ABSTRACT
Multiple dimensions of migrants’ agency were revealed across the volume. This included loss of agency, where young migrants were funnelled into educational levels that were below their capabilities, through decisions made by others, being unfamiliar with the new education system's credentialing processes. Constructivist agency as an opportunity to choose between alternatives highlighted the active role of the migrant young person in choosing to speak with parents in different languages in the home and a recurrent pattern of serendipity in system practices emerges offering choices for migrants and teachers, where for example some migrants may choose courses by accident. A major limitation of constructivist agency is that the criteria upon which a choice is made in selecting between alternatives is itself culturally conditioned. This critique resonant with critical theory's concern with false consciousness, internalised by those in weaker positions, to adopt the system-dominant logic, thereby raising concerns with forces of assimilation.
Building on a cross-cultural, critical spatial theory framework, a range of examples emerged across the volume of the need for concentric relational spaces of assumed connection to challenge diametric oppositional spaces of exclusion and closure. Different relational spaces are embedded in material, symbolic and social systems. Concentric spaces of assumed connection offer a wider circle of identification between self and others, for a global identity to underpin active citizenship in education. This contrasts with the diametric oppositional us/them spatial identity underpinning the violence of dehumanisation experienced by migrant children and their families in some country contexts. A diametric spatial splitting systemic focus on the difficulties many migrants experience in ‘navigating the system’ scrutinises how the system itself is fragmented.
