday Multiculturalism, edited by A. Wise and S. Velayutham, 21–45. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9780230244474_2[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) conception of individuals who facilitate bridging difference between diverse groups, ‘transversal enablers’, I identify two types of ‘transversal enablers’ that can be found among both long-term regional residents and new migrants – structural and everyday enablers – and draw out the characteristics and capacities that they exemplify in bridging ‘everyday otherness’ in the community.     

Understanding recent internal migration of small cultural groups in England and Wales*

Taking advantage of the ^** All census data used in this paper are Crown Copyright. The 2011 safeguarded microdata were made available via the UK Data Service and accessed under the terms of its End User Licence. Land Registry house price index, ONS Regional Household Income, and ONS Regional Labour Market data are all Crown Copyright.View all notesavailability of 2011 England and Wales census microdata, and recognising the importance of internal migration in shaping the size and nature of communities, this paper seeks to identify and quantify the underlying determinants of internal migration of small cultural groups. The Jewish group is one of the longest present minority groups in Britain. Three other groups (Arab, Chinese, and Sikh), which have been present in significant numbers for a much shorter period, are also examined. Multivariate binary logistic regression has been applied to data extracted from the 2011 safeguarded microdata files, to understand whether, having controlled for the variables identified, there remain residual unexplained differences between Jewish, other smaller group, and general migration levels. The study shows that the initial wide variation in migration propensity between these cultural groups is partly explained by compositional differences between groups, but that even after controlling for individual-level socio-demographic characteristics, regional location and distance of migration, cultural differences in migration behaviour remain. Overall, the study shows that there are fewer differences between Jewish and white British migration levels than for the other three groups, for whom a small but significant ‘cultural group penalty’, inhibiting migration propensity, remains.     

The Harki Identity: A Product of Marginalisation and Resistance to Symbolic Violence?

This paper seeks to demonstrate that since their arrival in France in 1962, the Harkis – the Algerians who fought with rather than for the French side against the Algerian independence movement (1954–1962) – have been the victims of symbolic violence. They have been assigned by the French state to the periphery of French towns, French history and French identity. As, since 25 September 2001 (the first national Harki remembrance day) and 5 December 2002 (when President Chirac inaugurated the Algerian war memorial in Paris), the Harkis ceased to epitomise ‘the archetype of official non memory’ (Rosello, 1998 Rosello, M. 1998. Declining the stereotype- Ethnicity and representations in French cultures, Hanover: University Press of New England.  [Google Scholar], p. 170), this paper ultimately asks whether the end of a certain form of symbolic violence may not result in the ‘delegitimisation’ of the Harkis’ main (historical) claims and, consequently, in the weakening of the Harki identity.     

‘I’m Black and I’m Proud’: A Majority Ecological Context Protects Affective Aspects of Black Identity Under Stereotype Threat

We provide evidence that stereotype threat, a phenomenon that causes stigmatized individuals to experience group-based evaluative concerns (Steele in Am Psychol 52:613–629, 1997; Whistling Vivaldi and other clues to how stereotypes affect us, W.W. Norton, New York, 2010), impacts affective aspects of Black identity as a function of majority versus minority ecological contexts. Black/African-American students, enrolled in either Africana Studies (Black ecological majority) or Psychology (Black ecological minority), completed private and public regard subscales from the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (Sellers et al. in Pers Soc Psychol Rev 2:18–39, 1998) at baseline (Time 1) and after being randomly assigned to a stereotype threat or no-threat/control condition (Time 2). In threat, participants were introduced to a ‘puzzle’ task as diagnostic of intellectual abilities, whereas in no-threat the same task was introduced as culture fair, such that people from different racial/ethnic groups had performed similarly on this task in the past. In Psychology, students under threat exhibited a simultaneous decrease and increase in private and public regard, respectively, a pattern shown in the literature to be associated with discrimination-based distress and lesser well-being in Black ecological minority environments. In contrast, Africana Studies students’ racial identity under threat remained intact. We discuss the protective effects of Africana Studies on racial identity and implications for educational reform.     

