| Popis: |
Antwerp children grow up in a society characterized by unprecedented diversity. This diversity is strongly reflected in primary schools, where about three quarters of the pupils have a migration background. At the same time, the city has a large ethnic gap in its poverty rates and life chances are unequally distributed along ethnic lines as well. Children with a (non-Western) migration background are much more likely to be born into families living below the poverty line and the educational achievement gap between majority and minority pupils is large. Furthermore, while Antwerp has a super-diverse population, the city is confronted with a strong anti-immigrant and anti- Islam rhetoric, setting symbolic boundaries against minority ethnic and religious groups. Yet, while there is much research on the dynamics and impact of these inequalities, little is known about children’s perceptions and how they navigate such inequalities. Building on insights from cultural sociology and the ‘New Sociology of Childhood’, this dissertation aims to add to the literature on symbolic boundary making by examining how children negotiate ethnic and social class boundaries in a super-diverse environment in which inequality is structured along ethnic lines. Drawing on three rounds of in-depth interviews conducted over a twoschool year period with children aged 11-14, and the parents and teachers of some of them, I will examine which repertoires children draw on when they discuss their perceptions of ethnic and social class diversity, how children self-identify with ethnic and national categories, which symbolic boundaries they set to demarcate ethnic and social class groups and how their perceptions of ethnic diversity and racism interact with those of their parents and teachers. Further, I will analyze which aspirations children hold for their futures, how they assess their life chances and on which repertoires they draw to explain the relationship between inequality and opportunities. While doing so, I will also reflect on the presence of symbolic boundaries in research with children, from my position as a minority ethnic researcher with a working-class background. Overall, my analysis shows that children express a great deal of agency as they negotiate the unequal environment in which they find themselves. They do not passively draw on existing public repertoires to make sense of this environment, but they actively choose, combine and reconstruct those symbolic boundaries, repertoires and identity categories that support both their own perceptions and their self-concept. |
