Humanities Baroque free essay sample

Indication of the Baroque Period Roughly around the backtalk to backtalk, the Baroque time frame sprung up bringing increased nature, and increasingly close to home and enthusiastic articulation to workmanship. It started in Italy and spread out like a plaque all through Europe, the Americas. What's more, Spain. Everything from workmanship to writing and even music was progressively showy and was given more feelings. Catholicism was for the most part being reflected off of the Baroque expressions. Emotional strict canvases were being made Literature was being written In a manner that It will be memorable.The King James disintegration of the Bible impactsly affected expressions of the human experience. It was done In 161 1 and was viewed as the most Important change In English writing and printing (Risen). It was set to change the whole English language and keep the enthusiastic impact. The new interpretation of Scripture protected the otherworldly intensity of the Old Testament Hebrew and the account life of the New Testament Greek (Hero 62). We will compose a custom paper test on Humanities Baroque or on the other hand any comparative theme explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page The King James Version was a major piece of the Baroque time frame on the grounds that was a bit of writing that had increased enthusiastic words and could really be seen erectly by the reader.In Baroque work of art, watchers can imagine the passionate effect the canvas has. Everything is in real life and the artistic creation resembles shot in whats going on. In Aggravations The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, everything is painted right in the center of the torturous killing. Holy person Peter isn't up yet however sincerely busy arriving. The work of art is actuated and has complex developments. Gravity has an extremely ground-breaking pull In this image too. Watchers can see the feeling In Saint Pewters face that he Is terrified yet brave.Aggravating made a point to recount to a story In this artwork with feeling since you see a poor, honest, and destitute looking man being killed. Everything from the folks grimy feet and base who raising up Saint Peter is essentially standing out to the watchers face. The three men don't appear there face as they execute Saint Peter and it adds puzzle with regards to who might do such a demonstration. Everything from the nails In Saint Pewters hands to the earth on their feet is genuine and illustrative. Light Is stressed In this painting too due to the dark background.The Baroque period and Its fine art gave out genuine feeling while the activity is going on. All the pressure in one artistic creation is tossed into the watchers faces (Hero). Music in the Baroque time frame encircle itself with beat, song, terraced elements, surface, and basses. Arrangers would communicate feelings and love in their music and split away from the Medieval occasions by utilizing vocal and Instrumental music. A popular writer In the Baroque time frame was Johann Sebastian Bach. He used to for the most part church music yet then built up a progressively melodic potential for the concerto form.The best made tune in his profession was known as The Art of Fugue. A fugue is a polyphonic structure where a solitary melodic subject is repeated in successive expressions (Firer). Florid music acquired feelings and even audience members who dont even comprehend the brightness structure of Bach, can grow an affection for his music Just tuning in to It. Music. It always changed writing and the English language for individuals to comprehend it better and can be moved by the words in text rather than Just understanding it. Works of art were profoundly made with such feeling and let watchers see the fine art in real life.

Difference Between Ragtime and Blues free essay sample

Jazz and blues are the establishments of Jazz. Both were at first exceptionally mainstream among African Americans as Jazz originated from an African foundation. The blues contain the melodic structure of Jazz with the 12 bar design, while jazz supplies the one of a kind off-timing and spontaneous creations. The early performers of blues and jazz would inevitably give the progress important to move Into jazz. Blues contained the four-note structure, which Is additionally the structure square of Jazz music. Further the central theme of the arrangement Is run of the mill of the blues. This four note figure is by all accounts especially prized by arrangers Inspired by Jazz (peg. 54, Jazz Its Evolution and Essence). Jazz and blues were both pay In that the two of them originated from African American foundations. As per Jazz Its Evolution and Essence, jazz Is the main sort where the Influence of Negro American music can be recognized (peg. 255, Jazz Its Evolution and Essence). It was viewed as an incredible commitment by African Americans. the main genuine commitments of the Negro-American virtuoso in the space (peg.236, Jazz its Evolution and Essence). They are comparative yet unique as jazz isn't identified with blues. The topic of blues is regularly communicated in jazz. Jazz takes from blues its violin topic in which the significant harmonies are played in an exhaustive round of questioning. Melodically it contains no obtaining from the Blues aside from a bashful and no uncertainty automatic during the composition of the violin subject, where is some significant minor messing with an exhaustive round of questioning (peg. 256, Jazz its Evolution and Essence). A few blues notes can be found in jazz, however these notes are not expressive and played with different sounds that hauls the music away from the quintessence of blues. Some obscure blue notes are spread around in the foremost melodic plan of Piano Rag Music, yet they are encircled by a polytonal backup that denies them of all similarity to the Negro music. (peg. 256, Jazz its Evolution and Essence). A major supporter of Jazz was Louis Armstrong. One of his styles was appeared in Potato Head Blues and Skip the Gutter appears in his stop melodies. The beat of these blues melodies and Jazz were comparative. It indicated the metrical progression which is normal for the advanced style which was not in opposition to the soul of the most customary Jazz (Peg.20, Jazz its Evolution and Essence). Another artist Mike, who was Ernest Foremans saint, was known for replicating precisely the expressions of blues that he had taken in by heart from the accounts of Odds or Arapaho. Jazz specialists utilized a procedure called foreboding when broadening scope of the Blues language. The Blues were basically conveyed from Its vocal to the instrumental style of Jazz: These blue notes facilitated from the vocal to the Instrumental style, conveying with them the passionate potential that the blues artists had given them. (Peg. 226, Jazz Its Evolution and Essence).Ragtime and Blues were comparable in that both originated from African-American was the principal dark music ever to accomplish across the board fame and business dispersion (peg.9, Jazz: A History). Jazz was for the most part dependent on the piano, which was the chief instrument of jazz (peg. 19, Jazz: A History). Jazz originated from the South. The instruments used to play jazz, banjo, fiddle, fife, were instruments that were viewed as models brought to this nation useful diatonic agreement focusing on tonic, prevailing, development, and applied dominants in a significant tonality (peg. 2, Jazz: A History). Its special timing happened on the second and fourth eighth notes with complemented tune notes. Special timing, an interference of the customary progression of mood, was the central attribute of jazz songs. Jazz, when played on the piano, had a step style, in which the musicians left hand was called to walk all over (peg. 23, Jazz: A History). Jam Role Morton and James P. Johnson were notable for stride playing and are Mewed as transitional figures from jazz to Jazz (peg. 4, Jazz: A History). Tom Turnip, an artist who created magnificent music, made clothes that were in the ABA structure, in contrast to the blues, which were as a rule in the ABA structure. Scott Joplin, another jazz artist, made a greater commitment. His most acclaimed work, The Maple Leaf Rag, sold a huge number of duplicates. Joplin was not keen on aimless ad libs. He needed to make old style jazz practically identical to Classic European music that would be utilized in the bigger, conventional structures, for example, dramas and ensembles (peg. 9, Jazz: A History). The blues are viewed as the focal point of the Jazz convention and goes back to the soonest long stretches of Jazz. The 12-bar blues are still at the core of present day Jazz. The Blues are a particular type of Jazz: When a performer says lets play the blues, he implies something very explicit (peg. 99, Jazz: A History). The cry or holler was the most significant trait of the blues, which is noticeable in Jazz itself. This style starts from African inborn music.In African clans, the artists would cry, and similarly, the group would holler back, setting up an entertainer/crowd relationship. Entertainers in Jazz set up this comparative relationship with the crowd by playing to the delight and reactions of the crowd. Another intriguing contrast is that the blues has a strict foundation, in contrast to jazz. The energetic commendation and love in Black temples during those occasions were powerful in the manner artists proceeded the same number of Caucasians during those occasions originated from Black Christian people group. Other nonchurch going performers would impact the blues comes a ton from the congregation, as well. Duke Elongations best arrangements of Jazz were generally changes of the blues. Charlie Parker, who was the most persuasive of current Jazzmen, was known for recording a bigger number of variants of the blues than some other structure (peg. 108, The Story of Jazz). A huge prototype legend in the Blues is Charles Buddy Bolder, who never lost a cutting contest(contest in the presentation of melodic expertise). Mate Bolder grew up during the metal band period and aced the resplendent. Pal Bolder was in the yelling gathering at chapel in the congregation, which may clarify his advancement in the Blues: As a kid, he was a piece of a yelling assemblage in chapel (Peg. 67, The Story of Jazz). Amigo Bolder affected numerous performers with his creative style of playing and spontaneous creations. He was beneficiary to all the melodic impacts that made due in and around New Orleans (Peg. 67, The Story of Jazz). Jazz and Jazz were comparable yet had unmistakable attributes that made them isolated. Be that as it may, both were the structure squares of Jazz music and added to the cadence, style, and culture of Jazz.

My Diet Analysis and Health Progress Essay

My Diet Analysis and Health Progress Essay We all know that eating right can help you maintain a healthy weight and avoid certain health problems, but your diet can also have a profound effect on your mood and sense of wellbeing. Eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, cooking meals at home, and reducing your intake of sugar and refined carbohydrates, on the other hand, may help to improve mood. Eating a healthy diet doesn’t have to be overly complicated. You just need to approach it in a different way trying to analyze what you are eating and how to control the intake of food and meals. Such diet analysis is a way to track the entire food one eats for a period of time and analyzes the foods eaten to determine the overall nutritional value of one’s dietary intake. It also helps to determine one’s diet “weak spots”, potential food allergies or diseasemanagement issues. To complete my nutritional analysis, I needed to fill in a 7 day food diary and created a plan for 3 weeks ahead. This was a learning experience on it’s own and helped me to think more about the food I was eating. I was pleased to learn that I met my nutritional requirements for energy, fluid, fibre and the majority of vitamins and minerals. This didn’t surprise me too much. As a person who cares about food I eat, I see food positively! Food to me is a wonderful and often unique combination of vitamins, minerals, carbs, protein, fat and fibre that my body needs to function. So, when I was analyzing my own diet, I created a key-focus area to control and revise and listed the tools to use to measure the food intake, calories counters and activity and exercise to keep on track of. I admit, I had to revise my diet analysis plus the exercises I did during this time as it is always good practice to listen to what your system tells you, isn’t it? Therefore, this helped me to decide what I am interested in: Food Groups (am I getting all of them?) Macronutrient Composition (what is the ratio and composition of carbs, proteins and fat?) Activity level (am I doing enough of exercises and in general Am I active enough?) Micronutrients of Concern: (am I getting enough?) More free time? Better grade? Click on this button nowOrder Now Next step was choosing the tool to analyse my diet or rather healthy eating plan. Trying to determine your intake of all nutrients of interest sounded pretty daunting. I read on the blogs for Dieticians that: “Using an online tool that you can use to input the nutrients of your food easily is really going to enable you to do quicker diet analysis.” And to my surprise it worked! I went through a lot of the materials in there and decided to stay with these two: FitDay and SuperTracker. Honestly, I liked FitDay better, because you could manually create foods, inputting each nutrient (great if you can’t find it in the database but have a nutrition label). SuperTracker, on the other hand, was not that flexible. I thought that it is limiting in the foods in its database, which for me was really tricky to overcome. I eat a lot of foods from in whole food form, but SuperTracker had a food database focused on more commercial food products. So in the end, I stayed with FitDay. During the process of my diet analysis, I realized that in some places I was consuming more than I should be and in some I was consuming less than I should be. I created three profiles for the diet analysis, and Iused each for one week each to analyze my diet and physical activities. I was able to input the foods I ate daily and also the physical activities I was involved in. During the course of the first week, I got tired easily. It was so hard on me because as I figured later I was not eating enough. I realized I took in less food containing carbohydrates and fats. During the second week, I lost the weight and felt stronger in general. The obstacle here was to discipline myself and follow the diet plan I created in the beginning of the week. I started to give myself a break: eating more of the “non-healthy food”, treated myself with alcohol. That was the reason why my weight didn’t want to get any lower: I was only able to maintain my weight. I took notes form what I did wrong and adjusted my eating plan for week 3. The last week of dieting went more or less easy for me. I have got myself under control, got used to the regime I established. Moreover, I got even more motivated when I saw the results of my diet: to my surprise, I didn’t actually achieve my goal of losing 2 pounds in a week, I lost 4 pounds! The hardest part in the end was to decide whether I should follow the plan or to give up on it. I decided to stop for awhile. I waited two week before I continued following the same diet plan I started with. And now I can say that I lost weight, I feel good and I am not even thinking of resigning from the diet plan I created. So after three weeks of dieting here are some numbers or the results of me being a healthy-eater: Energy â€" My intake was 2439 calories and my expenditure was 1961 calories leaving a negative energy balance of 478 calories. Protein â€" My goal was 254 to 753 with my actual intake being 212 which was below my goal. Vitamins and Minerals â€" My diet is lacking in those two. After three weeks my calcium was 41% and my iron was only 54% where the vitamin A was around 35% and vitamin C was 91%. This is based on an intake of 1961 calories per day. All in all I realized that healthy eating is not about strict dietary limitations, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love. Rather, it’s about feeling great, having more energy, improving your health, and stabilizing your mood. I am a firm believer that your diet is the biggest component of your health and I wish to make continue to make it for the rest of my life.

