Multiculturalism, Educational Inclusion, and Connectedness

Well-Being, Ethnicity, and Identity among Chinese, South, and Southeast Asian Students

Celeste Y.M. Yuen

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780429799617
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Education
• Categoria: Multicultural Education

This book offers a unique focus on the well-being of Chinese and South/Southeast Asian students in the context of Hong Kong, and in particular the experience of integrating these young people into its schooling system. Yuen uses a narrative method that captures and offers a vivid insight into the actual experience of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, whilst providing fascinating comparisons between students coming from Mainland China and those whose parents are South/Southeast Asian immigrants. Readers will be particularly interested in the attention given to spiritual well-being and how religious participation and affiliation make a difference in giving meaning to life and in creating a positive mindset, as viewed and explained by students themselves.

This well-organised volume begins by laying out the major themes relating to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, followed by a richly elaborated theoretical chapter which defines core concepts and their interconnection. This is followed by substantive chapters where the voices of each of the different diverse groupings of students, Chinese Mainland immigrants, Chinese Cross-boundary youth, South/Southeast Asian ethnic youth and mainstream HK youth from underprivileged backgrounds, are heard and interpreted in relation to themes of inclusion and well-being. It then builds upon the narratives to provide bottom-up solutions and pathways towards the inclusion and well-being of all students, as well as the professional development of teachers who can take up the challenge of ensuring that all young people are nurtured to fulfil their potential.

Providing readers with practical implications and takeaways for education practice, this must-read work will appeal to a wide range of education practitioners and students involved in providing or researching inclusive education relating to mainstream and non-mainstream Chinese, South Asian, and other ethnic minority students.

1Equity, Access, and Obstacles in Education across the Globe

DOI: 10.4324/​9780429439315-1

Introduction

The inception of this book began with a vision and mission to promote a productive and meaningful life for youth in Hong Kong from diverse cultural backgrounds. As the society is undergoing an era of rapid change and facing multiple unprecedented challenges since the post-1997 handover, and under the rule of “One Country, Two Systems”, youth engagement in schools and society reflects the level of inclusion and connectedness of each youth in the society. I consider myself privileged to have had the opportunity to interact personally and intensively with hundreds of youth from both mainstream and non-mainstream cultures during the past decade. Our conversations were held during their free school time and participation was voluntary. Since 2013, I have engaged in numerous person–person interviews with youth as part of my data collection for several public and government-funded projects. A large proportion of narratives were generated through a project entitled, Educational experiences, self-identity and spirituality: A study on the well-being among students from diverse cultures in Hong Kong (RGC 18406214, 2015–2017). Another batch of interview data was generated from my recent conversations with senior secondary students participating in my project entitled, Transition from secondary to post-secondary education: Obstacles, and success factors of immigrant, minority and low-income youth in Hong Kong (RGC 18606717, 2018–2021). Aiming to examine students’ self-appraised educational experiences, ethnic identities, spiritual lifestyles, and global well-being, these interviews revolved around several personal issues, ranging from personal to societal issues.

Students shared their profound thoughts on life issues and deep emotions about family, friendships, academic stress, intercultural learning, and interethnic group conflicts and future aspirations in many dialogues. With a sense of trust, they often poured out their hearts to this “stranger listener” (me) in the belief that our paths would never cross again, and hence their identities would be protected (pseudonyms were used). Throughout these face-to-face or small group interviews or conversations, I was truly humbled, thankful, and inspired by their deep thoughts about life, dedication to learning, commitment to family welfare, aspirations for serving the community, and resilience in overcoming negative life experiences. Of course, in some cases, I was also concerned with their academic disengagement, struggles with parental issues (especially for students born from HK-Mainland Chinese families), financial needs, lack of direction, and a sense of despair at approaching adulthood. Gradually, I connected with some of them as a friend by just being someone who listened. To me, these youth have multiple roles in our contemporary and interconnected society. As Hong Kong citizens, they are the backbone of Hong Kong’s future. As Chinese citizens, they are pillars of the wider nation. As global citizens, they have the potential to become cultural bridges for global development. In a sense, they represent all societies’ talents, and, hence, it is imperative to equalise the educational conditions for all students, especially youth from an immigrant or ethnic minority background.

Youth matters

Youth in family, society building, and global development have gained renewed attention on all fronts. Traditionally, scholars (e.g., Knight, 2017) focus on stage development and associated characteristics and responsibilities, while sociologists (e.g., Apple, 1996) devote their attention to youth identity and roles in society as individuals and members of that society. Today, international attention is directed towards creating conditions for empowering youth for their present and future development (UNESCO, 2015, 2016, 2017). With the advancement of information technology and the influence of social media, societies are increasingly interconnected and inter-dependent. What happens in one society will have an impact on others, no matter what the distance is. Under the influence of globalisation, western ideologies of liberalism, democracy, equity, cultures, and norms have also travelled worldwide and are gradually being disseminated as universal values, as can be seen, for example, in growing demands for democracy and human rights worldwide.

