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This paper contributes to research on urban multiculture and debates as to how people routinely live and experience ethnic diversity in their everyday lives. This research takes an ‘unpanicked’ approach to multiculture that sits differently to, although not unaffected by, multiculturalism as policy objective and those debates around multiculturalism that variously celebrate cultural difference or construct it through crisis talk. Critical to this paper are the routine phenomenologies of multiculture and the everyday practices, competencies and skills of young people attending college. Because of their diverse intakes and the openness of young people to difference, colleges are key sites within which urban multiculture is experienced and through which it is defined. Based on participant observation, repeat in-depth discussion groups and interviews, the focus of this paper is young adults attending post-16 colleges and schools in three ethnically diverse urban locations. Colleges and schools are urban spaces that mediate sociality and student experience but are also woven into the wider urban setting in which they are placed. The paper explores the skills and competencies that young adults develop to negotiate college and we particularly focus on their use of jokes and the exercise of restraint to get along with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines forms of implicit discrimination towards Muslim children in children's discourses of Otherness. Findings in this paper draw on qualitative data exploring the discourses of 17 children from a Year 6 class in a culturally diverse primary school in the East of England. Building on Critical Race Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis, this article shows that children's discourses of Otherness acted in tacit discriminatory ways by constructing difference as problematic, which positioned Muslim children as the 'bad Other'. These findings show the intersectionality of discrimination experienced by Muslim children in school, and offer a reflection on the role of multiculturalism in schools and the limitations of uncritical discourses of tolerance in fostering an understanding of difference and Otherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the creation of a socially and ethnically mixed student body relates to mobility within the context of Beaumont Academy. This authoritarian school opened in 2004 under the ethos ‘structure liberates’. Based in a predominantly deprived, ethnic minority area of London, Beaumont seeks to culturally transform its students. With its outstanding GCSE results, the school has been championed as a blueprint for reform, yet the cultural implications underlying this approach remain unexamined. The ethos pathologizes the surrounding area while essentializing itself as an ‘oasis in the desert’ liberating students through discipline. The paper explores how mobility is embodied by students and the alterations or eliminations necessary to achieve it. These alterations produce raced and classed positions and bring them into focus, highlighting who needs to ‘adjust’ themselves to accrue value. Uncritical celebrations of mixed-ness conceal structural inequalities lingering beneath the rhetoric of happy multiculturalism and aspirational citizenship. These inequalities are exacerbated by a marketized education system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I present the 'everydayness' of a particular group of young Muslim women and their families as they dance between a range of contradictory and shifting discourses. Through an analysis situated between the social and the cultural, the paper argues that as an 'in-between' generation these young women are now part of communities who are re-constructing their identities in response to what is happening around them. Through their re-contextualisation of Islam as they de-contextualise it from their parent's cultural investments, they have become 'more confident to be seen as Muslim'. However, they are often in a dialogue with their own children and parents, as to what constitutes being Muslim in Britain and in contention with those, who often through the mass media, seek to homogenise them as Muslims, and then label them. The analysis uses the notion of a 'mythic feedback loop' as a heuristic device to link thinking, feeling and action and 'mythcourse' as a way of tracing the trajectory of these loops and mapping these inter-generational shifts. The themes threading through the paper are ones of a 'changing same' and 'in-betweenness' which I use to explore the nexus of religion, culture, identities and education to re-engage with debates around multiculturalism, majority and minority identities, democratic renewal and active citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is Critical Race Theory (CRT) and what does it offer educational researchers and practitioners outside the US? This paper addresses these questions by examining the recent history of anti-racist research and policy in the UK. In particular, the paper argues that conventional forms of anti-racism have proven unable to keep pace with the development of increasingly racist and exclusionary education polices that operate beneath a veneer of professed tolerance and diversity. In particular, contemporary anti-racism lacks clear statements of principle and theory that risk reinventing the wheel with each new study; it is increasingly reduced to a meaningless slogan; and it risks appropriation within a reformist “can do” perspective dominated by the de-politicized and managerialist language of school effectiveness and improvement. In contrast, CRT offers a genuinely radical and coherent set of approaches that could revitalize critical research in education across a range of inquiries, not only in self-consciously “multicultural” studies. The paper reviews the developing terrain of CRT in education, identifying its key defining elements and the conceptual tools that characterize the work. CRT in education is a fast-changing and incomplete project but it can no longer be ignored by the academy beyond North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to