Contemplating a Second-Generation Arab Canadian Diasporic Consciousness

• Author / Creator

  Abdul Jabbar, Wisam K

• Arab immigrants have received relatively less academic attention than other minority groups in Canada. Most research on Arab learners in Canada examines their language difficulties as ESL learners. This study contributes to a better understanding of the cross-cultural and educational experiences of Arab youth in diaspora. From a theoretical perspective, it draws substantially on Du Bois’s notion of double consciousness, which addresses people who experience a sense of ‘twoness’ as they are trapped between two worlds. This study not only acknowledges the wealth of Du Bois’s and Gilroy’s models, but also attempts to expand those models to wider, more encompassing, and multi-ethnic articulations of Black Atlantic geopolitics. This study examines ways in which Arab-Canadian second-generation high school students respond to Arab Anglophone immigrant literature. It introduces and discusses the works of some Arab Anglophone writers, and shows how the students’ responses underpin their sense of identity, particularly of being Canadian. In doing so, this study explores how ethnicity and culture inform responses to literary texts, and demonstrates how ethnicity and religion define second-generation students’ understandings of assimilation and social justice.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Diasporic
  • Arab
  • Identity
  • second-generation

• Graduation date

  Spring 2016

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3VM4354R

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.