Ways to Maintain ELLs’ Cultural Diversity in Education - Taking Three New York Elementary Schools as Examples

English as a second language (ESL) education refers to teaching non-native English speakers English as a second language. The number of English language learners (ELLs) is increasing in the United States in recent decades because of globalization, including immigrants, international students, merchants, refugees, etc. One of ELLs’ main characters is their various cultural backgrounds. Teaching and maintaining a diverse class within a safe learning environment can benefit students both now and in the future. In this case, understanding ELLs’ diverse cultures and knowing how to maintain ELLs’ cultural diversity is a significant consideration in American ESL education nowadays. This study reviews the cultural diversity in American ESL education by analyzing three New York elementary schools. The author summarizes some critical ways to maintain ELLs’ cultural diversity from four aspects: (1) the background of American ESL education and cultural diversity; (2) cultural diversity in school; (3) cultural diversity in family; (4) cultural diversity in communities. Finally, the study indicates the significance of connections among schools, families, and communities and identifies some difficulties when maintaining cultural diversity in education.

A Lesson in Class: the working-class experience of Anthropology

This paper focusses on socio-economic class structures, as they relate to the study and practice of anthropology. More specifically, it discusses the ways that working-class or financially precarious anthropologists (students, researchers and teachers) negotiate tensions found within the British university. It is concerned with the current climate of ‘diversity’ in education, and the role that socio-economic inequity plays in these discussions. This paper seeks to make room for class; it asks what we can learn from giving voice to the insidious silence that plagues it, in a context of neoliberal identity politics (Wrenn, 2014), ensuing ethnicist diversity practices (Brah, 1991), and what I would call ‘cursory diversity’ - what Sara Ahmed refers to as a ‘hopeful performative’ (2010, p.200). It is argued that anthropology as a discipline must start attending to the ways that financial precarity and social class impact the subjects that study, not just the subjects of study, by reflecting on the venacularity of the academy and the discipline itself. It achieves this through exploring the vernacularity of the working-class anthropologists’ experiences in relation to the prism of ‘diversity’; how class refracts to produce multiple forms of experience, of assimilation, and of exclusion - as well as resistance to such enclosure.

Editorial

This editorial gives an overview of our new issue, which deals with community, connections and diversity in education.

On the Road to Inclusive Education: Supporting Diversity in Education by State-Financed, Large-Scale OER Platforms—The Example of User-Oriented Development of NDLA in Norway

Inclusive education and the associated consideration of the diverse needs of students from different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds and different talents and disabilities are a worldwide challenge. This article shows how by addressing different user groups, state-funded platforms for open educational resources (OER) can contribute to the implementation of inclusive education. This is done using the example of the Norwegian platform NDLA, which has been providing open educational resources for upper secondary education in Norway since 2006. This paper is based on 13 expert interviews conducted with NDLA staff, cooperation partners, and members of the opposing schoolbook publishers union in 2017. The presented results focus on the diversity of learners, teachers, and platform staff and how this diversity is addressed. The presented results focus on the diversity of learners, teachers, and platform staff and how this diversity is addressed to ensure the best possible outcomes in learning and teaching. Finally, country-specific aspects that can be addressed by an OER platform are highlighted. In summary, the transferability of the Norwegian experience to other countries is discussed.

Advancing Economic and Social Rights, Including Education in the Context of European Minorities—2019

This article reviews international developments which took place in 2019 with a focus on economic and social rights of members of European minorities, including the right to education. The developments are reviewed based on the practice of the UN, CoE, as well as EU organizations and their bodies whose activities relate to human rights issues. This review also covers the documents of the said bodies adopted in 2018 yet having remained non- promulgated until 2019. In a nutshell, probably the most significant developments— in terms not only of the greater number of cases resolved but also of new rules proclaimed— occurred within the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). In particular, the ECtHR used the notion of ‘institutional racism’ in connection with police violence against Roma individuals in the case Lingurar v. Romania. The Court also articulated an extremely limited ratione materiae right to obtaining psychiatric treatment in a minority language in Rooman v. Belgium. Advancements include developments at unesco which adopted the first- ever international treaty on higher education and continued efforts in approximating diversity in education by elaborating on multi- language education.

BUILDing Equity in STEM: A Collaborative Undergraduate Research Program to Increase Achievement of Underserved Community College Students

The program Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity: Promoting Opportunities for Diversity in Education and Research partners baccalaureate-granting California State University, Northridge with community college faculty and students to facilitate undergraduate research and development at community colleges. The authors document student, faculty, and institutional outcomes and share best practices in forming community college–university partnerships. Future directions also are offered.