Abstract
In this chapter we outline the relevance of the problem of promoting educational futures and how this problem connects to the efforts to widen participation in higher education. The case is made that the cultural and social contexts of education need to be at the forefront when it comes to devising new ways to change our thinking about how education is promoted. The chapter argues why widening participation efforts also matter for parents with young children. A discussion of ‘thinking about the cultural’ is provided, as well as an outline of how contemporary sociological and anthropological approaches to education provide nuanced views to how educational injustice is produced. A brief overview of efforts of widening participation in university is provided and the argument is made for why we need to remember that educational disadvantage also impacts parents, and how this has repercussions for efforts to widen participation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abu-Lughod, L. (1993). Writing women’s worlds: Bedouin stories. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Abu-Lughod, L. (2014). Writing against culture. In H. L. Moore & T. Sanders (Eds.), Anthropology in theory: Issues in epistemology (pp. 386–399). Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley.
ACER. (2010). Australasian Survey of Student Engagement—Australasian Student Engagement Report: Doing more for learning: Enhancing engagement and outcomes. Camberwell, VIC.
Alim, H. S. (2011). Hip hop and the politics of ill-literacy. In A companion to the anthropology of education. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Allan, J., & Harwood, V. (2013). Medicus interruptus in the behaviour of children in disadvantaged contexts in Scotland. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 35, 413–431. Published online 27 April.
Andersen, C., Bunda, T., & Walter, M. (2008). Indigenous higher education: The role of universities in releasing the potential. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 37(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1326011100016033.
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Appadurai, A. (2004). The capacity to aspire: Culture and terms of recognition. In R. Vijayendra & M. Walton (Eds.), Culture and public action (pp. 59–84). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Apple, M. (1996). Cultural politics and education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Apple, M. (2014). Immigration, social realities, and the complex politics of education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 17(2), 291–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.873571.
Barnes, M., Chanfreau, J., & Tomaszewski, W. (2010). Growing up in Scotland: The circumstances of persistently poor children. Edinburgh.
Battiste, M. (2002). Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy in first nations education: A literature review with recommendations. Ottawa: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.
Behrendt, L. (Writer). (2017). After the apology (M. Purske, Producer). Waverley, NSW: Pursekey Productions.
Behrendt, L. (2018). After the apology. Retrieved from http://aftertheapology.com/.
Bhabha, H. K. (2004). The location of culture. London: Routledge.
Boas, F. (1940). Race, language and culture. New York: Macmillan.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Westport (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 214–258). New York: Greenwood.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). Reproduction in education, society, and culture (1990 ed., Preface by P. Bourdieu, Ed.). London: Sage in association with Theory, Culture & Society, Department of Administrative and Social Studies, Teesside Polytechnic.
Bradley, D., Noonan, P., Nugent, H., & Scales, B. (2008). Review of Australian higher education, final report. Canberra.
Butler, J. (1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2001). What is critique? An essay on Foucault’s virtue. Retrieved from http://eipcp.net/transversal/0806/butler/en.
Butler, J. (2010). Performative agency. Journal of Cultural Economy, 3(2), 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2010.494117.
Comaroff, J. (2010). The end of anthropology, again: On the future of an in/discipline. American Anthropologist, 112(4), 524–538. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01273.x.
Correa-Chávez, M., Mejia-Arauz, R., & Rogoff, B. (2015). Children learn by observing and contributing to family and community endeavours: A cultural paradigm (Vol. 49). Waltham. MA: Academic Press.
Cummings, C., Laing, K., Law, J., McLaughlin, J., Papps, I., Todd, L., & Woolner, P. (2012). Can changing aspirations and attitudes impact educational attainment: A review of interventions. London.
Currie, J. (2009). Healthy, wealthy, and wise: Socioeconomic status, poor health in childhood, and human capital development. Journal of Economic Literature, 47(1), 87–122.
Curtis, D., & McMillan, J. (2008). School non-completers: Profiles and initial destinations (Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, Research Report 54). Camberwell, VIC.
Daniel, K. L., Prue, C., Taylor, M. K., Thomas, J., & Scales, M. (2009). ‘Learn the signs. Act early’: A campaign to help every child reach his or her full potential. Public Health, 123(1), e11–e16.
Dei, G. J. S., Mazzuca, J., & McIsaac, E. (2016). Reconstructing ‘dropout’: A critical ethnography of the dynamics of Black students’ disengagement from school. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Evans, C., & Carr, K. (2011). Have your say on Indigenous higher education [Media Release]. Retrieved from https://ministers.employment.gov.au/evans/have-yoursayindigenous-higher-education.
Foucault, M. (1983). The subject and power. In H. L. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics (2nd ed., pp. 208–226). Chicago: University of Chicago press.
Fredericks, B. (2013). ‘We don’t leave our identities at the city limits’: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in urban localities. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2013(1), 4–16.
