Ethnically Speaking _: the post-migration divide and educational perspectives in Sicilian family life stories

• Autores: Tina Caruso
• Localización: Paedagogica Historica: International journal of the history of education, ISSN 0030-9230, Vol. 37, Nº. 1, 2001 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Education and ethnicity), págs. 107-122
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The decades following the mass migration of Italians and their cultural traditions to Australia during the 1950s and 1960s witnessed an increase in research concerning second generation cultural minorities and the role they maintain as �bridges� between two divergent cultures. Ideas of cultural duality and conflict stand in opposition to notions of cultural synthesis, and at times, have served to blur the lived experiences of this group. To compound this problem, much of the research in this field has focused on the adolescent experience, therefore denying an insight into those �lived experiences� of the adult. The effect of this focus has been the negation of the historical specificity that applies to a generation that has reached adulthood as �second generation Italian ethnics� in Australia. Through a comparison of women's life stories, as told by female cousins in both Sicily and Australia, this paper aims to explore women's perceptions and experiences of their schooling. Their accounts reveal a sense of �connectedness� and a delicate balancing in their concepts of family, culture and educational experience. Equally important is an exploration of the intersection of ethnicity and education to enable a better understanding of schooling at an experiential level both among second generation Sicilian women in Australia and Sicilian women in Italy. Through such a comparison, the relationship between ethnicity, education and generation can be further explored