The Type Of Speech An Informative Speech - 1075 Words

The type of speech: An informative speech. The topic: An informative speech on the importance of diverse children’s literature and the relation of diverse children’s literature and youth literacy. My company: I am an employee at a children’s literature publishing company that is looking to branch out into the international/global market. Speech title: The Importance of Diverse Children s Literature THESIS STATEMENT Fostering a love of reading at a young age is important. Childhood literacy is important to overarching education and development in youth, and one of the best ways to improve childhood literacy is to provide a multitude of diverse and accessible types of literature for our children to consume. KEY POINTS The more diverse choices there are in literature, the easier it is to find something that appeals to any given person. It stands to reason, then, that diversity in children’s literature makes it easier to find something that appeals to any given child. Furthermore, the easier it is for a child to find literature that appeals to them, the more likely that that child is to become an avid reader and, therefore, a consumer of information and knowledge. Avid readers tend to have a higher reading comprehension. Higher reading comprehension often leads to, or is the cause of, higher grades. In addition to reading comprehension, avid readership tends to lead a given child to be more studious, which also leads to better grades. Those who read often are more likely toShow MoreRelatedInformative Speech Essay855 Words   |  4 Pageswhat type of speech would the speaker choose. Well chapter 13 contents the creative process for informative speaking. What informative speaking is how to choose a focused informative topic, how to conduct a research and informative outline? The chapter also contains how to organize the body, introduction, and conclusion of the informative speech. Lastly chapter 13 contents explain how to prepare to present the speech and evaluate and informative speech. In order to make a well informative speechRead MoreSpeech Preparation Essay586 Words   |  3 PagesSpeech Preparation Reflection Alicia Ramos COM/110 April 25, 2016 Linda Price Speech Preparation Reflection The best way to prepare for a presentation, one must consider the best method, the type of presentation and the audience for a given topic. There are four different types of presentation methods they are; Impromptu, Extemporaneous Speaking, Using a Manuscript, and Memorization. Each of the four methods is appropriate in certain situations. Impromptu is a speech that frequently involvesRead MoreRhetorical Analysis Of Lucas s The Art Of Public Speaking936 Words   |  4 Pagesthat Lisa is a public speaker and is using her public speaking skills to inform her coworkers. Chapter 15 is about speaking to inform an audience. Lucas begins this chapter with the types of informative speeches and some analysis and organization skills for each topic. There are many ways to classify an informative speech, Lucas breaks it down into four main topics: objects, processes, events, and concepts. Lucas begins this chapter by speaking on speeches about objects. Lucas defines an object as â€Å"Object sRead MoreEssay on Public Speech516 Words   |  3 PagesPublic Speech 1. To give a good speech you must adapt your speech to your audience. There are two steps in the adaptaion process. First, there is preparation before the speech. This is done may times by having your audience fill out an audience analysis form, this will give you the demographics on your audience and allow you to adapt your speech accordingly. The second part of adapting your speech is during the speech. This is done by paying attention to your audience while you are givingRead MoreInformative Speech On Symptoms, Diagnosis, And Treatment Of Generalized Anxiety Disorder1420 Words   |  6 Pages Planning for the Informative Speech with Analysis Speech Topic: To inform my audience of the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of Generalized anxiety disorder Rhetorical Purpose: To inform my audience about . . . Their own mental profile and how to recognize the symptoms so they can help themselves and others around them Audience Analysis: (Refer to chapter on Audience Analysis) (RU Core Goal: a) Summarize Audience demographics, prior exposure/knowledge, common ground/interest, disposition/attitudeRead MoreWhy Is It Important? How Your Audience As You Prepare Your Speech? Essay1648 Words   |  7 PagesWhy is it important to analyze your audience as you prepare your speech? Everyone has different views, religion, values, attitudes and beliefs as many will hold one more important than others and conflict with others. This leads the audience to biases in listening to the speaker therefore may not listen attentively or care about the speech. Thus as a speaker you must know your audience is as a person, their love, views, values, and beliefs to use it to entice them to listen and care. After all itRead MoreSpeech On Rising Sea Level Essay1646 Words   |  7 Pages 1. Why is it important to analyze your audience as you prepare your speech? Everyone has different views, religion, values, and beliefs as many will hold one more important than others and conflict with others. This leads the audience to biases in listening to the speaker therefore may not listen attentively or care about the speech. Thus as a speaker you must know your audience is as a person, their love, views, values, and beliefs to use it to entice them to listen and care. After all it is theRead MoreWarning Label Explanation Speech On The Mirror1386 Words   |  6 PagesWarning Label Explanation Speech Man in the Mirror With this speech I was able to conquer many factors such as letting my words coming out in a voice tone the way I intended it to be. I was able to deliver my main points just like I practiced. I was able to create an outline according to what I expected to deliver to my audience. However, once again I allowed my nervousness to get a little bit of my power and confidence. Because of my anxiety I did not create a true connection with my listeners (classmates)Read MoreThe A Deep Bruise, A Black Eye, And A Bloody Nose1509 Words   |  7 PagesI chose for this analysis. In this essay, I will discuss the primary message within the announcement. I will then identify the purpose of the video and to whom this PSA is directed. I will analyze the communicational techniques, as well as the type of speech within the video. Prove how the video is effective and decide its ethicality. Finally, I will conclude with a personal reflection of lessons I have learned. After searching for a Public Service Announcement online, one of the video images caughtRead MoreInformative Speech On Steroids717 Words   |  3 PagesInformative Speech-Steroids I. Introduction Attention Getter: (PowerPoint image) When we see someone extremely muscular, we wonder is the person using steroids? Background: Although people have been using steroids over 50 years, it wasnt until we started seeing headlines about athletes using steroids that it started receiving attention. Audience Relevance: Although I’m guessing most of you have an idea of what steroids are, I don’t think there are many classes or workshops offered that talk about

The History of Domestic Violence Essay - 2946 Words

Domestic Violence is a critical issue negatively impacting women in the world today. There has to be something done to prevent this type of abuse from happening. The results of my research revealed that there are many victims that do not know the type of help that is available and there needs to be major improvement in the way domestic violence cases are handled. Based on my findings, awareness and prevention programs should be implemented in every state in order prevent this type of abuse from happening over and over. Also, each program must be monitored to ensure they are following the proper guidelines in order to better serve the victims and their families. Has domestic violence stemmed from the mental abuse suffered by our†¦show more content†¦This began to change in the 1980s, as women’s groups were organized locally and internationally to demand attention to the physical, psychological, and economic abuse of women (p.369-370). Domestic violence is a serious social issue that happens to many women in our world today. This type of abuse is not declining but continually rising on a daily basis. There have been issues in the past with the way these cases were being handled. Today, there has been some improvement concerning the laws that have been enforced in order to protect women from this type of abuse. There has been extensive research done on this issue in the past concerning domestic violence. Over the last ten years there have been a number of surveys on domestic violence that have been published from around the world. The problem of domestic violence is on the rise and causing more harm than ever to its victims and their family. Even though there are so many domestic violence cases in the world today, there are still many people in the United States today that are unaware of how serous this crime has become. The explanation for this may be that there are many households that have not ever experienced any type of violence in their home. Many victims of this type of abuse have been misleading by their abuser that they do not even realize that they are victims of domestic violence. Domestic violence causesShow MoreRelatedThe History of Domestic Violence1784 Words   |  7 PagesIntroduction Domestic violence started back in the days of Roman Empire however, it was not recognised in Australia as a crime until the early 70’s, Davidson, (1977 cited in Edleson, 1999 ). Furthermore, children who witness this crime are only now beginning to be recognised as victims. These victims and the long term effects of witnessing physical abuse in their home on a regular basis is only new territory that statistics are being done, in comparison with adult victims. Domestic abuse is someoneRead MoreDomestic Violence Throughout History780 Words   |  4 PagesDomestic Violence Throughout History Summary: Domestic violence has been apart of society forever, and it rooted in traditional male dominance and the view of women as property. Still, domestic violence is still a problem that takes place regardless of the socio-economic status of a family. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Domestic violence is as old as recorded history. There have been reports of domestic violence since the dawn of timeRead MoreGibson 1. Josie Gibson . Mrs. Archila . Eng 102. 24 March1276 Words   |  6 PagesGibson 1 Josie Gibson Mrs. Archila ENG 102 24 March 2017 Synthesis Domestic violence is an ongoing epidemic affecting people around the world. Over the years, the problem of domestic violence has raised an abundance of questions: how serious is the issue, and what actions could be implemented to prevent it? In the article â€Å"Domestic Violence Has Been a Problem Throughout U.S. History†, it explains how the issue of domestic violence has been going on for decades; however, did not get address until recentRead MoreDomestic Violence : An Individual Crisis815 Words   |  4 PagesDomestic violence is not merely an individual crisis, but a social crisis. â€Å"Domestic violence is a burden on numerous sectors of the social system and quietly, yet dramatically, affects the development of a nation. Batterers cost nations fortunes in terms of law enforcement, health care, lost labor and general progress in development. These costs do not only affect the present generation; what begins as an assault by one person on another, reverberates through the family and the community into theRead MoreThe Effects Of Domestic Violence On Children s Mental Health941 Words   |  4 PagesIntroduction to Domestic Violence Domestic violence refers to any occurrence of threatening abuse, behavior, or violence (financial, emotional, physical, psychological, or sexual) between adults who are present or past intimate partners or family members (Hester, Pearson, Harwin, 2006, p. 18). It is also known by an assortment of other names: battering, family violence, marital abuse, partner abuse, and wife beating, just to name a few. Domestic violence can be described as choking, burning, beatingRead MoreDomestic Violence : A Global Phenomenon1653 Words   |  7 PagesIntroduction Domestic violence is considered a global phenomenon; research suggests that up to fifty percent of women worldwide have been physically abused by their intimate partner. Domestic violence can be defined as an incident or threatening behavior regarding violence or abuse between adults who are or have been considered intimate partners (Bradbury-Jones, C., Duncan, F., Kroll, T., Moy, M., Taylor, J. 2011, p 35). Domestic Violence is a serious and prevalent health issue that affects victimsRead MoreVulnerable Populations1382 Words   |  6 PagesPopulations: Domestic Violence Victims University of Phoenix Domestic violence is something that haunts our society, and has done so for a long time. Critical thinking must be used when dealing with such large scale issues, and domestic violence is no different. The causes and issues with domestic violence are complex, taking an in depth look and truly analyzing the problem is necessary in understanding the problem and making a difference. This paper will discuss domestic violence in depthRead MoreDomestic Violence1340 Words   |  6 PagesDomestic Violence is a problem sweeping the nation. This problem can affect anyone from anywhere but is generally acting out upon children and adult women in abusive relationships. Domestic violence is emotionally and physically scarring for anyone involved, and as a result could take multiple intervention meetings to begin to understand the issue, alleviate the associated problems, and to assist the victim in getting back on his or her feet. The consequences of abuse include anxiety, depressionRead MoreD omestic Violence At Affordable Price Please Use Custom Research Paper1276 Words   |  6 PagesDomestic Violence Research Paper This sample domestic violence research paper is published for educational and informational purposes only. Free research papers, are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a high quality research paper on domestic violence at affordable price please use custom research paper writing services. This sample research paper on domestic violence features: 7200+Read MoreThe Effects Of Past And Current Domestic Violence Towards Women Essay1461 Words   |  6 Pagesharassment, domestic violence and even some of the laws that are put in place to protect and demean women’s rights. The purpose of this paper is to inform readers that there are many issues that lead up to a woman killing their abuser/husbands, such as the harsh history of violent used against women by their husband, involvement of church, fear for children in the home, and having limited resources to safely leave. This paper will also inform readers of the effects of past and current domestic violence

Collateral Victims of Cultural Conflicts Free Essays

Abstract The main aim of this piece of work is to explore the views and opinions of young people of African origins (especially those from the DR Congo) who have come to settle in the United Kingdom, on how they would cope with being raised in a country with a different culture. Though the study emphasized more the reactions and attitudes of young people on being raised by their parents in an African manner, the views of parents on trying to educate their children in an African manner in a country with a different approach, understanding and different principles, are also taken into consideration. The introductory chapters give a brief overview of the reasons why this topic was chosen, the study aims and objectives and also the research methodology. We will write a custom essay sample on Collateral Victims of Cultural Conflicts or any similar topic only for you Order Now The following chapters focus more on the complexities of multiculturalism and of the different styles of educating children both in the DR Congo and in the UK. Despite the work finally closing with a summary conclusion and key recommendations for ways forwards, further research may still be necessary to determine if the opinions and views of the participants may be representative of the majority. Chap 1: Introduction. This paper will be an attempt to critically look at the lives of children of asylum seekers/refugees/migrants living in the UK, especially those coming from Central Africa and more particularly from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). While parents of Congolese origin will tend to think that the Western society has brain ‘spoilt’ and/or ‘damaged’ their children, turning them into ‘little rebels’, the western world will instead have the perspective that these parents are simply abusing their children with their way of educating them or dealing with their issues. Victoria Climbie is one such example that many living in the United Kingdom will still have in mind. The main reason for these different perspectives will be the respective cultures of the two parts. The innocent children would therefore find themselves in the middle as ‘collateral victims’ of a cultural conflict. Do these parents have the right to be harsh on their chil dren because of their beliefs/cultureDo they really understand how things work in the UK, with the evident problem of language being the first barrier for their integrationWhat is the right balance between the two extremesIs a certain type of media which is stereotyping parents of African origin as ‘child abusers’ helpingAnd finally, what should be the contribution of a youth and community worker to both the lives of young people and parents finding themselves in these situations. These are some of the questions that this piece of work will attempt to answer in an impartial way. Coming from the same background (the African one), reasons for prioritising this topic is the fact that both as a youth and community worker and as an African of origins, personal hope is that some change and challenge will be made to, if not necessarily the way children are being treated by some African parents, but to the way they believe is the best way of dealing with children, on the one hand. In fact, from personal experience, being born in Africa and having being raised there until the age of 30 when I then permanently moved to the United Kingdom, personal understanding and perspective is effectively that parents of African origins will generally tend to give their children very little ‘voice’ and/or ‘space’ or simply no voice at all in the all process of their education. They will, more