Gale, T., Sellar, S., Parker, S., Hattam, R., Comber, B., Tranter, D., & Bills, D. (2010). Interventions early in school as a means to improve higher education outcomes for disadvantaged (particularly low SES) students. Underdale, Australia: National Centre Student Equity in Higher Education. Retrieved from http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30040776.
Gillard, J. (2009). Funding boost helps low-SES higher education places. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Gillard, J. (2010). Keynote address: Australia’s productivity challenge: A key role for education. John Curtin Institute of Public Policy. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Gonzalez, N. (1999). What will we do when culture does not exist anymore? Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 30(4), 431–435.
Goodman, A., Gregg, P., & Washbrook, E. (2011). Children’s educational attainment and the aspirations, attitudes and behaviours of parents and children through childhood in the UK. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 2(1), 1–18.
Harrell, P. E., & Forney, W. S. (2003). Ready or not, here we come: Retaining hispanic and first-generation students in postsecondary education. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 27(2), 147–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/713838112.
Harwood, V. (2006). Diagnosing ‘disorderly’ children: A critique of behaviour disorder discourses. Oxford: Routledge.
Harwood, V. (2010). The new outsiders: ADHD and disadvantage. In L. J. Graham (Ed.), (De)Constructing ADHD: Critical guidance for teachers and teacher educators (pp. 119–142). New York: Peter Lang.
Harwood, V., & Allan, J. (2014). Psychopathology at school: Theorising mental disorders in education. Oxford: Routledge.
Harwood, V., Hickey-Moody, A., McMahon, S., & O’Shea, S. (2017). The politics of widening participation and university access for young people: Making educational futures. London: Routledge.
Harwood, V., McMahon, S., O’Shea, S., Bodkin-Andrews, G., & Priestly, A. (2015). Recognising aspiration: The AIME program’s effectiveness in inspiring Indigenous young people’s participation in schooling and opportunities for further education and employment. Australian Educational Researcher, 42(2), 217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-015-0174-3.
Harwood, V., & Murray, N. (2019). Strategic discourse production and parent involvement: Including parent knowledge and practices in the Lead My Learning campaign. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(4), 353–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2019.1571119.
HM Treasury & DEFES. (2007). Policy review of children and young people: A discussion paper. Norwich.
Holloway, S. L., & Pimlott-Wilson, H. (2011). The politics of aspiration: Neo-liberal education policy, ‘low’ parental aspirations, and primary school Extended Services in disadvantaged communities. Children’s Geographies, 9(1), 79–94.
Hossain, D., Gorman, D., Willams-Mozley, J., & Garvey, D. (2008). Bridging the gap: Identifying needs and aspirations of indigenous students to facilitate their entry into university. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 37(1), 9–17.
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. (1997). Bringing them home: Report of the National Inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
Ingold, T. (2017). Anthropology and/as education: Anthropology, art, architecture and design. Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY: Routledge.
Kenway, J. (2013). Challenging inequality in Australian schools: Gonski and beyond. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 34(2), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2013.770254.
Kenway, J., & Hickey-Moody, A. (2011). Life chances, lifestyle and everyday aspirational strategies and tactics. Critical Studies in Education, 52(2), 151–163.
Kirka, D. (2017, August 17). Malala Yousafzai, shot for promoting education in Pakistan, earns admission to Oxford. India-West. Retrieved from http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/malala-yousafzai-shot-for-promoting-education-in-pakistan-earns-admission/article_75d65d5e-83a9-11e7-9b24-03304e5280be.html.
Kleykamp, M. (2006). College, jobs, or the military? Enlistment during a time of war. Social Science Quarterly, 87(2), 272–290. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2006.00380.x.
Kotlowitz, A. (1991). There are no children here: The story of two boys growing up in the other America (1st ed.). New York: Doubleday.
Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: An essay in abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). It’s not the culture of poverty, it’s the poverty of culture: The problem with teacher education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 37(2), 104–109. https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2006.37.2.104.
Lehmann, W. (2009). Becoming middle class: How working-class university students draw and trangress moral class boundaries. Sociology, 43(4), 631–647.
Levinson, B. A., Foley, D. E., & Holland, D. C. (Eds.). (1996). The cultural production of the educated person: Critical ethnographies of schooling and local practice. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Magnuson, K., Sexton, H., Davis-Kean, P. F., & Huston, A. (2009). The effects of increases in maternal education on young children’s language skills. Merill Palmer Quarterly, 55, 319–350.
Mamdani, M. (2002). Good Muslim, bad Muslim: A political perspective on culture and terrorism. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 766–775. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.766.
Matasci, D. (2017). Assessing needs, fostering development: UNESCO, illiteracy and the global politics of education (1945–1960). Comparative Education, 53(1), 35–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2017.1254952.
McCarthy, C. (2008). Understanding the neoliberal context of race and schooling in the age of globalization. In Transnational perspectives on culture, policy, and education: Redirecting cultural studies in neoliberal times (pp. 319–340, Chapter 15). New York: Peter Lang.
