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Paul Ghuman
Race, ethnicity and culture

The wisdom of culture

Martyn Barrett (University of Surrey) interviews Paul A. Singh Ghuman, who retires this month from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

18 August 2004

Paul Ghuman moves with ease between the worlds of education and psychology. Until the end of August he holds the post of Professor of Education at Aberystwyth, he is a Fellow of the BPS, a Fellow of the RSA, and he was awarded the degree of DLitt by the University of Wales in 1998 for his lifetime’s contribution to research. The question of cultural adaptation has always fascinated him: how the lives and the educational achievements of children and young people of South Asian origin are influenced by factors associated with their ethnicity. I first became aware of his work through his important book Coping with Two Cultures (Multilingual Matters, 1994). The BPS subsequently published another book of his, Asian Adolescents in the West (1999), while last year he published Double Loyalties (University of Wales Press, 2003), a book which represents the culmination of a very rich line of inquiry that he has pursued throughout his academic career.

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