than their European counterparts, appear to use ‘reasonable chastisement’ to ‘discipline’ their offspring, a practice still permitted by the law in most African countries. Considerations of matters such as children/young people’s rights will generally have very little importance or even in some extreme cases no importance at all in the sights of some/many parents of African origins. Many parents of DR Congo origins will only effectively hear about children/young people’s rights when arriving in the UK as these are not ‘popular’ topics in African contexts and countries, where issues of power, equality, respect and social justice are highly placed at the rear plan due to political, economic and cultural factors. Conversely, on the other hand personal hope is also that, some serious reflexion on the negative sides of giving ‘too much voice and/or space’ to children/young people will also be honestly and critically examined. In fact, so many times emphasis will be put on parents (of African origins) being ‘rude’ with their children. But little or even nothing at all would be done in cases where so many parents (of African descents) will go through depression, rejection, abjectness, misery and even physical assaults, all due to the fact that their children/young people would be ‘excessively using their rights of being children/young people’. Finally, another expectation of this work is to try and get the British/Western society to understand better where these parents of African origins are coming from in terms of their culture and consequently stops stereotyping/stigmatising them. There would tend to be more assumptions than real insights/knowledge when it comes to African cultures amongst the British/western public opinion. From personal experience of living in the UK for more than ten years now, it would appear that native form the UK would know very little about African cultures and would generally show very little interest in knowing what’s going on beyond the UK’s boundaries, particularly in Africa. Overview of following chapters The following are some of the issues that will be addressed in this dissertation: Chapter 2: Literature review This part will propose a comprehensive and extensive review of relevant literature on the topic area, including reliable internet sources, academic texts and journals articles. It will be an attempt to relate the chosen topic to existing knowledge, finding the gaps in them and eventually necessary future research/works to be done. Chapter 3:Research methodology In this chapter, principles and rules employed for the study will be analysed. The main issues to be discussed will include: The research design Procedures for data collection Why some specific procedures would have been preferred to others Participants observations Ethical considerations The process of interviews, its advantages and difficulties. Chapter 4:Social policy This piece of work will move on trying to link the issue to current and/or contemporary social policies. A particular focus will be on the ‘Every Child Matters’ (ECM) policy though others social policies such as ‘Aiming high for children’ may also be taken into consideration. Chapter 5:Research findings and analysis This is obviously the most important part of the work where all live conducted interviews will critically, carefully and impartially be analysed. Their results will then be related to the main topic of this piece of work to try and learn something from them. Chap 6: Comparative element (secondary materials) This is where issues of power and/or differences in relation with raising children of DR Congolese origins and children of Indian origins/culture will be analysed and compared. Results from primary research will also be compared to secondary materials where possible. Chap 7: The Role of the Youth and Community Worker. This chapter will look at the crucial role the youth and community worker can particularly play with young person finding themselves in such complex situations, but also what support can they bring to the parents involved in the same process. Chapter 8:Conclusion and recommendations After some considerations on the limitations of the study and some useful recommendations in relation to the exploited topic, a general conclusion will finally be drawn. Chap 2: Literature Review This chapter’s main aim will be to critically review the points of current knowledge on the study’s topic, generally looking at relevant literature/materials in connection with the study. From outset, it might be important to signal here that not much has been previously written in the specific area of the DR Congo’s children being raised in the UK. Especially in Greater Manchester where the study has been conducted, same studies or research work to do with children/young people from the DR Congo being raised by parents of African origins are very difficult to find. But from an initial internet search, the few relevant materials in connection with this dissertation’s topic have been some articles on children from the DR Congo been maltreated by their parents mainly due to religion which is sometimes infused with elements of the traditional in many African countries. One particular case was a story on many newspaper front pages, of a young boy branded by a hot iron because his father thought he was a witch (BBC website, 2007). Looking at most of the newspapers and websites in relation to this story, what came out was that there was a general feeling of in crimination rightly based on the horrible act committed by this DR Congolese father without looking any further at ways to try and help the parents involved if not to recommend their community leaders to some kind of child protection courses. One may rightly confirm that there was no sympathy at all from the general public. Some materials in relation with children/young persons of other African countries such as Ivory Coast which is a country close to the DR Congo in terms of cultures have been considered. One really notable case resulting is the one of the Victoria Climbie’s Inquiry Report from the House of Commons Health Committee (2002-2003). Victoria Climbie was a young girl who died on 25th February 2000 as I just arrived in the UK on the 2nd February 2000. The case, which is still fresh in my memory as it really shocked me at the time, will be another key point of this literature review. The reporting committee found that this young girl from Ivory Coast who came to live in London with her great-aunt, Marie-Therese Kouao and with her grant- aunt’s partner, died because of multiple injuries arising from months of ill-treatment and abuse by her great-aunt and her partner who were both convicted and sentenced later on. Without going back into the details of this traumatic and shocking s tory, something to be noticed in the report is the Inquiry’s findings of staff making assumptions that because people originated from a particular culture, that behaviour could be described as being culturally determined when in fact they knew nothing about that culture and had never visited the country. The report clearly suggested that Victoria’s African culture (and religion) were the reasons why the all regrettable tragedy happened, while acknowledging that this culture misled some of those who came to deal with the case directly. On this one, African culture (and religion) was clearly be put on the bench of accused as having a very bad influence and bad consequences on the education, safety and protection of children. Moving from there and looking at books/materials on multiculturalism, a theme closely linked to the main title of this study, one point of focus was the excellent study of Taylor et al (1994) on multiculturalism in which they made the point that cultures deserve admiration and respect, even if it is accompanied by much that we have to abhor and reject. Similar point of view could also be found and read in others books and authors writing on the same theme. Many writers while agreeing on the necessity of multiculturalism in today’s society would however always make sure that those coming from outside should to some extents be ‘assimilated’ into the new culture they were joining. A very recent study on multiculturalism from the Journal of Intercultural Studies (2011) rightly pointed out that Contemporary popular debates around multiculture – or even worse multiculturalism – have tended to take a sceptical stance, to the extent it is understood as a ‘failure’. This will join in agreement with Thomas (2011) who argued that Since the 2001 ‘race riots’ in the North of England and the 7/7/2005 horrific events in London bombings, the botched attacks two years later on a Glasgow airport and a number of very serious foiled plots, Britain appeared to reject multiculturalism. One critic called it ‘the death of multiculturalism’. One thinking moving a bit in the opposite direction was the work of Paul Gilroy (1993) ‘The Black Atlantic’ who made a strong liberating call to the forces of cultural nationalism trapped in their respective camps. He made the interesting point that being both European and black requires some specific forms of double consciousness. McCalla (2003) seemed to argue in the same sense, going even a bit further in her book ‘Black Success in the UK’, suggesting that one of the strategy utilised by mothers of Caribbean/African origin in their childrearing to challenge racism is to provide their children with a sense of cultural belonging and a collective racialised identity that they can draw strength from in times of difficulties. She seems to make the point that the original culture of the child of African/Caribbean origin can be ‘positively’ used for their success in the British society, giving them some kind of strong identity. Despite all the above considerations, it might however be reasonable enough to say that most of these books/writings/materials have one major weakness: they don’t really understand African cultures and in some cases don’t even want to understand them. For the few who have attempted to get some deep insight on them, it is mainly about acknowledging and recognizing their existence without real will of practical understanding/knowledge of them. Personal concern when doing this literature review was also that no matter long could have a study conducted or a book written by a non African taken, it would still be very difficult for such a writer or researcher, despite all their willingness, to deeply grasp and understand some complex elements of African culture. Moreover, for some books/materials, by trying to protect the (African) child (only), it seems like the parents’ point of view (and culture) is simply ignored in many material relating to the subject. Assumption has instead always been made as to the conclusion that these children are being held ‘captives’ without their own consent. Very little has been done to try and find if the child themselves prefer the parent original culture. There is like a ‘taxation’ of the western culture and an obligation to renounce at one’s original culture. By trying to protect the British/European culture, the African culture is generally ignored. Not much help and effort to understand where the parents come from and try to help them as others in similar situations would benefit and get some compassion from the general public. In fact, Looking at an article from the Guardian (2009) – ‘Tracey Connelly: the story of a woman defined by abuse’- on a similar horrible similar story to the Victoria Climbie’s one, committed by the parents of baby Peter Connolly can reinforce this stand point. The Guardian effectively tried to look at the reasons why Tracey Connelly, the mother of this lovely innocent baby, would commit such an atrocity on her own child and came to the conclusion that the fact that she had had a similar childhood (of abuse) which consequently led her into a drinking and pornographic life should be into consideration. Looking at a blog/debate linked to this article got to personal conclusion that many in fact became a bit sympathetic with Tracey, arguing that it would be important not only to look at what had happened but to try and find the reasons/roots and try and fight them from there to ensure that such events do not re happen in the future. Personal expectations are now that the following chapters of this work will give a better balanced view of the topic and hopefully suggest some positive recommendations related to the main theme of the study. Chap 3: Research Methodology This third chapter of the paper will explore the process of information gathering, including a rationale for any specific research methods chosen and relevant ethical issues. This study has drawn on a wide range of sources. However, for the purpose of information gathering, it has mainly used ‘qualitative’ methods. As Bedford and Wilson (2006) argued, while quantitative research collects facts and study the relationship between one set and another, gauging public opinion, qualitative research, almost the opposite of quantitative research, is more concerned with trying to gain an insight into human perception of the world and, as such, recognize that it is not wise to generalise about human reactions, opinions, attitudes and so on. In the qualitative research, the hypothesis or theory comes after the data collection. For the purpose of qualitative research, the strategy mainly consisted on organising face to face interviews with different members of the public who were susceptible to bring any kind of contribution to the study. Most interviews were live and were recorded. The original idea was to conduct interviews with some young people of African origin and others interviews with parents of the same backgrounds. But after the first interview with one young person, some serious difficulties due to disclosure and maturity problems led to a change of approach. As a matter of facts, after consultation with the university tutor, it was then agreed to only interview adults of African origin who came in the United Kingdom as children, who would then relate their experience of being raised by parents of African origins in the a British context/culture. This strategy was found as being more reasonable and protective for the interviewer, and was consequently used. Insistence was on asking them to try and be as honest as possible and give their feelings/thoughts/perspectives of those times when they first arrived so young. This was because in the due process of growing up and becoming parents, some of them slightly/completely shifted their position today on the subject of being raised by African of Congolese origins. This was so important not to allow the research to get wrong answers, consequently wrong data. All together, 6 interviews have been conducted, recorded and transcripted. Four interviews were conducted on the experience of being raised in the UK by parents of African origins and the other two were done with parents of African origins raising children in the UK. Two of the six interviewees are people with whom previous rapport was established in the past. Difficulty wise, as said a bit above, one key problem was the one of disclosure. In fact, the topic being a very sensitive one, it was not easy to find people ready and happy to talk about such difficult and private things. For some reasons, 2 of the interviewees consented to be interviewed at the condition that they would not be recorded live. The methodology with them was to take note straight as they were answering the interview’s questionnaire. African beliefs and culture in general and specifically DR Congolese’s one was also a serious problem. In fact, coming from the same ground, personal strong knowledge and experience have usually shown that people from the DR Congo are very sceptical whenever it comes to anything like interview or similar things. It took a lot to convince interviewees about the well founded of the all thing and its benefits for the general society. Personal privilege of being able to speak many DR Congolese main languages really helped in the all process. In fact, in the absence of financial support/vouchers to encourage those taking part into the research, the technique used to convince people was to speak to them in their respective dialect. This put them into confidence and made them more relaxed. The interview questions were agreed in consultation with the university tutor. One vital element in conceiving them was to avoid using ‘leading’ and/or ‘misleading’ questions. General questions were to be used instead of questions which were susceptible of leading into private areas of the interviewees lives. An example of an interview questionnaire can be found in the index at the end of the work. In terms of ethical issues, it is important to note here that ‘respect’ of both human being and opinions of people either interviewed or simply approached to get an interview was vital and capital, constituting the basis of all research process. When for example there was a strict refusal for the interview to be recorded as the interviewee as said above, the interviewee not wanting their voice and/or answers to stay somewhere, it was important to show total respect of their opinion and not to insist on recording the interview. The specific context of African mentality being difficult and also because of the sensibility of the topic which may lead to some legal persecution, consent forms were used before all interviews. Permanent consultation took place with the dissertation tutor about the right decision to take in case of incertitude or in complex situations. Again as said a bit above, because two of the interviewees were of people with whom previous contacts were estab lished in the past and because of personal social position in the DR Congolese community in Greater Manchester doing that many people know me, the aspect of confidentiality was essential in the all study. Despite the use of consent forms at the beginning of all interviews, it was really necessary to make strong assurances to each interview that none of the collected information would be used without their consent. Finally, from recent work undertaken during a university placement in a local non for profit organisation in Greater Manchester mainly working asylum seekers/refugees/migrants from the DR Congo, some information were also gathered from that experience. The placement took place in an organisation called African Francophone Integration Project Ltd (AFIP). This organisation located in Beswick, has as main objective to help asylum seekers/refugees/migrants newly arriving in the UK in their integration process. Most service users of the organisation are form the DR Congo, some form different countries of Africa. Some personal non recorded informal talking with the