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Using Kunming, the capital of China's southwest Yunnan Province, as an example, this mixed-methods research examines three interacting dimensions of social change in contemporary China: migration, ethnicity, and education. In particular, it sheds light on the issue of educational achievement of migrant children, especially children of ethnic minority background. The quantitative portion of the study is based on data gathered from over 700 sample students, teachers, and principals who participated in the “2008 Kunming Migrant Children's Survey.” A two-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is employed to identify student- and school-level factors and to estimate the impacts of these factors on migrant children's academic achievement. The qualitative portion of the study is based primarily on the data collected through in-depth individual interviews and focus-group discussions with 97 migrant students, teachers, and school principals from 10 government and nongovernment migrant children's schools in Kunming between 2008 and 2009. The qualitative and quantitative results highlight four interrelated groups of educational barriers experienced by migrant students in pursuing compulsory education: institutional, socioeconomic, cultural, and psychological barriers. In particular, cultural and psychological barriers, including difficulty in school adaptation, low self-esteem, lack of family support, and discrimination against ethnic minorities due to their different religious beliefs and ethnic traditions, are found to have exerted particularly significant negative influences on academic achievements of ethnic minority students.

This article explores the neglected issue of the overrepresentation in the child protection system of children from ethnic, cultural, religious, racial, and linguistic minorities. It focuses on the accommodation of children’s diverse backgrounds within the s 31(2) threshold and s1 “best interests” stages of intervention under the Children Act 1989. First, it introduces the ethnic child protection penalty as a new tool for capturing the complex nature of overrepresentation of these children. Second, it proposes a framework for understanding the judicial approach in higher court decisions on the current extent and nature of accommodation. Third, it employs the penalty concept to help explain why case law analysis reveals difficulties with the current factor-based approach, whereas empirical research suggests generally satisfactory accommodation in practice. It concludes by proposing a contextualized framework for decision-making in relation to child protection.

The practice of transracial adoption often triggers strong emotions, effecting views on its ethical validity, both from individuals who are pro transracial adoption and those who strongly resist transracial adoption. This chapter will consider transracial adoption of children of African-Caribbean origin and its psychological impact along a continuum of psychological wellbeing, psychological adjustment and aspects of mental health. The chapter will draw on literature from the USA and, where available, from the UK.

One of the earliest publications on transracial adoption by Grow and Shapiro (1974) explored the psychological adjustment of African-American children placed within white American families. This study along with later studies (Silverman & Feigelman, 1981) concluded that the children were adjusting well in placement. Further early research appeared to suggest that transracial placements have little negative impact on issues of self-esteem, racial or self-identity or intellectual development (Curtis, 1996; Hayes, 1993; Hollingsworth, 1997, 1998; McRoy, 1994; Simon, Altstein & Melli, 1994; Vrogeh, 1997).

The undermining impact on mental health for transracial adoptees appears to be an argument related to the disconnect between the child’s developing racial identity and lack of preparation for racism and the cultural and ethnic group social devaluation likely to be experienced in a white racist society. The impact of loss of ethnic identity is said to be a key issue in the research on transracial adoption. Ethnic identity is the connection or recognition that one is a member of a specific ethnic or racial group and coming to adopt those associated characteristics into the group associated cultural and historical connections into oneself identity (Rotheram & Phinney, 1987). The establishment of a secure and accurate racial identity is said to be a protective factor in psychological adjustment. This chapter will explore issues and narratives related to this argument.

This chapter aims to give an overview of key mental health policy and service provision, highlighting the need for specific attention to Black and minority ethnic children and young people. The focus is on mental health provision in the UK provided through the statutory sector and the voluntary and community sector, the issues raised are likely to have resonance across wider geographic locations. The themes examined include: the relevance of terminology regarding race and ethnicity and related impact on the planning and provision of services; the extent to which policy and commissioning of services give due focus and attention to the mental health of Black and minority ethnic children and young people; views young people themselves have contributed on the issue; and a case study illustrating work being undertaken to redress some of the imbalances encountered by young people in accessing appropriate support. The chapter argues that the supply chain to young people receiving support that is relevant and appropriate to their needs is a long and complex one. It is fundamental to take a holistic approach and consider how the components of this chain impact specifically on the mental health of children and young people from Black and minority ethnic communities.

Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) – This term refers to all services that work with children and young people to address their behavioural and emotional wellbeing needs. The services may be provided by the National Health Service (NHS), local authority, school, private sector or charitable organisation and span early intervention support through to specialist treatment.

Care Quality Commission – The independent regulator of health and social care services in England.

Commissioning – The process by which health services are procured and should be based on an up-to-date assessment and understanding of needs of the target population.

Co-production – A process for planning and delivery of health and social care services that involves partnership working and power sharing between those responsible for the planning and provision of services, service users, their family members, carers and other citizens.

National Service Framework – Ten year programmes that, until the health and social care reforms started in 2010, defined standards of care in the NHS including measurable goals within set timeframes.

Population Needs Assessments – The collection and study of relevant data to understand and estimate current and future needs of a population in order to inform the planning of services that meet identified needs.

Voluntary and Community Sector – Also referred to as the Third Sector and encompassing a diverse range of organisations, services and groups that are seen as distinct from the public (also referred to as statutory) and private sectors.

