(Un)Learning Citizenship in Canada: Iranian Immigrant Youth’s Silences, Contradictions, and Expressions by MARYAM NABAVI M.ED., University of Toronto, 2005 B.A., University of Calgary, 2001 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Educational Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2011 © Maryam Nabavi, 2011 Abstract This study examines the meanings, interpretations, and experiences of citizenship in the lives of young Iranian immigrants in Canada in order to (1) offer a conceptual approach to migrant youth citizenship that fills gaps in dominant conceptualizations of citizenship in Canada, and (2) provide recommendations for the improvement of models of citizenship education relevant to lived experiences of migrant youth. Contemporary conceptions of citizenship in Canada are underpinned by assumptions closely aligned with a multicultural national identity and stress formal aspects of citizenship, which undermine substantive aspects of citizenship. Moreover, citizenship education is traditionally conveyed within formal schooling contexts, thereby neglecting the informal processes of learning citizenship for immigrants. To address these weaknesses, this study examines how citizenship is learned within and across diverse informal sites for Iranian immigrant youth. This understanding helps to situate more effective approaches to education that account for culture, locality, and the social, and political contexts in which learners are embedded. In 2010, I conducted a six-month ethnographic study with 12 first-generation immigrant Iranian youths aged 19-30 in Vancouver, Canada. Analysis of semi-structured interviews and participant observation disclosed citizenship as a process of learning within individuals’ lived experiences. In-depth engagement with the research findings, informed by concepts associated with cultural studies, diaspora studies, and cultural citizenship, reveal three conceptual commitments that aid understanding of citizenship and learning for citizenship: (1) identity as situated within multiple, shifting, intersecting, and interlocking dimensions; (2) citizenship as situated within multiple constructed boundaries of membership; and (3) citizenship as an iterative process of learning. ii This inductive framework situates citizenship discourse within the national and global contexts in which immigrant youth are embedded. This study contributes to theoretical and empirical literature on substantive and social citizenship and citizenship learning for immigrant youth in formal and informal contexts. It also offers practical recommendations for improving models of learning citizenship within formal schooling contexts by including: a conceptual commitment to move beyond a nation-based focus on citizenship, a curricular commitment to focus on the lived experiences of learners, and a pedagogical commitment to focus on informal and experiential modes of learning. iii Preface Ethics Approval: This study was approved by the Behavioural Research Ethics Board at The University of British Columbia on January 28, 2010. Approval number: H09-03229 Publications: A version of chapter 2 is published in: Nabavi, M. (2010) Constructing the ‘Citizen’ in Citizenship Education. Canadian Journal of New Scholars in Education. 3(1). Retrieved September 22, 2011, from http://www.cjnse- rcjce.ca/ojs2/index.php/cjnse/article/view/135 Sections of chapters 3 and 5 are published in: Nabavi, M. (forthcoming, 2011). Identity roots and political routes: Canadian immigrant youth and the political poetics of multiculturalism. In. R. Race, M.Singh, & H.Wright (Eds.). Multicultural Education. Netherlands: Sense. iv Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... ii Preface.................................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................v List of Tables......................................................................................................................................... ix Glossary of Terms .................................................................................................................................x Acknowledgements............................................................................................................................ xi Dedication ...........................................................................................................................................xiii 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Migrant youth and citizenship in the current global moment...........................................................1 1.2 Situating a citizenship framework...........................................................................................................3 1.3 Research scope .............................................................................................................................................5 1.3.1 Overview of study...................................................................................................................................................5 1.3.2 Situating the research group and geographic context..................................................................................6 1.3.3 Expanding the concepts of ‘first generation’ and ‘youth’ .........................................................................8 1.4 Layout of dissertation.................................................................................................................................9 2 Literature review..............................................................................................................................11 2.1 Citizenship and schooling – Canada and international contexts................................................... 12 2.1.1 Contextualizing citizen and citizenship education....................................................................................12 2.1.2 International contexts of citizenship education.........................................................................................14 2.1.3 Developments of citizenship education in Canada ...................................................................................15 2.1.4 Education in between federalism and nationalism.............................................................................18 2.1.5 Conceptual and practical gaps in citizenship education..........................................................................20 2.1.6 Federal responses to citizenship education..................................................................................................22 2.2 Situating the field of immigrant youth citizenship............................................................................ 24 2.2.1 Overview.................................................................................................................................................................24 2.2.2 Citizenship from above and from below ......................................................................................................26 2.2.3 Iranian immigrant youth.....................................................................................................................................28 2.3 Citizenship: Identity, belonging and the multicultural nation-state............................................. 29 2.3.1 Citizenship and the politics of identity in a multicultural state.............................................................29 2.3.2 Citizenship and the politics of belonging in a multicultural state........................................................33 2.3.3 Critical multiculturalism....................................................................................................................................35 2.4 Summary of arguments........................................................................................................................... 36 3 Theoretical framework: Identities, diasporas and cultural citizenship......................38 3.1 Citizen identity in global times ......................................................................................................... 40 3.1.1 Identity as shifting, multiple and unstable ...................................................................................................40 3.1.2 Identity as intersecting and interlocking.......................................................................................................42 v 3.2 Geographies of citizenship...................................................................................................................... 44 3.2.1 Situating diaspora studies..................................................................................................................................44 3.2.2 Dispersions .............................................................................................................................................................46 3.2.3 Homeland orientations........................................................................................................................................48