Professor Saloshna Vandeyar brought together thirteen co-authors to present us with the most stimulating and original case studies of identity formation and negotiation in the contexts of migration and education.  Processes in South African, Dutch, American Mexican, Swedish, Brazilian and German schools are scrutinized while immigrant students from very diverse origins such as the Philippines, Turkey, Central and East Africa and Singapore are studied in the way they perceive themselves in the schools and countries they now find themselves in.  This excellent compilation will appeal to researchers in the fields of education, anthropology, sociology as well as ethnic and cultural studies. Philip Hermans, Professor of Anthropology, Catholic University of Leuven.

This book extends discussions from anthropology, hermeneutics and philosophy into the very real and immediate world of public education.  More than that, it speaks to one of the most challenging public policy issues of our times: how to come to terms with ethnic, religious and cultural differences without authoritarian demands for conformity and cohesion. For South Africa the book offers many lessons and points of debates. If nothing else, it insists that we confront the challenges of difference: these are not merely reverberations of apartheid – although they are coloured by it – that can be ignored. They are instead unavoidable by-products of global processes of human movement and cultural transformation. As we recognise these, the authors ask us to think carefully, not only about the institutional and pedagogical tools we employ, but about the fundamental objectives that inform our efforts. Professor Loren B. Landau, Director, Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.