This study explored multicultural pedagogy in pre-school education and how it plays an important role in strengthening the social interactions among children. The Multicultural Pedagogy approach in teaching children has established the multi-ethnic (PERPADUAN/Unity) pre-school. It is a qualitative study with data drawn from observation and interview sessions aimed to identify strategies in nurturing social interaction among multi-ethnic children. Through purposive sampling, a teacher with twenty-five children and parents from various ethnicities were selected. This study revealed that practising multicultural pedagogy reflects the diversity of ethnics strengthening social interaction. The teacher exposed the children to the cultures of every ethnic group to ensure they have understood other cultures from different ethnicity. When the children are exposed to the elements of different cultures, a sense of acceptance and tolerance attitude can be fostered. This strategy nurtured national integration, encouraging interactions among multi-ethnic children, stimulating acceptance and tolerance between children and creating a school environment that reflects the diversity of ethnicities. Core multicultural elements have been found in the PERPADUAN/Unity School. Overall findings from the current study provide new evidence illustrating how multicultural pedagogy implemented strengthens social interaction in early childhood education.

This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of multicultural-based digital comic media on the social care character of elementary school students. This study used a quantitative research approach with the type of Quasi Experiment. The trial involved 2 classes, namely IVA (control class) and IVB (experiment class) of Brajan State Elementary School, containing 20 students. The independent t-test shows a difference in social-caring character between students who use multicultural-based digital comic media during the learning process and those who do not use multicultural-based digital comic media, with a significance value (p) <0.05, which is 0.017. This study concludes that multicultural- based digital comic media is declared effective to be used to improve the social care character of grade IV elementary school students.

On the growing importance of intercultural education in schooling, social pedagogy, and social work

The article contains reflections on the growing importance of intercultural education in the context of Polish pedagogical literature. Statistics related to the internationalization of the Polish social context are explored. The following scientific journals in Poland and Europe were selected, considered important in the discursive space of social pedagogy and social work: European Journal of Social Work, International Journal of Social Pedagogy, Pedagogika Społeczna quarterly, Pedagogika Społeczna NOVA (Social Education NOVA), Praca Socjalna (Social Work) and the journal Edukacja Międzykulturowa (Intercultural Education). Their content was analyzed in terms of topics in the field of intercultural education with the use of quantitative systematic semantic analysis to establish how many articles (directly related to intercultural education and intercultural context) and in what periods were published in the selected journals. This part of the article is its empirical section, based on desk research of the existing documents. The thesis on the growing importance of intercultural education in the fields of social pedagogy and social work was presented and arguments in support of this thesis were formed.

This paper presents new findings from quantitative and qualitative fieldwork in urban locations in the North of England. This study forms part of a three-year EU FP7 research project entitled ‘Ethnic differences in education and diverging prospects for urban youth in an enlarged Europe’ (EDUMIGROM). The project aims to conduct a comparative investigation in ethnically diverse communities with second-generation migrants and Roma in nine countries of the European Union. Th is paper presents findings from the UK team and gives an analytical account of a quantitative survey of Year 10 (14–15 year old) pupils in three multicultural secondary schools in 2008–2009, and qualitiative fieldwork focussed on African Caribbean, Pakistani and Gypsy and Traveller children, parents and families carried out in 2009–2010. The African Caribbean population tends to be economically disadvantaged and socially assimilated, in terms of cohabitation and marriage patterns, and with some significant degree of political incorporation; the Pakistani population tends to be in a position of greater economic marginality and poverty, with more social distinctiveness, due partly to social closure, and less political incorporation. But the group with the longest history of residence in the UK, the Gypsy and Traveller population, is in the most vulnerable position in terms of economic, political and social marginality. The extent to which wider patterns of socio-economic inequality play out in educational stratification and outcomes across these three groups is examined in this paper and emerging themes from current fieldwork are presented. This paper also addresses the policy implications of these research findings.