ABSTRACT
Change is in fashion. We cope with change and manage change and sometimes are change agents in changing workplaces as part of global change. The rationale for many literacy and other educational policies is to equip students to meet the changing literacy demands of the workforce and broader society. Change is often depicted in economic terms: the needs of globalization and international trade. Ethnic minority students and their families tend to be seen as the opposite: traditional in terms of gender roles, religious beliefs and social attitudes. Cultural affiliations are interpreted as evidence of outdated links with the countries of origin. Change is characterized as a threat or problem in which parents are casualties of workforce change. Change is a force external to the families and communities, a force which schools need to mediate in order to provide ethnic minority students with access to the benefits of education. Such a position ignores the dramatic social and cultural changes that ethnic minority groups have undergone and are undergoing: the ‘tangled cultural experiences’ and complex sets of affiliations that typify migrant families in modern society (Clifford 1997; Inda and Rosaldo 2002).
