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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.

This review study focuses on the framework for pre-primary education and language acquisition for non-Chinese-speaking students (NCS students) from ethnic minority families (EM families) in Hong Kong.

This paper adopts a multidisciplinary perspective that involves both assessing the broader governing framework and researching their specific needs. In its overview of the significant changes made in recent years and an exploration of the gaps in the framework, with reference to other jurisdictions, along with input from developmental psychology as it relates to the issues faced by NCS students.

This study contributes to the literature on how to shape further policies and reforms to optimize learning of NCS children in Hong Kong from a young age. This helps NCS students and families achieve their right to education and equal opportunities and schools to cater the needs of these students and families, which is essential to providing an enriched learning environment for our children regardless of their ethnicity.

This study uses multidisciplinary approach to study pre-primary education and Chinese language acquisition of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong.

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.

This article outlines the housing situation facing families with disabled children, and particularly draws attention to the additional disadvantage experienced by families with disabled children from black and minority ethnic groups. It is a summary of a workshop presented by the author to the Race Equality Foundation conference in November 2007 on the theme of extending choice and participation for black and minority ethnic communities.

This chapter examines discourses and social practices at individual, community, and institutional levels related to non-majority Vietnamese ethnic girls’ access to and participation in secondary school. This critical analysis utilizes Sen's framework of capabilities to illustrate differences in discourse and social practice that exist around poverty, and the ways in which gendered relations and ethnic traditions are intertwined with the discourse and practices of poverty to affect girls’ choices and well-being in and through secondary education. We particularly draw on girls’ and their parents’ constructions of these issues as they negotiate and are affected by them. We argue that strategies must move beyond the discourse that ethnic traditions and gendered relations are barriers to girls’ education to consider the inequalities and lack of capabilities that perpetuate poverty and unequal gendered relations for non-majority ethnic groups in societies.

Outlines the experiences of the author in studying library services in multiethnic societies in several countries in Western Europe. This led to a comprehensive survey, carried out in 2001, into how the ethnic minorities in Denmark use public libraries. The historical context to immigration to Denmark and changing government policies are described, together with the development of public library services. The work of the Danish Central Library of Immigrant Literature is reviewed. The methodology and main findings are provided, together with recommendations. Two main lessons emerged: that public libraries have something both unique and essential to offer as a part of a national policy towards immigration and ethnic minorities; and that success lies in combining different service elements and ensuring that libraries are perceived and used as friendly meeting places.

Purpose – Latino and African-American children and families in Washington, DC, face difficult circumstances, including high poverty, crime, and teenage pregnancy rates coupled with lower educational attainment. This chapter describes empirically supported approaches to positive development within and between the Latino and African-American communities, highlighting those utilized by CentroNía, a community-based, multicultural learning community in Washington, DC.

Approach – Community psychology promotes strength-focused, evidence-based practices shown to enrich child, family, neighborhood, and societal development among disenfranchised groups. This community psychology framework is used to examine CentroNía's work in support of the Latino and African-American communities of Washington, DC.

Findings – CentroNía espouses many of the tenets of community psychology. Its systematic efforts include the promotion of cultural unity and development, preventive interventions in early childhood and during the after-school hours, and context-enhancing practices at the family, school, and city levels.

Social implications – As the neighborhood of Columbia Heights becomes gentrified and the cost of living increases, Latino and African-American families find it increasingly difficult to remain in the community they have established together over the past 25 years. The consequences for low-income children, youth, and families, along with the evolution of CentroNía in this rapidly changing context, are discussed.

A successful multi‐level intervention in a high crime low income, innercity Brussels neighbourhood, with a large minority ethnic community, has important implications for how educational and community safety initiatives might be brought together to achieve the goals set out in Every Child Matters, Youth Matters and Narrowing the Justice Gap.