The Influence of Transnational Cultural Capital on Black Immigrant and Refugee Youth Perspectives of School Discipline

Abstract

Studies that focus on youth’s perspectives of school discipline seldomly highlight immigrant and refugee youth’s viewpoints. Meanwhile, the influence of newcomer parents’ cultural capital is often assessed to investigate social mobility while their children’s pre-migration cultural capital remains largely understudied. Drawing from Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory, this study illustrates how transnational cultural capital affects Black newcomer high school students’ perspectives of school discipline. This qualitative inquiry involved semi-structured interviews conducted with 28 Black newcomer adolescents between the ages of 16 and 19 in Ontario, Canada between 2019 and 2021. We find consistent with prior Canadian studies that the participants reported concerns regarding bias, anti-Black racism, and the lack of fairness of school discipline interventions. Yet, their views also diverged since they perceived that everyday civility and behavioral expectations in the classroom were lenient when compared with their country-of-origin education systems. These findings reveal the significance of examining newcomer youth’s transnational cultural capital and not only parental cultural capital. The conclusions also point to the relevance of investigating transnational cultural capital in aspects of education other than academic achievement and social mobility. This study also reveals the importance of considering the intersectionality of the migration status and racial identity of French-speaking and English-speaking Black newcomer youth when we analyze their school experiences.