first Director of the organisation on the subject also gave some interesting elements which this work will at some point draw on. The first Director related some of his personal experience in dealing with some personal cases in relationship with this study theme, notably one case of a parent and their child who were referred to them by the Central Manchester social services. Summarizing this important topic on the methodology used for this research, one key point may be that despite all difficulties encountered when conducting this research, the certitude is that the information harvested during this entire project have provided a strong base for analysing the main topic. Another important point in closing this section is that all research was really conducted in a professional and ethical way. Chap 4: Social Policy This chapter will outline the key reference to historical and contemporary developments in social policy, legislation and welfare interventions relative to this paper’s topic. It will also briefly explore wider policies that take into consideration the well being and/or protection of young people (of diverse backgrounds). The main piece of legislation which this piece of work is concerned with is the ‘Every Child Matters’ (ECM) policy. The Government Department for Education Website (2011) explains that the Every Child Matters policy is a set of reforms supported by the Children Act 2004. Its aim is for every child, to have the support they need to: Be healthy Stay safe Enjoy and achieve Make a positive contribution Achieve economic well-being Still from the department of Education Website on the origins of this policy, it can be understood that the ECM policy came into power after the horrendous death of a young girl called Victoria Climbie. This case was briefly evoked in the literature review. At the hands of those entrusted with her cares, Victoria suffered appallingly and eventually died. Her case was a shocking example from a list of children terribly abused and mistreated. Every inquiry related to this specific case has brought forwards proposals for change and improvement to the child protection system. There have been reforms. The Green Paper, Every Child Matters, which sets outs the government’s proposals for reforming the delivery of services for children, young people and families, builds on existing measures to ensure that children at risk of harm and neglect are protected from negative outcomes and support all children to develop their full potential. Beyond this, this Green paper also address the prob lem of children falling through the cracks between different services, emphasizing that child protection can not be separated from policies to improve children’s lives as a whole. The document looks at the progress towards a framework of services which will support every child, using this as a context in which to consider the specific need of children at risk. It stresses the importance of information sharing between different government agencies and of a higher level of accountability. One may rightly agree that since the implementation of this social policy, there have been so many positive improvements in the protection and well being of children, though much still need to be done. Trying to link this wonderful social policy which has certainly brought more protection and safety for children and young people to the DR Congo culture of raising children, one certain fact is that they unfortunately don’t always walk along. In fact, most parents really close to the culture of ‘discipline’ will tend to think that this policy has given children/young people to much space for ‘rebellion’ against their parents, despite the fact that most of them would acknowledged that cases such as the Victoria Climbie’s one are not to be encouraged at all or to be repeated, ever. The reasoning beyond this from the perspective of African parents is that policies such as the ECM have unfortunately treated all parents as being Victoria’s parents, not recognizing that all parents are not as evil as Victoria’s tutors were. The ECM would however acknowledge that all parents are not to maltreat and suffer their children as Victoria Climb ie’s tutors did, but would instead prefer ‘safety than being sorry’. Another really inescapable social policy that is certainly linked to the study’s topic is the ‘Aiming High for Children’ Policy. The Department for Education website (2011) summarizes this policy in these terms: The government’s aim is to ensure that, every child irrespective of race, gender, backgrounds or circumstances, gets the best start in life and the ongoing support that they and their families need to allow them to fulfil their potential. It wants to do this in a partnership with active, responsible parents and empowered communities, supported by public services that delivered packages of support tailored to families’ needs. To support parents to meet their responsibilities in raising their children and to help strengthen the role of communities in supporting parents, the government has made tackling child’s poverty a priority since 1997, has created a network of Sure Starts Children’s Centres to support children and their families in the vital early years. The government wants to ensure that the primary role of public services is to support families and communities to improve children’s outcomes. This great policy which has effectively ensured that many children, especially those from low income families, a group where many asylum seekers/refugees from the DR Congo would find themselves, have a real good start in life. However, there would appear again to have some conflicts in terms of what children of Africans origins receive as early education which some parents believe sets them on a wrong path from start. As this will be soon explored in the next chapter on the results and analysis of interviews one parent complained that their children are taught from very early ‘how to dial 999 for anything they might think their parents do to them which they would not approve’. The debate may go on for so long. Closing this chapter, it might be of help to recall that the UK government social policies in relationship with the education and protection of children/young people have made such a great difference in so many lives, though they don’t always go along with some parents of African origins opinions, and also though much still need to be done to improve them. Chap 5: Research Findings and Analysis. This chapter, obviously the most important part of the dissertation, will focus on all live (recorded) interviews conducted for the purpose of this study. The chapter will be composed of two main parts: in the first part, all conducted interviews will be reported and explained. The second part will mainly focus on critically analysing their results. All together, a total of 6 interviews were conducted. All of the six persons interviewed live in Greater Manchester, UK. There were 4 females and two males. As said a bit above in the third chapter on the methodology of research, because of some complications to do with disclosure and age, it was decided after consultation with my university tutor to only interview adults, but who had come to the UK as children/young persons. The study being interested not only with the experience of young people of African descent being raised in the UK by their parents/tutors but also with the parents themselves, four interviews were related to the experience of young people and the other two were of the parents talking about their experience of raising up children/young people in the UK. All of the six persons interviewed were aged between the age of 25 and 35 at the moment of the interviews taking place. Most of the participants relating their experience of young people came to the UK when they w ere aged between 8 and 14. Three of them were living with their direct biological parents and one with an uncle. All of their parents/uncle was originally from the DR Congo. One particular point which may be important to signal here is that one of the interviewee, who gave their experience of young person of African origins living in the UK, first came to live in the UK themselves as a young person and has now become parent themselves at a very early age when still living with her parents. She’s now living alone and has consequently the double experience of have been in both positions the study was interested with. Carefully looking at all answers given by all the persons interviewed, one key thing to be noted first was that the answers of ‘young people’ were diverse/different from one to another while in the answers given by parents, many similarities could be found. Young people. Answering the key interview question of briefly relating their personal experience of being rose in the UK by parents of African origins, two amongst the four ‘young persons’ interviewed thought the experience was negative and difficult. One striking point was that all two mentioned the fact that at the very beginning when they first came to live in the UK with their parents, there was no problem at all. But it is only after a few months (for one of them) or a few years (for the other one) that difficulties started arising. They all raised the point that when they got used to the way their peers were living and started imitating/copying them, that’s when they got into disagreement with their parents who were for all of the two persons interviewed very ‘traditional’ (according to the term used by one of them) or very ‘old fashion’ (according to the second interviewee). The two ‘young people’ found really painful and difficult the fact that they, at the same time loved their parents and loved their ‘new world’, as they put it. They reported that they found it difficult to try and choose between the British way of life and what their parents were asking them to follow as strict rules. They all unanimously thought that they were misunderstood by their ‘old fashion’ parents and would sometimes not know what to do as they had originally been raised (in Africa) in a way of total submission to their parents with no rights to argue with their decisions at all. The third ‘young person’ answering the interview questions came to live in the UK at the age of 9 with her parents of African origin. Her parents were strict on the fact that the way to ‘live her life’ was the African manner but were more understanding’ when she had different opinions. The parents were well educated persons since back in Africa where the dad had a BA from a DR Congolese university. They would however clearly state to her that the British way of life was ‘dangerous and wrong’ has it could leads her into a lot of trouble in the future. She reported that she eventually got into a ‘bad group’ of friends from school/college and ended up with becoming pregnant at nearly 16 years old. Her words were that the all experience of been raised by parents of African descent was not too bad because of the fact that her parents were more ‘open minded’ than most African parents who would give very little time to listen to their children and discuss with them. She nevertheless tried and made the point that, reflecting on her life after the pregnancy, she thought that despite the fact she thought at some point that her parents were too much like ‘village people’, had she followed their ‘way of life’ tough she didn’t like it much, she might have had a (positive) different life today. Answering the same crucial interview question on the personal experience of being raised by parents of African culture in a British environment and culture, the fourth ‘young person’ however went a bit in the opposite direction. In fact, he related that the all experience was a very good one without any ‘difficulty’ as he completely stayed in the line of what his parents told him to do. He continued saying that because his personal understanding of the all thing was that the British way of life was ‘deceptive’ and could potentially lead into a lot of troubles, he decided to stick with his parents way of education and didn’t find any problem with being raised in Europe/the UK by parents educating her in ‘an African manner’. Parents. As said a bit above, both parents who were females for the two them, have many similarities. As a matter of facts, they both made the common point in their answers that raising children in Europe/the UK is not easy at all, according to them. The reason why was about exactly the same. According to them, when they would like to raise their children in a disciplinary way as they had themselves been raised since back in Africa, they would encountered ‘the resistance’ of their child (as they put it) who would in many cases not listen to them anymore because they would have ‘known their rights’. One of them insisted on the fact that giving a sense of discipline to children doesn’t necessarily mean using physical punishment. She gave an example of the way of being dressed which she tried to inculcate to her daughter since they moved to the UK 11 years ago. In a DR Congolese context, she said that it would be such an embarrassing thing for a young girl to be dressed with ‘revealing clothes’. According to the point she made, a woman in the Congo with a trouser/skirt revealing her underpants or with a too short skirt would be ‘badly looked at. These types of things are completely normal in Europe she said. She made the point that the way of life in UK has encouraged her daughter to dress ‘freely’, forgetting her origins and/or culture. Her daughter would sometimes embarrassed her in front of her husband as she wouldn’t listen to anybody, copying her peers at school, on TV, on the streets etc. The second parent though a bit more ‘flexible ‘on such issues, however still made the point that she sincerely thought that the Congolese’ way of educating children would teach them to have more respect towards society in general and towards grown up/adults specifically. One clear point she made on the difficulty of raising her daughter in the UK was effectively emphasized on the fact she noti ced a complete change in the sense of lack of respect towards them when they moved to the UK and that their daughter started ‘being assimilated’ (according to her words by her friends styles of life. She reported how her daughter would simply threaten them to dial 999 and ring the police for any ‘little’ thing she would disagree with. Her most serious concerns was raised in these terms: if seems as they (meaning the police, the social services, the government, those in powers, those making law etc) only care about protecting children, which is right. But what about us parents the children are also giving us a terrible time. You’ve nothing to say and nothing to do as for any little thing not only she may call the police but also you may easily end up as listed on a child abusers list somewhere. Linking with the above question, both parents were asked about their knowledge of children/young people rights. Both parents acknowledged that they had never heard about children/young people rights back in the DR Congo. As Bedford and Elizabeth (2006) pointed out, no matter how interested the researcher is interested in her/his topic (which was my case), she/he do have to keep an open mind about the subject and be careful not to pre-judge the answers. Impartially and critically analyzing the above findings from all interviews, and without trying to over generalize, many may join in agreement with the statement according to which the all process of passing from being educated in an African context with different legislation, beliefs, culture etc to being raised in a very democratic western country such as the United Kingdom must be a really confusing one for the child/young person. In fact, as the answers of most young people appear to suggest they would at some point, agreeing with the parents’ culture or not, have to make a difficult decision on the best way to follow. And unfortunately some of them have had to make such decisions being as young as 7 or 8. The parents, who for most of them w ere raised up in a specific way of seeing things for all their lives, would be of no help at all, giving their children, as one of the young lads said, no space at all for dialogue. This ‘waterproof’ and ‘no openness’ attitude of parents combined with the hidden desire to enjoy the British way of life will eventually make of these innocent young people without any kind of voice ‘collateral victims’ of a cultural conflict which they have never asked for. They have just unfortunately found themselves at the wrong place and at the wrong time, one may say. However, trying to read carefully between the lines, from interviews done with the ‘young people’, one important factor is that all young people do not necessarily think that the African way of raising children is ‘old fashion’ and wrong. Even though amongst the ‘young people’ interviewed, only one of them went in that direction, it is still a very important fact to be considered. This is really important because the general impression of the general audience/public may generally be that these poor children are being held captive despite their own will to do things which they think is detrimental to their good causes. Turning sights towards the parents, one who might have read their answers reported above will certainly conclude that they also feel like being misunderstood by the general society and being treated unfairly. As said at some point at the opening of this chapter, contrary to the young people’s answers which were sometimes completely different form one youngest to another, the parents however, despite some minor differences in opinions, seem to be of the point of view that the western culture and/or way of life is causing ‘more damages than good’ to children education. Reading their answers will understand that they, of course, are coming form an African point of view on the education of children. Even tough, they were no clear allusion to the use of physical chastisement as the best way of education children, the certainty was that they are formal on the fact that the British way of raising up children, tough with so many positive aspects, seem instead to lack â₠¬Ëœsome discipline taste and/or flavour’ in it. They both thought that combining the actual wonderful way of educating children with some ‘authority’ would make a better job. Chap 6: Comparative element (secondary materials) This chapter, as one may deduct by its title, will essentially be about a comparison between the DR Congolese culture/way of life, way of educating children in the UK the Indian’s ones. This comparison will be placed into the context of this paper main topic to try and get some lessons. While many or most of children and young people