Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Latins, and Armenians have been the primary historical communities that make up the multicultural landscape of Cyprus. However, the continuing conflict between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots has geographically, socially and psychologically segregated these communities, while the influx of economic migrants, especially after Cyprus’s accession to the EU in 2004, has, in turn, contributed to Cyprus’s challenges, arising from multiculturalism, in an altogether different perspective. How has education, over time, addressed and re-examined all these issues introduced by Cyprus’ complex evolving multiculturalism and ethnic diversity? How can education better attend to current problems of coexistence in Cyprus, and what kind of role can it play in a federal re-united country? This collection of essays introduces an innovative and critical examination of these questions in order to provide relevant answers. More specifically, it examines how formal, non-formal and informal education contributed to the creation and perpetuation of the Cyprus conflict, as well as to prejudices, inter-ethnic stereotypes, and misperceptions. The book also discusses how education could contribute to conflict transformation, empathy and peaceful coexistence amongst the different Cypriot communities, and how this has been possible in other multi-ethnic societies. The volume will be of interest to students, practitioners, and researchers interested in peace education, multiculturalism and conflict transformation.

Korn and Bursztyn and their contributors examine the cultural transitions that children make as they move between the cultures of home and school. To better understand these transitions, they explore how educators understand their students' shifting experiences and examine how educators also negotiate transitions as they too move from home to school each day. The narratives or case studies reflect this shifting gaze: from child, to teacher, to parents, and take up the various relational configurations that these can form, amongst and between each other. They turn a critical eye toward instances of classroom practice and school life, connecting personal knowledge with school change. In some cases, the authors draw directly on autobiographical material, linking these to a reflective approach to teaching. Avoiding the celebratory tone that often attends discussions of multiculturalism, the authors address how diverstiy engages us in continual renegotiation of the personal and social. The perspectives of educators and of teacher candidates are presented, and the construction of cultural identity and its impact on schools, explored. In illuminating the complicated nature of cultural transitions and the obligation of schools to create places in which children and families of diverse backgrounds can thrive, they highlight how multiculturalism can play a transformative role in the lives of children and schools. A must reading for educators and graduate students in education, school psychology, guidance and counseling.

This conceptually rich and empirically grounded book draws upon expertise from a panel of emerging and established international scholars to explore the institutionalization and effect of multicultural education on a global scale. Previous studies of multicultural education have largely ignored the significance of understanding the combination of multiple sociopolitical influences on multicultural education in both policy and practice. Filling this void, this book sheds light on the two main reasons for taking a “glocal” perspective on multicultural education. First, children should be provided with meaningful learning opportunities to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to live in a culturally and ethno-linguistically diverse society, where the distinction between the local and the global is becoming blurred. Second, understanding both the “global grammar” and the “local semantics” of multicultural education helps researchers and policy-makers grasp the whole picture of multicultural education as an evolving social construct and phenomenon. This new book provokes a new round of discussion and research to expand and enrich our inquiry into cultural diversity and educational inclusion.

The issues which are discussed in the 29 chapters of this volume address core matters with respect to modern diverse societies. The most important relate to the following: the societal needs of migrant populations and the educational needs of their children; the exclusivist policies which usually impact upon migrant groups; the need to enrich school texts and curricula with new intercultural and citizenship dimensions; the importance of integrating the notion of Paideia within the school ethos and educational programmes. This volume has a dual aim. The first aim is to envisage the field of Multicultural and Intercultural Education from different disciplines at the international level, describing the new educational and social conditions that have been created by recent migration and identifying new trends in the field. The second aim is to highlight the importance of Multicultural and Intercultural Education in the development of a new citizen, who moves around the world, interacting with different people, and has a dynamic and flexible identity with polymorphic personal, social and cultural characteristics – a new intercultural persona. To sum up, this volume highlights that authors coming from different continents share some common ideas and tend to believe in the notion of Intercultural/Multicultural Education as a useful new dimension within the dynamics of many disciplines, as a new inter-disciplinary approach that is embedded within them and which characterizes modern societies.

Drawing on research from Canada, USA and Western Europe, this book extends the idea of multicultural education to put it within a global context. The core of the book focuses on human rights education as a central motivator in any commitment of multicultural education.

Multicultural education is a set of strategies and materials in education, developed to assist teachers in promoting democracy while responding to the many issues created by the rapidly changing demographics of their students. Multicultural education means to ensure the highest levels of academic achievement for all students: it helps students develop a positive self-concept by providing knowledge about the histories, cultures, and contributions of diversity groups. Multicultural Education: From Theory to Practice – which includes the contributions of academics and researchers from two continents and 14 culturally-challenged countries – aims to provide a platform for multicultural education researchers to present new research and developments in the area. The contributors to the book approach the foundations of multicultural education, the political context of multicultural education, classroom practices in multicultural education, and language education in a multicultural context. This volume will appeal to a wide range of academic readership, including educators, researchers, social students, teacher trainers, and teachers of all subjects and of all levels, who wish to develop personally and professionally. It will also be useful to all those who interact, one way or another, with both students and teachers in a multicultural context.