By virtue of having one foot in adolescence and the other in adulthood, youth are agentive in co-constructing universal values and serving as ambassadors for such values in their societies. To a large extent, we cannot fully comprehend their aspirations, identity, and roles in society by following stereotypical portrayals of youth. For example, they may fall into rigid social categories such as being academically focused vs. disengaged, innovative and open-minded vs. self-centred and self-focused, productive vs. disillusioned, civic-minded vs. rebellious, and so on. But in today’s world, youth are also treading new ground and exploring new opportunities, which in turn generate new risks and anxieties. More importantly, they express a deep desire to be understood and supported and to be able to contribute to the broader society. The world has recently witnessed a series of youth movements in different forms involving social concerns such as climate change, civic engagement, and political advocacy, with influences moving around the world and, to some degree, observed in every connected society. Parallel to this global phenomenon is the generation of heated debates on maximising the talent and worth of the youth for the best interest of each society and the world.

Global popularisation of equity in education

Youth research is gaining global attention (Ball et al., 2000; Eglinton, 2013; Shek, 2020; Spratt, 2017; Yuen, 2019). Today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders of all nations. To make any society sustainable, young people must be prepared for tomorrow’s world. All civil societies have moral obligations to provide youth with conditions conducive to nurturing their potentialities and value their participation. Under a culture of marketisation in education, it requires more deliberated government efforts to raise the academic standards of public schooling to address equity education for all. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989) has drawn worldwide attention to the importance of addressing the rights and entitlements and equal access of every child regardless of their socio-economic background, religion, language, sex, or ethnic background. Equity and equal opportunity in education have been recognised as essential children’s rights under the Convention.

Education as a public good and its outcomes directly bear civil society (Levin, 1987). Education and equity are two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, education must be made universal for all school-age children, especially those from disadvantaged families who often cannot afford school fees and with multiple challenges in life. On the other hand, to equalise the conditions of all people, equity must be ensured to make education as fair, just, and impartial as possible and with access to all (Jacob & Holsinger, 2008). Equity addresses the “normative-ethical issue of the fair attribution/acquisition of resources” (Hutmacher, 2001; p. 10) and is a global agenda advocating for providing inclusive and equitable quality education to help realise the rights and capacities of all people, without leaving anyone behind (United Nations, 2015a).

Despite numerous global policy initiatives enabling equal access of all students to the education system, high exclusion rates of primary and lower secondary education remain a prominent issue to be tackled in regions like sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia (UNESCO, 2016). The Education 2030 Framework for Action calls for 12 years of free and equitable quality primary and secondary education for children and adolescents, with at least 9 years of compulsory education (United Nations, 2015b). Currently, in many countries in Africa and Asia, senior secondary education is still not compulsory. Huge funds are needed annually to enrol all youth in secondary education globally (UNESCO, 2016).

The above data concerning education access and outcomes reveal immense challenges in ensuring equity education at the global level. A large portion of children and youth are battling with social, economic, and political adversities and encountering tremendous obstacles in schooling due to interruptions and/or poor education (UNESCO, 2016). There is ample evidence to suggest that school attendance rates, participation levels, and academic performance of disadvantaged children are severely affected by the need to divert time and energy towards earning, consequently impacting their academic success (e.g., Holgado et al., 2014). For example, child labour is still common in Tanzania and vulnerable populations with poor living conditions (Levison et al., 2018).

Equity and equality in educational practice

Equity in education stands at the intersection of two issues: (1) enabling equal access of all learners to receive a quality education and (2) ensuring equal learning outcomes. In the equality of enrolment, quality is also a necessary condition for making education a driving force in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Fairness and inclusion are two dimensions of equity in education (Simon et al., 2007). Inclusion at its lowest level means the opportunity for all to obtain basic literacy and numeracy skills (Simon et al., 2007), yet this would merely be the beginning of the process towards equal access at all levels in the SDG4 agenda (United Nations, 2015b). Fairness and justice, regardless of individual social status, are the foundations of equitable access and outcomes for all. Equity in access is measured by the extent to which resources have been distributed and how they are used, and how opportunities are offered and administered to students. From a cultural relativist perspective and/or a pluralist sociological perspective, a major issue here is that schools can both uphold existing inequalities and produce new inequalities in the educational process (Benadusi, 2001) for resource redistribution.

Worldwide, disproportions in educational outcomes are associated with inequalities in social status, gender, ethnic status, race, inborn capabilities, and other social conditions. Students from affluent families are better nurtured in physical health, educational opportunities, and holistic development than their underprivileged counterparts. Social inequality involves multiple layers of social structural problems, and it is unrealistic to expect education to reverse the entire disadvantaged conditions of the under-served families. Despite the fact that education alone cannot alleviate structural social inequality, nevertheless, education is a vital instrument in making a significant impact on reversing the disadvantaged communities by wo...