develop a more sophisticated notion of multiculturalism in Britain. It starts by examining the philosophical basis of the Crick Report on citizenship education to resolve the theoretical tension between liberal and multicultural approaches to the subject. To achieve this resolution, it compares the Crick Report to the Parekh Report on the Future of Multi Ethnic Britain, published on 11 th October 2000. The Parekh report is then used to critique the Crick report and re-theorise the practical imperatives of multicultural citizenship education. I claim that the Crick report, typical of liberal analyses, is suspicious of departure from the presumption of a unified social structure, and represents citizenship education as the imposition of a uniform standard applied to all groups and peoples. On this basis it is claimed that, although the Crick Report's conception of citizenship fails to adequately take account of cultural difference, it need not do so, as there is room within liberal approaches to citizenship education for a recognition of difference. The paper explains how such a resolution can be effected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, to be a black public intellectual in Britain has, almost by definition, meant being located on the liberal-left spectrum, in terms of analyses of race and class. However, in the past decade a number of high-profile black British thinkers have explicitly positioned themselves at odds with black liberal and radical traditions of thought. This has been particularly apparent in their critiques of multiculturalism, youth and education. This paper uses recent documentary sources to analyse the discursive features of this emergent black social conservatism, examining its claims to authenticity, its claims to offer rethinking of multiculturalism and identity, and its objects of racialization. Drawing upon critical discourse analysis and critical theories of race and black intellectual production, it identifies internal tensions in this emergent discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate has grown about the legitimacy of Muslim faith schools within the British education system. At the same time, scepticism has developed towards multiculturalism as a normative approach for dealing with diversity. This article argues that it is worth retaining the normative impetus of multiculturalism by returning to its roots in political philosophy. In particular, we can draw on Will Kymlicka’s distinction between ‘internal restrictions’ and ‘external protections’ as a way to assess the legitimacy of minority claims. Having outlined this distinction, the paper applies it to the case of Muslim Schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The growing incidence of withdrawal of Muslim girls from physical education prompted this study into tensions between religious freedom and educational practices. It was located in a city in the West Midlands of England. Data on experiences, issues, concerns and solutions related to participation of Muslim girls in physical education were collected by a team of eight researchers including Islamic studies and physical education subject specialists, city advisors and teachers. Methods used were: eight in-depth case studies across primary, secondary and Muslim state schools including interviews with 19 head teachers and teachers (two were Muslim), focus-group interviews with 109 pupils and 32 parents. In addition, four focus-group interviews were held with 36 young people in community/supplementary schools for Muslim communities. All city schools (402) and 12 community providers received questionnaires, 50 were returned. Consultations were held with key national associations including the Muslim Council of Britain and the National Subject Association for Physical Education. Empirical analysis is reported elsewhere. During the experience of conducting the study four problem areas emerged that required attention to effectively address tensions between religious freedom and educational practices in physical education: bridging the gap between research and educational practice; the concept of embodied faith; the significance of context-physical education and religion in England; and finally widening researchers' frames of reference to include intersectionality and interdisciplinary approaches. The discussion exposes the complexity of pursuing social justice in a democratic society that embraces people of multiple ethnicities and religions. The paper concludes by exploring ways in which theoretical constructs increase understanding and can influence policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to articulate a new perspective on British multi-faith religious education that both complements and, in part, subsumes existing critiques. My argument, while controversial, is straightforward: it is that British religious education has misrepresented the nature of religion in efforts to commend itself as contributing to the social aims of education, as these are typically framed in liberal democratic societies. Contemporary multi-faith religious education is placed in context and its underlying theological and philosophical commitments identified and criticised. It is concluded that current representations of religion in British religious education are limited in their capacity to challenge racism and religious intolerance, chiefly because they are conceptually ill equipped to develop respect for difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the outcomes of a 6-month study in a multicultural inner-city primary school and involved twenty-four pupils representing seventeen nationalities. The object of the study was to explore how imagination and concentration might promote language awareness and cultural pluralism. Among other techniques, the children used meditation as a way of exploring themselves and others. The study suggested that the children were open to new ways of learning, imagination being for them a meaningful medium for making sense of their world. The results supported the idea that for these children meditation could be an instrument of self-knowledge and knowledge of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]