New Backgrounds: The Immigrant Child at Home and at School

• Main Author: Oakley, Robin, Ed
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press, Inc 1968
• Subjects: Acculturation; Community Characteristics; Cultural Influences; Educational Attitudes; Educational Background; Educational Needs; Educational Problems; Family Characteristics; Family Life; Great Britain; Immigrants; Migrant Children; Migrant Education; Psychological Needs; Social Attitudes; United Kingdom (Great Britain)

This book has been designed to meet the need of schoolteachers for a closer understanding of the family and educational background of immigrant children. The main part of the book consists of four essays on the diverse patterns of family life and the attitudes toward education which are characteristic of each of the four major groups of recent Commonwealth immigrants--West Indians, Cypriots, Indians, and Pakistanis. The essays include a brief outline of the wider background of each immigrant community, and at the end of each piece a bibliography gives suggestions for further reading. All the authors are social scientists of one kind or another, and all have first-hand knowledge of the immigrant community about which they write. Two more essays are included. The first describes some of the psychological difficulties which the immigrant child of another culture may experience in home and school life in Britain. It also indicates the says in which these difficulties may become manifest in the child's behavior. The concluding chapter of the book is written from the educational angle and looks back over all of the previous five: the aim here has been to draw out some of the more important implications of the presence of these "new backgrounds," both for the teacher of immigrant children and also for the school as a whole. (Editor/JM)