will generally tend to behave the same way and/or have same attitudes/reactions/feelings because of the simple common fact that they are all just ‘children’, it may however be right to confirm that each child/young person’s original backgrounds, culture, beliefs, religion etc., will have a strong influence in the way they perceive society. This may lead to say that children of African origins will to some extent be different to those from Asia, in their understanding of how they are being educated by their parents of DR Congolese/Indian descents. Both parents (of DR Congolese and Indian origins) will in the same way, tend to educate their respective offspring accordingly to their respective cultures. From an initial comparative study on DR Congolese culture and the Indian’s one, it was noticed a lot of similarities between the two. From a study on the Indian child website (2011), here are some of the most important characteristics in Indian culture (family culture, values, clothing etc) which will also be found in DR Congolese culture: Indians are highly flexible in the sense that they would like to imbibe the changes dictated by western influence and yet clearly affirms their beliefs in tradition. Indian dress etiquette discourages exposure of skin and wearing transparent or tight clothes. Family culture in Indian is about joy and sharing. Generally India is patriarchal Indian culture is diverse and rich Ancient Indian culture believes in a lot of dogmas and rituals that can be termed as false beliefs. It is customary to respect elders and seek their blessings. Hindu rituals are all about dance and songs. Indians are known for their hospitality and level of tolerance. Observing the belief that there is one God prevailing despite so many religions is a value in India. Family and religion are so closely linked. Trying to compare the rights of children in both countries (DR Congo and India), the following results from the UNICEF’s website on the rights of children in India: In India, children’s vulnerabilities and exposure to violations of their protection rights remain spread and multiple in nature. Parents’ attitudes and perceptions about child’s labour and the value of education is one of the cause underlying child’s labour, though poverty may be one the main reason. The government of India ratified the UN Convention on the rights of the child in 1e November 1992. Most of the rights detailed in the Convention are guaranteed in the Constitution of India. Ensuring that child rights are met for every child is a daunting challenge for India. Reflecting on the above reports on the culture and the rights of children/young people in India, one clear conclusion when comparing them with the same in the Democratic Republic of Congo is that there many similarities not to say that they are totally identical, despite some minors’ differences. Linking this with this study’s main topic/ideas, understanding that both DR Congolese and African culture having strong indications of the child’s being an element with very little voice in the family setting from early and being raised in that context, it will be logical that many parents when coming to the UK would tend to try and keep educating their child in the same way. This will certainly put the innocent children in the same position of being collateral victims of a cultural conflict. Chap 7: The Role of the Youth and Community Worker. What should be the role of the community worker involved with young people of DR Congolese origins founding themselves in a position of ‘collateral victims’Does the youth worker have to take part for the young persons because that’s their workDo youth workers have to ignore the parentsWhat should be their positions in the cultural conflictual situationThese are a few questions this chapter will attempt to address. The first part of the chapter will try and explain what’s youth work is while its second part will critically examine the role of the worker in this situation. As a personal experience undertaken during a very recent university placement (January to April 2011) done in an independent organisation in Beswick once again revealed, the general public doesn’t seem to know much about the entire discipline of youth and community work, not to talk about its invaluable contribution. In fact, at a first meeting with colleagues and volunteers working within the association which usually work more with all parts of the local community and not specifically with young people, I was introduced as a youth and community worker. This visibly raised some unexpressed questions as to not only how I would fit in their work, but further as to ‘what I really was’ (as a youth and community worker), as some of my colleagues confessed to me later on when we got very close. After explaining to them what youth and community work really was, they again confessed that all they knew was that it was about keeping young people happy with Nintendo, footba ll table-tennis etc. Introducing me as a youth and community worker to the 6 interviewees who kindly gave their time to answer a few questions for the purpose of this study seemed also to raise the same questions. Two of the parents told me at the end that they thought that it was ‘social workers’ who were supposed to be dealing with such issues. This introduction may easily take one to confirm that many still don’t know or wrongly assume to know what youth and community work is. Batsleer (2008) rightly pointed that youth and community work is about dialogue, about conversation. She keeps on saying that it is about enabling young people to ‘come to voice’.This aspect of coming to voice is effectively a very crucial one when talking about youth work. As a matter of facts, may be because of what was seen and/or passed through generation after generation, until nowadays, people would wrongly tend to think of youth workers as people whose sole role is to ‘animate’ young people with different games, to keep them out of the streets. While youth work can indeed involve some recreational activities in the course of accomplishing its mission, that’s definitely not the primordial role of this noble profession. Because society will hardly listen to young people, youth work has as one key mission to give them a voice by creating safe space in safe place where they would be able to have a voice. Youth work is there underpinned by a set of strong values and ethics. These allow our work to be guided by anti discriminatory practice, equality, social justice, a commitment to harnessing participation. The National youth Agency (NYA) website (2011) gives a more complete definition of youth work is the following terms: The main purpose of youth work is the personal and social development of young people and their social inclusion. Youth work helps young people learn about themselves, others and society through non-formal educational activities that combine enjoyment, challenge, learning and achievement. We believe youth work methods can be applied in a range of settings by a wide range of professionals, support staff and volunteers, and we are committed to helping people understand and use these approaches. Youth workers will always aim to make their spaces safe for all young people, regardless of backgrounds, race, class, sex, ability, religion etc. in creating safe space in safe places for young people, we acknowledge that young people will feel better equipped to learn, share and influence society. What can then be the role of the above defined youth and community worker involved with persons/parents in a cultural conflict. To both the young person and the parents, it is first of all important to underline that, as seen in the definition of youth work, emphasis should always be put on ‘fairness’ in dealing with all matters. Despite the fact youth workers will have a sense of ‘alliance’ with the young persons for which they are advocating even for which they ‘are alive’, it may however be very important not to become ‘too emotionally involved’. Clear boundaries must always be traced between personal beliefs, values, opinions and professional ones. Youth and community work should remain as ‘neutral’ as possible, professional, ‘identifying’ the community first. This should apply to parties involved in the ‘conflict. In fact, as Belton (2009) argued, if we are to educate a community we must first identify it. He rightly insisted on the fact that youth workers should not label it or prejudice it as this would badly affect the ir work. Having critically and impartially examined the all situation, the youth and community worker will then have to take a decision on either refer the case to the appropriate services when necessary or either continuing to work between the two parties to get to some kind of resolution of the dispute. In everything, the youth and community worker will ‘peacefully’ challenge any form of discrimination, inequality, lack of respect etc. without being ‘pre judgemental, the role of the youth and community worker will basically be the one of encouraging debate et open/mature discussion between all parties. They will therefore encourage inclusion and promote social justice in doing so. Chap 8: Conclusions and recommendations. After going through a series of considerations on the very complex issues of children/young people of African origins, especially those from the DR Congo, the following can be said in conclusion: Many parents of African origins moving to the UK with their children will usually know very little about the way of life in Britain. They would generally tend to assume that they should keep giving their children the same education they were giving them when at home. The problem of language would evidently be the first barrier for them as for anyone moving to a country with a different language. This would unfortunately put the innocent children in a position where they are between the wraths of their inflexible, traditional and ‘old fashion’ parents and the hidden love of enjoying the British way of life. Some have precedent tried to look at the subject of the complexity of multiculturalism. Though this is generally considered as a good thing for society in principles, it is however taken with a lot of precautions. Recent activities of terrorism in the past few years have unfortunately increased the sense of rejection of multiculturalism. This study did use qualitative methods to try and get a better insight into the subject. For this, six interviews were conducted with members of the general public, originally from the DR Congo on living in the UK on their experience of being raised by parents of DR Congolese origins and on raising children in a DR Congolese manner, in the United Kingdom. Some UK social policies relative to the subject were briefly looked at and put into the context avec the main topic. From this exercise, the conclusion is that parents of African origin will struggle to adapt to these specific social policies, despite agreeing on their numerous positive sides. The reason again is found in those original ‘flames’ of fire profoundly imbedded within them since so many years, since their childhood, since hundreds and hundreds of generation. Analysing the results of all conducted interviews has provided the sense that most of the children being raised by parents on DR Congolese origins will struggle with the situation of being in between two cultures and will consequently especially suffer from a lack of understanding and/or support of a ‘too old fashion’ parent, who would give them very little support and voice/space for discussion, though they would not necessarily think that the African/Congolese way of raising children is a bad one. Comparing the way parents of DR Congolese origins deal with their children to the way those from India do the same has been a fruitful point as well. In fact, from that comparison, it emerged that both cultures have many similarities. This led to the understandable point that both parents raising their children in the UK will tend more to hang on to their original culture, not giving much ‘space’ for a shift into cultures to their children. Looking at all the above, it may be right to conclude by saying that though the debate on the complex issue of multiculturalism will certainly keep going on for as long as no one knows, it is a very good thing as it helps society in becoming a more diverse one. However, if the newcomers don’t necessarily need to completely be assimilated by the new culture they embrace, it may however be correct to give some thoughtful and honest considerations to their new homeland’s way of doing thing. This applies to the new homeland’s way of educating children. Conversely, on the other side, the new homeland or its inhabitants may or would definitely also benefit form, not rejecting the new comers’ culture straight away, but by trying to be open to them and try and learn from them, on what they may consider as being positive points. Those being in position of communication may help more by passing around this type of message than one focused more on the negative sides of the culture/actions/deeds of people from abroad. Finally, the children/young who have the privilege of finding themselves in a western country where their rights are properly protected and where they have got a bigger voice and more space for dialogue, should in no case find there an opportunity to willingly become a cause of pain for their parents, despite their Africa beliefs. While it is perfectly true that children have the right to be children on the one hand, it is also perfectly correct that parents have got the rights to be parents, on the other hands. Things can work properly if there are clear boundaries. Recommendations Once again, stressing the fact that though the above interview and the entire study is not to be necessarily as the reflection of the general public, the findings here my certainly informed many on what should be done. Amongst the most recommendations: – Putting more emphasis on educating the British general public on others’ cultures may have a significant impact on the acceptance of multiculturalism – More efforts may be needed in educating parents coming from abroad (especially from the Democratic republic of Congo) on the way of life/the culture in the UK will certainly help a lot. –Educating children living in the UK on the difference between using the right to use their rights/freedom and the respect they are expected to show respect to society is of the key recommendations this study would strongly suggest. – The youth and community worker whose main role is to fight for social justice and promote a society where social exclusion is completely eradicated one day will have a major role to play in this complex situation. Staying impartial, the youth and community worker will have to help all parties involved in trying to find a right balance for a better society. BIBLIOGRAPHY Batsleer, J. (2008). Informal Learning in Youth Work. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, p. 5. Bedford, D. and Wilson, E. (2006) Study Skills for foundation degrees. London: David Fulton Publishers, p. 61, 62 and 64. Belton, B. (2009) Developing Critical Youth Work Theory. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers, p. 39 Clements, P. (2008). Policing a Diverse Society. New York: Oxford University Press. Department for Education Website (2011). www.education.gov.uk /childrenandyoungpeople/sen/earlysupport/esinpractice/a0067409/every-child-matters. Aiming high for children. Accessed On line 27 April 2011. Flekkoy, M. and Kaufman, N. (1997), The Rights of the child: rights and responsibilities in family and society. London: Jessica Kingsley. Freeman, M.D.A. (1983), The Rights and Wrongs of children. London: Pinter. Gilroy, P. (1993), The Black Atlantic, Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso. Gollnick, D. and Chinn P. (1990), Multicultural education in a pluralistic society. Columbus: Merill Pub. Co Henley, A. and Scott, J. (1999), Culture, Religion and Patient care in a multi-ethnic society; a handbook for professionals. London: Age Concern England. Howson, D. and Momodou S., (2009) Europe’s established and Emerging Immigrant Communities – assimilation, multiculturalism or integration, Trentham Books. http//: www.csa.com/facsheets/assia-set-c.php Jandt, F.E. (2007), an introduction to Intercultural Communication; Identities in a Global Community 4th ed. London: Sage Publications Limited. Journal of Intercultural Studies (Volume 32, nr 2, April 2011). Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, p. 134. Kidd, W. (2002), Culture and Identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Publishers Ltd. Lynch, J. (1989), Multicultural education in a Global Society. London: Falmer. McCalla, D. (2003) Black Success in the UK – Essays in Racial and Ethnic Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.93. Maguire, M. (2009) Law and Youth Work, Learning Matters. National Youth Agency. www.nya.org.uk/about-nya ‘Nick Clegg sets out vision multiculturalism’. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12638017. Accessed 20 April 2011. Packam, C. (2008) Active Citizenship and Community Learning: Empowering Youth and Community Work Practice. Exeter: Learning Matters Limited. Race and Difference – developing practice in lifelong learning. www.infed.org/lifelonglearning/b-race.htm. accessed 29 March 2011. Russell, S. and Amnesty International United Kingdom, â€Å"Most Vulnerable of All: the treatment of unaccompanied refugee children in the UK†. London: Amnesty International United Kingdom. Rutter, J. (2003) Supporting Refugee Children in the 21st Century Britain, a compendium of essential information (Revised Edition) Trentham Books) Rutter, J. (2006) â€Å"Refugee children in the UK†. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Sallah, M. and Howson, C. (2007) Working with Black Young People. Dorset: Russell House Publishing Ltd. ‘So what exactly is multiculturalism?’ www.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3600791.stm Taylor, C. (1994) ‘Multiculturalism’. Commentary by Appiah, K.A., Habermas, J., Rockefeller, S., Walzer, M. and Wolf, S. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp 72-73. The Victoria Climbie Inquiry report. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmhealth/570/570.pdf Thomas, P. (2011). Youth, Multiculturalism and Community Cohesion. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 1-2. Thompson, N. (2001) Anti-Discriminatory Practice 3rd ed.: Sage Publications. Tomlinson, S. (2008) Race and education. Maidenhead Berkshire: Open University press, p.58. Tracey Connelly: the story of a woman defined by abuse. www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/11/tracey-connelly-baby-p-mother. Retrieved 18 April 2011. Unicef.org/India/children_3220.html How to cite Collateral Victims of Cultural Conflicts, Essay examples