Racial and Structural Discrimination Toward the Children of Indigenous Mexican Immigrants

My research examines the role of patron saint celebrations in how the children of indigenous Oaxacan immigrants living in Los Angeles, California form ethnic, community, and national identities. Religious practices among immigrants have been characterized as a reterritorialization of religious practices (McAlister in Gatherings in diaspora: Religious communities and the new immigration, 1998). Importantly, legal status may influence transborder movement for undocumented immigrants thereby affecting the extent and character of immigrants’ transnational activities, including their religious practices (Menjívar in J Ethn Migr Stud 28:531–552, 2002). In cases when immigrants may be unable to return their country of origin, rituals figuratively transport immigrants between the sending and receiving community (Tweed in J Am Acad Religion 70:253–277, 2002). Thus, religious identities and practices also enable immigrants to sustain membership in multiple locations, allowing them to affirm continued attachments to a particular sending community or nation even if they are unable to return to their home country (Levitt in Int Migr Rev 37:847–873, 2003). Playing in village-based bands, performing traditional dances, or attending patron saint festivities facilitate indigenous youths’ social integration into the U.S. by fostering a strong sense of ethnic pride in the face of anti-indigenous discrimination from within the Latino population or anti-immigrant hostility from mainstream society. This article explores the racism at structural and individuals levels the children of indigenous immigrants contend with, as well as the effects of these on patterns of identity formation for the children of undocumented indigenous immigrants and on their children’s transnational practices.     

An exploratory study of acculturation among Muslims in Australia

Muslims constitute 2.2% of the Australian population. Given the current socio-political climate and the limited research, the present exploratory study explores the relationship between acculturation, ethnic identity, self-identity, generational status, religiosity, and demographics among adult Australian Muslims.

A cross-sectional convenience sample of 324 adult Australian Muslims completed either online or paper-based questionnaires in either English or Arabic. Recruitment was via convenience sampling and social media advertisements. Acculturation, ethnic identity (MEIM), religiosity, and demographic variables were measured.

The study sample was young and mostly female, with high religiosity levels. Acculturation was negatively correlated with ethnic identity. From multiple regression analysis, acculturation was predicted independently by religiosity (low), age (young), gender (male) and ethnic identity (low).

First generation Australian Muslims were older, had stronger ethnic identity and religiosity, and more commonly self-identified as non-Australian. By contrast second- and third-generation were more likely to self-identify as bicultural or Australian.

In summary, acculturation of Australian Muslims is influenced by multiple variables, particularly ethnic identity, religiosity, and generation; hence all these variables need to be included in policy regarding successful integration of migrants.     

Wealth Mobility of Families Raising Children in the Twenty-First Century

Wealth inequality between the top and bottom deciles has grown over the last 20 years (Piketty and Zucman in Wealth and inheritance in the long run, Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, 2014), as has the racial wealth gap (Shapiro et al. in The roots of the widening racial wealth gap: explaining the black–white economic divide. Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Brandeis University, Waltham, 2013. http://iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/Author/shapiro-thomas-m/racialwealthgapbrief.pdf). Within these broad trends of inequality, some families are able to get ahead and grow their wealth, while others are not. Yet we do not understand well the critical variables that increase the likelihood of wealth mobility across the life course—within the same generation. This paper addresses this gap and investigates the following questions: What accounts for intra-generational relative and absolute wealth mobility for families with children in the first decade of the twenty-first century? And how does it differ by race? The paper draws on two longitudinal data sets—the Panel Study of Income Dynamics household survey data matched with neighborhood-level US Census data (1999–2011), and the IASP Leveraging Mobility (LM) study (1998–2011). Applying an integrated mixed methods design, analyses are conducted in three stages: (1) A grounded theory analytic approach of the LM data determines key variables of wealth mobility: homeownership, income, employment characteristics, extended family wealth, negative life events, and neighborhood factors; (2) regression analyses test these indicators for absolute and relative wealth mobility; and (3) recontextualization through further analyses of LM data deepen the regression results by illustrating the pathways of significant wealth mobility predictors. Results reveal that increasing family income, larger family transfers, consistent long-term homeownership, and in some cases white-collar occupations increase the likelihood of upward relative wealth mobility. Negative life events, higher rates of neighborhood poverty, and black race are negatively correlated with the amount of wealth growth. These key drivers of wealth mobility highlight the need for targeted policies that reinforce and expand opportunities for all families to build wealth over the life course.     

