1st Edition

Asian Children at Home and at School An Ethnographic Study

By Ghazala Bhatti Copyright 1999
    304 Pages
    by Routledge

    304 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book is an ethnographic study of a comprehensive school in the south of England. It explores the views of teachers, Asian parents and their children concerning education and schooling. Young people between the ages of 13 and 18 were studied at home and at school and their experiences form the main focus of the study.
    The experiences of fifty Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian families - mostly of Muslim faith - are studied with a view to discovering what parents expect from their children's school and how the teachers perceive their own role with regard to their students. These young people are the first generation of Asians to be educated in Britain. Their location in terms of their social class positions, gender and ethnicity are inextricably bound together. They describe how they see their past and their future. This is the first study to take account of boys and girls in order to capture the complexity of their lived experiences.

    1. Introduction 2. Asian parents and their two worlds 3. Asian parents: education and employment 4. The children's world 5. Hopes for the future 6. The gender factor 7. Good, bad and normal teachers 8. The teacher's tale 9. Conclusions

    Biography

    Ghazala Bhatti

    'Informative and accessible' - The Times Educational Supplement

    'Highly recommended to any reader who is looking for a contextualised insight into the school life of Asian children.' - International Journal of Punjab Studies Vol 7 No. 1

    'Any review is unable to provide justice to the groundbreaking and compelling nature of this original and readable account of the complex, multiple-featured lives of Asian Children and families. The paramount impression throughout and in her well thought out conclusions is that, 'despite the odds stacked against them, ordinary working-class Asian children (and their families) continue to struggle with such optimism and fortitude" (p. 238). It is a book from which teachers, academics, parents, sectors of society from all cultures can learn and one which manages to prove accessible, academically rigourous and exceptionally engaging.' - British Journal of Educational Studies