The present study examines issues that South Asian youth face as members of a model minority group. Using 14 semi-structured interviews, South Asian youth (aged 18-26) discussed issues they encountered as they navigated educational institutions in Canada. The study found that participants were not aware of the term model minority. Furthermore, participants received input, either directly or indirectly, from family and community members regarding their career choices. Lastly, participants experienced guilt and shame during decision-making processes, but ultimately chose their own path with [eventual] acceptance from parents. Results indicate that schools in the GTA are not attuned to the needs of South Asian students which often left students at a disadvantage when making future career and educational choices. There is a need for educators, administrators, and policymakers to develop more specialized programs toward helping South Asian youth navigate the Canadian educational institutions.

During the last decade, Japanese cuisine has become firmly rooted in Canada. The once unusual sounding dishes such as sushi, tempura, and edamame are now familiar to most Canadians. Indeed, Japanese restaurants make up a substantial portion of Toronto’s diverse foodscape, yet little is known about how this culinary culture is understood, how the constructed image is created, and the identities that are produced through its production and consumption. This dissertation aims to unpack the constructed identities of the cosmopolitan and the “Oriental Other” contained within Japanese culinary circuits in Toronto, while also examining the connections, constructions, and negotiations concealed within the Japanese restaurants’ cultural landscape. It seeks to highlight the processes of racialization, Whiteness, and the articulation of difference that are interconnected and interdependent on the production and consumption of Japanese food in Toronto’s restaurants. Through this process, cultural differences are mapped out, allowing Japanese cuisine to become an accessible and readily available place to search for cosmopolitan identity making and the performance of Otherness. To this aim, in-depth interviews were conducted with residents of Toronto and chefs of Japanese ethnic origin. Both groups emphasize the relations between food providers and consumers, authenticity strategies, and their imaginative geographies of Japanese culinary culture but had remarkably different interpretations on how these constructions are practiced, articulated, and ultimately understood. / Thesis (Ph.D, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2008-03-24 15:40:29.811

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This thesis explores the construction and experience of racial identity among eight grade eleven learners at a desegregated school in Chatsworth. The possible challenges and threats faced by these learners in terms of racial identity were also examined. Semi-structured interviews were utilized as qualitative method to interrogate the ways in which the eight grade eleven learners construct their racial identities. There were many contradictions which emerged from my study. This points to the fact that research is never clear-cut; results do not always fall neatly into place. Nonetheless, the primary findings of the interviews reflect that learners are comfortable with the idea of racial integration and expressed positive views about interacting with learners from different race groups. However, the participants made reference to pockets of racism and threads of interracial conflict evident at the school. The data in my study also shows that the Indian learners, forming the majority in the school, enjoy a more advantaged position as the school adopts an assimilation policy. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

Although a plethora of educational initiatives over the past 30 years were developed with the goal of improving the academic success of Aboriginal students in public schools, there continues to be a significant achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in Canada (Battiste, 2000, 2002; Ireland, 2009; St. Denis, 2007, 2010; White & Beavon, 2009). In 2008, the Manitoba Minister of Education attempted to address this gap in part by mandating that faculties of Education across the province restructure teacher education programs to include a compulsory course on Aboriginal perspectives, histories and pedagogies. This mixed methods research explores the perceived impact of the mandate on the student teachers who completed the course entitled, “Teaching Aboriginal Perspectives” at Brandon University Faculty of Education during the 2008 – 2010 academic terms. Donald (2009), St. Denis (2007), and Williams and Tanaka (2007) report that subtle and overt forms of resistance to mandated courses are displayed when students teachers are compelled to study Aboriginal issues as a requirement for teacher certification. As such, this research is conceptually framed using critical race theory (Bell, 1991; Delgado, 1995; & Dunbar, 2008), Indigenous or Aboriginal feminism (Canella & Manuelito, 2008) and Red Pedagogy (Grande, 2004, 2008). The methodology for this research is primarily phenomenological but articulated using Indigenous storywork (Archibald, 2008) and story (Wilson, 2008). The primary data sources include surveys or questionnaires and semi-structured interviews of students within the course, my personal story as an Aboriginal female professor of the course and the stories of new teachers’ experiences embedded throughout the report. The findings are analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, means and percentages) and comparative statistics (chi-squares and t-tests) for quantitative items on the questionnaires, and constant comparative data analysis methods for open-ended questions on the questionnaires and the interview data. Findings show that the student teachers demonstrated growth in FNMI content and knowledge over both years of the study. The findings also indicate an initial resistance to course content which causes angst for both students and the instructor as students engage with contentious issues, the deconstruction of privilege and examples of institutionalized racism within the educational system. Although more positive attitudes regarding FNMI content, worldviews, pedagogies and people developed over the duration of the course, once student teachers move into the school system, their desire to implement their learning are often challenged by racist attitudes and practices, particularly in schools where administrators do not foster FNMI education. The study concludes by suggesting that the mandate and work that has begun in the Aboriginal Perspectives course is important, necessary work, but it must be sustained across the entire educational system and across the career stages of all teachers in order to change the social attitudes that continue to dominate in schools.