Collateral Victims of Cultural Conflicts Free Essays

Abstract The main aim of this piece of work is to explore the views and opinions of young people of African origins (especially those from the DR Congo) who have come to settle in the United Kingdom, on how they would cope with being raised in a country with a different culture. Though the study emphasized more the reactions and attitudes of young people on being raised by their parents in an African manner, the views of parents on trying to educate their children in an African manner in a country with a different approach, understanding and different principles, are also taken into consideration. The introductory chapters give a brief overview of the reasons why this topic was chosen, the study aims and objectives and also the research methodology. We will write a custom essay sample on Collateral Victims of Cultural Conflicts or any similar topic only for you Order Now The following chapters focus more on the complexities of multiculturalism and of the different styles of educating children both in the DR Congo and in the UK. Despite the work finally closing with a summary conclusion and key recommendations for ways forwards, further research may still be necessary to determine if the opinions and views of the participants may be representative of the majority. Chap 1: Introduction. This paper will be an attempt to critically look at the lives of children of asylum seekers/refugees/migrants living in the UK, especially those coming from Central Africa and more particularly from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). While parents of Congolese origin will tend to think that the Western society has brain ‘spoilt’ and/or ‘damaged’ their children, turning them into ‘little rebels’, the western world will instead have the perspective that these parents are simply abusing their children with their way of educating them or dealing with their issues. Victoria Climbie is one such example that many living in the United Kingdom will still have in mind. The main reason for these different perspectives will be the respective cultures of the two parts. The innocent children would therefore find themselves in the middle as ‘collateral victims’ of a cultural conflict. Do these parents have the right to be harsh on their chil dren because of their beliefs/cultureDo they really understand how things work in the UK, with the evident problem of language being the first barrier for their integrationWhat is the right balance between the two extremesIs a certain type of media which is stereotyping parents of African origin as ‘child abusers’ helpingAnd finally, what should be the contribution of a youth and community worker to both the lives of young people and parents finding themselves in these situations. These are some of the questions that this piece of work will attempt to answer in an impartial way. Coming from the same background (the African one), reasons for prioritising this topic is the fact that both as a youth and community worker and as an African of origins, personal hope is that some change and challenge will be made to, if not necessarily the way children are being treated by some African parents, but to the way they believe is the best way of dealing with children, on the one hand. In fact, from personal experience, being born in Africa and having being raised there until the age of 30 when I then permanently moved to the United Kingdom, personal understanding and perspective is effectively that parents of African origins will generally tend to give their children very little ‘voice’ and/or ‘space’ or simply no voice at all in the all process of their education. They will, more than their European counterparts, appear to use ‘reasonable chastisement’ to ‘discipline’ their offspring, a practice still permitted by the law in most African countries. Considerations of matters such as children/young people’s rights will generally have very little importance or even in some extreme cases no importance at all in the sights of some/many parents of African origins. Many parents of DR Congo origins will only effectively hear about children/young people’s rights when arriving in the UK as these are not ‘popular’ topics in African contexts and countries, where issues of power, equality, respect and social justice are highly placed at the rear plan due to political, economic and cultural factors. Conversely, on the other hand personal hope is also that, some serious reflexion on the negative sides of giving ‘too much voice and/or space’ to children/young people will also be honestly and critically examined. In fact, so many times emphasis will be put on parents (of African origins) being ‘rude’ with their children. But little or even nothing at all would be done in cases where so many parents (of African descents) will go through depression, rejection, abjectness, misery and even physical assaults, all due to the fact that their children/young people would be ‘excessively using their rights of being children/young people’. Finally, another expectation of this work is to try and get the British/Western society to understand better where these parents of African origins are coming from in terms of their culture and consequently stops stereotyping/stigmatising them. There would tend to be more assumptions than real insights/knowledge when it comes to African cultures amongst the British/western public opinion. From personal experience of living in the UK for more than ten years now, it would appear that native form the UK would know very little about African cultures and would generally show very little interest in knowing what’s going on beyond the UK’s boundaries, particularly in Africa. Overview of following chapters The following are some of the issues that will be addressed in this dissertation: Chapter 2: Literature review This part will propose a comprehensive and extensive review of relevant literature on the topic area, including reliable internet sources, academic texts and journals articles. It will be an attempt to relate the chosen topic to existing knowledge, finding the gaps in them and eventually necessary future research/works to be done. Chapter 3:Research methodology In this chapter, principles and rules employed for the study will be analysed. The main issues to be discussed will include: The research design Procedures for data collection Why some specific procedures would have been preferred to others Participants observations Ethical considerations The process of interviews, its advantages and difficulties. Chapter 4:Social policy This piece of work will move on trying to link the issue to current and/or contemporary social policies. A particular focus will be on the ‘Every Child Matters’ (ECM) policy though others social policies such as ‘Aiming high for children’ may also be taken into consideration. Chapter 5:Research findings and analysis This is obviously the most important part of the work where all live conducted interviews will critically, carefully and impartially be analysed. Their results will then be related to the main topic of this piece of work to try and learn something from them. Chap 6: Comparative element (secondary materials) This is where issues of power and/or differences in relation with raising children of DR Congolese origins and children of Indian origins/culture will be analysed and compared. Results from primary research will also be compared to secondary materials where possible. Chap 7: The Role of the Youth and Community Worker. This chapter will look at the crucial role the youth and community worker can particularly play with young person finding themselves in such complex situations, but also what support can they bring to the parents involved in the same process. Chapter 8:Conclusion and recommendations After some considerations on the limitations of the study and some useful recommendations in relation to the exploited topic, a general conclusion will finally be drawn. Chap 2: Literature Review This chapter’s main aim will be to critically review the points of current knowledge on the study’s topic, generally looking at relevant literature/materials in connection with the study. From outset, it might be important to signal here that not much has been previously written in the specific area of the DR Congo’s children being raised in the UK. Especially in Greater Manchester where the study has been conducted, same studies or research work to do with children/young people from the DR Congo being raised by parents of African origins are very difficult to find. But from an initial internet search, the few relevant materials in connection with this dissertation’s topic have been some articles on children from the DR Congo been maltreated by their parents mainly due to religion which is sometimes infused with elements of the traditional in many African countries. One particular case was a story on many newspaper front pages, of a young boy branded by a hot iron because his father thought he was a witch (BBC website, 2007). Looking at most of the newspapers and websites in relation to this story, what came out was that there was a general feeling of in crimination rightly based on the horrible act committed by this DR Congolese father without looking any further at ways to try and help the parents involved if not to recommend their community leaders to some kind of child protection courses. One may rightly confirm that there was no sympathy at all from the general public. Some materials in relation with children/young persons of other African countries such as Ivory Coast which is a country close to the DR Congo in terms of cultures have been considered. One really notable case resulting is the one of the Victoria Climbie’s Inquiry Report from the House of Commons Health Committee (2002-2003). Victoria Climbie was a young girl who died on 25th February 2000 as I just arrived in the UK on the 2nd February 2000. The case, which is still fresh in my memory as it really shocked me at the time, will be another key point of this literature review. The reporting committee found that this young girl from Ivory Coast who came to live in London with her great-aunt, Marie-Therese Kouao and with her grant- aunt’s partner, died because of multiple injuries arising from months of ill-treatment and abuse by her great-aunt and her partner who were both convicted and sentenced later on. Without going back into the details of this traumatic and shocking s tory, something to be noticed in the report is the Inquiry’s findings of staff making assumptions that because people originated from a particular culture, that behaviour could be described as being culturally determined when in fact they knew nothing about that culture and had never visited the country. The report clearly suggested that Victoria’s African culture (and religion) were the reasons why the all regrettable tragedy happened, while acknowledging that this culture misled some of those who came to deal with the case directly. On this one, African culture (and religion) was clearly be put on the bench of accused as having a very bad influence and bad consequences on the education, safety and protection of children. Moving from there and looking at books/materials on multiculturalism, a theme closely linked to the main title of this study, one point of focus was the excellent study of Taylor et al (1994) on multiculturalism in which they made the point that cultures deserve admiration and respect, even if it is accompanied by much that we have to abhor and reject. Similar point of view could also be found and read in others books and authors writing on the same theme. Many writers while agreeing on the necessity of multiculturalism in today’s society would however always make sure that those coming from outside should to some extents be ‘assimilated’ into the new culture they were joining. A very recent study on multiculturalism from the Journal of Intercultural Studies (2011) rightly pointed out that Contemporary popular debates around multiculture – or even worse multiculturalism – have tended to take a sceptical stance, to the extent it is understood as a ‘failure’. This will join in agreement with Thomas (2011) who argued that Since the 2001 ‘race riots’ in the North of England and the 7/7/2005 horrific events in London bombings, the botched attacks two years later on a Glasgow airport and a number of very serious foiled plots, Britain appeared to reject multiculturalism. One critic called it ‘the death of multiculturalism’. One thinking moving a bit in the opposite direction was the work of Paul Gilroy (1993) ‘The Black Atlantic’ who made a strong liberating call to the forces of cultural nationalism trapped in their respective camps. He made the interesting point that being both European and black requires some specific forms of double consciousness. McCalla (2003) seemed to argue in the same sense, going even a bit further in her book ‘Black Success in the UK’, suggesting that one of the strategy utilised by mothers of Caribbean/African origin in their childrearing to challenge racism is to provide their children with a sense of cultural belonging and a collective racialised identity that they can draw strength from in times of difficulties. She seems to make the point that the original culture of the child of African/Caribbean origin can be ‘positively’ used for their success in the British society, giving them some kind of strong identity. Despite all the above considerations, it might however be reasonable enough to say that most of these books/writings/materials have one major weakness: they don’t really understand African cultures and in some cases don’t even want to understand them. For the few who have attempted to get some deep insight on them, it is mainly about acknowledging and recognizing their existence without real will of practical understanding/knowledge of them. Personal concern when doing this literature review was also that no matter long could have a study conducted or a book written by a non African taken, it would still be very difficult for such a writer or researcher, despite all their willingness, to deeply grasp and understand some complex elements of African culture. Moreover, for some books/materials, by trying to protect the (African) child (only), it seems like the parents’ point of view (and culture) is simply ignored in many material relating to the subject. Assumption has instead always been made as to the conclusion that these children are being held ‘captives’ without their own consent. Very little has been done to try and find if the child themselves prefer the parent original culture. There is like a ‘taxation’ of the western culture and an obligation to renounce at one’s original culture. By trying to protect the British/European culture, the African culture is generally ignored. Not much help and effort to understand where the parents come from and try to help them as others in similar situations would benefit and get some compassion from the general public. In fact, Looking at an article from the Guardian (2009) – ‘Tracey Connelly: the story of a woman defined by abuse’- on a similar horrible similar story to the Victoria Climbie’s one, committed by the parents of baby Peter Connolly can reinforce this stand point. The Guardian effectively tried to look at the reasons why Tracey Connelly, the mother of this lovely innocent baby, would commit such an atrocity on her own child and came to the conclusion that the fact that she had had a similar childhood (of abuse) which consequently led her into a drinking and pornographic life should be into consideration. Looking at a blog/debate linked to this article got to personal conclusion that many in fact became a bit sympathetic with Tracey, arguing that it would be important not only to look at what had happened but to try and find the reasons/roots and try and fight them from there to ensure that such events do not re happen in the future. Personal expectations are now that the following chapters of this work will give a better balanced view of the topic and hopefully suggest some positive recommendations related to the main theme of the study. Chap 3: Research Methodology This third chapter of the paper will explore the process of information gathering, including a rationale for any specific research methods chosen and relevant ethical issues. This study has drawn on a wide range of sources. However, for the purpose of information gathering, it has mainly used ‘qualitative’ methods. As Bedford and Wilson (2006) argued, while quantitative research collects facts and study the relationship between one set and another, gauging public opinion, qualitative research, almost the opposite of quantitative research, is more concerned with trying to gain an insight into human perception of the world and, as such, recognize that it is not wise to generalise about human reactions, opinions, attitudes and so on. In the qualitative research, the hypothesis or theory comes after the data collection. For the purpose of qualitative research, the strategy mainly consisted on organising face to face interviews with different members of the public who were susceptible to bring any kind of contribution to the study. Most interviews were live and were recorded. The original idea was to conduct interviews with some young people of African origin and others interviews with parents of the same backgrounds. But after the first interview with one young person, some serious difficulties due to disclosure and maturity problems led to a change of approach. As a matter of facts, after consultation with the university tutor, it was then agreed to only interview adults of African origin who came in the United Kingdom as children, who would then relate their experience of being raised by parents of African origins in the a British context/culture. This strategy was found as being more reasonable and protective for the interviewer, and was consequently used. Insistence was on asking them to try and be as honest as possible and give their feelings/thoughts/perspectives of those times when they first arrived so young. This was because in the due process of growing up and becoming parents, some of them slightly/completely shifted their position today on the subject of being raised by African of Congolese origins. This was so important not to allow the research to get wrong answers, consequently wrong data. All together, 6 interviews have been conducted, recorded and transcripted. Four interviews were conducted on the experience of being raised in the UK by parents of African origins and the other two were done with parents of African origins raising children