Educational Experiences of First- and Second-Generation Turkish Immigrant Youth in Canada

• In Event: The Power and Limitations of Critical Research as Praxis: Youth, Race, and Schooling in Western Canada

Abstract

The study of immigrant youth from Turkey offers a unique opportunity to illuminate how the already fragmented, complex, hybrid identities (i.e., Turkish/Kurdish or European/Mediterranean/Middle-Eastern or secular/religious) in one’s home country are transformed into a “diasporic hybrid identity” in Canada. Drawing on information through in-depth interviews and participant observation with first and second-generation, Muslim and non-religious, Turkish, immigrant youth, this paper explores minority Turkish youth’s experiences of inclusion and exclusion in the Canadian educational system. For the interpretation of educational realities of Turkish immigrant youth, the research draws upon theories of cultural and social capital (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990; Bourdieu, 1991), theories of cultural identity, stereotyping and racism (Hall, 2000). These combined theoretical approaches provide both sociological and educational explanations about the part played by state institutions (e.g., education) and popular hegemony in the reproduction of social inequality and the marginalization of immigrant groups (e.g., ethnic origin, language, class position, religious affiliation and gender) in particular national and regional contexts. This study seeks to provide new information about ethnic minority students’ social integration processes through education in urban British Columbia. At the theoretical level, it contributes to the international debate about youth, ethnicity and immigration and clarifies the ways in which education may create both opportunities and obstacles for disadvantaged immigrant youth. Insights gathered in this study may also be useful in developing policies for promoting social and political participation of minority youth in the public space and decision-making process. While developing a counter-argument against “established” dominant discourses (i.e., racism and social and educational inequalities), this critical ethnographic inquiry contributes to a positive change with regard to the nature of the host society, culture and human agency.

Author

• Dilek Kayaalp, The University of British Columbia