Racial Wage Disparity in US Cities

This paper estimates the conditional wage gaps between black and white full-time male workers at the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) level using data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses. The magnitudes of the wage gaps are found to vary substantially across location. As predicted in Becker's (The economics of discrimination, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1957) seminal theory on wage discrimination, we find that the wage gaps are greater in MSAs that have a larger proportion of black workers in the labor force. This is the most consistent result across all specifications and years. We also find the gaps to be greater where there is an overrepresented black population in jail and a more segregated population if the MSA is in the South. The proportion of workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement in the private sector is associated with greater relative black earnings. We find that although the relationship between race and wages has diminished over time as famously suggested in Wilson (The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American institutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978), the significance of race remains.     

Gendered Islamophobia: hate crime against Muslim women

Post 9/11, most western nations have seen dramatic increases in bias motivated violence against Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim. Predicated on the long-lived vilification of Muslims by the media and the state, such violence is a reactionary reminder of Muslims' outsider status. Interestingly, little attention has been paid to the particular vulnerability of women and girls to anti-Muslim hate crime. This paper begins such a dialogue.     

The Fate of Obamacare: Racial Resentment,Ethnocentrism and Attitudes about Healthcare Reform

Health care has been a contentious issue in American politics for decades, and scholars are beginning to understand the reasons behind public support for, and opposition to, healthcare reform. Using national survey data, we measure the impact of various racial attitudes, including Racial Resentment and Ethnocentrism, on white support for healthcare reform. We measure participants’ attitudes across a range of important dimensions of healthcare reform and examine a randomized experiment with a control group that frames legislation as “recent” healthcare reform and a treatment condition that frames legislation as “President Obama’s” healthcare reform. The findings demonstrate that racial attitudes and Ethnocentrism continue to play a role in both support and opposition to healthcare reform.     

Understanding Differences in College Enrollment: Race,Class and Cultural Capital

Scholarship on race and class differences in educational outcomes has identified cultural capital, or cultural resources that can be utilized to increase educational success, as important mechanisms of educational inequality. However, despite substantial interest, the role of cultural capital in producing inequalities among American students remains unclear. In this research, we use nationally representative data from the Educational Longitudinal Study to clarify the relationships among race, social class, cultural capital and 4-year college enrollment. Using a theoretically based approach to operationalizing social class and measures of both cultural capital possession and activation, this research finds that while black students tend to possess fewer resources than their white counterparts at any class level, they activate cultural capital to a greater degree than white students. Results also show that while cultural capital can explain differences between low-income and middle-income students, a persistent middle-class advantage remains for both black and white students. Additionally, results indicate that at any class level, black students are more likely than their white counterparts to attend a 4-year university. Finally, results show that measures of cultural capital possession and activation have generally independent effects on college enrollment.     

Much more than airtime: radio strategies to foster an inclusive Latino identity in the Basque country

New opportunities for launching media projects targeting minority migrant audiences have emerged in the wake of international migration [Georgiou, Myria. 2001. “Mapping Diasporic Minorities and their Media in Europe. Studying the Media.” A working paper for the EMTEL project “Diasporic Minorities and Their Media: A Mapping.” http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EMTEL/minorities/papers/]. However, most start-up enterprises in this category fail to develop effective strategies for establishing a dialogue between the minority audiences they serve and the native-born local populations. This paper, which examines the role radio plays in the integration of newcomers to the Basque Country, analyses the successful programming and outreach initiatives of Candela Radio in Bilbao, Spain, as well as the barriers to multiculturalism that must be overcome in complex societies like the Basque Country, in which deeply rooted traditions and values [Shafir, Gershon. 1995. Immigrants and Nationalists: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation in Catalonia, the Basque Country, Latvia and Estonia. New York: State University of New York Press] are inextricably bound to language. The results of this qualitative study indicate that publically funded Radio Candela has not only managed to construct an audience that bridges the traditional gap between local migrant and native communities but is also actively fostering the development of a hybrid Latino-Basque identity.     