The present study examines issues that South Asian youth face as members of a model minority group. Using 14 semi-structured interviews, South Asian youth (aged 18-26) discussed issues they encountered as they navigated educational institutions in Canada. The study found that participants were not aware of the term model minority. Furthermore, participants received input, either directly or indirectly, from family and community members regarding their career choices. Lastly, participants experienced guilt and shame during decision-making processes, but ultimately chose their own path with [eventual] acceptance from parents. Results indicate that schools in the GTA are not attuned to the needs of South Asian students which often left students at a disadvantage when making future career and educational choices. There is a need for educators, administrators, and policymakers to develop more specialized programs toward helping South Asian youth navigate the Canadian educational institutions.

This thesis focuses on the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland (CERES), based in Edinburgh, which was funded by the Scottish Executive and Scottish Government to develop several programmes to promote equality in education. Drawing together the disparate approaches to anthropology of organisations, the methodology has included both a focus on a small core group of workers as well as the flow of the materials produced throughout a larger network. Rather than conduct fieldwork at various locations as network or policy studies emphasise, I chose to work for two years with CERES due to their geographic and creational centrality to the ‘mainstreaming equality’ initiative. Beginning at a time when questions of identity in Scotland flourished as a result of devolution, increased immigration and the UK publication of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, the mainstreaming equality projects signify the Scottish Executive’s attempt to uphold its duty of promoting race equality. CERES managed three of the seven funded mainstreaming equality projects. The production of these resources contributes to a campaign through which the Scottish Government has worked to reformulate understandings of what it means to be Scottish. This is achieved by drawing upon the myths of a new and egalitarian Scotland in order to displace the myth that there is no racism in Scotland. Within this context, the research’s central questions revolve around this creation in the stages undertaken at CERES. Examining the Centre’s daily tasks, this research demonstrates that although commissioned to contribute to the same overall initiative, the way in which CERES depicts equality is ultimately very different than the approaches developed within the government. The materials created by CERES, which unlike One Scotland, do not include national symbols, have engaged with the complexities of equality and discrimination more than the media campaigns yet have had a smaller audience. Once the idea is developed it encounters further manipulation, both physical in the case of teaching tools and ideological in working to make the identities included reflect Scotland through statistics and discussions of subjects already embedded in the national curriculum. From the vantage point of the creation process, this ethnography contributes to the anthropology of organisations and highlights the legal and policy negotiations undertaken across various levels of governance.

Amy Tan, the author of The Joy Luck Club (1989), The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001), and Saving Fish from Drowning (2005), is accused of being a “fake” Chinese American writer by radical Chinese American critics such as Frank Chin. I consider Tan’s fictional writing of the experience of Chinese immigrant mothers and their American born daughters to be an experiment in cross-cultural communication. Such communication may be highly personal and subjective to Tan, who claims to write so that her mother can understand her feelings and to remember what she has learned from her Chinese side. I also believe her writings create an opportunity for bi- (or cross-) cultural communication and it matches the concept of harmony in Chinese traditional philosophy. In Chinese scholar Jianjun Zou’s opinion, Tan’s works represent the notion of reconciliation, and that all of these works shall be viewed as a whole is the inspiration of this thesis. Reconciliation in terms of Tan’s works has three parts, which are: (1) the reconciliation between languages; (2) the reconciliation between genders; (3) the reconciliation among generations. The existence of reconciliation proves that Tan’s writing about the Chinese community is multi-dimensional. From my point of view, she should not be simply defined as a stereotype writer whose works can only reinforce the prejudices against the Chinese community and Chinese men. In my opinion, for Chinese American criticism, violation of the women’s right to tell of the oppression from the Chinese traditional family values should not be the solution to the prejudices of the white dominant culture. For Chinese critics in Chinese speaking regions, especially in China, I suggest that we should have a humble attitude towards the Chinese American literature because the “real” and the “fake” are difficult to define, even in the motherland of Chinese culture.

This thesis examines the settlement of Gujaratis in Harrow, London, and the evolution of Gujarati organisations during the 1970s and the 1980s. Most Harrow Asians settled in the Borough after 1972, following their expulsion from Uganda. The Asian community, therefore, is predominantly East African and the majority of Asians originate from the Indian state of Gujarat. Gujaratis were not welcomed in Harrow, yet the Borough could not prevent Asian immigrants from settling in this part of London. The proximity of Harrow to large Asian settlements in north London made it attractive to the more established immigrants. The first years of settlement were mainly dedicated to building a firm economic base, and Gujaratis established, during the 1970s, various associations that complemented their economic activity during the 1970s. Some associations were founded on traditional lines. These were mainly caste and religious associations, which were also the most resourceful in financial and human terms. The affiliation of Gujaratis to different caste associations created serious rivalries with the consequence that the Gujarati community in Britain has remained divided. In Harrow, rivalries have emerged within the Asian community as a result of a growing competition for scarce resources. During the 1980s, Harrow Council declared itself an equal opportunities employer and, by this act, has raised the expectations of Asians that the Borough would be more responsive to their needs. Several pressure groups have emerged, and Gujaratis played a major role in exerting pressure on the Council. Though some Gujarati activists were equally active in traditional associations, the intensification of the relationships with the Council assisted in the emergence of a new type of leadership, comprised Gujaratis who identified themselves as black and who adopted the ideological framework of institutional racism. Although the thesis is about the settlement in Harrow of this community, the original interest of the researcher was focused on the food habits of this population as a method of measuring acculturation. Fieldwork on this subject was conducted both in Harrow and India. The thesis ends, therefore, with a description of the Gujarati diet both in Britain and India, with an analysis of the significance of the changes that have taken place in this area.