Youth Information, Advice and Counselling Services (YIACS) – Most YIACS have charitable status and provide services to young people on a range of issues, a key feature associated with YIACS is the provision of holistic, young person centred support provided under one roof.

There has been a great deal of quantitative, survey research produced in the last thirty years which states that there is underachievement amongst ethnic minority children in English schools. This quantitative research reveals an increasingly complex picture of ethnic minority achievement and underachievement. Early work tended to simply demonstrate that ethnic minority children were underachieving in school (Little, 1972; Mabey, 1981; Mabey, 1986), this then shifted (as research became more sophisticated, gender and class were introduced as variables and pupils ceased to be simply categorised as black or white) to the identified achievement of some groups and the underachievement of others (e.g. Brent, 1994; Craft & Craft, 1983; DfES, 2003a, b; Drew & Gray, 1990; ILEA, 1990; Kysel, 1988; Sammons, 1995).

We discuss the development of achievement motivation from the perspective of Eccles and colleagues’ expectancy-value theory (EVT), focusing on the importance of children developing positive expectancies for success and valuing of achievement to help them cope with change and uncertainty. Although research has shown that, overall, children’s expectancies and values decline, recent studies show many different trajectories in the overall pattern. Children’s expectancies and values predict their school performance and choices of which activities to pursue in and out of school, with these relations getting stronger as children get older. When children’s expectancies and values stay more positive, they can better cope with change and uncertainty, such as the increasing difficulty of many school subjects, or broader changes such as immigrating to a new country. Parents can buffer children’s experiences of change and uncertainty by encouraging them to engage in different activities and by providing them opportunities to do so. Parents’ positive beliefs about their children’s abilities and discussing with them the importance of school can moderate the observed decline in children’s ability beliefs and values. For immigrant and minority children, parents’ emphasis on the importance of school and encouragement of the development of a positive sense of their racial/ethnic identity are critical buffers. Positive teacher–child relations also are a strong buffer, although research indicates that immigrant and minority children often have less positive relations with their teachers. We close with a discussion on recent EVT-based intervention research that shows how children’s beliefs and values for different school subjects can be fostered.

In this chapter, Markéta Levínská, Dana Bittnerová and David Doubek show the situation of the Roma Minority in the Czech Republic. According to qualified estimates by regional coordinators for Roma minority affairs, a total of 245,800 Roma lived in Czechia in 2016, which represents 2.3% of the overall population in the Czech Republic. The Roma in the Czech Republic cannot be considered a homogeneous group, neither economically, nor regarding their social status. The authors describe the legal, social and cultural status of the Roma minority then analyse their attainment on different levels of the education system. After listing the most important policies and support programmes in the area of Roma education, they show current research results relating to the state of Roma education.

Heteronormativity and cisnormativity are dominant perspectives ensuring that social structures, including educational systems, operate with a bias for heterosexual, cisgender people. Gender and sexual minority (GSM) children worldwide attend schools where they are excluded and harassed because of their gender identity and/or sexuality. While many education professionals would not tolerate such discrimination perpetrated on the basis of minority ethnicity, race, or religion, relatively little attention is given to the marginalization of GSM students. The term ‘context paralysis’, coined here, describes a reluctance to engage with issues when the cultural context may make doing so difficult. Gender and sexuality are indeed sensitive and provocative topics, deeply connected to cultural norms and customs. However, to dismiss discrimination against GSM people in the name of local traditions is to be complicit in a tradition of bigotry. This chapter calls upon comparative and international education (CIE) scholars to employ their aptly nuanced training and expertise to elevate the visibility of issues barring GSM students from equal participation in school, to disseminate findings about effective interventions and policies that protect and support GSM students, and to interpret and adapt this research for application across cultural and geographic settings. Indeed, it is those in the field of CIE who may be best suited to carry out the sensitive implementation of educational research across borders and are, thus, particularly well-positioned to overcome context paralysis on behalf of GSM children worldwide.

This chapter examines social variations in parent dissatisfaction with children’s medical care and tests whether greater dissatisfaction is associated with less preventive care and unmet medical need.

The 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) is a nationally representative cross-sectional sample of parents of U.S. children age 0–17 years (N=78,523). We use a combination of ordinary least squares (OLS) and binary logistic regression to analyze parent dissatisfaction, preventive care, and unmet medical need.

Our results indicate that parents’ dissatisfaction scores are significantly higher for racial/ethnic minorities, non-English speakers, lower socioeconomic status (SES) respondents, and the uninsured. Furthermore, parent dissatisfaction has a significant and robust association with lack of preventive care and reports of unmet medical need.

Due to the cross-sectional research design, we were unable to determine whether dissatisfaction caused parents to delay children’s medical care, thus resulting in a lack of annual preventive care and greater unmet needs.

Although there is extensive research on adult perceptions of their own medical care, few sociological studies have examined parents’ perceptions about their children’s care. Yet, there is substantial evidence that parents transmit health-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to their children. As with adult patients, parent satisfaction with their child’s medical care is stratified by social characteristics; however, we also find a strong association between dissatisfaction and use of other important health services. It may be the case that when parents feel that they did not receive satisfactory care, they are more likely to delay, or to forgo, preventive and other health services.