Cultures in Transition

Culture is often referred to as the set of beliefs, practices, and customs of a particular society, people, or historical period, but this definition does not explicitly address how these factors are likely to vary by location and subgroup and shift over time. As a departure from more static conceptualizations of culture across various disciplines, the term cultures in transition evokes the multiple ways in which cultures—as well as the identities that they recursively help shape and inform—interact with factors such as societal expectations, language, citizenship, politics, and perspectives about education. Conceptualizing culture as fluid and dynamic is consistent with the intersectional, contextual, and provisional nature of such identity markers as race, ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, sexual orientation, and exceptionality, among many others, in education ...