What they choose to collect in their bag and what they choose to do with it, makes it their own. It is a highly acve process that belies the image of migrant women as reluctant, problemac, passive, and it is certainly not the simple consumpon of learning associated with models of assimilaon. There is lile evidence of a desire to belong within the dominant culture without considering the terms on which they wish to be included.


Learning and the sharing of learning are not easily separated. What clearly stood out was the number of women who expressed sharing informaon as a responsibility or duty; in any knowledge gained a potenal for sharing was always considered. They share with children, partners, family members and other women. As the main mediators with services it was clear that the exchange of knowledge in this area was highly valued by parcipants and the gendered nature of the knowledge collected was highlighted


‘If my husband he don’t know about something, because he always busy with his work, I have experience, I know, I just tell him Oh yeah, I know something about this one today.'


‘We swap each other and somemes some new things come out for the mothers... so they share it with me, I share it with them.’


What seems parcularly important to the parcipants is the accumulaon of shared knowledge about learning itself. This collecve culture centred on the exchange of informaon about learning opportunies of all kinds, spills out beyond the confines of the centres into the playground and the street as part of everyday interacon.


‘Now we ask each other, when we go out, like dropping the kids, [we] say, “Oh you know I’m going this course, I’m doing this”.’


Being informed, geng involved, resisng


Many women expressed the desire to be involved in the schools and centres in a variety of ways. This is framed in terms of ‘knowing’ and interesngly, language ability is not always the key. Again this was not seen as an individualised gain; rather there was clear recognion of the power of an approach that accumulates not only knowledge itself but also people who are ‘knowers’.


‘Now I feel like I can, I want to be at the meengs. Now I want to be involved in everything...I want to know Ok...Although I have difficulty speaking, they say you can’t talk, why you going there, but sll -­‐ I’ll say.’


‘Also as a group we can do everything; we can. I don’t want it to be me only the one with an educaon, the one who knows’


At a school with a high proporon of Somali parents and a very acve Parent Support worker (also a research parcipant) there was evidence of what can happen when this collecve culture of accumulaon and sharing of knowledge is acvated. The parents were able to successfully challenge the school on several issues including cost of school trips for those with large families and a fingerprint recognion system for children signing books in and out. As Mohamed (1999) also highlights in her study of Somali women in Canada, the parents are challenging the way they are, “socially constructed as problemac, dependent on the system, and unable to adjust to life” in a new country.


Jackson cites Freire’s view that through educaon people can become ‘capable of knowing that they know and knowing that they don’t’ and discover ‘they can make and remake themselves’ (Freire, 2004 in Jackson, 2010). The collecve acon taking place amongst these groups seems to spring in part from this awareness and from new social bonds created through learning, from the creaon of a learning culture and importantly through viewing learning as a shared resource.


33


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