Culture,Discursive Practices and Literacy Work in Families: Why is Mathematics Important to Indian Immigrants in UK?

Abstract

Indian immigrants bring from their country of origin a habitus that, in part, places them in a specific way in their own family as well as in the society. Being ‘middle class Indian’ both ‘disposes’ and also ‘positions’ a parent differently in relation to ‘mathematics education’ and its perceived value for their offspring. This serves to motivate the parents to ensure that the children are ‘good at maths’ as it may further enhance the value of the parents as immigrants in a host country that might in other ways (e.g., linguistically and racially) tend to disenfranchise and marginalise them. The discursive embedding of the history of migration, struggle and sacrifice and the pre-migration cultural capital of Indian immigrants explain how specific trajectories of families and home-based literacy-numeracy practices emerge and how these practices lay down the cognitive and motivational structures that may help Indian children internalise high educational ambitions and the desirable behaviour to achieve these goals. The logic of these literacy practices could be a logic of developing social psychological tools to overcome ethnic, racial and economic disadvantages.

Keywords

Social capital cultural capital Habitus Family Doxa discursive practice literacy work

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bourdieu

Wacquant

(1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture (translated by Nice

Richard

). Beverly Hills: SAGE.

Bourdieu

(1979). The inheritors: French students and their relations to culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bourdieu

(1986). The forms of capital. In Richardson

(Ed.). Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood.

Bourdieu

(1990). The logic of practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu

(1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bourdieu

(1997). The forms of social capital. In Halsey

A.H.

Brown

Wells

A.S.

(Eds), Education, culture, economy, society (pp. 46–58). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bourdieu

(1999). Weight of the world: Social suffering in contemporary society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bourdieu

(2000). Pascalian meditations. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Connor

Tyers

Modood

Hillage

(2004). Why the difference? A closer look at higher education minority ethnic students and graduates. Research Report 532. London: Department of Education and Skills.

10.

Laughlo

(2000). Social capital trumping class and cultural capital? Engagement with school among immigrant youth. In Baron

Field

Schuller

(Eds.), Social capital: Critical perspectives. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

11.

Modood

(2003). Ethnic differentials in educational performance. In Mason

(Ed.), Explaining ethnic differences: Changing patterns of disadvantage in Britain. Bristol: The Policy Press.

12.

Modood

(2004). Capitals, ethnic identity and educational qualifications. In Bennet

Tony

Savage

Mike

(Eds), Cultural Trends, Special Issue on Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion, 13(2), no. 50.

13.

Modood

Berthoud

Lakey

Nazroo

Smith

Virdee

Beishon

(1997). Ethnic minorities in Britain: Diversity and disadvantage. In Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities. Westminster, UK: Policy Study Institute, University of Westminster.

14.

Panda

(2009). Cultures, discursive practices and mathematics learning: A study of Asian immigrants in Manchester. Research Report (supported by Commonwealth Programme). Manchester: University of Manchester.

15.

Savage

Warde

Devine

(2005). Capitals, assets, and resources: Some critical issues. The British Journal of Sociology, 56(1), 31–47.