in the UK. Two of the six interviewees are people with whom previous rapport was established in the past. Difficulty wise, as said a bit above, one key problem was the one of disclosure. In fact, the topic being a very sensitive one, it was not easy to find people ready and happy to talk about such difficult and private things. For some reasons, 2 of the interviewees consented to be interviewed at the condition that they would not be recorded live. The methodology with them was to take note straight as they were answering the interview’s questionnaire. African beliefs and culture in general and specifically DR Congolese’s one was also a serious problem. In fact, coming from the same ground, personal strong knowledge and experience have usually shown that people from the DR Congo are very sceptical whenever it comes to anything like interview or similar things. It took a lot to convince interviewees about the well founded of the all thing and its benefits for the general society. Personal privilege of being able to speak many DR Congolese main languages really helped in the all process. In fact, in the absence of financial support/vouchers to encourage those taking part into the research, the technique used to convince people was to speak to them in their respective dialect. This put them into confidence and made them more relaxed. The interview questions were agreed in consultation with the university tutor. One vital element in conceiving them was to avoid using ‘leading’ and/or ‘misleading’ questions. General questions were to be used instead of questions which were susceptible of leading into private areas of the interviewees lives. An example of an interview questionnaire can be found in the index at the end of the work. In terms of ethical issues, it is important to note here that ‘respect’ of both human being and opinions of people either interviewed or simply approached to get an interview was vital and capital, constituting the basis of all research process. When for example there was a strict refusal for the interview to be recorded as the interviewee as said above, the interviewee not wanting their voice and/or answers to stay somewhere, it was important to show total respect of their opinion and not to insist on recording the interview. The specific context of African mentality being difficult and also because of the sensibility of the topic which may lead to some legal persecution, consent forms were used before all interviews. Permanent consultation took place with the dissertation tutor about the right decision to take in case of incertitude or in complex situations. Again as said a bit above, because two of the interviewees were of people with whom previous contacts were estab lished in the past and because of personal social position in the DR Congolese community in Greater Manchester doing that many people know me, the aspect of confidentiality was essential in the all study. Despite the use of consent forms at the beginning of all interviews, it was really necessary to make strong assurances to each interview that none of the collected information would be used without their consent. Finally, from recent work undertaken during a university placement in a local non for profit organisation in Greater Manchester mainly working asylum seekers/refugees/migrants from the DR Congo, some information were also gathered from that experience. The placement took place in an organisation called African Francophone Integration Project Ltd (AFIP). This organisation located in Beswick, has as main objective to help asylum seekers/refugees/migrants newly arriving in the UK in their integration process. Most service users of the organisation are form the DR Congo, some form different countries of Africa. Some personal non recorded informal talking with the first Director of the organisation on the subject also gave some interesting elements which this work will at some point draw on. The first Director related some of his personal experience in dealing with some personal cases in relationship with this study theme, notably one case of a parent and their child who were referred to them by the Central Manchester social services. Summarizing this important topic on the methodology used for this research, one key point may be that despite all difficulties encountered when conducting this research, the certitude is that the information harvested during this entire project have provided a strong base for analysing the main topic. Another important point in closing this section is that all research was really conducted in a professional and ethical way. Chap 4: Social Policy This chapter will outline the key reference to historical and contemporary developments in social policy, legislation and welfare interventions relative to this paper’s topic. It will also briefly explore wider policies that take into consideration the well being and/or protection of young people (of diverse backgrounds). The main piece of legislation which this piece of work is concerned with is the ‘Every Child Matters’ (ECM) policy. The Government Department for Education Website (2011) explains that the Every Child Matters policy is a set of reforms supported by the Children Act 2004. Its aim is for every child, to have the support they need to: Be healthy Stay safe Enjoy and achieve Make a positive contribution Achieve economic well-being Still from the department of Education Website on the origins of this policy, it can be understood that the ECM policy came into power after the horrendous death of a young girl called Victoria Climbie. This case was briefly evoked in the literature review. At the hands of those entrusted with her cares, Victoria suffered appallingly and eventually died. Her case was a shocking example from a list of children terribly abused and mistreated. Every inquiry related to this specific case has brought forwards proposals for change and improvement to the child protection system. There have been reforms. The Green Paper, Every Child Matters, which sets outs the government’s proposals for reforming the delivery of services for children, young people and families, builds on existing measures to ensure that children at risk of harm and neglect are protected from negative outcomes and support all children to develop their full potential. Beyond this, this Green paper also address the prob lem of children falling through the cracks between different services, emphasizing that child protection can not be separated from policies to improve children’s lives as a whole. The document looks at the progress towards a framework of services which will support every child, using this as a context in which to consider the specific need of children at risk. It stresses the importance of information sharing between different government agencies and of a higher level of accountability. One may rightly agree that since the implementation of this social policy, there have been so many positive improvements in the protection and well being of children, though much still need to be done. Trying to link this wonderful social policy which has certainly brought more protection and safety for children and young people to the DR Congo culture of raising children, one certain fact is that they unfortunately don’t always walk along. In fact, most parents really close to the culture of ‘discipline’ will tend to think that this policy has given children/young people to much space for ‘rebellion’ against their parents, despite the fact that most of them would acknowledged that cases such as the Victoria Climbie’s one are not to be encouraged at all or to be repeated, ever. The reasoning beyond this from the perspective of African parents is that policies such as the ECM have unfortunately treated all parents as being Victoria’s parents, not recognizing that all parents are not as evil as Victoria’s tutors were. The ECM would however acknowledge that all parents are not to maltreat and suffer their children as Victoria Climb ie’s tutors did, but would instead prefer ‘safety than being sorry’. Another really inescapable social policy that is certainly linked to the study’s topic is the ‘Aiming High for Children’ Policy. The Department for Education website (2011) summarizes this policy in these terms: The government’s aim is to ensure that, every child irrespective of race, gender, backgrounds or circumstances, gets the best start in life and the ongoing support that they and their families need to allow them to fulfil their potential. It wants to do this in a partnership with active, responsible parents and empowered communities, supported by public services that delivered packages of support tailored to families’ needs. To support parents to meet their responsibilities in raising their children and to help strengthen the role of communities in supporting parents, the government has made tackling child’s poverty a priority since 1997, has created a network of Sure Starts Children’s Centres to support children and their families in the vital early years. The government wants to ensure that the primary role of public services is to support families and communities to improve children’s outcomes. This great policy which has effectively ensured that many children, especially those from low income families, a group where many asylum seekers/refugees from the DR Congo would find themselves, have a real good start in life. However, there would appear again to have some conflicts in terms of what children of Africans origins receive as early education which some parents believe sets them on a wrong path from start. As this will be soon explored in the next chapter on the results and analysis of interviews one parent complained that their children are taught from very early ‘how to dial 999 for anything they might think their parents do to them which they would not approve’. The debate may go on for so long. Closing this chapter, it might be of help to recall that the UK government social policies in relationship with the education and protection of children/young people have made such a great difference in so many lives, though they don’t always go along with some parents of African origins opinions, and also though much still need to be done to improve them. Chap 5: Research Findings and Analysis. This chapter, obviously the most important part of the dissertation, will focus on all live (recorded) interviews conducted for the purpose of this study. The chapter will be composed of two main parts: in the first part, all conducted interviews will be reported and explained. The second part will mainly focus on critically analysing their results. All together, a total of 6 interviews were conducted. All of the six persons interviewed live in Greater Manchester, UK. There were 4 females and two males. As said a bit above in the third chapter on the methodology of research, because of some complications to do with disclosure and age, it was decided after consultation with my university tutor to only interview adults, but who had come to the UK as children/young persons. The study being interested not only with the experience of young people of African descent being raised in the UK by their parents/tutors but also with the parents themselves, four interviews were related to the experience of young people and the other two were of the parents talking about their experience of raising up children/young people in the UK. All of the six persons interviewed were aged between the age of 25 and 35 at the moment of the interviews taking place. Most of the participants relating their experience of young people came to the UK when they w ere aged between 8 and 14. Three of them were living with their direct biological parents and one with an uncle. All of their parents/uncle was originally from the DR Congo. One particular point which may be important to signal here is that one of the interviewee, who gave their experience of young person of African origins living in the UK, first came to live in the UK themselves as a young person and has now become parent themselves at a very early age when still living with her parents. She’s now living alone and has consequently the double experience of have been in both positions the study was interested with. Carefully looking at all answers given by all the persons interviewed, one key thing to be noted first was that the answers of ‘young people’ were diverse/different from one to another while in the answers given by parents, many similarities could be found. Young people. Answering the key interview question of briefly relating their personal experience of being rose in the UK by parents of African origins, two amongst the four ‘young persons’ interviewed thought the experience was negative and difficult. One striking point was that all two mentioned the fact that at the very beginning when they first came to live in the UK with their parents, there was no problem at all. But it is only after a few months (for one of them) or a few years (for the other one) that difficulties started arising. They all raised the point that when they got used to the way their peers were living and started imitating/copying them, that’s when they got into disagreement with their parents who were for all of the two persons interviewed very ‘traditional’ (according to the term used by one of them) or very ‘old fashion’ (according to the second interviewee). The two ‘young people’ found really painful and difficult the fact that they, at the same time loved their parents and loved their ‘new world’, as they put it. They reported that they found it difficult to try and choose between the British way of life and what their parents were asking them to follow as strict rules. They all unanimously thought that they were misunderstood by their ‘old fashion’ parents and would sometimes not know what to do as they had originally been raised (in Africa) in a way of total submission to their parents with no rights to argue with their decisions at all. The third ‘young person’ answering the interview questions came to live in the UK at the age of 9 with her parents of African origin. Her parents were strict on the fact that the way to ‘live her life’ was the African manner but were more understanding’ when she had different opinions. The parents were well educated persons since back in Africa where the dad had a BA from a DR Congolese university. They would however clearly state to her that the British way of life was ‘dangerous and wrong’ has it could leads her into a lot of trouble in the future. She reported that she eventually got into a ‘bad group’ of friends from school/college and ended up with becoming pregnant at nearly 16 years old. Her words were that the all experience of been raised by parents of African descent was not too bad because of the fact that her parents were more ‘open minded’ than most African parents who would give very little time to listen to their children and discuss with them. She nevertheless tried and made the point that, reflecting on her life after the pregnancy, she thought that despite the fact she thought at some point that her parents were too much like ‘village people’, had she followed their ‘way of life’ tough she didn’t like it much, she might have had a (positive) different life today. Answering the same crucial interview question on the personal experience of being raised by parents of African culture in a British environment and culture, the fourth ‘young person’ however went a bit in the opposite direction. In fact, he related that the all experience was a very good one without any ‘difficulty’ as he completely stayed in the line of what his parents told him to do. He continued saying that because his personal understanding of the all thing was that the British way of life was ‘deceptive’ and could potentially lead into a lot of troubles, he decided to stick with his parents way of education and didn’t find any problem with being raised in Europe/the UK by parents educating her in ‘an African manner’. Parents. As said a bit above, both parents who were females for the two them, have many similarities. As a matter of facts, they both made the common point in their answers that raising children in Europe/the UK is not easy at all, according to them. The reason why was about exactly the same. According to them, when they would like to raise their children in a disciplinary way as they had themselves been raised since back in Africa, they would encountered ‘the resistance’ of their child (as they put it) who would in many cases not listen to them anymore because they would have ‘known their rights’. One of them insisted on the fact that giving a sense of discipline to children doesn’t necessarily mean using physical punishment. She gave an example of the way of being dressed which she tried to inculcate to her daughter since they moved to the UK 11 years ago. In a DR Congolese context, she said that it would be such an embarrassing thing for a young girl to be dressed with ‘revealing clothes’. According to the point she made, a woman in the Congo with a trouser/skirt revealing her underpants or with a too short skirt would be ‘badly looked at. These types of things are completely normal in Europe she said. She made the point that the way of life in UK has encouraged her daughter to dress ‘freely’, forgetting her origins and/or culture. Her daughter would sometimes embarrassed her in front of her husband as she wouldn’t listen to anybody, copying her peers at school, on TV, on the streets etc. The second parent though a bit more ‘flexible ‘on such issues, however still made the point that she sincerely thought that the Congolese’ way of educating children would teach them to have more respect towards society in general and towards grown up/adults specifically. One clear point she made on the difficulty of raising her daughter in the UK was effectively emphasized on the fact she noti ced a complete change in the sense of lack of respect towards them when they moved to the UK and that their daughter started ‘being assimilated’ (according to her words by her friends styles of life. She reported how her daughter would simply threaten them to dial 999 and ring the police for any ‘little’ thing she would disagree with. Her most serious concerns was raised in these terms: if seems as they (meaning the police, the social services, the government, those in powers, those making law etc) only care about protecting children, which is right. But what about us parents the children are also giving us a terrible time. You’ve nothing to say and nothing to do as for any little thing not only she may call the police but also you may easily end up as listed on a child abusers list somewhere. Linking with the above question, both parents were asked about their knowledge of children/young people