COMMENTARY: NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN "HONG KONG, CANADA"

It's not just another wave of immigrants. Over 20 years, 142,000 from Hong Kong have moved here. With ambition, money and a strong identity, they're changing the city's face.

[Headline of a report on Hong Kong immigration to Toronto by Vanessa Lu, staff reporter, The Toronto Star, November 10, 1996, Bl]

The following commentary discusses Evelyn Yeung's artwork, Journey to Acceptance, as a symbol of Evelyn and Leslie Edgars' efforts to negotiate new identities in a school and a city that had recently seen increased immigration from Hong Kong. The importance of teachers undertaking such work and providing opportunities for students to engage in such work has been discussed by educational theorist Jim Cummins, who believes that the negotiation of identities at school is central to student learning.1 Cummins writes that identities are formed and negotiated through everyday interactions between teachers, students, and the communities to which the students belong. Importantly, these interactions are never neutral. In varying degrees, they either reinforce "coercive relations of power," the exercise of power over people, or promote "collaborative relations of power," the creation of power with people. By reinforcing coercive relations of power, teachers (and, I would add, students) contribute to the subordination of (other) students and communities targeted by discrimination. By promoting collaborative relations of power, teachers (and, I would add, students) are able to participate in "a process of empowerment" that encourages (other) students and communities to challenge the operation of coercive power structures and processes.2 Analyzing Evelyn's artwork as a project that challenges coercive relations of racial and linguistic discrimination at school, I try to illustrate how Leslie Edgars was able to provide an opportunity for her students to resist what writer Charles Taylor has called society's "confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves."3

In my examination of the journey Ms. Edgars and Evelyn undertook together, I draw upon Rosina Lippi-Green's ideas on the language subordination process. It is this process that underlies linguistic discrimination or linguicism, discrimination based on language use. But first, to introduce readers to the discourses that Evelyn and Ms. Edgars needed to negotiate, I begin with an analysis of what it means to teach and learn in a city and school that has recently seen increased immigration from Hong Kong.

¹ See Cummins (1996).

² See Cummins (1996, p. 19).

³ From Taylor (1994, p. 25).

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

المجمع العلمي للقرآن الكريم يصدر الكتاب الثاني من سلسلة يخشى

قسم الشعائر يكرّم أصحاب المواكب المشاركة في إحياء ذكرى شهادة السيدة الزهراء (عليها السلام)

جامعة العميد تستقبل طلبة المراحل الأولى المقبولين ضمن كلياتها للعام الدراسي الجديد

سماحة السيد الصافي يكرّم طلبة حفظ القرآن الكريم المتفوّقين ويؤكّد دور التدبّر في الهداية والتكامل

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

طبيب يكشف تأثير برودة الشتاء على النوم

دون أن تعلم.. 10 عادات يومية تسرع شيخوخة جسمك

تقرير: النيكوتين خطر على القلب مهما كانت الطريقة

أيهما أفضل لصحتك.. زبدة الفول السوداني أم النوتيلا؟

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

السعودية تدشن أكبر نظام لتخزين الكهرباء بالبطاريات في العالم !

بأمر تنفيذي.. ترامب يؤكد هدف عودة الأميركيين إلى القمر في عام 2028

بعيدا عن البشر.. "قتال جوي في الفضاء" بين أميركا والصين

كشف مذهل في قاع "برمودا" !

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Parents with Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

PROVISION OF SUPPORT

CARING FOR CHILDREN

EUGENICS AND ETHICAL ISSUES

PARENTING

DISCRIMINATION AND DIVERSITY

THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Parents with Learning Disabilities

Legislation and Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

LEGAL SAFEGUARDS

MENTAL CAPACITY ACT 2005

THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998