Gender at the intersection with race and class in the schooling and wellbeing of immigrant-origin students

BMC Women's Health

Research Article

Rita Isabel Henderson¹  Mahsa Bakhshaei² 

[1] Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada;Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, Montreal, Canada;Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, USA;

关键词: Gender;    Race;    Class;    School success;    Wellbeing;    Acculturation;    South Asian origin girls;    Quebec;    Structural violence;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12905-016-0328-0

 received in 2015-08-07, accepted in 2016-07-22,  发布年份 2016

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn French-language secondary schools in Quebec, among all immigrant-origin students, those originating from South Asia have the highest dropout rate. However, girls belonging to this group consistently outperform their male peers of similar ethnic background. This stirs questions about the reasons for this relative outperformance and its linkage with overall wellbeing among these girls.MethodsA mixed methods approach guided data collection. It involved in-depth interviews with female and male students of South Asian origin (n = 19) and with individuals holding educational roles in the lives of youth (n = 25). An additional anonymous questionnaire aggregated parent perspectives (n = 36), though this article focuses primarily on qualitative lessons.ResultsThis article shows three main reasons for why South Asian female adolescents in Quebec French-language secondary schools outperform their male counterparts in schooling attainment: parental expectations after migration, socialization at home, and relationships at school. According to our findings, academic perseverance among these girls does not necessarily translate into their improved wellbeing or their involvement in an advantageous process of acculturation.ConclusionsThis study highlights that although gender, ethnicity, and class can create an interlocking system of oppression in certain social spheres for a specific group of women, it can emerge as advantageous in other contexts for the same group. This provides educational policy makers, as well as school and community workers, with guidance and avenues for action that can promote the wellbeing of immigrant-origin girls through involvement in beneficial processes of acculturation aligned with their improved academic performance.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2016