rights. Both parents acknowledged that they had never heard about children/young people rights back in the DR Congo. As Bedford and Elizabeth (2006) pointed out, no matter how interested the researcher is interested in her/his topic (which was my case), she/he do have to keep an open mind about the subject and be careful not to pre-judge the answers. Impartially and critically analyzing the above findings from all interviews, and without trying to over generalize, many may join in agreement with the statement according to which the all process of passing from being educated in an African context with different legislation, beliefs, culture etc to being raised in a very democratic western country such as the United Kingdom must be a really confusing one for the child/young person. In fact, as the answers of most young people appear to suggest they would at some point, agreeing with the parents’ culture or not, have to make a difficult decision on the best way to follow. And unfortunately some of them have had to make such decisions being as young as 7 or 8. The parents, who for most of them w ere raised up in a specific way of seeing things for all their lives, would be of no help at all, giving their children, as one of the young lads said, no space at all for dialogue. This ‘waterproof’ and ‘no openness’ attitude of parents combined with the hidden desire to enjoy the British way of life will eventually make of these innocent young people without any kind of voice ‘collateral victims’ of a cultural conflict which they have never asked for. They have just unfortunately found themselves at the wrong place and at the wrong time, one may say. However, trying to read carefully between the lines, from interviews done with the ‘young people’, one important factor is that all young people do not necessarily think that the African way of raising children is ‘old fashion’ and wrong. Even though amongst the ‘young people’ interviewed, only one of them went in that direction, it is still a very important fact to be considered. This is really important because the general impression of the general audience/public may generally be that these poor children are being held captive despite their own will to do things which they think is detrimental to their good causes. Turning sights towards the parents, one who might have read their answers reported above will certainly conclude that they also feel like being misunderstood by the general society and being treated unfairly. As said at some point at the opening of this chapter, contrary to the young people’s answers which were sometimes completely different form one youngest to another, the parents however, despite some minor differences in opinions, seem to be of the point of view that the western culture and/or way of life is causing ‘more damages than good’ to children education. Reading their answers will understand that they, of course, are coming form an African point of view on the education of children. Even tough, they were no clear allusion to the use of physical chastisement as the best way of education children, the certainty was that they are formal on the fact that the British way of raising up children, tough with so many positive aspects, seem instead to lack â₠¬Ëœsome discipline taste and/or flavour’ in it. They both thought that combining the actual wonderful way of educating children with some ‘authority’ would make a better job. Chap 6: Comparative element (secondary materials) This chapter, as one may deduct by its title, will essentially be about a comparison between the DR Congolese culture/way of life, way of educating children in the UK the Indian’s ones. This comparison will be placed into the context of this paper main topic to try and get some lessons. While many or most of children and young people will generally tend to behave the same way and/or have same attitudes/reactions/feelings because of the simple common fact that they are all just ‘children’, it may however be right to confirm that each child/young person’s original backgrounds, culture, beliefs, religion etc., will have a strong influence in the way they perceive society. This may lead to say that children of African origins will to some extent be different to those from Asia, in their understanding of how they are being educated by their parents of DR Congolese/Indian descents. Both parents (of DR Congolese and Indian origins) will in the same way, tend to educate their respective offspring accordingly to their respective cultures. From an initial comparative study on DR Congolese culture and the Indian’s one, it was noticed a lot of similarities between the two. From a study on the Indian child website (2011), here are some of the most important characteristics in Indian culture (family culture, values, clothing etc) which will also be found in DR Congolese culture: Indians are highly flexible in the sense that they would like to imbibe the changes dictated by western influence and yet clearly affirms their beliefs in tradition. Indian dress etiquette discourages exposure of skin and wearing transparent or tight clothes. Family culture in Indian is about joy and sharing. Generally India is patriarchal Indian culture is diverse and rich Ancient Indian culture believes in a lot of dogmas and rituals that can be termed as false beliefs. It is customary to respect elders and seek their blessings. Hindu rituals are all about dance and songs. Indians are known for their hospitality and level of tolerance. Observing the belief that there is one God prevailing despite so many religions is a value in India. Family and religion are so closely linked. Trying to compare the rights of children in both countries (DR Congo and India), the following results from the UNICEF’s website on the rights of children in India: In India, children’s vulnerabilities and exposure to violations of their protection rights remain spread and multiple in nature. Parents’ attitudes and perceptions about child’s labour and the value of education is one of the cause underlying child’s labour, though poverty may be one the main reason. The government of India ratified the UN Convention on the rights of the child in 1e November 1992. Most of the rights detailed in the Convention are guaranteed in the Constitution of India. Ensuring that child rights are met for every child is a daunting challenge for India. Reflecting on the above reports on the culture and the rights of children/young people in India, one clear conclusion when comparing them with the same in the Democratic Republic of Congo is that there many similarities not to say that they are totally identical, despite some minors’ differences. Linking this with this study’s main topic/ideas, understanding that both DR Congolese and African culture having strong indications of the child’s being an element with very little voice in the family setting from early and being raised in that context, it will be logical that many parents when coming to the UK would tend to try and keep educating their child in the same way. This will certainly put the innocent children in the same position of being collateral victims of a cultural conflict. Chap 7: The Role of the Youth and Community Worker. What should be the role of the community worker involved with young people of DR Congolese origins founding themselves in a position of ‘collateral victims’Does the youth worker have to take part for the young persons because that’s their workDo youth workers have to ignore the parentsWhat should be their positions in the cultural conflictual situationThese are a few questions this chapter will attempt to address. The first part of the chapter will try and explain what’s youth work is while its second part will critically examine the role of the worker in this situation. As a personal experience undertaken during a very recent university placement (January to April 2011) done in an independent organisation in Beswick once again revealed, the general public doesn’t seem to know much about the entire discipline of youth and community work, not to talk about its invaluable contribution. In fact, at a first meeting with colleagues and volunteers working within the association which usually work more with all parts of the local community and not specifically with young people, I was introduced as a youth and community worker. This visibly raised some unexpressed questions as to not only how I would fit in their work, but further as to ‘what I really was’ (as a youth and community worker), as some of my colleagues confessed to me later on when we got very close. After explaining to them what youth and community work really was, they again confessed that all they knew was that it was about keeping young people happy with Nintendo, footba ll table-tennis etc. Introducing me as a youth and community worker to the 6 interviewees who kindly gave their time to answer a few questions for the purpose of this study seemed also to raise the same questions. Two of the parents told me at the end that they thought that it was ‘social workers’ who were supposed to be dealing with such issues. This introduction may easily take one to confirm that many still don’t know or wrongly assume to know what youth and community work is. Batsleer (2008) rightly pointed that youth and community work is about dialogue, about conversation. She keeps on saying that it is about enabling young people to ‘come to voice’.This aspect of coming to voice is effectively a very crucial one when talking about youth work. As a matter of facts, may be because of what was seen and/or passed through generation after generation, until nowadays, people would wrongly tend to think of youth workers as people whose sole role is to ‘animate’ young people with different games, to keep them out of the streets. While youth work can indeed involve some recreational activities in the course of accomplishing its mission, that’s definitely not the primordial role of this noble profession. Because society will hardly listen to young people, youth work has as one key mission to give them a voice by creating safe space in safe place where they would be able to have a voice. Youth work is there underpinned by a set of strong values and ethics. These allow our work to be guided by anti discriminatory practice, equality, social justice, a commitment to harnessing participation. The National youth Agency (NYA) website (2011) gives a more complete definition of youth work is the following terms: The main purpose of youth work is the personal and social development of young people and their social inclusion. Youth work helps young people learn about themselves, others and society through non-formal educational activities that combine enjoyment, challenge, learning and achievement. We believe youth work methods can be applied in a range of settings by a wide range of professionals, support staff and volunteers, and we are committed to helping people understand and use these approaches. Youth workers will always aim to make their spaces safe for all young people, regardless of backgrounds, race, class, sex, ability, religion etc. in creating safe space in safe places for young people, we acknowledge that young people will feel better equipped to learn, share and influence society. What can then be the role of the above defined youth and community worker involved with persons/parents in a cultural conflict. To both the young person and the parents, it is first of all important to underline that, as seen in the definition of youth work, emphasis should always be put on ‘fairness’ in dealing with all matters. Despite the fact youth workers will have a sense of ‘alliance’ with the young persons for which they are advocating even for which they ‘are alive’, it may however be very important not to become ‘too emotionally involved’. Clear boundaries must always be traced between personal beliefs, values, opinions and professional ones. Youth and community work should remain as ‘neutral’ as possible, professional, ‘identifying’ the community first. This should apply to parties involved in the ‘conflict. In fact, as Belton (2009) argued, if we are to educate a community we must first identify it. He rightly insisted on the fact that youth workers should not label it or prejudice it as this would badly affect the ir work. Having critically and impartially examined the all situation, the youth and community worker will then have to take a decision on either refer the case to the appropriate services when necessary or either continuing to work between the two parties to get to some kind of resolution of the dispute. In everything, the youth and community worker will ‘peacefully’ challenge any form of discrimination, inequality, lack of respect etc. without being ‘pre judgemental, the role of the youth and community worker will basically be the one of encouraging debate et open/mature discussion between all parties. They will therefore encourage inclusion and promote social justice in doing so. Chap 8: Conclusions and recommendations. After going through a series of considerations on the very complex issues of children/young people of African origins, especially those from the DR Congo, the following can be said in conclusion: Many parents of African origins moving to the UK with their children will usually know very little about the way of life in Britain. They would generally tend to assume that they should keep giving their children the same education they were giving them when at home. The problem of language would evidently be the first barrier for them as for anyone moving to a country with a different language. This would unfortunately put the innocent children in a position where they are between the wraths of their inflexible, traditional and ‘old fashion’ parents and the hidden love of enjoying the British way of life. Some have precedent tried to look at the subject of the complexity of multiculturalism. Though this is generally considered as a good thing for society in principles, it is however taken with a lot of precautions. Recent activities of terrorism in the past few years have unfortunately increased the sense of rejection of multiculturalism. This study did use qualitative methods to try and get a better insight into the subject. For this, six interviews were conducted with members of the general public, originally from the DR Congo on living in the UK on their experience of being raised by parents of DR Congolese origins and on raising children in a DR Congolese manner, in the United Kingdom. Some UK social policies relative to the subject were briefly looked at and put into the context avec the main topic. From this exercise, the conclusion is that parents of African origin will struggle to adapt to these specific social policies, despite agreeing on their numerous positive sides. The reason again is found in those original ‘flames’ of fire profoundly imbedded within them since so many years, since their childhood, since hundreds and hundreds of generation. Analysing the results of all conducted interviews has provided the sense that most of the children being raised by parents on DR Congolese origins will struggle with the situation of being in between two cultures and will consequently especially suffer from a lack of understanding and/or support of a ‘too old fashion’ parent, who would give them very little support and voice/space for discussion, though they would not necessarily think that the African/Congolese way of raising children is a bad one. Comparing the way parents of DR Congolese origins deal with their children to the way those from India do the same has been a fruitful point as well. In fact, from that comparison, it emerged that both cultures have many similarities. This led to the understandable point that both parents raising their children in the UK will tend more to hang on to their original culture, not giving much ‘space’ for a shift into cultures to their children. Looking at all the above, it may be right to conclude by saying that though the debate on the complex issue of multiculturalism will certainly keep going on for as long as no one knows, it is a very good thing as it helps society in becoming a more diverse one. However, if the newcomers don’t necessarily need to completely be assimilated by the new culture they embrace, it may however be correct to give some thoughtful and honest considerations to their new homeland’s way of doing thing. This applies to the new homeland’s way of educating children. Conversely, on the other side, the new homeland or its inhabitants may or would definitely also benefit form, not rejecting the new comers’ culture straight away, but by trying to be open to them and try and learn from them, on what they may consider as being positive points. Those being in position of communication may help more by passing around this type of message than one focused more on the negative sides of the culture/actions/deeds of people from abroad. Finally, the children/young who have the privilege of finding themselves in a western country where their rights are properly protected and where they have got a bigger voice and more space for dialogue, should in no case find there an opportunity to willingly become a cause of pain for their parents, despite their Africa beliefs. While it is perfectly true that children have the right to be children on the one hand, it is also perfectly correct that parents have got the rights to be parents, on the other hands. Things can work properly if there are clear boundaries. Recommendations Once again, stressing the fact that though the above interview and the entire study is not to be necessarily as the reflection of the general public, the findings here my certainly informed many on what should be done. Amongst the most recommendations: – Putting more emphasis on educating the British general public on others’ cultures may have a significant impact on the acceptance of multiculturalism – More efforts may be needed in educating parents coming from abroad (especially from the Democratic republic of Congo) on the way of life/the culture in the UK will certainly help a lot. –Educating children living in the UK on the difference between using the right to use their rights/freedom and the respect they are expected to show respect to society is of the key recommendations this study would strongly suggest. – The youth and community worker whose main role is to fight for social justice and promote a society where social exclusion is completely eradicated one day will have a major role to play in this complex situation. Staying impartial, the youth and community worker will have to help all parties involved in trying to find a right balance for a better society. BIBLIOGRAPHY Batsleer, J. 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