McLeod, J., & Yates, L. (2006). Making modern lives: Subjectivity, schooling, and social change. New York: State University of New York.
Miñana Blasco, C., & Arango Vargas, C. (2011). Educational policy, anthropology, and the state. In A companion to the anthropology of education. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Norões, K., & McCowan, T. (2015). The challenge of widening participation to higher education in Brazil: Injustices, innovations, and outcomes. In M. Shah, A. Bennett, & E. Southgate (Eds.), Widening higher education participation: A global perspective (pp. 63–80). Waltham, MA: Chandos Publishing.
Obama, M. (2018). Becoming. New York: Viking.
O’Shea, S., May, J., Stone, C., & Delahunty, J. (2017). First-in-family students, university experience and family life: Motivations, transitions and participation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
O’Shea, S., & Stone, C. (2011). Transformations and self-discovery: Mature-age women’s reflections on returning to university study. Studies in Continuing Education, 33(3), 273–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2011.565046.
Ou, S.-R., & Reynolds, A. J. (2014). Early determinants of postsecondary education participation and degree attainment: Findings from an inner-city minority cohort. Education and Urban Society, 46(4), 474–504. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124512447810.
Paniagua, A. (2017). The intersection of cultural diversity and special education in Catalonia: The subtle production of exclusion through classroom routines. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 48(2), 141–158. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12190.
Povinelli, E. A. (2011). Economies of abandonment: Social belonging and endurance in late liberalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Prime Minister and Cabinet. (2019). Closing the gap, report 2019. Canberra.
Raco, M. (2009). From expectations to aspirations: State modernisation, urban policy, and the existential politics of welfare in the UK, Political Geography, 28, 436–454.
Rogoff, B. (2014). Learning by observing and pitching in to family and community endeavours. Human Development, 57, 69–81.
Rogoff, B. (2016). Culture and participation: A paradigm shift. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 182–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.12.002.
Rosaldo, R. (1993). Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.
Sarra, C. (2011). Strong and smart: Towards a pedagogy for emancipation, education for first peoples. New York, NY: Routledge.
Sellar, S., Gale, T., & Parker, S. (2011). Appreciating aspirations in Australian higher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 41(1), 37–52.
Shavitt, Y., & Blossfield, H.-P. (Eds.). (1993). Persitent inequality: Changing educational attainment in thirteen countries. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Sommer, T. E., Chase-Lansdale, P. L., Brooks-Gunn, J., Gardner, M., Rauneer, D. M., & Freel, K. (2012). Early childhood education centers and mothers’ postsecondary attainment: A new conceptual framework for a dual-generation education intervention. Teachers College Record, 114(100305), 1-40. Retrieved from https://www.tcrecord.org, Date Accessed: 8 October 2019.
Stahl, G. (2018). Ethnography of a neo-liberal school: Cultures of success. Oxford: Routledge.
Tanaka, G. (2009). The elephant in the living room that no one wants to talk about: Why U.S. anthropologists are unable to acknowledge the end of culture. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 40(1), 82–95. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2009.01029.x.
Thomson, P. (2000). Against the odds: Developing school programmes that make a difference for students and families in communities placed at risk. Childrenz Issues, 3(1), 7–13.
Turner, T. (1993). Anthropology and multiculturalism: What is anthropology that multiculturalists should be mindful of it? Cultural Anthropology, 8(4), 411–429. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.1993.8.4.02a00010.
Universities Australia. (2008). Advancing equity and participation in Australian higher education: Action to address participation and equity levels in higher education of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds and Indigenous people. Canberra.
Urrieta, L. J. (2015). Learning by observing and pitching in and the connections to native and Indigenous knowledge systems. In M. Correa-Chevaz, R. Mejia-Arauz, & B. Rogoff (Eds.), Children learn by observing and contributing to family and community endeavours: A cultural paradigm (pp. 357–380). Waltham, MA: Elsevier.
Vincent, C., & Ball, S. J. (2007). ‘Making up’ the middle class child: Families, activities and class dispositions. Sociology, 41(6), 1061–1077.
Walter, M., Martin, K. L., & Bodkin-Andrews, G. (Eds.). (2017). Indigenous children growing up strong: A longitudinal study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
White, L. (2015). Free to be Mohawk: Indigenous education at the Akwesasne Freedom School. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labour. Farmborough: Saxon House.
Winkworth, G., McArthur, M., Layton, M., & Thompson, L. (2010). Someone to check in on me: Social capital, social support and vulnerable parents with very young children in the Australian Capital Territory. Child and Family Social Work, 15, 206–215.
Wolff, J., & De-Shalit, A. (2007). Disadvantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Youdell, D. (2011). School trouble: Identity, power and politics in education. Oxford: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Harwood, V., Murray, N. (2019). Appreciating, Understanding and Respecting the Cultural and Social Contexts of Learning. In: The Promotion of Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25300-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25300-4_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-25302-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-25300-4
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)