Being Arab: Ethnic and Religious Identity Building Among Second Generation Youth in Montreal

Focusing on the experiences of students from five CEGEPs in Montreal, the author explores how Muslim and Christian Arab-Canadian youth negotiate their ethnic and religious identities. The author pays special attention to the influence of three socio-cultural factors: parental socialization, gender-related traditionalism, and perceived discrimination and stereotyping. He examines how group boundaries among the second generation emerge from re-appropriations of pre-fabricated ethnic labels and identities. He argues that although these youths identify strongly with their ethnic culture and community, nonetheless, they fail to show matching levels of enmeshment in ethnic-based socialization networks. He also found that religion is more experienced by these youths as a group boundary marker, than as a binding frame of religious prescriptions and rituals. His data strongly suggest that religion and ethnicity are intertwined within these youths' identity structure.

Montreal and Kingston

McGill-Queen’s University Press

2007

en