Race and Child Welfare Policy: State-Level Variations in Disproportionality

African American children are represented among those housed in foster care at more than twice the rate of their overall representation in the US population. This racial disproportionality is well known among child welfare researchers, who have been attempting to explain the phenomenon. Are African American families under more surveillance than white families because of involvement with TANF and other government aid programs, resulting in higher rates of foster care placements? Are investigators more likely to pursue allegations of abuse within African American families? Are African American children more likely to suffer from maltreatment? My research makes a unique contribution by investigating state-level variations in child welfare policy outcomes. Following the innovative work of Soss et al. (American Journal of Political Science 52(3):536–553, 2008) who find that states with larger African American populations have more stringent welfare regimes, it would be reasonable to expect that states with larger African American populations would have more aggressive child protection policies, resulting in higher numbers of children being housed in state protective custody. This work exposes a strikingly different pattern: States with larger African American populations are distinctly less likely to take children into protective custody. In addition, states with larger African American populations have dramatically lower levels of racial disproportionality among their children in foster care. States with larger white majorities place more children in foster care and place disproportionately higher percentages of African American children in foster care.     

Race and Gender Concordance: Strategy to Reduce Healthcare Disparities or Red Herring? Evidence from a Qualitative Study

Healthcare treatment differences persist for African Americans even after controlling for socioeconomic status (van Ryn and Burke 2000). Although blacks represent a sizable percentage of the middle class, most disparities research does not address class heterogeneity. Furthermore, research indicates patient–provider race concordance may mitigate racial disparities in health care (Laveist and Neru-jeter in J Health Soc Behav 43(3):296–306, 2002; IOM in Unequal treatment: confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care. National Academies Press, Washington, 2002). This study explores race and gender preference for black middle-class women in healthcare settings. The study uses in-depth interviews and focus groups to explore the experiences of thirty African American women between 38 and 67 in a large urban area. The majority of respondents expressed a strong preference for a female OB/GYN (of any race) while 9 preferred a female primary care provider (of any race). Although the women did not express an explicit race preference, they had a strong affinity for black female providers. Importantly, respondents complicated the idea of provider-level race preference by noting that other site-level factors like wait times and the site’s racial composition affected their racial preferences. Although increasing racial diversity among providers is generally positive, respondents suggest that alone will not ameliorate racial disparities. The complexities of the healthcare encounter, including time pressure, clinical uncertainty, and the patient’s desire for expertise regardless of race or gender, all impinge on respondents’ race preferences. Lastly, women noted that site-level factors may be conflated with the race of provider such that having a black provider does not necessarily lead to better care or protect women from discrimination or bias.     

The What,the Why,and the How: A Review of Racial Microaggressions Research in Psychology

Since the publication of Sue et al. (Am Psychol 62:271–286, 2007a, b) seminal article, there has been an enormous scholarly interest in psychology on this construct of racial microaggressions—subtle everyday experiences of racism. In this paper, we provide a review of racial microaggressions research literature in psychology since 2007, following the publication of the first comprehensive taxonomy of racial microaggressions, which provided a conceptual framework and directions for research related to racial microaggressions. However, our review suggests that important conceptual and methodological issues remain to be addressed in the three domains: (1) what are racial microaggressions and who do they impact; (2) why are racial microaggressions important to examine; and (3) how are racial microaggressions currently studied and how might we improve the methodologies used to study racial microaggressions. We propose recommendations to further facilitate racial microaggressions research, improve the scientific rigor of racial microaggressions research, and contribute toward a more complete and sophisticated understanding of the concept and consequences of racial microaggressions—a construct that is undoubtedly salient and psychologically relevant among many members of racial minority groups.     

Representations of individuals in discourses of laïcité from Le Monde: confirming or challenging the republican framework of identity?

In recent decades, the notions of laïcité and identity have been subjects of controversy in France. The two concepts have become sufficiently co-associated since the 1990s to ensure each almost systematically entails the other. Findings from previous studies have pointed out harmful implications of this pervasive association for minorities in France, especially Muslims. This study examines further the ways laïcité and identity are interwoven by exploring who is represented (and how) in newspaper articles from Le Monde dealing with laïcité. Informed by critical intercultural communication scholarship, intersectionality, and a Foucaultian approach to discourse, this study pays particular attention to the way identity categories are articulated with one another and in which power structures they are embedded. A selection of articles published in the leading national newspaper Le Monde between 2011 and 2014 was collected for in-depth analysis. Results indicate tensions as regards the use of identity categories and representations of individuals within discourses of laïcité. Implications concerning the overall republican framework and the concept of laïcité are discussed.