Culture, Schooling, and Children's Learning Experiences

As countries experience increasing cultural diversity both within and between their borders, contemporary researchers are exploring the connection between culture and children's learning and academic experiences. One important goal is to provide all children with educational experiences that are culturally sensitive, relevant, and effective in helping them reach their maximum potential and preparing them for the future. With over twenty-fivecontributing authors, this volume investigates the connection between culture and children's schooling and learning experiences from multidisciplinary perspectives, diverse methodologies, andcross-cultural and culture specific approaches. The common thread running through the chapters is the understanding that learning is an activity that takes place within cultural contexts. Together, the chapters highlight the forces that shape children's everyday learning experiences. Core themes address how parental beliefs and cultural ways of learning and problem-solving shape children's learning experiences and social interactions with teachers; the importance ofquality early childhood education and playful learning to children's school success and development; and how the complex intersection of cultural variables with forces such as historical injustice, socialand educational inequality, economic stability, and political ideologies shape children's learning.The volume honors the experiences of Indigenous, newcomer, first-generation children, and children of underrepresented communities and highlights the vital role that policy makers, teacher educators, schools, and classroom educators play in helping all children reach their academic and social potential.

This book is essential to those interested in expanding their views on the varying cultural factors related to children's schooling experiences across communities. It contributes significantly to understanding how culture and children's schooling experiences are dynamically related. The findings presented inform ways of facilitating children's learning experiences in schools, particularly for minority and indigenous children whose ways of learning and experiences are often overlooked in mainstream educational practices. Pablo Chavajay, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of New Hampshire
Schools aim to prepare children for participation in adult life in emerging contexts. However, navigating the complex terrain of educational practice has been fraught with serious challenges. Featuring a wide range of interdisciplinary and international scholars, Holmes and Roopnarine have achieved the monumental task of building synthesis through in-depth examination of cultural diversity in educational policy and practice. This volume is a valuable resource for students, scholars, practitioners, and policy makers in the field of Education. Nandita Chaudhary, Visiting Professor, University of Bahia, Brazil. Retired Faculty, University of Delhi
Effective education of multicultural and cross-cultural populations is one of the profound challenges of our times. To help negotiate that challenge, the new book Culture, Schooling and Children's Learning Experiences by Robyn M. Holmes and Jaipaul L. Roopnarine gathers up-to-date policy and practice accounts from experts across the globe. The well-worn advice to "think global and act local" comprises a valuable lesson of the book: while there are recurring themes such as needed equity and reciprocity, the solutions must also honor learners' local culture, identity, and ways of learning. Used in receptive (early childhood) settings, play is highlighted as a vehicle for collaborative, mutually transformative education. Cindy Dell Clark, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Rutgers University

Robyn M. Holmes is a Professor of Psychology and associated faculty member in the History and Anthropology Department at Monmouth University. Her teaching and research interests reflect cultural and multidisciplinary perspectives. She is the author of How Young Children Perceive Race (Sage, 1995), Fieldwork with Children (Sage, 2008), and Cultural Psychology: Exploring Culture and Mind in Diverse Cultural Communities (Oxford UniversityPress, 2020). She has also written numerous articles and chapters on play and culture, play and early childhood, recess, sport, and development, which have appeared in the American Journal of Play, International Journal of Play,Play & Culture Studies, Children's Folklore Review, Perceptual Motor Skills, Child Studies in Asia-Pacific Contexts, and the Journal of Sport Behavior.Jaipaul L. Roopnarine is Pearl S. Falk Professor of Human Development at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, and Professor Extraordinary of Developmental Psychology at Anton de Kom University of Suriname, Paramaribo. His research interests include father-child relationships across cultures, mental health in Caribbean families and children, early childhood education in international perspective, and children's play across cultures. He has published several volumes on culture and developmentincluding Caribbean Psychology: Indigenous contributions to a global discipline (American Psychological Association, 2016) and Fathering in Cultural Contexts: Developmental and Clinical Issues(Routledge, 2019). He is currently Editor of the Caribbean Journal of Psychology.

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