Ethnic Identity Formation and Change in Canada: An Introduction

This special issue of Canadian Ethnic Studies illustrates the wide range of research related to immigration, ethnicity and diversity in Canada. This issue contains a selection of the papers that were presented at the 3rd Joint Annual Conference of the Ethnic Studies Association in Niagara Falls, November 23-24, 2012. Under the title Ethnic Identity Formation and Change in Canada and Abroad, the conference was an opportunity to hear more than 50 presentations and exchange views and ideas.

As guest editor, I hope the reader will be interested in this issue which explores the intersections of diversity and ethnicity in academic disciplines, such as education, sociology, social work, urban studies, and public policy, and contains valuable research related to ethnic and religious communities, francophone minorities, and ethnic diversity in large and medium-sized cities. One common thread in the papers is the influence that liberalism as an ideology and dominant discourse now has on policy formulation, and its impact on the recognition of ethnic and linguistic identities and minorities. But most of the articles also develop another perspective to diversity and ethnicity research. Beyond celebrating the virtues of multiculturalism, they see a need to understand the importance of ongoing change to the ethnic composition of the Canadian population. By focusing on the mobility of immigrants and the mobilization of ethnic communities, the contributions in this issue take a different direction that extends diversity beyond public discourse and perceptions.

Growing ethnic diversity in Canada’s largest cities is an evidence of this perspective, and the following two articles present us with case studies in Montreal and Toronto. In the first article, Sandrine Jean and Annick Germain analyze the mobility of immigrant and non-immigrant families in two Montreal neighborhoods: Ahuntsic on the island of Montreal, and Vimont in the suburbs. In the present debate on Quebec’s Charter of Values, this article illustrates the value of research on urban environment transformation and sets our attention on the daily lives of immigrant families. The key findings of this research are the changing dynamics of diversity in urban settings, the impact of migration, and the mobility of immigrants and non-immigrants to new neighborhoods. According to the authors, immigrants are transforming public spaces, such as parks, libraries, and sports facilities. They are also transforming the ethnic composition of neighbourhoods and introducing new social cleavages.

In the second article, Arshia U. Zaidi, Amanda Couture, Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale and Mehek Arif continue the discussion with a qualitative analysis of experiences of second-generation South Asian youth cross-gender relationships in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). In a multicultural country, young immigrants are experiencing diverse relations within their families and ethnic communities, and with the host society. The study presents the situation of a fast-growing immigrant population in a very large city. The authors’ focus is that of the various intersections of religion, gender, and ethnic identification of fifty-six unmarried, second-generation South Asians.

The next two papers can be seen as case studies addressing more specific elements in the field of education. Anne-Marie Dionne’s paper is an interesting analysis of the place of diversity in children’s literature. She covers a vast corpus of French children’s multicultural literature and focuses on the notion of intercultural openness in the francophone education system. It seems that ideology plays a role in limiting the production of diversity in children’s books and the accessibility of migrant literature in the society. Dionne’s conclusion underlines the importance of more research to understand the importance of children’s literature in the fabric of a multicultural society.

Robin Liu Hopson’s article examines equity policies and practices in the context of postsecondary admissions. She looks at the stories of racialized teachers acting as role models for minority students in an environment still characterized by a largely white majority. With growing numbers of students from visible minorities, the case of faculties of education in Ontario is similar to that of the rest of the country. Equity policies should not be limited to branding and a positive message of cultural...