Migration, education, and perceptions of a national identity among Somali immigrants in Ontario, Canada

This study concerns Somalis immigrants and public secondary education in Ontario, Canada. The study explores how the migration backgrounds of Somalis influenced their experiences with curriculum, teachers and fellow students, and how these experiences in turn reflect important identity processes. The dissertation is based on 30 interviews conducted with Somali men and women who migrated to Canada before completing their secondary educations, and who graduated from an Ontario public high school. Using Boyatzis (1998) data-driven approach to thematic analysis, the study shows that key elements of the migration experience including push and pull factors, stays in transitional countries, age of migration to and arrival in the host country, and stay in the host country all have a bearing on the ways in which respondents engaged with curriculum, teachers and peers. The study demonstrates further that variations in these migration experiences resulted in differing types of school experiences. Most pertinently, the study finds that respondents who most directly experienced fleeing the civil war in Somalia and/or who had prolonged stays in transitional countries in which they experienced social, cultural and/or political marginalization generally developed instrumental orientations toward learning about and living within their host country. Those respondents who did not have such migration backgrounds generally developed representational orientations toward both the curriculum and teachers, wherein they identified with examples and role models that spoke to them as Somalis. Situating respondent's depictions of their national identities within the contexts of their migration experiences and the orientations they formed toward engagement with curriculum, teachers and peers reveals a coherent "picture" of identity constructions. Here the study finds that respondents' identity descriptions often elude conventional categorizations concerning nationality, race, and ethnicity. The dissertation culminates in an exploratory model on migration, secondary schooling and identity construction. The model is designed to broaden the study's conceptual framework and to demonstrate its potential applicability to other contexts.